Week's End Report - March 4th

Tip of the Week!

Blackboard Course Notifications allows you to opt to be notified by email or text message when certain events take place within your course(s) in Blackboard.

For example, if you would like to receive a text message every time you receive a course message in your Blackboard course, you can set up a notification for that. Likewise if you would like to receive an e-mail every time one of your students submits an assignment, Blackboard will allow you to set up a notification for that as well. These are just two examples of a plethora of options.

For more information about setting up course notifications, please view the following video:
https://youtu.be/XWqTgLHz3OQ

You may also review the Receiving Course Messages Notifications in Blackboard via E-Mail document on the IDC website. 

Learning Management System Needs Analysis

The Center for Instructional Technology (C4IT) will be conducting regional campus visits this spring in order to gather faculty and student input on their needs and interests in the College's learning management system (LMS). 

The tentative schedule currently runs from March 21st through April 6th, with the team visiting the Lafayette region on Thursday, Mar. 24th at 9:00 am, and visiting the Kokomo region on Monday, Apr. 4th at 3:00 pm. These dates are subject to change.

The visit will include a brief presentation of some of the tools currently available, followed by a question and answer period. The visit will be open to all faculty and staff and attendees are welcome to come and go as needed. Additionally, data will be collected electronically to capture more formal feedback. For those who are unable to attend on these dates, webinars will be available (dates as yet undetermined).
 

Training Opportunity

Graduation Audit Workshop: What do you need to do for students who are graduating? Come to the Grad Audit Workshop to learn more! 
Tuesday, March 8th 9:30-10:30 am and 3:00-4:00 pm in IVY 1239
No registration required!

Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series: Accessibility Inclusive Classrooms
Tips and recommendations for making your classroom more inclusive without adding significant addtional time and effort in building your curriculum.
Click here to register!

Benefits Information

Transamerica Retirement Solutions will be in the region later this month to share information about retirement benefit options. The one-hour information session will be held at the following times:

Kokomo
Weds., March 23rd 11:00 am - 12 noon, 2:00 - 3:00 pm, and 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Event Center, 1500 North Reed Road (931)

Lafayette
Thurs., March 29th, 10:00 - 11:00 am, 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Ivy Hall, Lilly Rooms 1112, 1114, 1120, 3101 South Creasy Lane

If you are unable to attend these sessions a recorded version will be available on the Transition website. Contact your Human Resources office for more information.  
 

Systems Update

Pearson MyLabs were experiencing intermittent errors and slowness on the morning of Monday, Feb. 29th.

McGraw-Hill reported an outage causing loading issues with Smartbook and Learnsmart, which caused some students to be unable to access assignments. The outage occurred from 7:15 pm ET until approximately 12:00 am ET on Monday, Feb. 29th. Another outage was reported on the EZ Test system from 9:00 pm ET until approximately 12:00 am ET, also on Monday, Feb. 29th.