Author: Erica Murase

OFDIT Newsletter December 2021

December 2021

Dear CUNY SPS Faculty,
We hope your classes are wrapping up nicely, and that you are getting in the holiday spirit!
In this edition of our OFDIT Newsletter, we want to share important information about the Blackboard SaaS Migration and how it may impact your final grade submission as well as about course prep for the Winter 2022 semester.
In addition, we share some useful tips on how to calculate your final grades using Total Points or Weighted Total. We have an update from the Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group and a Faculty Corner submission from Curtis Izen about using Color Coding in the Grade Center.
Lastly, we have some OFDIT team news: our colleague and friend Sylvie Richards will be retiring this year. She has been an integral part of the CUNY family for years, and she will be missed. See the information at the end of the newsletter on how to join us in wishing her all the best in the next, exciting chapter of her story!

Blackboard Upgrade and Impact on Grade Submission and Winter 2022 Course Prep

A reminder that Blackboard will be offline and inaccessible from Tuesday, December 28th through Thursday, December 30th, 2021 for upgrade and SaaS migration.
Grade Submission: Grades are due in CUNY first by Sunday, December 26, 11:59 pm. Please note that CUNY SPS is closed December 24th-27th. As such, we highly recommend submitting final grades by Thursday, December 23rd, 2021 so you can receive support if needed.
Winter 2022 Course Prep: If you are preparing a Winter session course, we recommend that your Winter course be finalized by December 23rd, 2021 at latest. Once the Blackboard upgrade completes, please review your course site between December 31 and January 2. CUNY SPS is closed December 31 to January 2, and will reopen on Monday, January 3. OFDIT will make Winter courses available to students at 6 am on Monday, January 3.
  • CUNY SPS closed: Friday, Dec. 24 – Monday, Dec. 27
  • Grade rosters due: Sunday, Dec. 26, 11:59 pm
  • Blackboard unavailable during upgrade: Tuesday, Dec. 28 -Thursday, Dec. 30
  • CUNY SPS closed: Friday, Dec. 31- Sunday, Jan. 2
  • Start of Winter 2022 session: Monday, Jan. 3, 2022

Calculating Final Grades using Total Points/Weighted Total

As the Fall 2021 semester draws to a close, we wanted to share some helpful information about calculating the final grades for your classes. Blackboard allows you to use Total Points or Weighted Total to calculate your final grades.
The Total Points column is created by default in Blackboard. The Total points column will calculate final grades by simply adding up all the points a student earned. If you have selected “Calculate as Running Total” and percentage as the Primary Display for the column, the total points the student has earned is divided by the total points possible for their graded work, displaying the student’s average grade on the work they have submitted. If a student has missed an assignment submission, this average won’t be affected unless you enter a manual grade for them in that column.
The Weighted Total column calculates a final grade based on the respective percentages assigned to categories or individual columns. The final grade is calculated independently of the points assigned to each graded item. It is important to note that the Weighted Total column is created by default in Blackboard, but it is empty unless you set it up.
Please keep in mind that you can change the format in which grades are displayed in both the Total and Weighted Total columns. When you change the Primary Display, this is the format that appears in the Grade Center and My Grades area for students. When you change the Secondary Display, this is only visible to you as the instructor in the Grade Center. Students do not see a secondary display. We recommend changing your Secondary Display to either SPS Undergrad Letter or SPS Grad Letter, whichever is appropriate, as this converts the final grade into the appropriate letter grade which you’ll have to enter into CUNYfirst.
Please visit our quick guides for further Grade Center help, or contact us for any questions!

Preview of Blackboard Upgrade

to Content Editor

This migration will upgrade the text editor, renamed the Content Editor, by providing new features and improvements for accessibility.

Please note that you will see these changes once the Blackboard migration has completed after December 30th, and we will be available to provide assistance for the new content editor from January 3rd, 2022. For a preview, see the below quick resources on using the new Content Editor:

Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group

The CUNY SPS Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group is holding its last meeting of the semester on Friday, December 17 at 2pm. We will be reading: Tuck E. and Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1(1): 1-40. For more information or the meeting link, please contact Melanie Lorek (melanie.lorek@cuny.edu). All are welcome!

Faculty Corner: Color Coding your Grade Center

The Blackboard Grade Center has several tools that help manage your course grades. In my BUS 325, Principles of MIS course, I use the Grade Center’s color coding feature to get a “birds-eye” view of my assignments and the entire class. With just a glance at the Grade Center, this feature lets me see if a student needs additional help with a topic, is struggling in the course, or if the class is struggling with a particular assignment. I’ve set up color coding to display high or low scores and the status of a grade. To get started with Color Coding in Grade C
enter, I’ve prepared this brief tutorial.
– Curtis Izen

Sylvie Richard’s Farewell (December 16)

Please join OFDIT as we mark the retirement of our friend and colleague Sylvie Richards, stalwart Blackboard Administrator and founding Media and Instructional Technologist for SPS. Join us in celebrating her years of dedication to CUNY and in wishing her happiness and fulfillment as she embarks on the next leg of her life journey.
On Thursday, December 16, we will be toasting Sylvie virtually from 12:30 to 1:30. We will also be toasting her IRL at Juniper Bar, on 35th St. across from Penn Station, from 4:30 to 7 pm. And please send Sylvie a message on her Kudo Board.
For more details and RSVP please visithttps://bit.ly/SylvieCelebration.
As always, OFDIT is here to help with any questions you may have. We are available for one-on-one support and would be happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. You can contact us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.
All the best,
Your OFDIT Team

OFDIT Newsletter November 2021

November 2021

Dear CUNY SPS Faculty,

It is the home stretch for Fall 2021 classes! We hope your classes are going well.

In this edition, we share information about the upcoming CUNY IT Conference in early December. We also announce exciting news: the first OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board (FAB) has convened, and our SPS media studio is back and ready to help with your multimedia needs. Speaking of exciting, please join us as we welcome our new OER Assistant, Kelly Hammond, to the OFDIT team. Please also see the important information about the upcoming Winter 2022 courses and the Blackboard Migration which will take place at the end of December.

Additionally, you will find information on the Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group and a quick note on helpful support email addresses. With special thanks to Clemente I Diaz, we also share our latest Faculty Corner submission.

At the end of our newsletter, we share the last few training sessions of the semester. As always, we look forward to seeing you there. Thank you for reading!

CUNY IT Conference December 2-3, 2021

The 20th Anniversary CUNY IT Conference, “Technologies for Teaching, Learning and Working at the Future CUNY – Utopias and Dystopias,” is co-organized this year by Bronwen Stine (IT), and features two presentations by CUNY SPS faculty and staff:

  • Arthur O’Connor, Jason Bryer, and Ana Machado of Information Systems and Data Science will be presenting “Online Diagnostics and Curated Content to Prep Non-STEM Majors for Data Science” on Thursday, December 2 at 2:30 pm.
  • Ruru Rusmin of OFDIT will moderate the panel on “Building Flex Abilities through the CUNY HyFlex Initiative and Seminar” on Friday, December 3 at 10:10 am.

For more information and to register for this free conference, please visit the conference registration site.

OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board (FAB)

The first OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board (FAB) has been selected. We thank everyone who stepped forward and offered to serve, and are looking forward to working together with FAB members! Please see our CUNY SPS OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board page for more details.

OFDIT Advisory Board 2021-22

  • John Bouma (ISDS)
  • Bradley Gardener (General Education/Communication and Media/ISDS)
  • Kenya Harris (Nursing)
  • Sarah Ruth Jacobs (Liberal Studies/Communication and Media/General Education)
  • Linda Paradiso (Nursing)
  • Jeanneth Sangurima-Quiles (General Education)
  • Chris Kchao (ex officio) (Office of Accessibility)
  • Bronwen Stine (ex officio) (IT)

The SPS Media Studio is Open!

A high quality video recording studio is available to faculty teaching at SPS! With the campus opened, OFDIT welcomes faculty back to the SPS Media Studio, located at 119 W. 31st Street. You may recall that our Media Studio has professional lights, microphones, and cameras. You can film in front of a green screen or projected slides. Try it out by recording a lecture, a faculty introduction, or even explain a difficult assignment. Make a high-quality video to use in your class. Furthermore, OFDIT staff are here to support you. We have a team to help with editing, post-processing, hosting, and captioning. If you’d like to use the Studio, it’s easy to book an appointment.

Contact us at: FacultySupport@sps.cuny.edu

OER@SPS

The OER Initiative is happy to welcome our new OER Assistant, Kelly Hammond, who has a lot of experience and creativity to share with SPS faculty on Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogy, and Digital Pedagogy.

Keep an eye on the OER@SPS page of the SPS Faculty Community Site for news on OER Initiative projects.

Winter 2022 Courses

The Winter semester is fast approaching! We recommend that you check your course sites to ensure they are ready for this upcoming Winter 2022 semester which starts on Monday, January 3rd, 2022. Our Course Site Checklist for Faculty, which contains links to our OFDIT quick guides, can be a helpful resource. As always, please feel free to reach out to facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu if you have any questions or need assistance.

Blackboard Migration and Unavailability 12/28 -12/30/2021

As many of you know, CUNY CIS upgrades Blackboard annually at the end of December. This Fall, CUNY will be migrating to Blackboard SaaS, a cloud computing environment. The change will have no pedagogical impact on CUNY faculty or students but Blackboard will be taken offline and remain inaccessible from Tuesday, December 28th through Thursday, December 30th, 2021.

Final grades are due the day before Blackboard becomes unavailable, but all faculty are encouraged to turn in grades as early as possible to avoid the risk of access issues.

  • Last day of regular classes: Monday, Dec. 13
  • Reading Day: Tuesday, Dec. 14
  • Final exams: Wednesday, Dec. 15 – Tuesday, Dec. 21
  • Grade rosters due: Monday, Dec. 27, 11:59
  • Blackboard migration: Tuesday, Dec. 28 through Thursday, Dec. 30
  • Start of Winter 2022 session: Monday, Jan. 3, 2022

Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group

The CUNY SPS Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group continues its fall meetings on Friday, November 19, noon-1 pm. We will discuss Vershawn Ashanti Young’s “2020 CCCC Chair’s Address: Say They Name in Black English: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Aura Rosser, Trayvon Martin, and the Need to Move Away from Writing to Literacies in CCCC and Rhetoric and Composition” (College composition and communication 72.4 (2020): 623–639. Print.) To RSVP, get a copy of the text, or ask any questions, please contact Melanie Lorek (Melanie.Lorek@cuny.edu). All are welcome!​

Need Help? Support Emails to Keep Handy

  1. Contact helpdesk@sps.cuny.edu for assistance with systems login, access and troubleshooting, use of CUNY SPS computing resources, or other technical issues.
  2. Faculty can contact facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu directly for assistance related to course materials, Blackboard, teaching tools and resources, training, or other teaching-related needs. Faculty support requests sent to HelpDesk are forwarded to us, so please email  facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu directly for fastest response.

Faculty Corner Submission: Curated and Free Resources on the Psychology of Work

“I add a link of helpful “Psychology of Work” resources to supplement my current course materials (podcasts, articles, videos, etc). The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)’s Bridge Builders Committee has curated this extensive list of free educator and student resources. Some items you’ll find in the list include content summaries, PowerPoint slides, information on career paths, and a guest speaker directory. To see the full list visit this link: https://linktr.ee/SIOP_BB. I find students in my class utilize the resources for their own professional development (work psychology career paths, etc.). Please contact me with any questions at Clemente.Diaz@sps.cuny.edu.”

– Clemente I. Diaz, Adjunct Faculty, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, CUNY SPS, and Chair, Bridge Builders Committee,Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP)

Thank you to Clemente for his submission! If you have a useful or interesting pedagogical or technical tip (in 200 words or less!) that you are excited about, we would love to hear from you and add your submission to our next Faculty Newsletter! Please use our Faculty Corner Submission Form to submit your pitch.

Fall Semester Training Sessions:

Student Engagement in Online Learning

Join us for a discussion of best practices for generating and sustaining student engagement in the virtual classroom. This training will review approaches to enhance student engagement, including different ways to present content, the role of feedback in sustaining engagement, activities to promote student interaction, active learning approaches, and connecting your course content to the real world. You’ll have an opportunity to discuss challenges and successes you’ve experienced and share strategies with colleagues.

Introduction to BB Mobile

Over half of participants in SPS’s New Student Orientation plan to use mobile devices as a part of their online learning experience – will your online courses transfer well into this interface? In this session, we will explore the Blackboard Mobile application and gain an understanding of how students experience learning on the go. We will also discuss the major interface differences between Blackboard Mobile and Blackboard for Desktop and best practices for online course design for mobile devices.

Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

Estimates of the percentage of the general population that had experienced trauma *before* the Covid-19 pandemic were in the 80% range. Since Spring 2020, the relevance of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy has become clearer, but what is trauma? How does it affect learning? What can educators do about it? Please join us for a discussion of the principles of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy and of strategies for implementing these in a practical way that supports both you and your students.

Blackboard Grading Tips

This training is all about grading! We will cover Grade Center basics, the Needs Grading area, Grade Center vs My Grades, how to create and use rubrics, and more!

As always, OFDIT is here to help with any questions you may have. We are available for one-on-one support and would be happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. You can contact us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

OFDIT Newsletter October 2021

The below newsletter was originally sent out in October 2021 and was not posted to the blog at that time.

October 2021

Dear CUNY SPS Faculty,
The Fall semester is in full swing, and we hope your classes are going well! In this month’s edition, we provide information on the Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group, the Teaching Matters virtual teaching workshop series, and the In/Visibility: Disability Awareness Film Discussion Event.
We also share a Blackboard tip on the “Search” tool feature for discussion boards as well as a tip on the “Send Reminder” feature, submitted by Curtis Izen through our Faculty Corner.
At the end of the newsletter, you can find a list of our upcoming training sessions — we look forward to seeing you there!
As always, thank you for reading. We look forward to continuing to work with you throughout the Fall semester.

Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group

The CUNY SPS Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group continues its fall meetings on Thursday, October 28, 1-2 pm. Dr. Kate Moss will moderate a discussion of Asao B Inoue’s 2019 Chair’s Address to the Conference on College Composition & Communication, “How Do We Language So People Stop Killing Each Other, or What Do We Do About White Language Supremacy?” (College composition and communication 71.2 (2019): 352–369. Print.) To RSVP or for more information, please contact Melanie Lorek (Melanie.Lorek@cuny.edu). All are welcome!

Teaching Matters Virtual Teaching Workshop

The CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy is kicking off a new virtual teaching workshop series for the 2021-22 academic year. In their presentation “Accessibility as Good Pedagogy: Universal Design for Inclusive Learning,” SPS OFDIT’s own Antonia Levy and Michelle Gastulo will facilitate an interactive conversation on how we can make our courses more inclusive and engaging for all learners. For more details and to register for the event, please visit the events page.

In/Visibility: Disability Awareness Film Discussion Event

The committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity & Office of Student Disability Services Presents a film discussion event on “Deaf in the Military” and “The Power of 504.” These videos are available on Youtube and it is recommended that both videos are watched prior to the event. The facilitated group discussion will be held over Zoom. The program will be presented twice:

Search Tool in Discussion Boards

Have you ever wanted to search your discussion boards for a specific phrase, word, or part of a word, or by author? You can do so using the “Search” tool! This tool can be found on the top-right hand side of your Blackboard screen in the “Discussion Board” area.
Once you click “Search,” you can search by “Current Discussion Board,” or if you have multiple discussion boards, you can select “All Forums in Course.” You can narrow your search by entering After and Before dates and times. Once you are done, you can select “Go.”
From the “Search Results” page, you can reply to posts as well as mark posts read and unread.

Faculty Corner Submission: Using the “Send Reminder” Feature in Blackboard

“In my BUS 325 Principles of MIS, I send email reminders through the Grade Center instead of sending emails through Blackboard or from my college email to remind students of missing work. Using the Send Reminders feature in the Grade Center automatically sends a system-generated email to all students missing work for that assignment. This feature eliminates the time spent searching the Grade Center for students that have not yet submitted. It also helps the entire class avoid notifications (or reminders) about work they already completed.”
-Curtis Izen

Fall Semester Training Sessions:

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

This training will introduce VoiceThread, a collaborative, multimedia program that allows faculty (or students) to upload various media like slides, images, or video and engage the class in an enhanced discussion. You and your students can add commentary by means of microphone, webcam, keyboard, or phone. In this session, SPS faculty will learn how to create a VoiceThread and how to integrate it into their Blackboard course.

The VoiceThread Grader

VoiceThread, an asynchronous audio/video discussion board integrated into Blackboard, can be set up for efficient grading. Join this session to learn about the three different assignment types, their advantages/disadvantages, and common obstacles students encounter. By using the assignment builder your VoiceThread will be contained inside a grading tool that aggregates student comments, provides a gallery of student work, and pushes grades to a column in the Blackboard Grade Center.

Using Blackboard Groups

Wondering how to set up student group work in your courses? In this session, you will learn how to use the Blackboard groups tool effectively, including how to create groups and how to create group assignments. The training will also cover how to grade group work.

Blackboard Grading Tips 

This training is all about grading! We will cover Grade Center basics, the Needs Grading area, Grade Center vs My Grades, how to create and use rubrics, and more!

Introduction to Blackboard Tests

In addition to covering the basics such as creating tests and pools, this training answers some common questions: how do I import/export a test? How do I grant an exception? What are all those options on the Grade Details page? And what do all these feedback option settings actually mean? Join us as we answer your questions on Blackboard Tests.

Introduction to BB Mobile

Over half of participants in SPS’s New Student Orientation plan to use mobile devices as a part of their online learning experience – will your online courses transfer well into this interface? In this session, we will explore the Blackboard Mobile application and gain an understanding of how students experience learning on the go. We will also discuss the major interface differences between Blackboard Mobile and Blackboard for Desktop and best practices for online course design for mobile devices.

Student Engagement in Online Learning

Join us for a discussion of best practices for generating and sustaining student engagement in the virtual classroom. This training will review approaches to enhance student engagement, including different ways to present content, the role of feedback in sustaining engagement, activities to promote student interaction, active learning approaches, and connecting your course content to the real world. You’ll have an opportunity to discuss challenges and successes you’ve experienced and share strategies with colleagues.

Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

Estimates of the percentage of the general population that had experienced trauma *before* the Covid-19 pandemic were in the 80% range. Since Spring 2020, the relevance of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy has become clearer, but what is trauma? How does it affect learning? What can educators do about it? Please join us for a discussion of the principles of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy and of strategies for implementing these in a practical way that supports both you and your students.

Call for Faculty Corner Submissions

 

If you have a useful or interesting pedagogical or technical tip (in 200 words or less!) that you are excited about, we would love to hear from you and add your submission to our next Faculty Newsletter! Please use our Faculty Corner Submission Form to submit your pitch.

 

 

As always, OFDIT is here to help with any questions you may have. We are available for one-on-one support and would be happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. You can contact us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.
All the best,
Your OFDIT Team