Hybrid course information

Summer hybrid instructors,

This is a reminder that all hybrid courses must include regular, effective contact with students in the online portion of your class. Obviously, you can meet this requirement by using collaborative tools within Canvas. If you need ideas of how to do this, or if you need any other information about hybrids, please read the Hybrid Courses @ LPC web page.

Scott

 

Final Canvas info and reminders-Summer 2018

With the first summer session beginning next week, here is some information for all Canvas summer instructors:

 

Attached is a checklist (with corresponding links) to help your classes get off to a good start.

 

1. View Canvas faculty notes and tips. There are a bit too many of these to fit into this email.
   
   
2. You can get your Canvas questions answered 24x7 by calling Canvas directly until June 30. Beginning July 1, you can call Canvas to get your nighttime and weekend questions answered. The faculty number is 1-833-300-3467. All daytime support will be handled by me and Wanda Butterly beginning July 1.
   
   Students can get their Canvas questions answered 24x7 by calling Canvas directly until June 30. Beginning July 1, they can call Canvas to get their nighttime and weekend questions answered. The student Canvas number is 1-844-600-3467. All daytime support will be handled by LPC’s technical support desk beginning July 1. You might want to note this and the blurb below in your classes.
   
   One exception: Because the LPC campus is closed Fridays during the summer, the only student and faculty support available on the following Fridays is calling Canvas after 5 p.m.: July 6, July 13, July 20, July 27, Aug. 3.
   
   
3. Publish your courses by the beginning of the day your class starts so students can access them. If you are not teaching an online or hybrid course and want to wait longer to publish your courses, that’s up to you. To publish your course, go to the course home page, and click Publish.
   
   
4. If you are teaching a DE class, contact your students prior to the start of the semester, and encourage them to self-enroll into the Quest for Online Success Course in Canvas. This is a readiness course that prepares students to succeed online. Learn more about Quest. I notified DE students by email, and many have already self-enrolled. A reminder from you would be good, especially since students who added late did not receive the my  email notification. Here are instructions you can copy and paste for your students:
   
   

a.     Go to https://clpccd.instructure.com/enroll/KDENL6. If necessary, copy and paste the URL (without the period at the end) into your browser.

b.     Log into Canvas with your W number. Your password is the first 2 letters of your first name, followed by the first 2 letters of your last name (all lowercase), followed by the last four digits of your W number. If you have already logged into Canvas and changed your password, use that password.

c.      Click the button "Enroll in Course".

d.     Click the button "Go to the Course".

e.     Complete the modules.

5. Also, if you are teaching a DE class and want to see how your course measures up to the quality standards set by the Online Education Initiative, you can compare it to the OEI Course Design Rubric. The LPC Academic Senate has endorsed the rubric as the standards to strive for in DE classes. View the Senate’s resolution. Examples that meet the rubric’s criteria can be found in the Online Course Design Guide and the Course Design Showcase.
   
   
6. Make sure all of your content is accessible to students with disabilities. Everything you need to know about web accessibility, including “how-to” tutorials, is available in a Canvas course in which you have access. Just log into Canvas, and you will see a web accessibility course in your Dashboard called Creating Accessible Course Content.
   
   
7. The Regular Effective Contact Guidelines, approved by the LPC Academic Senate, state that all Distance Education courses, whether fully online or hybrid, must demonstrate regular effective contact with student. For hybrids, this contact is required not only during on-campus meetings, but it is also required online. Read Hybrids @ LPC. Since all DE courses must show evidence of regular effective contact, you should use the Canvas Inbox for all of your email correspondences with students. The Canvas Inbox will automatically save the emails. Emails sent from Outlook will be archived, but they will not be available from a central location.
   
   
8. The LPC DE Committee has developed recommendations, along with answers to frequently asked questions, that are intended to aid instructors—particularly new instructors—in determining how many students to add and when to add those students near the beginning of the semester. View the recommendations and FAQs.
   
   
9. The LPC Online Learning web site was redesigned prior to Spring 2018. You might want to verify any links you have to it from within Canvas. The new site also includes a link called Faculty Resources, which was created for you.
   
   
10. Here is LPC’s DE drop policy:
    
    The instructor may drop students who miss the first meeting of a course. The first meeting of online or hybrid Distance Education courses is the first day of the class as specified in the class schedule listing.  For these courses, instructors may drop students who do not log into their Canvas course and/or complete indicated activities by the third day of classes. DE instructors may drop students if they have not submitted work and/or accessed the class for two consecutive weeks. For Summer courses, DE instructors may drop students if they have not submitted work and/or accessed the class for one week.
    
    
11. Encourage your students to use the NetTutor online tutoring service. View student information about NetTutor. View faculty information about NetTutor.
    
    
12. Faculty can order books from within Canvas. To activate the Follett Discover link from any Canvas course (including your sandbox), go to Settings, click the Navigation tab, then drag the Follett Discover link from the lower box to the top box. This puts the link into your course menu. Simply click it to get to the Follett site.
    
    

13.   If you would like to use Canvas’ New Gradebook, follow the instructions below to enable it in your course(s). The New Gradebook features several enhancements, and Canvas is still adding to it. Useage is optional; if you don’t enable it, the existing Gradebook will still be there for you. To enable it: Access a course, click Settings, click Feature Options, click the switch to New Gradebook to turn it on. Keep in mind that the New Gradebook cannot be disabled by an instructor or system administrator when one or both of the following features are applied:  Manually adjust a submission status to none, late, missing, or excused Enable late or missing policies in the Settings menu. Those features are not compatible with the current Gradebook, so enabling their functionality will prevent an instructor from returning to the current Gradebook. Learn how the New Gradebook works.

14.   During the summer, I will not be available on the following days: June 18-20, July 5, 25-26. And again, the campus is closed on Fridays.

 

Good luck with your courses!

Scott

 

Blackboard Spring 2018 semester wrap-up

Blackboard instructors,

 

Hope your semester went well. To wrap up Spring 2018, please note the following:

 

1. Make sure you: a) archive your course, b) check the accuracy of your grades, c) archive your emails, d) download your Grade Center, and e) make your course unavailable to students when they no longer need access. If your Total column in the Grade Center is set to Calculate as a Running Total and display as a Percentage, please make sure your grades are accurate by either turning Calculate as a Running Total off or entering zeros for missing assignments. If you have hidden columns in which you entered points possible but did not score students, check that you have not included those points in the Grade Center calculations and have not made the columns invisible to students. If your points possible don’t look correct, make sure all visible columns are included in the calculations.

 

Also, there has been recent emphasis by accreditors and federal regulators to prove instructor-student contact in DE and hybrid courses, so archiving your emails has become increasingly important. More information, and instructions on the tasks above, can be found in the document “Closing your course”.

2. Once you determine that students no longer need access to your class, make it unavailable to them. To make the class unavailable, go to Control Panel - Customization - Properties, and for Make Course Available, click No, then click Submit.
   
   

3.     If you are teaching a Distance Education course next semester (it will be in Canvas), you should send a welcome letter to your students a week or so prior to the first day of classes. A template is attached. I have also attached a syllabus template for your optional use. If you put either or both into Canvas, you will need to convert to accessible PDFs beforehand. I even have an entire course template, and if you’re interested in that, let me know.

4.     If you haven’t yet requested your course(s) for next semester, log into Class-Web, click Menu for Faculty, and click the Canvas link at the bottom.

5.     As you know, Blackboard is going away. The final day it will be available is June 30. If you taught DE or hybrid courses on Bb in the past and you haven’t downloaded your gradebooks from that system, you are advised to do so.

6. I will be out of the office Thursday and Friday this week. If you need assistance those days, contact Wanda Butterly at ext. 1655.

 

Scott

 

Canvas Spring 2018 semester wrap-up

Canvas instructors,

 

Hope your semester went well. To wrap it up and prepare for Summer/Fall, please note the following:

1.       Course access at the end of a semester works differently in Canvas than in Blackboard. Here are the most important points:

a.       You will have full access to your course until June 7 at 11:59 p.m. After that, you will only have read-only access. However, you will be able to export your course.

b.       Students will have full access to your course until May 25 at 11:59 p.m. (unless you have changed the Term end date and time). After the Term end date and time passes, students will have read-only access. They can get to the course by clicking Courses – All Courses. The course will show under Past Enrollments.

c.       If you want students to have full access after the Term end date and time, go into Settings, increase the Term end date and time, then check the box that says: Users can only participate in the course between these dates.  

d.       If you don’t want students to have any access to the course after the Term end date and time, scroll down in Settings, and check the box that says: Restrict students from viewing course after end date.

2. Make sure you check the accuracy of your grades and download your Gradebook. For students who do not complete assignments by the deadline dates, manually give them zeros in the gradebook. If you leave their grade cells blank, those missing assignments won't count against them. Canvas has a feature in the gradebook settings called Treat Ungraded as 0, but this does not automatically convert dashes to zeros; it only changes the Totals column. Students won’t see zeros or any changes in Totals when they check grades.
   

When you are finished with grades, download your Gradebook by clicking Export – CSV File. Keep your exported Gradebook on your computer or backup drive for safekeeping.

 

3.     If you are going to move your current course into a subsequent semester’s course, you can either copy a previous semester's course content or export the previous course and import it into the new course. You can do all of these by going to Settings in a course. While in Settings, do NOT click the Copy this Course button on the right side; this tool creates a new course that your students will not be able to access.

a.     Learn how to copy a course.

b.     Learn how to export a course.

c.     Learn how to import a course.

4.     Use method (b) above to export your course and save it in a secure environment (e.g. on your computer, to an external drive, to an online drive). If anything ever happens to Canvas, you’ll always have your course.

5.     If you are teaching a Distance Education course next semester, you should send a welcome letter to your students a week or so prior to the first day of classes. A template is attached. I have also attached a syllabus template for your optional use. If you put either or both into Canvas, you will need to convert to accessible PDFs beforehand. I even have an entire course template, and if you’re interested in that, let me know.

6.     If you haven’t yet requested your course(s) for next semester, log into Class-Web, click Menu for Faculty, and click the Canvas link at the bottom.

7.     As you know, Blackboard is going away. The final day it will be available is June 30. If you taught DE or hybrid courses on Bb in the past and you haven’t downloaded your gradebooks from that system, you are advised to do so.

8.     I will be out of the office Thursday and Friday this week. If you need assistance those days, contact Wanda Butterly at ext. 1655. You can also contact Canvas Support at 1-833-300-3467.

Scott

 

Canvas Summer students to be inputted

Canvas instructors:

 

For those of you teaching Summer classes with Canvas, this is a heads-up that Summer 2018 students will be inputted into their Canvas courses tonight. If you don’t want students to access your courses until the start of classes, keep your courses unpublished.

 

Scott

 

Reminder: Summer/Fall 2018 course requests

If you have not already requested your Summer or Fall 2018 Canvas courses, you can do so by logging into Class-Web, clicking Menu for Faculty, Staff & Advisors, then clicking the Canvas link toward the bottom of the page. Choose Summer or Fall 2018 for the term and Las Positas for the campus, and click Submit Query. From here, you can request individual courses, or you can choose courses or sections to merge.

 

Some notes:

 

1.     Be 100% sure you want to merge courses or sections before making your request. Merging AND unmerging after the fact can be problematic. Also, if you merge, please do so correctly. The attached screenshot shows how to merge correctly.

2.     If you need Canvas training, you can email Vicky Austin to set up an appointment.

3.     When moving from one semester to another in Canvas, you can either copy a previous semester's course content or export the previous course and import it into the new course. You can do all of these by going to Settings in a course. While in Settings, DO NOT click the Copy this Course button on the right side; this tool creates a new course that your students will not be able to access.

1. Learn how to copy a course.
2. Learn how to export a course.
3. Learn how to import a course.

4.     If you are teaching an online course, you have the option to use the Canvas model course template as a starting point. The course is based on the Academic Senate-approved OEI’s Course Design Rubric and provides organization and structure for your course. If you want to view the model course, let me know. If you already have access to it and want to use it, complete this form.

5.     The Succeeding in an Online Course tutorial and Online Learning Orientation that have been used with Blackboard for years will be removed soon. They have been replaced by the OEI’s Quest for Online Success tutorial course and integrated into Canvas. Learn more about Quest.

6.     Remember that everything in your course must be made accessible to students with disabilities. To learn how to do this, you can either come to a workshop, make an appointment, or complete the Canvas tutorial called Web Accessibility Course.

7.     If you haven’t already requested your bookstore materials, you can do so in Canvas via the Follett Discover app, which you can make available in Settings – Navigation.

 

Scott

 

Canvas maintenance May 21

Canvas will be unavailable for 10 minutes during its maintenance period on May 21 from 1:30-2 AM. Please let your students know, and plan accordingly.

 

Scott