Canvas Post-Announcement News (Part 1)

NOTE: The following information is also available in the IDT team's full Canvas Post-Announcement Newsletter in Sway.

Provost’s Message from the Academic Affairs Update 10-24 Email - Learning Management System (LMS) Update

The University Technology Advisory Committee (UTAC) has explored options for transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas. The process included a survey among faculty to determine the needs of the LMS as well as familiarity with Canvas. UTAC has unanimously approved a recommendation to transition to Canvas. The Provost has accepted their recommendation and will present a transition plan at the next Faculty Senate Meeting. Dr. Jana Willis, the chair of UTAC, will be one of the presenters at Faculty Assembly, and faculty are invited to ask questions about UTAC’s recommendation during the Assembly. There is much work to be done, but please join us in thanking UTAC for their hard work that led to this recommendation, as well as their work to assist in the planning of a smooth transition.

What is Canvas?

Canvas by Instructure (Canvas) is a learning management system (LMS) used to deliver 100% online courses and to support teaching and learning in face-to-face, web-support, hybrid/blended, and HyFlex courses. On Instructure's Community page, What is Canvas? they describe their product as follows:
Canvas is a web-based learning management system or LMS. It is used by learning institutions, educators, and students to access and manage online course learning materials and communicate about skill development and learning achievement.

Major Improvements Over Blackboard

Blackboard and Canvas share many similarities. Both are categorized as learning management systems and are suitable for use by medium and large entities, including colleges, universities, K-12 schools, and businesses. They share a number of tools and features, although how each LMS refers to those tools and how they function differently from one another. The University of Houston’s Instruction@UH office webpage, Blackboard-to-Canvas Tool Comparison, provides a nice overview of both platforms’ major features, a brief description of differences, and links to Canvas resources about their version of each feature.

Those who have never seen a Canvas course are invited to view the IDT team’s “crash course” video, Canvas "First Look" [6:07], in which we provide a brief visual comparison of the same course in both Blackboard Learn and Instructure Canvas.

Link to Canvas Post-Announcement News (Part 2)

Reminders About Available (and Possibly Misunderstood) Instructional Technologies and Capabilities

Contributed by Jenni Willis-Opalenik – Director, Technology Learning Services

Recently, the IDT team assisted the University Technology Advisory Committee (UTAC) in disseminating the university’s LMS Survey. In reviewing survey data, we saw some open-ended comments that suggest a need for more information about a few existing tools and capabilities of which some instructors are unaware.

• Live video classroom capabilities…to have class online and in person at the same time. Two options are available to faculty from within Blackboard while teaching: (1) Zoom integration with Zoom to set up and conduct Zoom sessions that enable virtual students to “attend” your in-person class, and (2) Echo360’s lecture capture with live streaming.
• A video assignment (recorded presentations) submission portal that reduces video size automatically. Students can use Echo360 Universal Capture: Personal to create video presentations and save them in their Echo360 Library. They can then submit their video as a hyperlink in a Blackboard assignment drop box, discussion, or another area in a course. Our team has created a short “crash course” video, Student Presentations Using Echo360, for students on all of these Echo360 topics.
• I would like to see the data on student time spent within the course each day or week. Blackboard provides two options for faculty interested in student activity and performance data within a Blackboard course. For more information, you may want to review Blackboard’s support pages on Course Reports and the Retention Center.
• Download the Blackboard exam into Microsoft Word. I’m not sure whether this request references downloading a blank copy of an exam to Word for in-person use, or whether the instructor wants to be able to download students’ completed online exams to Word for offline grading. If the request is in reference to the first option, the IDT team’s staff can assist you. Simply email the Support Center to request assistance and your inquiry will be routed to our team. An instructional designer or learning technology administrator will be assigned to use Respondus Exam 4.0 to extract your online exam from Blackboard into a Word exam and answer key. Regarding the second option, we do not have a solution for that request available at this time.
• A product like Studio for video storage, and the capabilities to create video interactive quizzes. The university acquired Echo360 several years ago, and the IDT team continues to promote awareness of and provide training on that application for the following features: (1) video lecture/presentation recording, (2) storage for audio/video contents created in Echo360 or Zoom, or imported from another source, (3) modification of videos stored in Echo360 to include embedded questions for students to answer as they watch the video, and (4) accessing student viewing and response data. Please refer to the following IDT resources for more information on these features:Promoting Active Engagement with Within-Video Polls/Questions
• Video: Setting Zoom to Work with Echo360 [2:55]
• Video: Basic Upload to Echo360 [3:59]
• Video: Echo 360 Basics [13:31]
• Additional Echo360-related videos are available on the IDT team’s blog post, "Crash Course" Video Library.
• I would like to be able to add comments on written work that students can access without my having to download and save a file that I have to post back…Even better would be the ability to offer spoken comments that are recorded by the system. Blackboard provides some degree support for both of these requests. For more information, you may want to review Blackboard’s support pages on Assignment Inline Grading and Record Audio and Video Feedback.
• Creating tests in Blackboard is so painful that the thought of having to recreate the tests used in my lab classes is making me nauseous. Most were developed when the university had a license for Respondus 4.0, which greatly facilitated setting up automated tests, but since losing that option, the one or two quizzes I've had to create or modify have been tremendous time holes. UHCL still has Respondus Exam 4.0. However, when we needed to implement single sign-on (SSO) security protocols, making a connection between Respondus Exam 4.0 and Blackboard became problematic and frustrating. However, the IDT team regularly assists faculty with getting exam questions from a Word document into the Blackboard course(s) via Respondus. Simply email the Support Center and request that assistance. Your inquiry will be sent to the IDT team, and one of our Instructional Designers will be assigned to help you. For those faculty of a more “do it yourself” approach, we do have a DIY workaround that enables you to upload questions from a Word document into a Respondus exam, exporting/downloading the test from Respondus as a Blackboard-ready exam file, and importing that file into the Tests, Surveys, and Pools area in your Blackboard course. For more information about the workaround, please review the IDT team’s “crash course” video, Respondus Exam – Manual Workaround [5:49].

In addition to the specific resources referenced above, the IDT team encourages you to contact the Support Center to request more information about these features, or about anything related to instructional design and instructional technologies. You may do so by email at SupportCenter@uhcl.edu or by telephone at (281) 283-2828.

Respondus LockDown Browser Information

Contributed by Sam Houston, Learning Technology Administrator

Faculty: For information on Respondus LockDown Browser, please click “Faculty Information” on our Online Proctoring Resources page. Under “Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor” you will find links for various help sources including how to configure a Blackboard test to use LockDown Browser and a quick start guide for Respondus LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor. Note: When directing your students to information about Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor, please remind them to visit the IDT team's web page, Online Proctoring Resources -- NOT to our team's Respondus web page. As noted in bold at the top of our Respondus page, it "is not the page for information about RESPONDUS LockDown Browser. For help with LockDown Browser, please refer to our Online Proctoring Resources page."

Students: In order to take exams and review results, students will need to download and install the UHCL-specific Respondus LockDown Browser. Students can find tutorials, the download link, quick start guide, and test-taking tips for Respondus by clicking “Student information” on our Online Proctoring Resources page.

An important note: If an exam is set up to use Respondus LockDown Browser, after taking the exam, students will need to log into Blackboard using the Respondus LockDown Browser to retrieve their grades and exam feedback. If they use any other browser to log into Blackboard and access their exam results, they will receive this message: “You cannot review the assessment results without using Respondus LockDown Browser. Start Respondus LockDown Browser and navigate back to this point to continue.”

If you have any questions about the above information, please feel free to contact the Support Center at either 281-283-2828 or supportcenter@uhcl.edu, and a member of our team will be in touch to assist!

Student Engagement in Hybrid Learning: Part 2

Contributed by Jane Nguyen, Instructional Designer I (CSE)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote an article giving two tips on student engagement in hybrid mode (This means students meet in person sometimes; other times they are engaging with the material from a distance through a learning management system [LMS], like Blackboard). The article also covered how to bridge an activity started in an in-person session to the LMS so that there is cohesion and fluidity.

I want to continue discussing student engagement this week. It’s an especially important topic to me because I've spent my entire teaching career trying to improve it, as have other instructors.

It tends to be the case that we know our material very well, and the subject matter is indeed interesting, and relevant in ways many students don’t realize. But that is still separate from whether we can deliver it in a way that is engaging for students. This is the challenge. Infusing active-learning tasks has the potential to get students to see the material as, at best, very engrossing, and at least, not terribly boring.

All it takes, in my view, is the old adage of making learning fun. At the root of “making learning fun” is the concept of “play.” Of course, “play” for young adult and adult learners doesn’t look like play for kids, but it’s true that adult learners appreciate adult versions of play, which includes engaging with classmates, experiencing new concepts in connection with things they like and love outside of school, and lastly, hands-on “tinkering.”

I made this infographic to give you some ideas on how to engage students in the classroom and to then connect it to the LMS (learning management system) to continue that engagement. The first two items are the tips I touched on two weeks ago. The others are new. Take a chance and try them, as you see fit. Your students may be taken aback at first by the creative spin, but they will appreciate your livening things up.

If you would like to download and print this infographic, please use the following hyperlink to download the shareable PDF document: Student Engagement Hybrid Learning. NOTE: You may be prompted to enter your UHCL account credentials to open this file from OneDrive.

Adding Library Research Guides to Blackboard

The Neumann Library at UHCL maintains an extensive catalog of subject- and course-specific Research Guides. Each Research Guide has been created by UHCL librarians to help students find, learn about, and use scholarly information resources and services. Each guide’s Home tab provides links to databases that are specifically relevant to the subject area or course for which the guide was developed. The page also provides quick email links that students can use to contact specific research librarians for more assistance.

Other tabs on the research guide provide students with easy access to general resources, tips for effective research and academic writing, and information about other library services. If your course requires students to research and write, the use of a research guide may be a valuable resource for you and your students. It’s a fairly simple process to locate a research guide and then place a link to that guide into your Blackboard course. UCT’s Course Development & Support Team, in collaboration with the Neumann Library, has developed a handout that demonstrates how to locate a research guide on the library’s web site, copy its web address (or URL), and use the URL to provide a quick link in your Blackboard course that will take students directly to the research guide. The PDF document, Adding ResearchGuides to Blackboard, is available on the library’s Linking to Library Resources web page.

Infographic: Common Blackboard Exam and Assignment Issues

Contributed by Jenn Ray, Learning Technology Administrator

If you would like to share this infographic with your students, please use the following hyperlink to download the shareable PDF document: Infographic: Common Blackboard Exam and Assignment Issues. NOTE: You may be prompted to enter your UHCL account credentials to open this file from OneDrive.

Infographic: Need Blackboard Help?

Contributed by Jenn Ray, Learning Technology Administrator

If you would like to share this infographic with your students, please use the following hyperlink to download the shareable PDF document, which will enable them to use the clickable links: Infographic: Need Blackboard Help? NOTE: You may be prompted to enter your UHCL account credentials to open this file from OneDrive.