Beginning of Semester Reminders – Spring 2023
Greetings Faculty and Staff,
Welcome back; we hope everyone had a wonderful winter break! Below we have gathered some reminders that will hopefully help get your semester off to a great start. For questions, email lsrequest@vcu.edu.
Canvas Login
Login to Canvas using the updated Canvas Login Portal page at http://go.vcu.edu/canvas.
Copy a Canvas Course
Course copying is the fastest way to transfer content from one course to another in bulk. This can be performed by anyone listed in the Canvas course with a Teacher role. Please be aware that you can only copy content to an existing course, not a new course. For more information, visit the Copy a Course page or watch the Importing Course Content in Canvas video.
Note: If you are copying a course with embedded VoiceThreads, those entries should copy over seamlessly. If you have any trouble, email support@voicethread.com.
Course or Section Cross-Listing
For Cross-Listing instructions, best practices, and FERPA Compliance, visit the Cross-Listing Course Sections page or watch the Cross-Listing in Canvas video.
Please do not manually enroll students in courses as this may result in your student(s) being unenrolled each time the automated system enrollment file runs,causing confusion, and potential loss of student activity in your course.
Important Tip: Cross-listing should be done while courses are unpublished. It is highly recommended that you DO NOT cross-list after you have published your course and students have accessed it. Course work is retained within the course, not within the sections, so if a published course is cross-listed after publishing, all cross-listed enrollments will lose any associated assignment submissions and grades.
Publishing and Unpublishing Courses
A course will not be visible to students until it has been published by the instructor.
Publishing a course means it is available to students and can now be accessed from their Canvas dashboard. Here, you can find more information on how to Publish and Unpublish a Canvas Course.
“Classic Quizzes” to “New Quizzes” Transition Updates
The Classic Quizzes end of life has been eliminated for the time being, meaning there is no longer a deadline for transitioning to New Quizzes. For a more in-depth explanation, read this communication from Instructure’s CPO.
For everything you need to know regarding New Quizzes, including Instructor and Student Guides, updates, to ask questions and more, visit the New Quizzes Hub.
Furthermore, among other things, Instructure has been working to incorporate the Rich Content Editor (RCE) in New Quizzes. For more information and updates on this progress, visit the RCE in New Quizzes – Q3 Update page.
Canvas Enrollment Status Update
Withdrawn’ and ‘Waitlisted’ students continue to appear in the Canvas roster and gradebook as ‘Inactive.’ This allows the instructor to see the student but does not allow the student access to the course.
For additional information, visit the Inactive Students in Canvas FAQs page.
Respondus – New Feature Highlights
Within the past year, Respondus has introduced some new features, resources, and innovations to their service. For details, visit the Respondus – New Feature Highlights blog.
Top Hat 1.1 Transition to the LTI Version 1.3
The Top Hat 1.1 LTI has been deprecated as of December 2022. When creating your new courses for Spring 2023, be sure to use the Top Hat 1.3 version. Visit the Top Hat page for more details. If you run into trouble, email support@tophat.com. The “Getting Started for the New Semester with Top Hat” training mentioned below will go over how to connect your Canvas course with the updated version.
Spring 2023 Training Opportunities
For upcoming training hosted by Learning Systems, you can register at www.training.vcu.edu.
(Keyword: Canvas or Kaltura.) A few of our upcoming training offerings this month include:
- Getting Started With Canvas (A Bite Sized Workshop)
- Wed 01/11/2023 from 11:00am – 11:30am | Register
- Kaltura Overview
- Thu 01/12/2023 11:00am – 12:00pm | Register
- Getting Started for the New Semester with Top Hat
- Thu 1/12/2023 2:00pm-3:00pm | Register
- Add to your calendar: Google or Microsoft 365
- Canvas Overview
- Tue 01/17/2023 11:00am – 12:00pm | Register
- Importing Canvas Content (A Bite Sized Workshop)
- Wed 01/18/2023 11:00am – 11:30am | Register
- Canvas Assignments and Quizzes
- Thu 01/19/2023 11:00am – 12:00pm | Register
- Canvas Inbox and Calendar Tool (A Bite Sized Webinar)
- Tue 01/24/2023 11:00am – 11:30am | Register
- Canvas Quick Tips
- Tue 01/31/2023 11:00am – 12:00pm | Register
Open Office Hours with Learning Systems and VCU Online – Every Tuesday and Wednesday from 12pm until 2pm. Drop in at your own convenience.
VCU Online UDL Regional Conference
VCU Online and Continuing and Professional Education will host its inaugural regional conference on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in Richmond, Virginia in Summer 2023, kicking off with a pre-conference event on Monday, June 19, 2023, followed by the conference from Tuesday-Thursday, June 20-22, 2023.
For more information including location, presenter information, registration and more, go to https://ocpe.vcu.edu/udl.
Academic Integrity Concerns
In the case that a faculty member requests a Course Access Report or other Canvas administrator-level report for the purposes of addressing a suspected academic misconduct issue, the office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity (SCAI) has provided the following guidance:
The VCU Honor System & Standards of Academic Conduct states that Faculty “must report suspected violations to SCAI as provided in the policy.” (III.2) To initiate this report for use in an academic integrity violation, we would need to receive the request from VCU Student Conduct & Academic Integrity. You can report this suspicion of an honor violation to SCAI using the Honor System and Standards of Academic Conduct Reporting Form.
Requests for administrator-level reports will come directly from the SCAI office.
We Appreciate Your Feedback
As always, we welcome and appreciate your feedback; it is valuable to our team’s continued success. Please take a moment to fill out this short 4 question survey whenever you are assisted by anyone in any capacity on the Learning Systems team – Learning Systems Support Survey. Additionally, if you would just like to give us general feedback on any of the systems we support, training we provide, suggestions, our website, etc. please email lsfeedback@vcu.edu.
For any information regarding our team, what we do, what we support and/or how to get support, visit the Learning Systems website or email lsrequest@vcu.edu.
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Categories Beginning of Semester, Canvas, Faculty, Online Teaching and Development, Quizzes/Assessments, Respondus, Staff, Teaching with Technology, Top Hat, Workshops and Training