Blackboard system maintenance

Blackboard will be performing maintenance on our system from 11 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15 until 3 a.m. Friday, Feb. 16. According to Bb, there might be times during those four hours when the system is not available.

 

Scott

 

Blackboard maintenance reminder

This is a reminder that Blackboard will undergo maintenance from 9:01 p.m. Jan. 19 until 1 p.m. Jan. 20. Bb says that although it doesn’t anticipate any outages, it cannot rule out “periods of intermittent activity.” In other words, there might be some short outages.

 

Scott

Extra students in Canvas

Canvas instructors,

 

If you notice that you have students in your Canvas courses that do not appear on the corresponding Class Web rosters, they should be removed from your courses. I can do this for you, but you would need to send me the course name, number, section and CRN, along with the students’ names and W numbers. I have received a few reports of excess students, and I’m not sure how widespread this has become.

 

Scott

Final Spring Blackboard reminders

Spring 2018 Blackboard instructors,

 

Information/reminders prior to the start of the Spring semester, which will be the final semester of Bb usage at LPC:

 

1. Make your courses available to students by the beginning of the day Tuesday. If you are not teaching an online or hybrid course and want to wait longer to make your courses available, that’s up to you. To make courses available, go into a course, and click Control Panel - Customization - Properties, and for Make Course Available, click Yes, then click Submit.
   
   
2. Blackboard will undergo maintenance from 9:01 p.m. Jan. 19 until 1 p.m. Jan. 20. Bb says that although it doesn’t anticipate any outages, it cannot rule out “periods of intermittent activity.” In other words, there might be some short outages.
   
   
3. 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 new 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. Learn how to log into Canvas.
   
   
4. 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.
   
   
5. 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.
   
   
6. 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.
   
   
7. The LPC Online Learning web site has been redesigned. Since many pages have been added and others changed, 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.
   
   
8. If you use SafeAssign, after performing a course copy or moving an individual SafeAssignment to another course, an additional step is needed to activate the SafeAssignment in the new course. From the Control Panel, click Course Tools, then SafeAssign, then SafeAssign Items, then Synchronize This Course to establish the link between the SafeAssignment and the Central SafeAssign server.
   
   
9. Encourage your students to use the NetTutor online tutoring service. View student information about NetTutor. View faculty information about NetTutor.
   
   
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 Blackboard 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.
    
    

Good luck with your courses!

Scott

 

Final Canvas reminders

For those of you teaching with Canvas this semester:

 

Attached is a checklist to help your classes get off to a good start. And here is some information/reminders to help, too:

 

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 by calling Canvas directly. LPC has paid for a license that gives students and faculty 24x7 access to Canvas. The toll-free phone number for faculty is 1-833-300-3467. This number is also in the Help menu in Canvas.
   
   
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 has been redesigned. Since many pages have been added and others changed, 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 Blackboard 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 now order books from within Canvas. To activate the Follett Discover link, 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 Spring 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.

 

Good luck with your courses!

Scott

 

Canvas New Gradebook follow-up

One thing to add about the New Gradebook option in Canvas:

 

As mentioned in my previous email, instructors can enable the New Gradebook on their own. However, 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.

 

Scott

New Canvas Gradebook (OPTIONAL)

Canvas instructors,

 

If you would like to use Canvas’ New Gradebook, follow the instructions below to enable it in your Spring 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.

 

1.       Access a course.

2.       Click Settings.

3.       Click Feature Options.

4.       Click the switch to New Gradebook to turn it on.

 

To learn how the New Gradebook works, go to https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-13745. The TLC will host workshps on the New Gradebook during the Spring semester.

 

Scott

 

 

Keep up with new Canvas features and tools by reading the Canvas Release Notes at https://community.canvaslms.com/community/answers/releases/