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Shelby Scanlon, Communication Coordinator
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I hope you are all settling into the Fall semester. I would like to personally thank everyone who attended our Block Party on September 1st. We are proud to have brought together such an amazing group of faculty and staff to discuss the services we provide. If you were unable to attend but would like more information about the services available through CIRT, you may contact us at cirtlab@unf.edu. We hope to have more events like this in the future.
This issue of CIRT News focuses on all things online. It includes best practices for online teaching developed by the Distance Learning Committee, along with recommendations for crafting your online scholarly presence. Updates to our Learning Management System usage policies can now be found on our recently updated Policies page.
We are also happy to announce the redesign of our Knowledge Base, which now includes: support articles, chat support, training information and archives, a blog, and so much more! We hope you find our enhanced Knowledge Base useful.
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RefWorks
12:00pm - 1:00pm Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Accessibility in Canvas
1:00pm - 2:00pm Thursday, September 29, 2022
Grading Rescue
12:00pm - 1:00pm Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Instructional Media Tools for Student Engagement
2:00pm - 3:00pm Thursday, October 6, 2022
Creating Accessible Electronic Documents
11:00am - 12:00pm Tuesday, October 11, 2022
Faculty Domains Information Session
11:00am - 12:00pm Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Ally: Canvas Accessibility Tool
1:00pm - 2:00pm Thursday, October 27, 2022
Cultivating Deep Learning Using Discussion Boards
12:00pm - 1:00pm Friday, October 28, 2022
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Florida Online Innovation Summit Call for Proposals
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The Florida Online Innovation Summit, held on March 30, 2023, is an opportunity to share and discuss projects being implemented across the state to advance the state-of-the-art in online learning. These projects seek to push the boundaries of current technology and practice to disrupt existing models and positively impact the constraints of the “iron triangle” of quality, cost, and access for students. Digital Learning will cover travel costs for up to five UNF faculty members who present at this event. The deadline for proposals is October 25, 2022. Please contact Dr. Deb Miller at deb.miller@unf.edu if you have any questions.
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Cultivating Your Online Presence
Shelby Scanlon, Communication Coordinator, and David Wilson, Associate Director
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Have you googled your name recently? Do the results reflect how you want others to perceive you? Although you cannot explicitly control the results of a Google search, you can influence the story the internet is telling about you by cultivating your online presence. This article will share tips and resources for crafting your online presence, building community, and enhancing the discoverability of your projects, presentations, and publications.
There are many levels to participating in or crafting your online presence; it can be as quick as setting up a LinkedIn profile or as time-consuming as actively blogging or engaging with others on popular social networking platforms.
A few platforms we recommend to get you started are:
- UNF Faculty Bio – UNF Faculty Bio is a directory that allows you to share your expertise and foster collaboration among the community. All UNF faculty automatically have a page, so, we highly encourage you to update yours.
- UNF SelectedWorks – SelectedWorks makes it easy to share detailed information about your scholarly activities and typically includes a CV, areas of interest, and records for publications.
- UNF Faculty Domains – UNF Faculty Domains gives you the space to create something relatively simple like a blog or a personal website or build a more sophisticated professional portfolio site, create a podcast, or host a project site to collaborate with other colleagues or your students. You can even create an online book! These are just a few examples of personally controlled websites you can create.
- LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a professional social networking platform where you create a resume-like profile, connect with colleagues, and network within your industry.
- Twitter – Twitter is known as the “up-to-the-minute” social networking platform. It is used by researchers across many disciplines to find community and connect with like-minded academics in real-time. On this platform, you can share videos, polls, links, threads (long-form tweets), and podcast-like audio content nicknamed “Spaces.”
Other notable online social networking platforms for academics include Academia, Research Gate, Orcid, Google Scholar, and many more. But before you get overwhelmed, it is important to understand you do not have to be active on every up-and-coming platform to shape your digital footprint. Instead, you should strategically choose the ones that best align with your goals and target audience. Different platforms offer different advantages.
Setting up a website or a new account is easier if you have a few things ready, including your curriculum vitae, biography, and professional headshot. You can follow this profile starter kit to assist with this process. CIRT is also available to take your photo if you need an updated headshot.
Join us for our upcoming professional development workshop series Tech Tools for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities, or for assistance implementing any of these platforms, schedule a consultation with the Creative Team today. We’re happy to work with you to help enhance your online presence in a way that will benefit you and your goals.
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9 Principles for Online Teaching
Laura Jackson, Senior Instructional Designer
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The Distance Learning Committee developed the 9 Principles for Online Teaching to establish best practices for online teaching at UNF. The strategies identified are supported by current research and the input of experienced UNF online instructors. Visit the new 9 Principles for Online Teaching webpage for additional examples and resources for each of the principles.
- Establish a strong presence. Consider how you can convey your personality, enthusiasm, and knowledge about the subject matter to connect with your students and create a sense of community in an online environment.
- Manage your time effectively. Create an intentional plan for how you will handle course management tasks before and during the semester to help you spend time strategically. For example, using the Canvas hyperlink check tool before you publish the course will allow you to identify and update any broken links in advance, which will save you time (and emails) during the semester.
- Communicate clearly and effectively. A communication policy will not only help students know how to contact you and when they should expect to receive a response, it will also help to establish clear expectations and will set the tone for the course.
- Create opportunities for active learning. Michael Prince (2004) describes active learning as “any instructional method that engages students in the learning process [and] requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing” (p. 223). There are multiple ways that these active learning opportunities can be created online, including having students participate in simulations or discuss case studies, complete self-reflections, or work collaboratively to learn a new skill.
- Provide resources for students to succeed. Students may need some guidance on how to access the academic, technical, and student support services that are available to them on campus and online. Including links to these university resources, as well as any other course-specific resources, in an orientation module in Canvas will draw students’ attention to them as they get started in the course.
- Stay current. Ensure that both you and your course stay current. Engage in professional development to learn about new tools and current best practices in online teaching and pursue quality course design designations for your online courses.
- Promote inclusivity. Work to make the course accessible and provide accommodations to students as needed. Reach out to students in multiple ways to let them know that you are available and that you care about their success and create ways for students to support each other. Surveys can help you gauge how the students are doing throughout the course.
- Be accessible. Communicate when you hold office hours and how students can meet with you. Reach out to students who may need additional assistance and encourage them to schedule a meeting or come to your office hours.
- Reflect on your teaching. Online teaching is a continuous learning process. Schedule time before, during, and after each course to reflect on the course and consider ways to make small changes. Use Canvas New Analytics, feedback from midterm surveys, and ISQ data to investigate potential areas for improvement.
If you have examples of how you incorporate one or more of the principles above in your online teaching, we would love to hear from you! We are currently looking for UNF faculty who are interested in creating short videos that provide concrete examples of the nine principles. Please contact Rozy Parlette at rozy.parlette@unf.edu if you have any questions.
References - Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of Engineering Education, 93(3), 223-231.
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Policy Updates, Canvas Updates, and CIRT’s Knowledge Base
Michael Russo, Joseph Stewart, Sabrina Whittaker, and Katie Commissaris
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Policy Update
Canvas Data and Account Retention
Summer 2017 courses will be deleted during the December 2022 intersession.
Term-based courses created in UNF’s Canvas LMS are retained for five years after the end of the term in which the course section was offered. Once the retention period passes, the term-based course is deleted during the next intersession, including all content and records of student activity.
Questions about the Canvas Data and Account Retention Policies can be directed to cirtlab@unf.edu.
LMS Usage Policies
The LMS Usage Policies assist the University in maintaining compliance with applicable policy, procedures, and law; these policies address important considerations in the use of the LMS at UNF. They can now be found on our recently updated Policies page.
Canvas Feature Updates
Instructure continues to improve upon Canvas features that enhance the instructor and student experience. Refer to the official Canvas Release Notes for more information on Canvas updates. The following feature options have recently been turned on at UNF:
- Emojis in Submission Comments – Instructors and students can add emojis to assignment comments using the emoji icon in the comment box.
- Confetti for On-Time Submissions – Canvas generates a virtual celebration (on-screen confetti) when students submit assignments on time. If students prefer not to have Canvas display any celebrations, they can choose to hide all celebration animations on their User Settings page.
- Confetti for Valid Links – Canvas displays confetti for teachers that run the link validator on a course and no issues are found. This feature can be managed from the User Settings page.
- Rich Content Editor (RCE) Icon Maker – The Icon Maker allows simple customized iconography to be created directly within the RCE. The icons can be hyperlinked to pages within Canvas or external webpages. Check out our recent blog post to learn more about this feature.
- Microsoft Immersive Reader – The Microsoft Immersive Reader enhances the reading experience by improving accessibility and boosting reading comprehension. The Microsoft Immersive Reader can be used when viewing the Course Home Page or Syllabus or when viewing an individual assignment or page.
CIRT Knowledge Base
We are happy to announce our redesigned Knowledge Base. The redesigned site replaces and expands upon the efforts put forth in our previous version and includes new features such as a blog and chat support. We also have a Status page (formerly LMS News) which contains technical information related to Canvas, its integrations, and third-party tools often used by UNF instructors. We hope that our recently enhanced KB will find its way into your browser bookmarks so that you can have the expertise of CIRT at your fingertips at a moment’s notice. Click here to learn more.
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Sabrina Whittaker | Coordinator of Training
Sabrina is a writer, analyst, and training coordinator with a decade of experience in information technology and business operations. In her previous roles, she has served as a service desk technician, systems management analyst, and agency support coordinator for various Fortune 500 companies. Sabrina is passionate about helping others through process improvements and loves dissecting media to learn about its author. She comes to CIRT with a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies from UNF, where she focused on the intersection of business and culture and minored in digital marketing and analytics. Outside of work, Sabrina enjoys reading, writing, going to concerts, building Legos, and discussing Black placemaking in the United States.
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Joanna Sprott | Online Learning Assistant
Joanna is attending UNF to pursue a double major in biology and French. She was born and raised in Tampa, but most of her family is in Scotland, UK. Joanna is continually growing a passion for travel and experiencing new places, cultures, and languages. Some of her favorite pastimes involve staying in contact with friends abroad as well as spending time with friends from Florida. She also enjoys going on walks and exploring new places and cafes in her free time.
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Jason Swinehart | CIRT Tech
Jason graduated from UNF in 2021 with his bachelor’s in psychology and is currently pursing a master's degree in social work. His other interests and hobbies include web development, clinical mental health, and learning new technologies.
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CIRT News is published four times a year by the Center for Instruction and Research Technology at the University of North Florida.
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