Beginning of Semester Reminders – Fall 2023
Greetings Faculty and Staff,
Welcome back! We hope everyone had a memorable summer break! Below we have gathered some reminders that will hopefully help get your semester off to a pleasant start. For questions, email lsrequest@vcu.edu.
Canvas Faculty Survey Results! (Spring 2023)
The Learning Systems team conducted this survey in order to collect feedback regarding faculty use of instructional tools at VCU. The results of this survey will be used to assess support needs for Canvas and other tools used to enhance teaching and learning at VCU.
Join VCU’s Möbius Pilot Today!
VCU has launched a new Möbius, by DigitalEd, pilot available immediately. The pilot officially begins with Fall 2023 courses and lasts through the following Spring 2024 semester. Möbius, a cloud-based learning platform designed to create and deploy STEM course materials for all modalities, is only available via the Canvas integration and open for use to all faculty, staff, and students. For additional information, including demos, training, on-demand webinars onboarding and support, see the go.vcu.edu/mobius page. We hope you will join us!
Academic Technologies Website
Visit the Academic Technologies page for an overview of AT Teams, what we support and how to get help.
Canvas Login
Login to Canvas using the 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 role of ‘Teacher’. 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: Canvas Third Party tools all have unique functionality; course copy behavior may vary.
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.
Do Not manually enroll students in courses; this may result in your student(s) being unenrolled each time the automated system enrollment file runs resulting in 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Important Tip: Cross-listing should be done while courses are unpublished.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/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.
Canvas Integrations: 3rd Party Tools
Canvas has the capability to integrate with 3rd Party Tools which are used to enhance course facilitation through the platform. The Learning Systems team manages Canvas and supports this integration process.
For a list of Canvas 3rd Party Tools that are currently available in Canvas, and have already been installed by the Learning Systems team, please see: http://go.vcu.edu/canvas-tools
Did you know? Zoom is also available within Canvas at VCU!
The Zoom integration for Canvas can help you share course Zoom links in one central place, schedule office hours, pre-assign breakout groups – and more! For an overview of all functionality enabled by the Zoom integration for Canvas, please see “Canvas Integration.”
Summer/Fall 2023: Canvas Updates
In case you missed it…
- Canvas has made some significant feature updates including Rich Content Editor allowing for bulk uploads and returning to New Quizzes, rubrics now available for usage in external tool submissions, ability to (un)publish modules in bulk, and much more. For more details, visit the May and June blog posts.
- Respondus LockDown Browser, located in your Canvas instance, has introduced their new Screen Recording feature. Visit the Respondus LockDown Browser – Screen Recording is Here! blog for details.
- Canvas Integrations: Updates & Enhancements
- The LinkedIn Learning integration for Canvas has now been upgraded to the latest version, adding new functionality and features. For more information, please see:
- The TopHat integration for Canvas was upgraded to the latest version in Spring 2023, and enhancements have since been released. For more information, please see:
- The Google Assignments/Drive integration for Canvas has released new enhancements as of late July, 2023. The primary focus of these enhancements is related to “Collaborations” in Canvas. For more information, please see:
Fall 2023 Training Opportunities
For upcoming training hosted by Learning Systems, you can register at www.training.vcu.edu. (Keyword: Canvas or Kaltura)
Panda Pros has returned to provide another opportunity for instructors to receive FREE one-on-one advice from a knowledgeable Instructure professional on using Instructure products. These pros are experts in product knowledge, pedagogy and design who are sure to help get all of our educators up to speed before the fall semester begins. For more information on how to make an appointment, visit the LS Special Events page.
Individual or Group Training – A new offering by Learning Systems, request individual or group training using the “Request a Virtual Training Session” button located on the Learning Systems website. This training is intended for faculty who want to learn how to use the instructional tools supported by Learning Systems (i.e. Canvas and Kaltura).
Asynchronous Training
Surviving in Canvas Mini-Courses – Academic Technologies and VCU Online has collaborated on a series of asynchronous (self-paced) courses designed for beginner to intermediate experienced users.
Training Recordings – We hope that you were able to participate in this interested training opportunities previously offered; however, if you were unable to attend, you can catch up via the recorded training sessions largely led by Learning Systems’ Learning Support Specialist, Jon Reed and some in partnership with VCU Online.
Visit the Learning Systems Academy for a library of short videos on topics ranging from beginner Canvas to using Kaltura.
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.
For all other guidelines and procedures, please see: http://go.vcu.edu/lsprocedures.
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, Teaching with Technology, Uncategorized, Workshops and Training