Grand Valley State University
Happy July! Our latest eLearning newsletter is brimming with essential information to help you jump-start your fall course preparations. This issue covers everything from Blackboard fall course availability and frequent new semester requests to reviewing your online teaching with a "Foundations of Online/Hybrid Teaching Refresher." Learn how to effortlessly search and add library content to your Blackboard courses, RSVP for the Course Design Institute (a one-day development event in partnership with FTLC), and explore the new Blackboard feature releases for July. Don't miss upcoming professional development opportunities to enhance your teaching and technology skills!
In this issue

Blackboard Fall Course Availability

As of July 1, 2024, faculty assigned as the instructor of record in Banner now have access to their fall courses on Blackboard. Contact your departmental coordinator if you do not see your Fall courses.

Pearson Integration Update planned for 8/14/24

We recommend faculty wait to pair any Fall 2024 Pearson courseware content through GVSU Save/Blackboard until August 15, 2024. For more details please see this KB article.

Frequent New Semester Requests

We would like to highlight a few frequent requests for assistance that you can submit via our Service Portal.
  • Merge Course Request. Use this request to combine two or more sites into one parent site.
  • Course Restore Request. Use this to restore a course from Blackboard archives that is no longer available online in Blackboard.
  • Course Copy How-To Instructions. Follow these instructions for copying your content, either from a Blackboard Classic course to an Ultra course or from an Ultra course to another Ultra course.

Refresh Your Online Teaching

This is a friendly reminder that all instructors can access our Foundations of Online/Hybrid Course Development and Training in Blackboard. This course is an opportunity to review how to apply quality standards in developing online and hybrid courses, as well as review updated examples of how these best practices are modeled in the Blackboard Ultra format. We started enrolling folks in 2023 for the migration to Blackboard Ultra, and we are continuing to add newly hired faculty should a faculty member need to complete the training. The Blackboard course has been recently updated to reflect changes in Blackboard Ultra and suggested best practices.
Additional information about this training:
  • The five learning modules embed online materials and hands-on activities to guide participants through best practices associated with effective online teaching.
  • General information about Foundations can be found on this website.
  • Part-time faculty members will receive a $250 stipend after eLearning Technologies notifies FTLC that the faculty member has completed the Online/Hybrid training.
Although the training is self-paced, faculty needing the certification will meet with their eLearning liaison for an initial introduction and exit interview.

How to Search and Easily Add Library Content Directly into Your Blackboard Courses

As you prepare content for your fall courses, consider refreshing some of your resources. The library search tool is found under the content market in your Blackboard course and can be used to search and add library resources. See this Knowledge Base article for more information on getting started with the library search tool.

RSVP for the Course Design Institute – Develop your Blackboard Course in a Day with eLearning and FTLC!

Join us for a day of course design and development, fast-track your course for the start of the semester, and have the opportunity to earn the 5 Steps for Course Design badge. Faculty will walk through best practices in course design and pedagogy using backward design and a Course Alignment Map while breaking down the process into 5 Steps: Foundation Items, Assessments, Activities, Navigation, and Tech Check.
Bring your device, syllabus, and course materials, and let us lead you through the steps. Take advantage of this professional development opportunity to prepare your course for the semester and work towards a badge to showcase your achievement on LinkedIn, Workday, or other social media. Lunch will be provided. This event is in partnership with FTLC.
Event Details
  • Date: August 21, 2024
  • Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm
  • Location: SCB2006 (Seidman College of Business/Pew Campus)
  • Bring: Laptop, course syllabus and schedule, and any course materials.
Reserve your seat by registering today and mark your calendars!

New Blackboard Features for July

Many of this month's feature releases are based on ideas submitted to Anthology's Idea Exchange. Thank you for taking the time to submit ideas or for working with your eLearning Liaison to share ideas with Anthology. These feature enhancements became available as of July 5, 2024.
Instructors can now schedule an announcement for a future date and select that it will be sent as an email copy. The announcement tool will send an email copy at the day and time the announcements are posted. In the previous version, instructors couldn't send an email from a scheduled Announcement.
When drafting a message, instructors may choose whether to allow replies. When selected, student replies will now be sent to the instructor's email address.
Instructors can now print an answer key for their assessments. Printing provides a convenient solution for a variety of use cases:
  • Accommodating students with specific needs or limited technology access
  • Providing a printed assessment for testing in designated centers
  • Conducting offline assessment
  • Documentation and compliance
  • Maintaining security and integrity
The print answer key option is available in Tests and Assignments with questions. Instructors may also save answer keys as a PDF.
To help instructors grade assessments with multiple attempts, Blackboard has added new settings. When an instructor allows multiple attempts, it is possible to see which attempt(s) display as Needing Grading. In the 'Attempts to grade' menu, the options are: First attempt, Last attempt (default), All attempts.
Students can view overall and attempt-level feedback from the gradebook.

Hypothesis Summer Workshop Series: Social Annotation Starter Pack

In this series, you'll review everything you need to start using Hypothesis Social Annotation in your courses. Register for as many sessions as you'd like to attend. If you register and attend all three workshops, you'll receive a Certificate of Attendance for the Summer 2024 Seminar in Social Annotation as a PDF certificate you can share.
Please note that Hypothesis is hosting this workshop. To participate, you must register directly with Hypothesis using this link. You will receive an email from Hypothesis confirming your registration and the Zoom meeting link.
July 30, 2024 • 1:00pm – 1:30pm
Asking your class to annotate the syllabus allows you to introduce students to social annotation in a low-stakes way. Even better, you're providing them with an opportunity to engage with the syllabus, share ideas, and ask questions about the course in a way that sets the tone for engagement throughout the term. In this workshop, the Hypothesis team will review ideas and guidance for the collaborative syllabus annotation assignment.
August 1, 2024 • 1:00pm – 1:30pm
This workshop is ideal for instructors who are interested in using social annotation in their courses but aren't exactly sure how to guide students. The Hypothesis team will review ideas for annotation starter assignments and provide you with ready-to-use instructions for a variety of disciplines and modalities. It doesn't matter if you're teaching humanities, business, STEM, or the health professions, or if you're teaching face-to-face or online — you'll get strategies from this workshop that you can add immediately to an assignment in your course.
August 8, 2024 • 1:00pm – 1:30pm
The Hypothesis team will review the technical details of how to use Hypothesis in Blackboard. We will demonstrate how to set up a hypothesis-enabled reading that can be used with course files and other media types. We'll also briefly review grading and using small-group annotation. Participants will gain a clear understanding of how to start setting up social annotation assignments on their course site.

Upcoming Microsoft & Panopto PD Opportunities

Microsoft 365 Series
July 8, 2024 • 1:00pm – 2:00pm
July 25, 2024 • 11:00 AM – 12:00pm
Panopto
Learn more functions in Panopto, such as video creation, captions, quizzing, and student video assignments!
July 9, 2024 • 11:00 AM – 12:15pm
August 8, 2024 • 11:00 AM – 12:15pm
August 12, 2024 • 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Upcoming Blackboard PD Opportunities

Blackboard Ultra Lunch & Learns
Bring your questions and join us every Wednesday from 12pm – 12:30pm for virtual office hours using this Zoom link. Registration is not required. Let us know how we can assist you.
July 23, 2024 • 11:00am – 12:00pm
This webinar has been designed to help individuals convert their Blackboard Original Organization to a Blackboard Ultra Organization.
August 9, 2024 • 9:00am – 11:00am
This session will include a question-and-answer (Q&A) portion for instructors to bring their Gradebook questions and get hands-on support to set up or review their current Gradebook.

Connect with eLearning!

Our eLearning team welcomes the opportunity to work with you all summer long. You can locate your assigned eLearning Technologies team members on our eLearning Technologies Support by Colleges website. You can also reach out through email or phone or conveniently submit a consultation request via our Service Portal. Let us know how we can assist you!
Sincerely,
Kim Kenward, Director of eLearning Technologies
kenwardk@gvsu.edu
GVSU Information Technology
Visit our eLearning Technologies website or follow us on our socials:
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