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Published on Leave a comment on Dear Professor Yancy

Note: On Christmas Eve, 2015, the New York Times published an article by Dr. George Yancy of Emory University, in the form of a letter titled "Dear White America." Earlier this year, Dr. Yancy published a book of reflections on the reactions garnered by the letter, Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America, which a group of Xavier faculty and staff discussed for our 2018 Fall Faculty Book Club. In honor of Dr. Yancy's original letter, on this Christmas Eve, we offer one reader's reply.

Dear Professor Yancy,

I feel compelled to write to you, as you have written to me, in your letter, "Dear White America." We read your letter and your book, Backlash, in a book club here at the university where I work in New Orleans. I found your letter moving, and I want to thank you for your gift. I want to thank you for crystallizing issues with which I've been wrestling over the past months and years, complex issues of race and racism in America, of whiteness and white supremacy. Your book, and particularly your letter, distill some of these issues to their essence in a pointed and poignant manner. For this, I am grateful. ...continue reading "Dear Professor Yancy"

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Published on 1 Comment on Brightspace Tip #74: Manage Dates

calendar

Instructors can use the Manage Dates tool to view, edit in bulk, and bulk offset date availability from one central location. You can also set the calendar status of all content topics and modules, discussion topics and forums, assignment submissions folders, grades categories and items, announcement items, quizzes, checklists, and surveys in their course in the Manage Dates tool.

Course objects display in a grid that you can sort by any of the column headings. You can also use the Type column to sort the Manage Dates page based on the tool-specific order and use advanced filter options to work with smaller sets of objects. If you filter your course objects, any bulk changes you make apply only to the filtered results. This enables you to update multiple availability dates based on specific criteria.

In addition to managing dates, you can open each course object in a new window by clicking on its name. This launches the object's edit page where you can edit additional properties for that object without leaving the Manage Dates tool.

The Manage Dates tool can be very useful after a course copy. For example, if you copied content from one course into another course, you can use the Manage Dates tool to easily adjust dates after the course copy. Additionally, if you've entered dates on items in your course and later need to adjust dates in bulk, try using the Manage Dates tool.

Follow these steps to do it.

To edit dates in bulk:

  1. Get into the course you want to change the dates of course objects.
  2. On the NavBar (of the course you want to change dates in), click Course Admin.
  3. Click Manage Dates.
  4. Select the check box of the items for which you want to bulk edit dates.
  5. Click Bulk Edit Dates.
  6. In the Bulk Edit Dates dialog box, update the due dates and availability dates.
  7. Click Save.

Want More Information?

About Manage Dates
Bulk edit dates in Manage Dates
Offset dates in Manage Dates
Manage Dates - Offset Dates (video)

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.


Image credit: calendar by tigerlily713 from Pixabay 

Post updated: 8/28/2020

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #73: Copy Course or Copy Components

copy stamp

There are a some situations where you may want to copy components of a Brightspace course OR copy an entire Brightspace course into another one. For example,

  • You have a course from a previous semester and you would like to copy the course contents into your empty course shell for the current semester.
  • You have a Master Course Shell that you input content into and would like to copy the course contents into your empty course shell for the current semester.
  • You are teaching multiple sections of a course, you created all the content in one Brightspace course section and want to copy the content into the other sections.
  • You created content in one course (e.g. rubrics, discussions, quizzes, etc.) and would like to copy that specific content from one Brightspace course into another.

Copying an entire Brightspace course OR copying components of a Brightspace course into another Brightspace course is not hard. As long as you are the instructor for both courses, it is a simple process you can do.

Follow these steps to do it.

If you want to copy an entire Brightspace course OR copy components from a Brightspace course into another course, you should:

  1. Get into the course you want the content copied into.
  2. In the NavBar (of the course you want the content copied to), click on "Course Admin".
  3. Click on the "Import/Export/Copy Components" link.
  4. Click on the "Copy Components from another Org Unit" radio button.
  5. In the Course to Copy option, click the "Search for Offering" button.
  6. Click on the magnifying glass in the "Search for" field OR enter the name of the course you want to copy from in the search field.
  7. Click on the radio button to the right of the course you want to copy content from and then click on "Add Selected".
  8. Verify your selections are correct before proceeding.
  9. At the bottom on the browser window you will click on either "Copy all Components" OR "Select Components" and follow the prompts.

Important:

Double-check to make sure that you are in the course you want the content copied into AND that you have selected the correct course you want to copy content from. There is no way to reverse the copy process once the wrong course is selected and the copy request is submitted.

Want more information?

Copy Course Components
Import/Export/Copy - Copy Components video [1:31]
About Copying Course Components
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #72: Merging Courses

why merge road sign

Faculty can request to have two or more of their courses combined into a single course. Combining courses can be useful when you are teaching multiple sections of the same course or when you are teaching a course that is cross-listed. Merging courses allows you to have all the students in a single Brightspace course which can be useful for collaborative work. Merging courses reduces the number of courses an instructor has to manage within Brightspace, especially when each section has identical content.

Once your courses are merged, you can upload your course content and assignments into the merged course; communicate with the students in the merged course; setup collaborative course work; and have one Grade Book for the merged course. You can create groups within your merged course that correspond to the original course sections. This way you can target a particular course section (group) of students for specific things (e.g. send email to a specific group, make content available to specific group, enter/view Grade Book entries for a specific group, etc.)

NOTE: Merging of courses is typically done at the start of the semester before content is added and before students submit course work. You should wait to request your courses be merged if there is a possibility that there will be last minute changes to instructor course section assignments. You can request a Master Course Shell to build your course and then transfer the content into your merged course.

You should carefully consider whether merging courses is right for you. Some disadvantages to merging courses are:

  • Course enrollments for the merged courses will be combined which can make grading student work a challenge. If you create groups for the different sections, you will be able to view your Grade Book by groups to make grading easier.
  • If you decide you want to unmerge courses after students have submitted course work, student work and grades will be lost. Only student enrollments are retained when courses are unmerged.

Follow these steps to do it.

A system administrator will have to merge your courses. Send an email to Yamlak Tsega (ytsega@xula.edu) if you want to merge courses. You should include the course ID (including CRN) for all the courses you want merged together. When courses are merged, one of the existing courses will serve as the "merged" course. If all the course sections are empty, it won't matter which one is used as the "merged" course. If you have already created content in a course, you should request that the course with the content be the "merged" course. This will reduce the need to copy content.

Want more information?

Merge Courses
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: "why merge" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of merging by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Welcoming a New Team Member to CAT+FD

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development is delighted to welcome Ms. Carla Simmons to our team! Carla is a native New Orleanian and Xavier University of Louisiana alumna, graduating with a degree in psychology. With an interest in serving the community, Carla is pursuing a Master's in Public Administration at the University of New Orleans and served in the Junior League of New Orleans from 2016-2018. Carla is an avid Jazz Fest attendee, reads almost any book she gets her hands on, and loves to practice yoga. Carla will provide administrative support for the Center and we are delighted to have her on board. In the new year, we encourage XULA faculty to stop by and introduce themselves.

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Published on 1 Comment on Brightspace Tip #71: Master Copies of Courses

copy stamp

A few weeks after the end of the semester, all Fall 2018 courses will be changed to an inactive status. Once the courses are changed to an inactive status, student work and grades will be visible to the instructor but students will no longer have access to the course.

The current policy is that courses will remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Brightspace Master Course Shell that you can use to make a copy of your course. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system. If you would like your course content/materials to be available in Brightspace beyond the current retention period of three semesters, you should request a Master Course Shell for the course.

Additionally, instructors who want to build their course before the normal course creation schedule can request a Brightspace Master Course Shell that can be used to develop and maintain their course materials.

A Master Course Shell:

  • Is a course environment an instructor uses to develop and maintain course materials that are used from semester to semester.
  • Is not tied to Banner. Therefore, no students or other users are enrolled into this Shell.
  • Can be used as a "master" where one keeps permanent changes to a course.
  • Faculty may copy content from a Master Course Shell into a Brightspace Course shell as long as they are enrolled as an instructor in both shells.
  • Master Course Shells are not deleted except upon the request of the instructor or when the instructor is no longer employed at Xavier.

Follow these steps to do it.

First, fill out the Brightspace Master Course Request Form.

To copy existing course into a Master Course Shell:

  1. In the NavBar of your Master Course Shell, click on "Course Admin".
  2. Click on the "Import/Export/Copy Components" link.
  3. Click on the "Copy Components from another Org Unit" radio button.
  4. In the Course to Copy option, click the "Search for Offering" button.
  5. Click on the magnifying glass in the "Search for" field.
  6. Click on the radio button to the right of the course you want to make a copy of and then click on "Add Selected".
  7. Verify your selections are correct before proceeding.
  8. At the bottom on the browser window you will click on either "Copy all Components" OR "Select Components" and follow the prompts.

When building a course from scracth:

  1. Add your content and learning activities to your Master Course Shell.
  2. Get into the course you want to copy the contents of the Master Course Shell into.
  3. In the NavBar (of the course you want the content copied to), click on "Course Admin".
  4. Click on the "Import/Export/Copy Components" link.
  5. Click on the "Copy Components from another Org Unit" radio button.
  6. In the Course to Copy option, click the "Search for Offering" button.
  7. Click on the magnifying glass in the "Search for" field.
  8. Click on the radio button to the right of your Master Course Shell and then click on "Add Selected".
  9. Verify your selections are correct before proceeding.
  10. At the bottom on the browser window you will click on either "Copy all Components" OR "Select Components" and follow the prompts.

Want more information?

Brightspace Master Course Request Form
Copy Course or Copy Components
Import/Export/Copy - Copy Components video [1:31]
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #70: The Orange Room

You can be among the first to submit a contribution to The Orange Room, a community where instructors can learn from each other about efficient and innovative ways to use Brightspace. The Orange Room is a place where you can share your tips, suggestions, knowledge, and expertise to help your colleagues use Brightspace to improve their teaching and to inspire the next generation of learners.

Orange Room

Are you doing something innovative? Have you discovered a handy tip? Please share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning. Give a brief description of what you are doing in Brightspace along with some reflections on why it has worked well for you. Perhaps you might even suggest how others can use it.

Use this form to submit your innovation and/or Brightspace tip to The Orange Room.

Note: We appreciate all contributions. We plan to post contributions to our CAT+FD web site.

Want more information?

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Leave a comment on Conversation #76: David Robinson-Morris on Ubuntu, Buddhism, and Higher Education

DRM

A conversation with David Robinson-Morris on Ubuntu, Buddhism, and higher education.

Currently, the Western higher education milieu can only be described as an economic epistemological regime of fear, where neo-liberal ideology and market-driven educational discourse shapes and restricts thinking, and institutions of higher education are suppliers of consumer-driven demand—not institutions of higher learning, but supermarkets of economical knowledge acquisition.

Links for this episode:

...continue reading "Conversation #76: David Robinson-Morris on Ubuntu, Buddhism, and Higher Education"

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #69: End of Semester Tasks

classroom with empty chairs

As we approach the end of the semester there are a few things you can do in Brightspace to wrap up for the semester.

Release final course grades

Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.

Export your Grade Book

Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. During this process all Grade Book records are deleted. You should export (download) your Grade Book to your local computer after you submit your final grades.

NOTE: The export file that is created will NOT contain any student work or instructor feedback. Only the grades in your Grade Book will be exported.

Create a master copy of your course

Courses remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Master Course Shell that you can use to develop and maintain your course materials. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system.

Follow these steps to do it.

Instructions are available for releasing final course grades, exporting your Grade Book, and requesting Master Course Shells.

Want more information?

Release Final Grades
Export your Grade Book (video [2:03])
Master Copies of Courses
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Photo Credit: School/Classroom/Inside | CC0

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #68: Grade Book – Adjust Final Grades

Brightspace calculates final grades for each student based on the grading system and the students' grades that are entered into the Grade Book. If the instructor wants more control over the final grades, perhaps to adjust the final grade for a student that is on the cusp of a higher grade, then adjusted final grades can be used and released to students instead of the calculated final grade.

wrench and screwdriver

If the instructor decides to use adjusted final grades for one student in the course, adjusted final grades must be used for all students in the course. This does not imply, however, that final grades must be manually adjusted for all students.

Adjusting final grades are implemented by the instructor for only the student or students that are deemed to need an adjusted grade. The remaining students final grades would be the final grade as calculated in the Grade Book.

Note: The Grade Book must be configured to use adjusted final grades. If you plan to use adjusted final grades, you should make the adjustments before you release final grades.

Follow these steps to do it.

To adjust final grades for all students:

  1. Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
  2. Click on the Enter Grades link.
  3. Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Grade All.
  4. In the Final Adjusted Grade section for each student, enter the adjusted grades and then click Save.
  5. Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.

To adjust final grades for one or more specific students:

  1. Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
  2. Click on the Enter Grades link.
  3. Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Grade All.
  4. Click on the arrow on the right of the Final Grades and click Transfer All, then click Yes.
  5. In the Final Adjusted Grade section, enter adjusted scores where necessary and click Save.
  6. Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.

Want more information?

Understanding the Grades Tool (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Image credit: Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay