center for INNOVATION in teaching, assessment, and learning

october 8, 2024

Dear Colleagues,

As Fall Break approaches and the weather begins to turn cooler, we hope that classes are going well. In this issue of the newsletter, we want to share some exciting information with the faculty community. First, our blog will feature Patrice Bouyer’s journey to successfully attain a $318,554 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), while also providing resources and information for others seeking grants. Next, we provide important information on a brand new feature coming to Canvas called Khanmigo, and discuss best practices as you prepare your courses for the transition from Blackboard to Canvas. Finally, we provide a link to information from the fall faculty workshop, as well as reminders of upcoming workshops. As always, your engagement and participation in CITAL events help us to continue to grow a sense of community.

Sincerely,

The CITAL Team (Ed, Cindy, Gina, and Marsennia)

Patrice G. Bouyer - Faculty Overview Valpo.edu

Getting the Grant: Try and Try Again

Kudos to Patrice Bouyer, who recently received an NIH grant for $318,554. The journey to this grant was not an easy one, so we asked Patrice to tell us about it so that all of us can benefit from his experiences.

To read the full article click here: Getting the Grant: Try and Try Again

Welcome Khanmigo

The exciting AI tool, Khanmigo, is now free and available to all U.S. institutions of higher education using Canvas. This tool allows faculty to use the power of AI in a secure and safe environment, while protecting data privacy. If you would like to learn more about this tool, please see the links below.

Video Overview
One Page Overview
What can Higher Education Instructors do with Khanmigo?
Privacy and AI Nutrition Facts (Including Model Used)

Canvas Virtual Workshops in October

Ready to learn Canvas to get your courses up and running for Spring 2025? In these workshops you will learn to add learning modules, items, files, assignments, images, videos, links, and more. You will also be introduced to Canvas features including the Valpo-branded course shell template and how you and yourstudents can access the 24/7 Help from Canvas experts. Click For the Calendar Schedule & Registrations

How to Validate Your Course Links in Canvas

Many of you have migrated your previous Blackboard courses to Canvas this fall. Although most courses migrated smoothly, faculty have helped us identify some issues. One of those issues is broken links. With Canvas, as an instructor, you can easily verify links throughout your course to ensure that they are valid. You can do this using the "Validate Links in Content" in the Settings Tab. Click here to learn more.

Clean Up Your Blackboard Courses
Before Migrating to Canvas

Blackboard has been in use at Valpo for many years and many of you copy courses from one semester to the next. When that happens, old course copy files will remain and duplicate each time within the course. This causes course file size to grow enormously, especially when the course contains large presentation or movie files. This can present a problem when attempting to migrate your Blackboard courses to Canvas. Reducing your Blackboard course duplicated flies will be helpful before migrating to Canvas. Click here for a Blackboard help article about managing course files.

Spring 2025 Blackboard to Canvas
Course Content Migration Requests

You can use the link below to request your previous Blackboard courses to be copied to Canvas for your courses that are on the spring 2025 schedule.

Click here for the Spring 2025 Canvas Course Migration Request Form

Bryan Alexander | Futurist, educator, speaker, writer

Fall All Faculty Workshop Materials Available

Bryan Alexander visited campus for the Fall All Faculty Workshop earlier this year. He was kind enough to share his materials and the video recording of his presentation. These recourses have been added to the CITAL website and can be found at the following link:

2024 All Faculty Workshop: The Future of Higher Education

The Mark of Quality

How do students know that an online course is designed with their achievement in mind? When students see the QM Certification Mark next to a course in a printed or digital catalog, they can be sure that the course was evaluated by a team of experts and has met the QM Standards for Course Design.

Read more about QM and listen to testimony from Stephanie Diemel, Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Shoreline Community College. Former student Kaitlyn Sells talks about the impact of QM on the student experience.

QM Workshop, Thursday, Oct. 10, 9:00 am - 4:30 pm

Seats are still available!

Learn the underlying principles behind the QM Rubric and the critical elements of the QM quality assurance process.

The deadline to register has been extended to Tuesday, October 8th before midnight.
There is no cost to faculty members. A light breakfast and lunch will be provided.

For detailed information & registration, click on the link here:
Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) Workshop - Booking by Bookwhen

Visit the CITAL Website, Your One-Stop-Shop for Faculty Resources

Submit a CITAL Helpdesk Ticket

219.464.50001700 Chapel Drive, Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 USAvalpo.edu

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