Colleagues,

Welcome back to another exciting year at Valpo, and a refresh to your newsletter with a few enhancements. We hope you had at least some downtime over the summer and time to refresh, recognizing that even over the summer there are courses to prepare, research projects to complete, and maybe even the occasional CITAL professional development workshop to attend. We appreciate all you do and look forward to working with you throughout the year.

In this first issue of our newsletter, we want to celebrate some early successes. Over the summer, we have been busy finalizing the full implementation of Canvas, introducing our new faculty to campus, and moving forward on the Quality Matters Higher Learning Commission Quality Initiative.

The photo above is of faculty who joined us for the reimagined New Faculty Orientation. We would like to thank representatives from the following departments, some who attended for the first time, and helped us enrich this event by providing useful information to our new faculty:

Also, thank you to the deans, chairs, and faculty members who attended our first new faculty welcome reception. We are hopeful that this new experience will instill a lasting sense of community among faculty.

In this issue of the newsletter, the blog focuses on the experience of faculty who have completed our Applying the Quality Matters Rubric Workshops. You will also find more information and resources about Canvas. We conclude this edition with information about an upcoming Quality Matters workshop. As always, we look forward to another engaging and successful year with you.

Sincerely,

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

As many of you know, the market for online classes is growing. Even students who live on campus want the option of taking at least one online class per semester. That is why Valpo has chosen to work

with Quality Matters (QM) to help our faculty design the highest quality online courses. 

In this article, we hear from three Valpo faculty who have taken QM training offered  by CITAL and who are using the principles in their courses. Mandy Brobst-Renaud (Religion) values QM for helping her improve the accessibility of her courses. Joe Zart (CONHP) likes the idea of using QM’s peer review process to take a close look at his courses from the students’ point of view.  Sedefka Beck (Economics) sees QM certification as a way to highlight the quality of our online classes both for our own students and those in the wider marketplace. 

It's official! Canvas, our new the learning management system (LMS), is now fully implemented on campus. We would like to thank all of you for your support and engagement throughout this process. Over 50 percent of Valpo faculty adopted Canvas in the Fall of last year and upwards of 80 percent by the Spring. This made the transition from Blackboard much easier and more seamless, allowing us to get ahead of potential issues. Just as a reminder, there are a few resources below as you continue to use our new LMS. Also, remember that the Canvas Helpdesk is available to faculty and students 24/7 via phone, email, and chat. 

Next month, CITAL will be offering a professional development opportunity for Quality Matters (QM).

This is an Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) certification workshop that will benefit faculty interested in learning more about the QM rubric.

The workshop will focus on best practices for online teaching. If you are already teaching hybrid or online courses or would like to do so in the future, this workshop is for you. 

Reserve your seat now for this full-day session:

 Date: Friday, September 26

 Time: 8:30 am – 4:30 pm (breakfast and lunch will be provided)

 Location: Harre Union, Brown & Gold Room

 Important Details:

        ♦ Faculty must attend the entire day to earn the certificate

        ♦ A laptop with Internet access is required

The deadline to register is Friday, September 19. 

For detailed information & registration, please click the button below.

1700 Chapel Drive, Valparaiso, IN 46383

valpo.edu/cital