Semester's End Report - Dec. 16th

Semester in Review

The Fall 2016 semester was filled with exciting opportunities and interesting challenges. We worked through new training opportunities, a tornado, a Learning Management System (LMS) selection process, and much more. Here are some highlights:

• We implemented a new online course check process: https://youtu.be/qQsh6J-ijT0
• Tornadoes swept through Howard County and the city of Kokomo in August, damaging one of the Ivy Tech buildings and temporarily disrupting services
• The proctored testing process changed
• Spring course availability in Blackboard for students was changed from 72 hours prior to the start of classes to 48 hours
• All regional online courses were reviewed and converted to the new online course template
• An LMS Selection Committee was formed, comprised of faculty and staff from across the college; the committee reviewed proposals, attended product demonstrations, and ultimately made a recommendation to the college to adopt Canvas as our new statewide LMS
• Changes took place for both student and faculty/staff email systems
• Discoverer was replaced by the NewT system

 

College Closure

The college will be closed the week of December 26th. Please take anything with you that you might need during the closure as all facilities will be closed and no one will be permitted on campus during that week. 

The Instructional Design Center wishes everyone an enjoyable and safe semester break. We look forward to another great semester working with all of you in 2017!

Week's End Report - Dec. 9th

Semester in Review

As we near the end of the semester, here are a few important observations to keep in mind for spring:

• If a student doesn't participate in your course before the NW deadline they must be dropped by submitting the NW via Campus Connect or MyIvy
• If a student doesn't complete an assignment instructors must enter a grade of 0
• The Finalizing Your Course website has a checklist and resources for helping close out your course at the end of the semester

NW/No-show/Non-attendance

What exactly is an NW? According to ASOM 4.8, attendance is defined as "participating in an academic event within the virtual or physical classroom." In a face-to-face course attendance can be the student simply showing up for class. Attendance in an online class is a bit more complicated. In an online class a student can attend by submitting an assignment, taking a quiz, or participating in a discussion board. A student who does not participate in an academic event before the end of the 100% refund period should be dropped as an NW.
 
Why the 100% refund period? If a student doesn't participate in a course, they shouldn't have to pay for it. They also shouldn't have a W, F, or FW on their transcript for a course they didn't actually take. In order to prevent these things from happening, it's our responsibility as faculty to make sure they get dropped as a no-show.

Why does it matter? If our students aren't dropped by the end of the 100% refund period they have to pay for the course. If a student is receiving financial aid, unreported NWs have severe repercussions for both the college and the student. Ivy Tech disburses financial aid to students after the 100% refund deadline. If a student gets financial aid and is later discovered to have been an NW, the student will be required to repay the amount that was disbursed to them for that course. Ultimately this means Ivy Tech won't get reimbursed by the state for the money they disbursed to that student and the student won't be able to sign up for classes again until they've paid back the money they owe to the college. Every year students are hindered in continuing their education and the college loses millions of dollars and many enrollments.

Instructions for submitting NWs can be found here:
Submitting NWs via Campus Connect
Submitting NWs via MyIvy

Entering 0's

Due to a glitch in Blackboard's grade center, if we don't enter 0's for assignments in which the student did not participate that assignment may become invisible to students in the grade center. This could lead to a student believing they have a higher grade than they actually do. Here's what that could look like:

For example: Quiz 1 was due in Session 2. John Student does not complete Quiz 1 and Ann Instructor leaves the Quiz 1 score blank. After the due date, the quiz is made unavailable to students. Because John Student doesn't have a score for Quiz 1, the column disappears from his grade center as it disappears from the Class Session. John's grade center will now look like this:
 

John Student	Instructor Grade Center
Intro Discussion = 10/10 Assignment 1= 10/10 Discussion 2 = 10/10 Quiz 2 = 10/10 Total = 40/40     100%	Intro Discussion= 10 points Quiz 1= 10 points Assignment 1= 10 points Discussion 2= 10 points Quiz 2= 10 points Total= 50 points

 John now thinks he has a score of 40/40, or 100%. Without an extensive review of the course calendar and syllabus, John would have no indication that his score is actually 40/50, or 80%.

If a 0 is entered for Quiz 1 for John Student he would then be able to see the Quiz in the grade center (as shown below). This will give students accurate and complete information with which to calculate their true grade.
 

John Student	Instructor Grade Center
Intro Discussion = 10/10 Quiz 1= 0/10 Assignment 1= 10/10 Discussion 2 = 10/10 Quiz 2 = 10/10 Total = 40/50     80%	Intro Discussion= 10 points Quiz 1= 10 points Assignment 1= 10 points Discussion 2= 10 points Quiz 2= 10 points Total= 50 points

Finalizing Your Course Website

The Finalizing Your Course website, https://sites.google.com/site/ivytechlafayetteidc/finalizing-your-course, contains a checklist for closing out your course along with documents and videos to assist you in the following:

• Archiving email
• Exporting your grade center
• Submitting final grades
• Scanning/saving documents to PDF
• Posting course records to Blackboard

The website is updated every semester and more resources are added as they become available.

Systems Information

Once again Ivy Tech has experienced an increase in spam messages. If you receive a message that you believe is spam, forward the message to abuse@ivytech.edu. DO NOT forward the spam email to ANYONE else. 

If you are unsure of whether a message is spam, do not open it. You may call the Helpdesk at 1-888-IVYLINE and they can help you determine if the message is legitimate. 

For more information about spam, click here to read the April 29th blog.

Week's End Report - Dec. 2nd

Tip of the Week!

As we near the end of the semester, please note that the previously advertised link to the Finalizing Your Course website no longer works when accessing the site from campus. If you are on campus, please use the following address:

https://sites.google.com/site/ivytechlafayetteidc/finalizing-your-course

On this website you'll find the "Finalizing Your Course" checklist, as well as resources for:

• Archiving email
• Exporting grades
• Exporting and archiving courses
• Saving documents as PDF
• Using office copiers to scan/e-mail documents

Spring Course Information

Course Layout

• All courses in Blackboard (Face-to-Face, Hybrid, Online, Video) will have the updated course layout (new menu buttons)
• Face-to-face and hybrid courses from previous semesters in the old course layout can still be copied but a few changes will need to be made
• Online courses will be loaded for you, no online courses should be copied or loaded by faculty

Course Availability

• Courses become available for Faculty in Blackboard on Dec. 19th (please note courses will only become available if the faculty member has been added to the course in Banner, if you don't see your course in Blackboard after Dec. 19th please contact your school)
• Students will gain access to their courses in Blackboard 2 DAYS (not 3 days as in previous semesters) before the course start date listed in Banner (ex. courses with a Banner start date of Tuesday, Jan. 17th will open on Sunday, January 15th)

 

Systems Information

In order to combat the rising trend of Ransomware, Ivy Tech has added a new shared drive called CryptoCanary. Please do not open this drive and do not attempt to view the files or save anything to the drive. Your other shared drives will not be effected and you may continue to use them as usual.

Online Certification Reminder

IVYC110SP ends on Dec. 16th. Anyone who has not successfully completed IVYC110SP as of Dec. 16th will need to register again in the spring and will be required to successfully complete all four modules, regardless of any previous participation (i.e. previous participation will not roll over to the spring course).

Registration for IVYC110IL for Fall 2016 has closed. Anyone who has not yet completed this step of the training process must wait until Spring 2017 to register and may not teach online in the spring.

Faculty who have completed IVYC110SP and IVYC110IL and are scheduled to teach online in the spring must be registered for IVYC112 for the spring. If they are not, please notify the IDC immediately to get them registered. 

Week's End Report - Nov. 18th

Tip of the Week!

Ivy Tech Community College computing policies changed last week to begin blocking all shortened URLs from campus. That means that in order to access the IDC website, the Getting Started website, nor the Online Education website from campus you will no longer be able to use the links we had previously placed in all of our promotional materials. 

Below are links you can use to access the websites directly:

IDC Website:
https://sites.google.com/site/ivytechlafayetteidc/

Getting Started Website:
https://sites.google.com/site/ivytechlafayetteidc/getting-started

Online Education Website (please note that if you teach online this website is linked in your Course Information area, please replace that link with this one):
https://sites.google.com/site/itcconlineeducation/

Proctored Testing Update

The statewide proctored testing policies and procedures have recently changed. Please note that from now on the regional sites should no longer be receiving proctor forms. If you have a proctored test you will send the form to one the following addresses (depending upon your region):

• proctorform-Lafayette@ivytech.edu
• proctorform-Kokomo@ivytech.edu

The old distancetesting-[Site]@lists.ivytech.edu addresses are no longer to be used for distributing test materials to the instructional sites.

This saves a lot of work for you as an instructor. For example, if you are teaching an online course out of Kokomo and you have a proctored test you may have students taking the test out of Kokomo, Logansport, and Rochester but you will only need to send one proctor form to Kokomo and the sites will automatically have access to the form.

NewT Transition Information

The GWC region will be making the transition to NewT on December 2, 2016. Information will be distributed regarding twice-weekly webinars and some other resources that will help make the transition go smoothly. 

If you have any questions regarding NewT or the transition you may reach out to one of the following contacts:

• Sonia Ninon, 317-921-4256, sninon@ivytech.edu
• David Scheblo, 765-473-7281 ext. 9213, dscheblo@ivytech.edu

Training Opportunities

Google for Education free conference!

Education on Air: It Takes a Teacher
Free online conference on December 3rd

Speakers include: 

• Eric Schmidt, Chairman Google, Inc.
• Dr. Jill Biden, Second Lady of the United
• Jahana Hayes, National Teacher of the Year
• Lisa Thumann, Director of Professional Learning, EdTechTeam
• And many more!

To register and view the complete conference schedule, visit the website:
https://educationonair.withgoogle.com/live/2016-dec

Student Centered Instruction Webinar
Join Jim Musgrave on November 29th at 1 PM (PST) for a free informational webinar on mobile, student-centered teaching through the Embellisher Mobile Publishing, Education and Training Platform.

To register, click on the link below:
http://go.onlinelearning-c.org/NS00HCaL000bGPM03q50i3F

Week's End Report - Nov. 11th

Tip of the Week!

Looking for good supplemental information for your courses? Check out Ivy Tech's new Virtual Library!

To access the Virtual Library, log in to Blackboard and click on the Library tab. On the following page, click on the link for your home campus.

From your campus's home page you can do a search, locate user guides, ask a question of your regional Librarian, access Noodle Tools to generate source citations, and much more!

The Virtual Library is invaluable for research, providing us with access to thousands of books and journal articles, vetted links to educational websites, as well as thousands of images and videos. Here are some examples of resources available on the Virtual Library:

• Voices from the Days of Slavery - audio recordings of nearly 7 hours of interviews with former slaves from the American Folklife Center
• George Washington Papers - approximately 65,000 documents from the Manuscript Collection at the Library of Congress, this is the largest collection of original Washington documents in the world
• Invitation to World Literature - 13 video recordings aimed at helping viewers appreciate literary texts
• And much more!

But the Virtual Library isn't only good for research! There are lots of resources available for entertainment as well as education, including:

• Reel Time - an album from jazz musician Wynton Marsalis
• The House on Haunted Hill - a feature film starring Vincent Price
• Popeye for President - a classic Popeye cartoon
• And much more!

Systems Information

There will be a statewide Windows Update installation over fall break. A few things to remember for this update:

• When you leave for fall break please leave your college laptop and make sure that your laptop and/or PC are powered on (i.e. log off of your computer but do not shut it down)
• If you connect your laptop to the wireless network, please make sure your laptop is off of the wireless network, but connect it to your docking station
• If you take your laptop with you over the break, the next time your laptop connects to the network the update process will automatically begin
• Should your computer update process initiate while you're present, you will notice the computer reboot multiple times and the update is expected to take up to 30 minutes; please allow your computer to go through the full update cycle

The update is currently scheduled to begin Thursday, Nov. 24th and run through Sunday, Nov. 27th. 

Week's End Report - Nov. 4th

Tip of the Week!

The statewide self-paced QM Custom Rubric Certification course is now available in Blackboard!

C4IT has developed a self-paced training for faculty and staff to learn more about the QM Custom Rubric in use for online courses at Ivy Tech.

To register, click here and follow the directions.

Systems Information

Blackboard experienced an outage on Saturday evening, Oct. 29th. The outage was reported shortly after 9 pm and was resolved by 9:20 pm. Please work with students who may have been impacted by this outage.

Sunday evening, October 30th, some users may have experienced issues attaching files to email. This issue was resolved on Monday, October 31st. Note this error effected only staff and faculty. Students are on Gmail accounts and were not impacted by this issue.

Email changes

The login screen for faculty email via Outlook Web Access have changed. The change took place at 9 am on Tuesday, November 1st.

Student email underwent an update around 10 pm on the evening of Weds., November 2nd. Email was down for approximately one hour while the update was made and now there is a new look and feel to the initial log-in screen. Students who typically access email via the link in Campus Connect should not notice any change.

Week's End Report - Oct. 28th

Tip of the Week

Would you like to check student work for plagiarism? Then consider using the SafeAssign tool in Blackboard!

SafeAssign is integrated into assignments in Blackboard, therefore it can be incorporated by simply clicking a checkbox in your assignment options. If your assignment does not have SafeAssign enabled you can use the Direct Submit feature to submit a document to SafeAssign for plagiarism checking.

To learn more, visit the SafeAssign page on the Blackboard Help website:
https://en-us.help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Assignments/060_SafeAssign

Other Learning Management Systems integrate with Turnitin, which is another plagiarism checking tool.

If you're interested in learning more about Turnitin, see their website at:
http://turnitin.com/   
 

Systems Information

Cengage experienced an outage on Thursday, Oct. 27th beginning at 9:40 pm and lasting until 11:39 pm. During that time, students were unable to log in to the Cengage systems. If you had due dates the occurred during that time frame, please work with your students to accommodate this outage.

LMS selection update: The review deadline for LMS proposals has passed and the committee is now preparing for the next phase. LMS demos provided by the applicants will be held in mid-November. These demos are only open to committee members, however they will be similar to what was presented at the regions during the LMS tour that took place in the spring.

Week's End Report - Oct. 21st

Tip of the Week!

Now that midterms are passed we have a lot of students inquiring about their grades. ASOM policy 7.5 dictates that instructors must provide feedback on student work within 7 days of the due date for assignments. This includes entering 0's for all those assignments for which your students did not earn any points. 
 
Entering 0's is particularly important due to a glitch in the grade center in Blackboard, which can cause assignments to become invisible to the students if 0's are not entered. This leads students to believe that their score is higher than it really is.

For example: Quiz 1 was due in Session 2. John Student does not complete Quiz 1 and Ann Instructor does not enter a 0, leaving the Quiz 1 score blank. After the due date, the quiz is made unavailable to students. Because John Student doesn't have a score for Quiz 1, the column disappears from his grade center when it is made unavailable in the Class Session. John's grade center will now look like this:

John Student's Grade Center	Instructor's Grade Center
Intro Discussion = 10/10 Assignment 1= 10/10 Discussion 2 = 10/10 Quiz 2 = 10/10 Total = 40/40     100%	Intro Discussion= 10 points Quiz 1= 10 points Assignment 1= 10 points Discussion 2= 10 points Quiz 2= 10 points Total= 50 points

John now thinks he has a score of 40/40, or 100%. Without an extensive review of the course calendar and syllabus, John would have no indication that his score is actually 40/50, or 80%.

If a 0 is entered for Quiz 1 for John Student he would then be able to see the Quiz in the grade center (as shown below). This will give students accurate and complete information with which to calculate their true grade.

John Student's Grade Center	Instructor's Grade Center
Intro Discussion = 10/10 Quiz 1= 0/10 Assignment 1= 10/10 Discussion 2 = 10/10 Quiz 2 = 10/10 Total = 40/50     80%	Intro Discussion= 10 points Quiz 1= 10 points Assignment 1= 10 points Discussion 2= 10 points Quiz 2= 10 points Total= 50 points

Systems Information

Reminder: This past Saturday, October 15th, Blackboard courses from Summer 2014 through Spring 2015 were temporarily taken offline while the Blackboard system is moved to a new Blackboard environment. 

All of these courses will become available again at the end of December when the new environment goes live.

Week's End Report - Oct. 14th

Tip of the Week!

Second 8-week courses begin on Monday, Oct. 17th. When setting up your course please remember to use the Getting Started website: http://bit.ly/idcgettingstarted

When you get to the website you'll see a header: Looking for Course Set-Up Checklists?

Below that header is a question: What type of course are you teaching?

Click on the link corresponding to your course type: Face-to-face or Online/Hybrid

The first link on the following page is the course set-up checklist for Fall 2016. These checklists contain information and dates for 16-week, 12-week, and 8-week courses. Every semester the checklists will be updated, in the spring you'll follow the same steps to access the spring course set-up checklists. 

Students already have access to the second 8-week courses so your courses should already be set up. if not please be sure to set them up as soon as possible. Course checks will begin on Monday, October 17th. 
 

Systems Information

This coming Saturday, October 15th, Blackboard courses from the following terms will be temporarily taken offline while the Blackboard system is moved to a new Blackboard environment:

• 201530
• 201520
• 201510
• 201430
• 201420
• 201410

All of these courses will become available again at the end of December when the new environment goes live.

Week's End Report - Oct. 7th

Tip of the Week!

National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) is coming up! Join Berkeley and Pearson Nov. 7-11 in celebrating distance education. There will be a series of webinars available free of charge to anyone who is interested in attending. 

Presentations available for registration include:

• Align and Redesign, presented by Dr. Roseann Torsiello and Prof. Barbara Monaghan, Berkeley College
• Snapchat 101: Engaging Students Online, presented by Dr. Wendy Tietz, Kent State University
• Using Blogging to Contribute Expertise to Your Field, presented by Janine Lim, PhD, Andrews University

To register for these or other available sessions, visit the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) website at: https://www.usdla.org/events/ndlw/ndlw-2016-webinars/

Archived recordings from previous NDLWs can be found here: https://www.usdla.org/events/ndlw/

Proposals are being accepted for presenters for the 2017 USDLA Annual Conference April 30 - May 3, 2017, hosted in Indianapolis. If you're interested in applying, visit the conference website: https://www.usdla.org/events/2017-national-conference/usdla-2017-call-for-proposals/

Friendly Reminders

We're currently working on reviewing regional online courses scheduled to be offered in the spring. If you are a program chair, department chair, or regional course mentor you will be receiving an e-mail from us in regards to your regional course(s). Please respond as soon as possible! Remember classes end on Dec. 17th and the college will be closed between Christmas and New Years, therefore our preparation time will be cut somewhat short this year.

Second 8-week courses begin Monday, October 17th, they will become available to the students in the morning on Friday, October 14th.

Week's End Report - Sept. 30th

Tip of the Week!

The Instructional Design Center (IDC) is currently looking at regional online courses that are on the schedule for the Spring of 2017. Here is what that means for you:

If you're a faculty member, you don't need to do anything at this time.

If you're a program chair, take a look at the online courses you have scheduled for spring. If they're statewide courses you don't need to do anything additional. If you are offering online courses that are not statewide, check to make sure you have a development shell with current content that matches the textbook that you've adopted for the course. If you do not have a current development shell, please contact the IDC with information regarding the textbook that's been adopted and any other regions that are offering the same online course using the same textbook. We will then locate the content and make it available for your review.

Not sure whether your course is statewide? Click here to view the current list of all statewide online courses

If you are a dean, please encourage your program chairs to review their spring schedules and reach out to the IDC if content is needed.

What is the IDC doing? The IDC is reviewing the content in the current development shells to make sure that previously identified issues have been resolved so the course is ready to run in the spring. If we identify additional issues or issues that have not been resolved we will be reaching out to you shortly with the details. If you have changed to a new textbook please notify us as soon as possible so we can streamline our efforts.

Click here to view the Regional Online Course Process
 

Training Opportunities

VoiceThread Mobile
October 4 at 7:00pm ET - Register here
Online course design has changed a lot in the last 10 years. Over 80% of students now use smartphones and tablets for academic work. In this workshop, participants will learn how to design lessons with mobile learners in mind. We will explore the differences between VoiceThread’s mobile app and the traditional browser version, and participate in hands-on activities.

VoiceThread and Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
October 18 at 7:00pm ET - Register here
Participants will learn how VoiceThread can help educators provide multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression for their courses. Participants will learn how to use VoiceThread’s multi-modal communication platform, closed captioning feature, and VoiceThread Universal to design accessible lessons.

VoiceThread and Common Core Lesson Design
October 25 at 7:00pm ET - Register here
Are you looking for innovative ways to create lessons aligned with Common Core standards? In this K-12 focused workshop, participants will discuss lesson design and learn to blend Common Core and VoiceThread in a variety of ways. We will show examples for ELA, History, Speaking and Listening, and Math standards.

VoiceThread Basics 1 - Upload, Comment, and Share
November 1 at 7:00pm ET - Register here
Participants will learn how to upload media, comment and annotate on that media, and share it with others. This will be a slow paced, step-by-step, hands-on workshop. It is open to both VoiceThread license holders and free members.
 

Systems Information

Peru campus experienced a network outage on Tues. Sept. 27th. The outage impacted all centrally hosted systems and internet access, including VOIP telephones.