OIT Faculty Technology Support

Although our Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) team is usually the focus of these blog posts, the IDT unit is only one of several components of the university's Office of Information Technology (OIT). UHCL's Office of Information Technology provides a wide range of support for faculty, including the following:

• Classroom Support - Although OIT's Academic Computing team holds primary responsibility for supporting all in-classroom issues, the Support Center staff often serve as the initial point of contact. If you encounter a technical problem while teaching in a classroom in Bayou, SSCB, Delta, Arbor, or STEM, please use the in-classroom phone to dial the Support Center at x2828. If the Support Center technicians can't resolve your issue, they will transfer you to Academic Computing/Academic Labs, who can send someone to the classroom, if needed. If your call is after 5:30 PM Monday through Thursday, the SSCB 2201 and the Bayou 3608 open lab are staffed till 10:00 PM to provide student and classroom support. During those evening hours, please dial the regular Support Center number. You will hear a recorded message that includes the option to "Press 3 for evening classroom support." Use that option to direct your call straight to Academic Computing/Academic Labs for assistance.
• Support Center - OIT's Support Center is the entry point for all UHCL faculty, staff, and student technology questions. If the Support Technicians on duty cannot resolve your problem immediately, they will gather all relevant information, create a help ticket, and assign the ticket to the OIT department (e.g., IDT Team, Tech Services, Networking) that specializes in that specific type of issue. Users have several ways to contact the Support Center, including telephone (281.283.2828), email (SupportCenter@uhcl.edu), creating your own help ticket, in person at our Bayou 1312 location, and even via a live chat during business hours (look for the "Chat with us" link in the lower right of OIT's main web page). For more information about the Support Center, including locations and hours, please visit UHCL's Office of Information Technology (OIT) webpage.
• Computer Labs/Teaching Labs - OIT operates several open computer labs on UHCL's main campus and at Pearland. These labs provide powerful desktop computers for students to work on their academic and research assignments and become familiar with and utilize standard and specialized software used for their classes. All labs are staffed with both part-time student lab assistants and full-time staff to support users. Free restricted printing is provided for all currently enrolled students by presenting their UHCL student ID. There are also 15 teaching labs spread out across UHCL's computer labs.  Faculty and staff may reserve a teaching lab by contacting the UHCL's Scheduling Department. For more information about the Computer Labs, including locations and hours, please visit OIT's Computing Labs webpage.
• Virtual Software Access - Academic Computing/Academic Labs ensure that faculty, students, and staff can access supported software even from off-campus through the following tools:

• Remote Lab Access - Enable you to access via a virtual private network (VPN) connection UHCL teaching and open computer lab workstations from home.
• Apporto Virtual Lab - The anytime, anywhere computer lab! As a "Desktop as a Service" (DaaS) system, Apporto provides UHCL with a cloud-based virtual desktop and software available for students and faculty to access from any device via a web browser anywhere at any time.

End-of-Service for Blackboard Collaborate

UHCL currently licenses and supports several web conferencing systems for instructional and campus operation use, including Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate, and Teams meetings. To reduce costs and streamline user support for web conferencing, OIT discontinued supporting Blackboard Collaborate in February 2022. All existing Collaborate recordings were migrated to Echo360 and are available to content owners in that application. 

Previous Collaborate users are encouraged to familiarize themselves with Zoom for their web conferencing needs. As a reminder, Zoom sessions may now be integrated within Blackboard. We recommend that new Zoom users take advantage of the Zoom Daily Live Webinars described below.

Zoom Daily Live Webinars

Zoom trainers host free and interactive live-training webinars daily. Get up to speed in less than an hour. Please select the time zone that fits best for you when registering for one of the live training webinars.

Information Page (with Registration Links)

Faculty Development Week IDT Sessions

The IDT Team was excited to get to share the stage with so many other excellent sessions during the 2021 Faculty Development, hosted by the Center for Faculty Development. Below are the links to recordings or and PowerPoint decks for the three sessions that our team presented. NOTE: The non-video links below are to files stored in Microsoft OneDrive. You will be prompted to log into OneDrive with your UHCL username and password in order to access these files.

FA21 Expedited Online Course Approval Process (Mon., Feb. 8, 2021 @ Noon)

• Video Recording [57:01]
• PowerPoint Slides
• Questions and Answers

Additional Resources are available on our blog page about the FA21 Expedited Online Course Approval Process.

All About Echo360 (Tue., Feb. 9, 2021 @ 2:30 PM)

• Video Recording [1:06:31]
• PowerPoint Slides

Instructional Design and Technology Support for Adjuncts (Wed., Feb. 10, 2021 @ 7:30 PM)

• Video Recording [1:09:07]
• PowerPoint Slides

Two-Factor Authentication for Blackboard

Updated 03/29/2021 - Since the afternoon of Wednesday, March 24, Blackboard Learn requires two-factor authentication (2FA).  Most users should be familiar with 2FA as Office 365 has required 2FA since Fall 2020. If you need more information about Duo 2FA, click on the UCT webpage link, Two-Factor Authentication with Duo.

Users encountering errors when attempting to log into Blackboard should first review our team's handout, Troubleshooting Two-Factor Login Issues. If you are then still unable to log into Blackboard, please contact the Support Center for assistance. The Support Center's operating hours and options for contacting that office are available on the University Computing and Telecommunications web site.

As announced in August 2020, the University of Houston System, in congruence with best security practices, requires all UH System members to implement 2-factor authentication (2FA) to access systems containing confidential, sensitive, or private information. Aside from the traditional username/password, this second layer of protection uses a unique passcode sent to your mobile device as a text message, a code within the Duo App, or an audible message via a phone call. As noted on the Two-Factor Authentication with Duo webpage, users who do not have or prefer not to use a cell phone for authentication may opt either to receive landline or cell phone verification calls or to obtain a Hardware Token for verification.

The Blackboard login page has been changed to accommodate this change. As shown below, the login box has been removed. Instead of entering your username and password on the login page, you will begin by clicking the "Log Into Blackboard" button, located at the top center of the page. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please, contact UHCL Security at security@uhcl.edu or the UCT Support Center at supportcenter@uhcl.edu.

IDT Newsletter Archives (2021)

Our team prepares a weekly newsletter that is emailed to faculty and staff every Monday night. This page contains PDF versions of all previously distributed newsletters for 2021. Please use the hyperlinks below to open any of these PDF archives. The previous year's newsletter archives are available on the blog post, IDT Newsletter Archives (2020).

• Volume 2, Issue 1 - Week of January 4, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 2 - Week of January 11, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 3 - Week of January 18, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 4 - Week of January 25, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 4 - Week of February 1, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 5 - Week of February 8, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 6 - Week of February 22, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 7 - Week of March 1, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 8 - Week of March 8, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 9 - Week of March 15, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 10 - Week of March 22, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 11 - Week of March 29, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 12 - Week of April 5, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 13 - Week of April 12, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 14 - Week of April 19, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 15 - Week of April 26, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 16 - Week of May 3, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 17 - Week of May 10, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 18 - Week of May 17, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 19 - Week of May 24, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 20 - Week of June 7, 2021 
• Volume 2, Issue 21 - Week of June 14, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 22 - Week of June 21, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 23 - Week of  July 12, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 24 - Week of July 19, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 25 - Week of July 26, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 26 - Week of August 2, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 27 - Week of August 9, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 28 - Week of August 23, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 29 - Week of August 30, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 30 - Week of September 6, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 31 - Week of September 13, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 32 - Week of September 20, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 33 - Week of September 27, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 34 - Week of October 4, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 35 - Week of October 11, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 36 - Week of October 18, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 37 - Week of October 25, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 38 - Week of November 1, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 39 - Week of November 8, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 40 - Week of November 15, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 41 - Week of November 22, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 42 - Week of November 29, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 43 - Week of December 6, 2021
• Volume 2, Issue 44 - Week of December 13, 2021

Blackboard Update - New Text Editor Interface

On Thursday, November 5, Blackboard automatically pushed an upgrade to all SaaS (cloud-based) instances of Blackboard Learn, including the system used at UHCL.

Unfortunately, the documentation provided to us by Blackboard regarding the upgrade failed to specify the nature of the significant adjustments to Blackboard's text editor. As a result, we have received multiple inquiries from faculty over the weekend regarding how to complete essential tasks using the new interface. We have prepared a series of short video demonstrations to address those questions. Please feel free to use the following links for information about one or more of these topics:

• Providing Audio and/or Video Feedback When Grading
• Embedding Echo360 Videos
• Including a Document with an Announcement
• Adding images to test questions 
• New Copy/Paste Formatting Prompt
• Adding YouTube/Khan Academy Embedded Videos

Two other reported issues have been forwarded to Blackboard support for investigation and resolution:

• Video created using embed code from UHCL’s streaming server badly formatted
• Unable to Return Photoshop (PSD) Files to Students in Grading Feedback - Blackboard has identified this issue as a "software defect" that will be resolved on a later update; however, there is no ETA from Blackboard as to when it will be fixed.

If you encounter an issue in the updated system that is not addressed in this article, please contact the Support Center to report the problem. Our team will investigate and either create a video/document to demonstrate the new process, or we'll open a help ticket with Blackboard to report the issue as a potential bug in the update.

Removal and Deletion of 2017 Semester Offerings

As originally announced in our March 15, 2020 newsletter, our team will remove all 2017 Blackboard semester offerings during the week of May 3, 2021. In order to reduce the size of our Blackboard database (and to avoid incurring additional storage space costs from Blackboard), we retain three calendar years plus the current year at any given time, so it is now time to say goodbye to 2017 shells. Course shells to be deleted are only those that have SP17, SU17, and FA17 in their CourseID. We have already restored faculty access to their 2017 semester offerings so that you can review those courses and decide whether or not you want to retain an offline copy for your records. Faculty who would like to retain copies of their 2017 courses may use either the Archive or Export option in Blackboard to do so. The difference between the archive and export process, as provided by Blackboard, is as follows:

• The archive course feature creates a frozen snapshot or permanent record of your course. An archive includes all the content, course statistics, users, and course interactions, such as blog posts, discussions, attendance data, and grades.
• The export course feature creates a ZIP file of your course content that you can import to create a new course. Unlike the archive course feature, the export course feature doesn't include any users or user interactions with the course.

Please note that neither process results in a version of your course contents that you can access or use outside of Blackboard. You may import a Blackboard export file to load old contents into a new blank semester shell. To access an archived file, you would need to work with our Learning Technology Administrators (LTAs) to temporarily restore a shell from that file to access materials or data. UCT will not be retaining any copies of 2017 course shells, so please make plans to export or archive courses that you want to save before Monday, May 3, 2021.