ITSpotlight is designed to keep the campus up to date on ITS activities and services.
Announcements - Teaching with Tech
Yes! Your grade center organization matters!
Posted September 13, 2023
By IDLT
As we hit our stride in weeks three and four of the fall semester, it’s important to review your course organization and make sure it's working as intended for your students. By now, some work has been submitted and graded and you are providing feedback for your students.
The Blackboard Grade Center can be a confusing grid of columns, and it is especially challenging when you import content from a previous course. Transparency is important for you and your students. The e...
Complete These Start-of-Semester Activities for Course Management
Posted August 09, 2023
By IDLT
As a new semester approaches, the following tips may be useful for faculty.
Blackboard and Course Management:
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If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course and want them to be in one Blackboard shell, please request that your sections be merged prior to starting work in your Blackboard courses.
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If you want to copy a course from the previous semester, please follow these export/import instructions .
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For assistance with buildi...
Using FindTime to Save Time with Scheduling Meetings
Posted August 09, 2023
By IDLT
Scheduling meetings can be a time-consuming and frustrating process, especially when you're trying to find a time that works for multiple people with busy schedules. Many of us have utilized Doodle or When2Meet to help with this tedious task, but they aren’t the most efficient options.
That's where FindTime comes in. FindTime is a free, easy to use, scheduling assistant tool in Microsoft Outlook that helps you find the best time for a meeting by polling your attendees. Because ...
Flags in Turnitin Feedback Studio
Posted July 12, 2023
by IDLT
Turnitin will flag any instances of an unusual character within a paper. These flags will identify when a character has been replaced and unusual hidden characters.
Replaced Characters
Some fonts and characters look similar to the naked eye and are difficult to detect in a paper. This technique is used to “fool” the Similarity Report when text is copied and pasted from an outside source. Go to this example at Turnitin: https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/f...
Video Quizzes with YuJa to Increase Cognitive Load
Posted July 12, 2023
by IDLT
Do you create videos for your courses? Want to use those videos to help students learn even better? Consider adding quizzes or reflective pauses to your videos in YuJa. In 1988, John Sweller developed the Cognitive Load Theory which “suggests that our working memory is only able to hold a small amount of information at any one time and that instructional methods should avoid overloading it in order to maximize learning.”* In adding questions or pauses in videos, we can hel...
How to recover a video that failed to upload
Posted June 14, 2023
by IDLT
Occasionally, YuJa, your internet, or your computer can have a hiccup which can cause a video not to upload to your media library. Luckily, the file is stored locally on your device. Once the file is found, you can run it through a program called Handbrake and then upload the video manually. Follow the steps in this ITS KnowledgeBase article on how to recover the video file, run it through Handbrake, and upload it to YuJa.
Summertime is Pool Time!
Posted June 14, 2023
by IDLT
Blackboard Offers Testing Pool Options to Increase your Online Test Integrity
Summer can be an opportunity to revamp assessments for courses, but no matter what time of year you dedicate to reviewing your assessment strategy, objective tests and test integrity are always in need of our attention.
Institution Page Module in Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation
Posted April 12, 2023
by IDLT
ITS will update Blackboard to Ultra Base Navigation on May 8, 2023. The Ultra Base Navigation upgrade will not update or change existing course shells or tools used by faculty and students.
The Institution Page is the area that opens when users log into Ultra Base Navigation. The modules on the Institution Page contain links to important teaching and learning systems and services. A user’s role as faculty/staff or student will determine what modules can be seen. While the main fa...
Speed up grading and set expectations with Blackboard rubrics
Posted April 12, 2023
by IDLT
Looking for a way to spend less time grading and providing students with feedback? Finding students are unclear on the expectations for an assignment? Rubrics might be just what your course needs to provide students with clear expectations and a more efficient way to provide consistent grading and feedback. Rubrics can be created in Blackboard for assignments, discussion forums, and assessments. Turnitin also has the option to attach a rubric for writing assignments to allow stude...
Student Video Assignment Submission: Link it!
Posted April 12, 2023
by IDLT
In the second half of the semester, students are often preparing presentations as final projects but collecting large video files of those submissions is a hassle. Adding specific expectations for your students to share a link of their video recordings rather than accepting attached files will streamline your workflow. It’s also beneficial if you ask students to share their work in a discussion forum and interact with their peers’ presentations. YuJa ensures that you wonR...
