Faculty using publisher materials should check and double check content and grade book settings after content copies
are made. Changes made to the content may not all be disclosed or apparent and may
affect grade calculations for students!
CETLA has offered, in the past, grade book "check up" sessions. We can consider offering those again in the future. As you prepare for a new semester,
be sure to check grade columns, settings, and totals.
In the future, we will consider offering time to publishers and other vendors to showcase their course content products. We are seeing more options and the process
of supporting faculty and students using these products is getting more complex.
We should consider, "The Coolest Thing I Do in Blackboard" as a sharing session in the future (or whatever learning management system we're
using!)
There was a request for more training and support on using SafeAssign. See this Blackboard resource page and we can offer more sessions through CETLA. There is also interest in learning
more about Turnitin as an alternative tool for plagiarism detection. We will pursue getting a demonstration
in the fall semester.
We continue to have challenges with academic honesty while teaching and learning mostly online. There are ways to use Blackboard to investigate
suspected incidents of cheating. How do you correlate academic dishonesty to student
behavior? What data is available? What is ethical? Is the student getting legitimate
academic support, therefore improving the work submitted for class? How does academic
honesty correlate to the student's field of study? We should continue to discuss.
During the past two semesters, we defaulted to only mid-term course feedback surveys.
In the fall, will we return to mid-term and end-of-course surveys? We will follow up.
How should we be flexing deadlines and other obligations for students under the current conditions? Michelle Story
shared her ideas in this presentation. Michelle discussed creating a welcoming environment, encouraged outreach to students,
and suggested following up with students are important strategies. She asked us to
consider if course policies protected us or protected students; something to think
about! Michelle referenced the, "cruelty free syllabus" in her presentation; learn more here. Our group concurred on continuing our work on equity-minded teaching and learning
during the fall semester.
