We're pleased to invite Xavier faculty to Tulane University's Sparking Success Conference on January 10-11 of next year. This prestigious event, hosted close to home, offers a unique platform for sharing your expertise and learning from fellow educators.
Why Attend or Present?
Inspiring Sessions: Explore innovative teaching methods and research findings from esteemed colleagues. Gain fresh insights to elevate your teaching strategies and academic pursuits.
Professional Networking: Connect with peers from diverse disciplines, fostering collaborations and expanding your professional network.
Local Impact: Contribute to the local educational landscape by sharing your knowledge or attending sessions that align with your interests.
Wednesday, October 18th, is International Pronouns Day. International Pronouns Day is celebrated on the third Wednesday of October and seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace. Referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity. Being referred to by the wrong pronouns particularly affects transgender and gender nonconforming people. For more information about International Pronouns Day visit pronounsday.org.
Did you know, users now have the option to indicate their pronouns in their Brightspace user profiles? Brightspace user profiles are visible to anyone who shares a course with a particular user, including students, instructors, administrators, etc.
The area in your Account Settings, where you can set your pronouns
A user profile card with the pronouns displayed
Pronouns display in the 'Last Name, First Name' column of Classlist, to the right of the user's name, in parentheses. User name text is blue, pronoun text is grey.
Celebrate International Pronouns Day by entering your pronouns into Brightspace and invite your students to do the same.
If you are looking for a good pronoun primer on inclusive teaching, check out this Gender Diversity and Pronouns resource from the University of Michigan.
Also, check out name.pn if you or your students are looking for an easy way to share how you would like people to use your name. You can create a URL that links to information to help users get your preferred pronouns, title, and the pronunciation of your name correct.
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.
Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that is integrated into our Brightspace system. Turnitin checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.
Instructors typically create an Assignment submission folder with Turnitin enabled. When students submit their assignments they are checked for potential plagiarism. However, there may be situations where an instructor needs to submit a paper to be checked by Turnitin.
The Quick Submit feature allows instructors to submit papers and receive Similarity Reports without creating an Assignment in their course. This is ideal for instructors who would like to use Turnitin to spot check submissions and have these papers in electronic format. Quick Submit SHOULD NOT be used if the instructor desires to have students submit their own papers or plans on using PeerMark (peer review assignment tool) or GradeMark (make comments on and assess student papers). Instructors should create an Assignment and enable Turnitin for the assignment instead.
Follow these steps to do it.
To use Quick Submit to submit a paper:
Log in to your Turnitin account natively through www.turnitin.com.
Activate Quick Submit by clicking on User Info from the top of the instructor homepage.
On the preferences page, select yes from the activate Quick Submit drop-down menu. The Quick Submit tab will appear on the instructor homepage, making the Quick Submit inbox available for use.
To start the upload process, click on the Submit button in the Quick Submit inbox and follow the instructions.
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.
Quiz Results Displays (formerly known as Submission views) can be created to allow students to go back and review a submitted quiz. Customizing the Quiz Results Displays allows instructors to choose what information the student sees upon completing the quiz, as well as what they can see when they go back to review a quiz. The default Quiz Results Display shows the overall score to the student (when they submit their quiz) and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. feedback, their submitted answers, the answers to each question, class averages and statistics, etc.) you need to either edit the default view or set up an additional view.
The Default View is what students see immediately upon submitting their quiz. The Default View typically does not allow students to see answers to a quiz, but does allow them to view their score on auto-graded items. You can adjust the Default View to allow students to see the answers to a quiz, keep in mind the Default View is what students see as soon as they submit their quiz. Thus, auto-publishing the attempt results and/or showing the answers in the Default View while the quiz is still in progress would reveal the score and/or answers to the quiz before ALL students have submitted the quiz.
Additional Views can be created with a specified release date and time that allows instructors to release information, or answers, after a certain time. For example, an Additional View could be created for after all students have submitted the quiz (i.e., after the quiz is closed) to allow students to view their score and which questions they answered correctly and/or incorrectly, as well as answers to questions. Another Additional View could also be created to allow students to see the class statistics and could be set to release at the end of the semester. If a quiz has multiple attempts, you can also specify a score required on an attempt in order to release the submission view. You may want an Additional View to be available to the students for a short period of time. To make this happen, you would create another Additional View with the date/time you would like the system not to show any questions.
You may decide that you want the Additional View to be available to your students through the end of the semester. In this case, I suggest creating a “Shutdown View” with an end-of-semester date/time. Creating a “Shutdown View” with an end-of-semester date/time is good practice if you are planning to copy a course with quizzes that have Additional Views into another course. This ensures that a quiz with a Shutdown View will force you to update the settings in the course you are copying to. Thus reducing the possibility that you have a Additional View enabled before you want it to be.
Important Notes:
Additional Views DO NOT take effect until the quiz scores have been published.
The Limited Duration option allows students to only be able to access the submission view for a short period immediately after completing the quiz. This option SHOULD NOT be used if you want students to review at a future date/time. In this case you should set up an additional view for the date/time you want the view to start AND set up a “Shutdown View”.
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.
A conversation with Jayalakshmi Sridhar and Floristina Payton-Stewart about an exciting upcoming workshop opportunity — open to faculty in any discipline who are interested in a deliberative approach to science communication. Staff welcome too!
You asked for synchronous quizzes and D2L answered! Instructors can now set up quizzes that start and end at the same time for ALL learners with the new synchronous quizzing option. This feature was introduced with our September Continuous Delivery updates.
The addition of synchronous quizzes enables instructors to set up a quiz where the quiz timer starts on the start date for all learners rather than when the learner launches the quiz (asynchronous). The quiz timer then ends for all learners at the same time. This facilitates quizzes where the instructor requires all learners to take the quiz at the same time similar to in classroom learning and supporting medium-high stakes quizzing.
Example of settings for a synchronous quiz
A synchronous quiz starts at the Start Date and ends when the time limit has lapsed, regardless of any action taken by the learner. For example, if a learner clicks "Start Quiz!" 15 minutes after the start date on a 1-hour quiz, they only have 45 minutes left to complete it. To indicate when a quiz becomes available, learners have a countdown timer on the Quiz Information and Start Quiz pages. The Start Quiz! button becomes available when the start date and time is reached.
A countdown timer on the Start Quiz page
Note: If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No Start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due Date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes because students do not choose the time frame of when to take the synchronous quiz, therefore there is no need to set a due date.
To ensure that learners are aware of upcoming synchronous quizzes, instructors should create instructional or manual solutions. For example:
Make a synchronous quiz visible in the calendar:
Instructors should use the Start Date parameter when setting up a synchronous quiz and leave the End Date field empty.
Instructors can select Add availability dates to Calendar or set up an event showing the whole time.
Create an announcement with information about the synchronous quiz.
Set up an event and give a link to the quiz to provide more context.
Note: Instructors must modify or review quizzes one-by-one to avoid accidentally modifying quiz availability dates for synchronous quizzes.
Instructors should provide learners with information about a synchronous quiz before it starts. Learners can also access information about synchronous quizzes in the Quiz Information page.
Follow these steps to do it
To set up a synchronous quiz:
From a quiz page, expand the Availability Dates & Conditions accordion.
Set Start Date and Time. NOTE: Leave the End Date field empty.
Expand the Timing & Display accordion.
Click Timer Settings.
In the Timing dialog, under Quiz Start, select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
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.
Do you want to see the coursework that needs to be graded all on one page in Brightspace? The Quick Eval tool can help.
Quick Eval is a tool that allows evaluators to see a list of unevaluated learner submissions from all their courses. Submissions from Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes are displayed in one location to improve efficiency when locating work that requires evaluation and providing feedback to learners.
The Submissions tab of the Quick Eval page.
Evaluators can sort, filter, and search submissions to prioritize their evaluation work. Sorting can be done using the first or last name of the learner, Activity Name, Course Name, and Submission date. Filtering can be done using one or more of the following categories: Activity Name, Course Name, and Submission Date. Clicking on a user’s name opens an evaluation screen directly from the Quick Eval list where the evaluator can complete their assessment. The search function in Quick Eval allows evaluators to locate submissions for evaluation by searching for a specific user, assignment, quiz, discussion topic, or course.
The Activities tab of the the Quick Eval page.
When learner submissions are evaluated and published, they no longer show up in the Quick Eval list. An empty Quick Eval list gives educators confidence that no learner submissions are pending evaluation.
Quick Eval Widget
Did you know that Quick Eval can be added to your course homepage as a widget? The Quick Eval widget displays a list of up to six activities with submissions to evaluate. The activities are sorted by due date, with the earliest date first. The icon indicator in the widget shows the type of activity (assignment, discussion, or quiz), and the number of unevaluated submissions for each activity.
Activities dismissed in the Quick Eval tool are not displayed by the Quick Eval widget.
The Quick Eval widget on course homepage displaying no submissions needing evaluation
The Quick Eval widget on the Organization homepage displaying unevaluated activities from multiple courses
If you interested in customizing your course homepage with widgets, here are some blog posts with information that explains how to do it:
On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Quick Eval.
All ungraded submissions will be displayed. You can sort submissions by first and last name, activity name, course, or submission date. You can also filter results.
Click the learner's name to evaluate the submission.
To return to Quick Eval page, click Back to Quick Eval.
As you complete and publish evaluations they will no longer appear in Quick Eval.
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.
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.
Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.
Here are a few updates in the September 2023/20.23.9 release that were added to our system this month:
This release updates the Quiz Creation experience for instructors and learners by adding a new synchronous quiz option.
With this release, instructors can facilitate quizzes where learners take their attempts simultaneously, which is convenient for in-class sessions. The new addition of synchronous quizzes enables instructors to set up a quiz where the quiz timer starts on the start date for all learners rather than when the learner launches the quiz (asynchronous). The quiz timer then ends for all learners at the same time.
To set up a synchronous quiz:
From a quiz page, expand the Availability Dates & Conditions accordion.
Set start date and time.
Expand the Timing & Display accordion.
Click Timer Settings.
In the Timing dialog, under Quiz Start, select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
Click OK.
Set up a synchronous quiz
Note: If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No Start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due Date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes because students do not choose the time frame of when to take the synchronous quiz, therefore there is no need to set a due date.
To ensure that learners are aware of upcoming synchronous quizzes, instructors should create instructional or manual solutions. For example:
Make a synchronous quiz visible in the calendar:
Instructors can select Add availability dates to Calendar or set up an event showing the whole time.
Instructors should use the Start Date parameter when setting up a synchronous quiz and leave the End Date field empty.
Create an announcement with information about the synchronous quiz.
Set up an event and give a link to the quiz to provide more context.
Note: Instructors must modify or review quizzes one-by-one to avoid accidentally modifying quiz availability dates for synchronous quizzes.
A synchronous quiz starts at the Start Date and ends when the time limit has lapsed, regardless of any action taken by the learner. For example, if a learner clicks Start Quiz! 15 minutes after the start date on a 1-hour quiz, they only have 45 minutes left to complete it. To indicate when a quiz becomes available, learners have a countdown timer on the Quiz Information and Start Quiz pages. The Start Quiz! button becomes available when the start date and time is reached.
A countdown timer on the Start Quiz page
Instructors should provide learners with information about a synchronous quiz before it starts. Learners can also access information about synchronous quizzes in the Quiz Information page.
This feature implements the following PIE items: D1552, D2135, D2914, D4450, D4481, D6373, D6812, D8816, D8924, D9257, D9656.
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.
Thanks to those of you who attended last week's Proactive Strategies for Academic Integrity workshop. The workshop, the sixteenth in our #LEX Advanced series, helps you to build on the skills you learned in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course and will help you to implement proactive strategies for academic integrity.
In case you missed last week’s training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, a copy of the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop are available. You can find the workshop recording and other resources in support of the workshop on the CAT+FD wiki.
Additionally, if you did not get the opportunity to earn a digital badge for participating in the workshop, it's not too late to earn that badge. We have a corresponding “Academic Integrity” module in the #LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) course that you can complete to earn a digital badge for this topic. The badge will count towards your #LEX Advanced certification.
Turnitin Feedback Studio is a program that checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.
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.
