Friday, March 31, 2017

Week's End Report - Mar. 31st

Tip of the Week!

This week Ivy Tech rolled out Google Drive and Google Hangouts for all faculty, staff and students! Google Drive offers file storage and sharing via the web, this will allow you to more easily share documents with individuals at other campuses or outside collaborators.
When you log into My Ivy you'll see a link for both Google Drive and Google Hangouts.

 Google Hangouts will replace Blackboard IM, which will go away in June when we lose access to Blackboard. 

 To learn more about using both tools and to explore the integration of Google with IvyLearn, you may register for a free one-hour webinar:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/2002788298505063426

 The webinar is currently scheduled to take place at 12 pm EST on Tuesday, April 4th; Wednesday, April 5th; and Thursday, April 6th.

 Tips on Using Google Drive and Google Hangouts:

  • If you currently use a personal Google account on your work computer, please log off prior to accessing MyIvy.
  • Google Drive does not have the same functionality as your Home Drive,  My Documents or Department Share Drives.  Due to sharing documents, etc., there may be files shared with you by other people in your folder.
  • Be careful about what you share with others. Review your shared files regularly and update access to those files.
  • If you delete something in your Google Drive, the file is gone.  There are no backups available for Google Drive.  Information Technology cannot recover data that has been deleted from Google Drive.
  • When searching for an Ivy Tech staff, faculty, or student within Google Hangouts, you will need to know their email address.  For example, if you are searching for John Doe, you will see John Doe jdoe01@ivytech.edu.  In order to confirm you are communicating with the correct person, you need to confirm the email address of that person.

If you need help with Google please visit: support.google.com

 If any users have used their personal @ivytech.edu email address for their Google account:
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Friday, March 24, 2017

Week's End Report - Mar. 24th

IvyLearn Updates 

An email from Kara Monroe, the Vice President, Academic Innovation and Support, was sent out statewide early Friday morning.  Please refer to this email (Blackboard Goes Away June 30th - Are You Ready?) for important information.  Below are some quick notes from the email:

Blackboard access ends June 30, 2017
  • Please take the time between now and June 1st to retrieve any and all content that you plan on using in any future terms including the upcoming Summer or Fall 2017 terms.  
  • This also applies to students.  Please start spreading the word and letting students know that Blackboard access will end.  This includes letting students know to grab any materials they may need for any portfolio classes.  
New Policies Effective for Summer Term
  • ASOM policy updates have been made to reflect the change to IvyLearn.  Those policies include the new ASOM 7.5.1 and 7.5.2.  (
  • Below are excerpts from Kara's email:
Requirements of all faculty:
 In addition to the items above, faculty teaching online and distance courses should also:
  • Include at least two contact methods, one of which is your Ivy Tech email address.
  • Communicate the contact information for your supervisor and online technology coordinator in the appropriate locations in the Syllabus template.
  • Develop and communicate your communication plan to students in the appropriate section of the Syllabus.
  • Respond to all student questions within 36 hours.
  • Edit all other areas of the syllabus template as indicated.
  • Edit and/or set the appropriate due dates for your course section utilizing the due dates tool in IvyLearn.  If the course uses third party content, also adjust due dates to match the course in that tool.
  • Online and distance faculty teaching statewide courses are also encouraged to do the following:
    • Personalize graded assessments of student learning as long as some conditions are met (see the policy, page 4 for more details)
    • Add supplementary content to the course
    • Personalize the course through addition of mini-lectures and personal notes
    • Hold synchronous sessions with students
Google Drive and Google Hangout Coming Soon!
  • Google Hangout will replace Blackboard IM.
  • Watch you email for more information!
Self-Paced IvyLearn Training for New Faculty - ILRN101
  • This is NOT a required training for those who have previously completed BBRD101.  
  • NEW FACULTY for Summer Term (and beyond) will be required to take ILRN101.
If you would like to complete the new self-paced course that replaces BBRD101 – our new ILRN101 – the first offering of that self-paced course will begin on Monday.  While not required, this opportunity is open to all faculty who are interested in completing this updated and refreshed version of the required training.  New faculty joining Ivy Tech for the summer term and beyond are required to complete this new course.

If you would like to participate in this initial section, register in the training portal via the Employee Dashboard in MyIvy.  To locate the course:
  1. Log in to MyIvy
  2. Click Employee Dashboard
  3. Click Training Portal
  4. Select My Training
  5. Click Register for Event
  6. In the search field type the course number which is 6334 and click Search.  
  7. The title of the course is ILRN 101.  Once you find the course in the list, click Register on the right.  
  8. Within 2 – 4 days you’ll receive an invite in email to join the course in IvyLearn.  
IvyLearn Training Opportunities


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Friday, March 17, 2017

Week's End Report - Mar. 17th

Notes from Online Technologies Coordinator Meeting

On Tuesday, March 14th, the Online Technologies team (OTCs) statewide met at Fairbanks. The highlights of the meeting are summarized below.
  • ASOM policies are being updated to reflect change in Learning Management System (LMS)
    • ASOM 7.5 is being split into two separate policies to reflect use of the LMS for both online courses and all other course types
    • Beginning in summer 2017 all faculty are expected to have their contact information filled out both in their individual courses and also in their IvyLearn Profile (for more info see Canvas Guides: http://guides.instructure.com/m/4144/l/75098-how-do-i-edit-my-profile-in-my-user-account-as-an-instructor)
    • Statewide courses will have due dates assigned for all assignments and assessments, however faculty may modify them as needed (ex. assignments will be due on Sundays but faculty may change that to Saturday or Monday)
    • The new ASOM 7.5.2 specifies that faculty should use the Conversations tool in IvyLearn to communicate with students whenever possible
    • Requirements for teaching online will not change, though the content of the courses will be modified to reflect the change in LMS
  • The Program Chair Observer role has been implemented in IvyLearn, however it functions differently than in the past. Individuals who have access will see an Admin button on the navigation menu and will be able to use that to access Region X Credit Courses
  • Banner feeds will work similarly, however because the process is faster in IvyLearn than it was in Blackboard the feed will eventually be run more often (3-4 times per day instead of twice)
  • Helpdesk
    • A new queue will be added soon for IvyLearn, until then continue to use the Blackboard option
    • Our helpdesk works with Canvas and will be familiar with the functionality
  • Statewide courses are in the process of being transitioned
    • Mentors and OTCs are transitioning the statewide courses
    • Transition of statewide courses is being managed by OTCs and C4IT
    • Current goal is to have all statewide courses transitioned into IvyLearn by the end of April
  • Blackboard will be available on an extremely limited basis after June 30th for the following situations:
    • Accessing information for grade appeals
    • Students granted incompletes
    • Blackboard will not be available to anyone not involved directly in either of the above situations
  • C4IT is recommending that everyone transition out any needed content from Blackboard before June 1st; after June 1st we may experience degrading system function and long queues may result in extremely long processing times

Development Shells

Faculty may now request development shells. Development shell requests should be limited to:
  • Specific, non-online courses (for example: HLHS101 face-to-face)
  • Courses for which common content is used by multiple faculty 
The request form can be found on the regional IvyLearn website at: 
https://sites.google.com/view/ivylearn/forms
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Friday, March 10, 2017

Week's End Report - Mar. 10th

Tip of the Week!


As of today all of the regional online courses on the schedule for summer semester have been transitioned to IvyLearn!

 We are in the process of converting the rest of the regional online courses into IvyLearn. Until you hear from us, the only things that we are requesting you do are:

Our Favorite IvyLearn Tool

SpeedGrader
The nice thing about SpeedGrader is that it's similar enough to the grading feature in Blackboard that there's very little new functionality to learn. SpeedGrader implements Crocodoc (same as Blackboard) to enable inline grading but in IvyLearn none of the fields are "hidden" on the page. Users can edit grades, add comments, attach files, all without extra clicks or having to expand any additional windows. 

But wait- there's more! We can easily move between student submissions, see assignment details at a glance, and even include audio feedback for students.  

These are all great features but perhaps the best feature is the SpeedGrader mobile app. In the past we've been limited to doing all of our grading on a desktop computer. No more! The Canvas SpeedGrader app allows us to grade assignments from our mobile devices, exactly as we would grade them on a desktop computer.
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Friday, March 3, 2017

Week's End Report - Mar. 3rd

Tip of the Week!

GWC Online Technologies Coordinators, along with the assistance of several other staff members, are working diligently to convert our Lafayette and Kokomo regional online courses into Canvas. This is a complex process, involving anywhere from 4-10 hours of transition time within Blackboard, followed by anywhere from 2-5 hours conversion in Canvas- a total of approximately 6-15 hours per course.

 As we are completing what we can of the transition, we will be reaching out to those faculty who are listed as Instructors in the regional development shells. In general there is very little work to be done by the faculty on the development shells. 

We are asking that the development shell Instructors convert the syllabus to the new template. Depending upon the course there may be a few additional steps that need to be taken specifically by a subject matter expert. Those steps will be outlined in the email you receive.

We anticipate that faculty will need to spend, for the most part, approximately 1-2 hours finalizing the course. 

We're asking that the finalization be done within approximately three weeks of notification. If you receive an email and have questions or concerns, please contact us at GWC-Online@ivytech.edu.

Systems Update

An AWS (Amazon Web Services) experienced an outage early in the week. The impacted several systems including Canvas and Crocodoc, as well as some of our third party vendor tools.

To check the status of IvyLearn, you can check the Instructure/Canvas status page at:
status.instructure.com
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