Author: Fallon Perry Saratovsky

OFDIT Newsletter September 2023

Dear Faculty,

In this month’s newsletter we are introducing SPS’s new Faculty Advisory Board cohort, providing the latest updates about the LMS Transition, and inviting you to a compensated OER workshop opportunity. We’re also sharing our schedule of faculty trainings for Fall 2023 and a call for submissions from the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. Please fill out our survey link to let us know what you’d like to learn about AI in the classroom, and consider checking out the upcoming series about AI hosted by CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy.

We hope your semester is off to a great start and look forward to supporting your work in the classroom!

New 2023-2024
Faculty Advisory Board

Welcome to new OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board (FAB) members Elizabeth Alsop (Communication and Media), Lilly Matthew (Nursing), and Faime Moussavi (Business) and to returning members Bradley Gardner (IS/DS), Jeanneth Sangurima Quiles (General Education), Richard Schumaker (General Education) and Chris Kchao (Office of Accessibility, ex officio).

The new FAB kicked off last week and is looking forward to working on projects including the LMS transition, faculty development offerings, and the Teaching Excellence Awards.

LMS Transition News

OFDIT has been planning major milestones for the school to smoothly accomplish the transition from Blackboard to Brightspace. This Fall 2023 semester is earmarked for planning, awareness, and training of key staff. In the Spring of 2024, training will be available to all faculty and students and we will start to migrate course sites into the new platform. Our courses will be offered in Brightspace for the first time in Summer 2024.

Your input is important to help ensure a successful transition! We have created four implementation committees to guide and inform decisions, and we invite you to join one or more of these committees. Visit the CUNY SPS Brightspace Transition site to learn more and sign up. All CUNY SPS faculty, staff and students are welcome to join!

Open UDL Workshop:
Making Your Courses Accessible to All

OFDIT and the SPS OER Initiative are pleased to invite all faculty to participate in the Open UDL Workshop (October 23 to November 6, 2023).

This fifteen-day, asynchronous online workshop provides an in-depth introduction to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and to the intersection of UDL and Open Educational Practices (OEP), which include OER and Open Pedagogy. Participants will review the principles of UDL and explore how OEP can help reduce accessibility barriers for all learners, including those with disabilities. Participants will also learn about best accessibility practices in online courses, including identifying and fixing common accessibility issues. For their workshop project, participants will complete an inventory of one of their courses from a UDL perspective and create a plan for implementing UDL principles and open practices.

Eligible faculty participants will be compensated with 7 NTA hours upon successful completion of the workshop. Registration is open through Friday, October 13. For more details, please see our Advanced Workshops page on the SPS Faculty Community Site.

Generative AI

OFDIT would like to hear from you! Please take a few minutes to give us your input on how we can support shared knowledge and practices around AI in the SPS classroom.

All CUNY faculty are invited to a special series on generative AI hosted by the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy. SPS’ Ruru Rusmin will be co-facilitating the first session with colleagues from Hostos and Hunter:

Friday, September 29, 2023, 11AM – 12PM
What is AI and What Can it Do?
Led by: Andrea Fabrizio (Hostos), Jack Kenigsberg (Hunter), Ruru Rusmin (SPS)

    • What is Generative AI and what can it do?
    • Prevalent concerns about AI in educational settings
    • Possible positive impacts of AI

Friday, October 27, 2023, 11AM – 12PM
AI in the Classroom
Led by: Mohammad Azhar (BMCC), Jeremy Caplan (J-School), Roderick Snipes (BMCC)

    • Using AI to increase student engagement (and reduce plagiarism)
    • Improving productivity to develop instructional content
    • Integrating AI into assessment

Friday, November 17, 2023, 11AM – 12PM
Bias, Accuracy, and Ethical Issues of AI 
Led by: Matt Gold (GC), Carlos Guevara (Hostos), Olena Zhadko (Lehman)

    • AI’s limitations and flaws
    • AI policies in your syllabi
    • Improving our and students’ AI literacy in an ever-changing landscape

JITP  – Call for Submissions

The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP) is an open scholarly journal that covers the intersection of technology with teaching, learning, and research. Sections include scholarly articles, assignments, “blueprints” of digital tools or techniques used in teaching or research, reviews, “teaching fails”, and tool tips. The JITP accepts submissions in a variety of digital media, in addition to text-based papers.

If you have adopted or developed innovative teaching practices in your online courses and are seeking a venue for sharing these with colleagues, consider submitting to the JITP for publication. Further questions can be directed to Elizabeth Alsop (elizabeth.alsop@cuny.edu), our SPS colleague and co-editor of the upcoming issue of the JITP. Submissions are due December 21, 2023.

OFDIT Fall 2023 Trainings

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

Social annotations can radically change the way your students engage with your course materials, each other, and you, combining the benefits of annotation, dialogue, accessibility, and digital accountability. In this one-hour workshop, we’ll look at social annotations across a range of disciplines, platforms, and assignment types, and discuss how this practice can build students’ skills, foster community, and promote intellectual growth.

Introducing CUNY Pressbooks

Have you been meaning to adopt, adapt, or create OER for your courses? Do you wish that an OER you use were more inclusive, accessible, or customized for your students? Do you dream of having self-check questions or social annotation built into course readings? CUNY’s Pressbooks Network might be the right tool for you.

The CUNY Pressbooks Network is an elegant publishing platform that offers the opportunity to find, adapt, or create openly licensed course materials. With pedagogical features ranging from glossaries and built-in social annotations to interactive questions and LMS grading functionality, CUNY Pressbooks is a great option for presenting customized course readings. In this hands-on, one-hour training, we’ll preview some of these features, see them in action in resources just waiting to be adopted, and then dive in to get familiar with the platform and its robust tools.

Anthology Ally: An Introduction

Learn how Anthology Ally can increase access and improve the overall learning experience in your course by providing choice and flexibility for how students consume content and access media. We will cover both alternative file formats and the accessibility gauge features that are now available to all in your courses and the support Anthology Ally provides in addressing any areas where accessibility can be improved, often very quickly!

ePortfolio for SPS Faculty: An Introduction

If this is the first time you are using Digication’s ePortfolio in your course or you need a quick refresher, this workshop will help both new and existing faculty get acquainted with ePortfolio by discussing current practices of ePortfolio at CUNY SPS, navigating through the tool in your course site, and showcasing the various support resources available for both students and instructors.

A Cut Above: Making Your Videos More Professional

Learn simple steps to present yourself on video to enhance your connection with your students by looking more professional. Nowadays, we have multiple opportunities to be on camera for synchronous virtual meetings or recording content for our classes. Having your students see and hear you builds rapport and sparks excitement for learning. No matter if you’re trying this for the first time or have been creating media for a while, this session we’ll give you a set of guides to make your videos look more professional.

Panopto for SPS Faculty

Creating video content just got a whole lot easier! Whether you need to record a welcome message, a lecture, or a recorded announcement for your class, Panopto, the SPS video platform integrated into Blackboard, can make it happen in a few clicks. Participants will learn how to access Panopto and its features through Blackboard, focusing on a workflow to create, organize, and publish your video content. Special attention will be paid to viewing permissions, sharing content between courses, and captioning. Join us to boost your video skills!

Personalizing Your Panopto Video

As many of us have learned, using Panopto to create a video is a simple process. But many of us have yet to unlock the powerful features inside Panopto that can transform video to maximize its impact. In this session, participants will look inside the Panopto video editor to discover tools for trimming or cutting video, adding additional content (ex. YouTube videos), or challenging students with in-video quizzes. Finally, we’ll review Panopto’s robust viewer analytics that tells us who has watched the video and for how long. Join us to make your next video go from good to great!

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

This training will introduce VoiceThread, an asynchronous video discussion board. VoiceThread allows faculty and students to create multimedia presentations that creates a classroom community through threaded audio and video discussions. You and your students can add commentary to a presentation by means of microphone, webcam, keyboard, or phone. The ensuing conversation feels like a live classroom, but in an online environment. In this session, SPS faculty will learn how to create a VoiceThread and integrate it into their Blackboard course.

As always, OFDIT is here to help! We are available for one-on-one support and are also happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

OFDIT Newsletter August 2023

Welcome to the 2023 Fall semester!

In this edition of our newsletter, we share a welcome to the newest member of our OFDIT team, updates about CUNY’s LMS transition and a new version of Digication, and links for resources to guide your preparation for course opening on August 25th!

Steps for Course Prep

You can refer to our Course Site Checklist for Faculty when preparing your course for the new semester. This checklist will take you through everything that needs to be updated in a live course site for an upcoming semester, such as:

    • Your welcome announcement
    • Instructor card
    • Syllabus/Course Schedule
    • Due dates

On the SPS Faculty Community site you will also find an array of SPS quick guides from our OFDIT team, as well as links to Blackboard Help pages to assist you with finalizing your courses for the Fall semester. Thank you for your work to give students the best experience possible as they start the term!

Welcome to our new LMS Admin!

The OFDIT team is happy to welcome Tanichea Blackstock as our new LMS admin at CUNY SPS. Tanichea has extensive experience in LMS administration, IT support, and management, most recently at Kingsborough Community College. Aside from her LMS admin responsibilities, Tanichea will be contributing to course preparation as well as faculty development efforts, and will play a major role in our upcoming LMS transition.

New version of Digication in the Fall

Beginning this fall, faculty using ePortfolio in their course(s) will experience a new version of Digication in Blackboard.

While our Assignments feature is not visible through our dashboard, we have developed instructions on how to review your students’ signatures assignments in this new version.

You can also visit our Faculty Resource Site to view the latest instructions on How to Review Your Students’ Signature Assignments. Feel free to contact the ePortfolio Team at eportfolios@sps.cuny.edu for more information.

LMS Transition News

We are pleased to confirm that CUNY SPS will be part of Transition Group 2, and are expecting to deliver our courses in Brightspace in summer 2024. Please keep an eye out for information coming soon about how you can get involved in our school-wide LMS transition teams that will start working in Fall 2023 to prepare for the new platform. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu or visit the CUNY transition website for more information.

Call for Faculty Corner Submissions

Faculty corner imageIf you have a pedagogical 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! You can use our Faculty Corner Submission Form to submit your pitch.

To support you in the coming term, we have been planning an array of development programs, including discussions and workshops on the pedagogy of social annotation, methods for using CUNY Pressbooks as a publishing and teaching platform, and information about the intersection of Universal Design for Learning, OER and Open Pedagogy in your courses. Watch this space for upcoming details and registration links!

As always, OFDIT is here to help! We are available for one-on-one support and are also happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

Summer Bulletin 2023

Dear Faculty,

We hope you are enjoying these early days of summer! We want to let you know about some special opportunities this summer for funded OER projects through the CUNY Open Publishing Collective, compensated faculty development in the SPS OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop, and a call for submissions for the SUNY OER Summit, a great venue for faculty to present their OER and Open Pedagogy projects.

But first, join us in celebrating your colleague Neil Harbus, winner of the 2022-23 SPS Adjunct Faculty Teaching Excellence Award! Let’s all tip our mortarboards to Neil!

Adjunct Faculty Teaching Excellence Award

On Wednesday, June 7, Interim Dean Jorge Silva-Puras presented the Adjunct Faculty Teaching Excellence Award to Neil Harbus of the Disability Studies program. Also attending the ceremony were SPS board members, OFDIT faculty advisory board members who served on the selection committee, and other administrators, faculty and staff.

About the award: CUNY SPS introduced this initiative in 2019 at the Student Association’s request to officially recognize faculty excel­lence, and the award includes a $1,000 prize. Candidates are nominated by students in undergraduate programs. Nominees must then be endorsed by their program directors and provide a statement of their teaching philosophy. A panel of students and faculty review the nominees and select the recipient. Please visit the award page to read more about the award and past recipients Emily Brooks (Disability Studies), Debra Schaller-Demers (Research Administration and Compliance) and Bradley Gardener (General Education, Communication and Media, and Information Systems).

OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board: Nominations for 2023-25

Interested in serving on the Faculty Advisory Board in the next two academic years? Please fill out our nomination form. We are looking for new members to join our board in the fall and would value your participation. Thank you!

OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop
(July 10-23)

This workshop is a great opportunity to embark on OER course development, revise the syllabus for an existing OER course, or create more authentic and engaging assignments based on Open Pedagogy. This two-week workshop reviews the theory and tools that support OER and Open Pedagogy in online courses. In the first week, participants investigate OER identification and adoption/adaptation, learn about the attributes and examples of Open Pedagogy, and discuss how OER can be used in Open Pedagogy. In the second week, participants find, adapt, or build OER or Open Pedagogy lessons to implement in their own courses.

Eligible faculty participants are compensated 7 NTA hours by the SPS OER Initiative upon completion of this workshop. (See Advanced Workshops for full description. Registration open through June 30.)

CUNY Open Publishing Collective: Request for Proposals (due July 17)

The CUNY Office of Library Services is excited to accept open educational resource (OER) and open knowledge project proposals from CUNY faculty and staff for inclusion in the inaugural CUNY Open Publishing Collective. Projects could include new textbooks, textbook adaptations, curations of CUNY-based archival and special collections materials, or other types of publications based on the culturally relevant and student-centered work that CUNY staff and faculty are already bringing to their classrooms. Participants in the Collective will be provided with professional development and editorial support, along with grants of up to $10,000.

If you have been thinking about creating or adapting an OER publication for one of your courses, this is a fantastic opportunity to bring that project to fruition within a community of practice and with the support of the OLS. Consult the full RFP document for all the details and the proposal submission form.

Proposals are due July 17, 2023.

SUNY OER Summit 2023:
Call for Proposals (due August 2)

SUNY OER Summit 2023, October 11-12 (virtual), has been announced and the call for proposals is open! This is a free, two-day, virtual event in October that aims to bring together practitioners from SUNY and beyond to explore innovative approaches, successful case studies, and emerging trends in OER. If you have developed an OER course, OER materials, or Open Pedagogy projects, consider submitting a proposal to present your work at the Summit! For more information and the proposal submission details, see SUNY OER Summit 2023.

Submissions are due August 2, 2023.

As always, OFDIT is here to help! We are available for one-on-one support and are also happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the best,
Your OFDIT Team

OFDIT Newsletter May 2023

Dear Faculty,

We hope that the semester is winding up smoothly and that you’ll soon be celebrating the end of the school year as well as Commencement with this year’s graduates! There’s still time to sign up to participate in either the in-person ceremony on May 25 or the virtual ceremony on May 31. 

Check out this month’s newsletter highlights, including summer OFDIT workshop offerings, an upcoming Faculty Advisory Board information session about addressing DEI in the course review process, updates on our LMS transition, a tutorial for entering final grades in CUNYFirst, and more!

Helpful CUNY Resources

Entering Final Grades in CUNYFirst

As you prepare for the end of the Spring semester, you can refer to this guide for entering final grades into CUNYFirst before the end of the semester. Please reach out to helpdesk.@sps.cuny.edu for any technical issues you may encounter with CUNYFirst.

Eduroam Wifi Access

Faculty, students, and staff now have free, secure Wi-Fi access at any CUNY campus –and many more institutions world-wide– using their CUNY login via Eduroam. Eduroam is a world-wide roaming Internet access service developed for the international research and education community.

You can connect to the eduroam wireless network on your device, or visit the CUNY CIS eduroam page for more details.

LMS Transition News!

CUNY SPS has requested to be part of the second group of schools, who would transition in 2024. We are working to form a number of school-wide LMS transition teams (Communications, Pedagogy and Practice, Technical, and Training and Support) to ensure consultation and broad participation across the CUNY SPS community. Keep an eye out here for news about how you can join these teams as well as for further Brightspace timeline and training updates over the next few months.

In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu or visit the CUNY transition website for more information.

Read More

OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board Info Session

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the SPS Course Review Rubric
Wednesday, May 24, 12-1 pm

Your colleagues on the OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board invite you to an info-session on their work considering the role of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the SPS Course Review Rubric. This rubric determines the standards and criteria by which SPS courses are created, revised, and launched, thus faculty input on how it is used to create greater inclusion, access, representation, and authentic learning experiences for SPS students is important. Please join this discussion to make your voices heard in an on-going consultative process to improve the student experience and student learning outcomes at SPS.

Register Here

OER@SPS Summer 2023 Workshops

OER & Open Pedagogy Training (1 Hour)

From Open Educational Resources (OER) to Open Pedagogy

Whether you’re looking to lower course costs for your students, update or customize instructional materials to make them more relevant and engaging, or empower your students to become active contributors to your field, Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Pedagogy may be just what you’re looking for. In this one-hour session, we’ll introduce the why and how of OER—materials that are free and openly licensed for you or your students to reuse, retain, revise, remix, and redistribute. We’ll also explore how student-created or student-remixed OER can fulfill the goals of Open Pedagogy—an approach that invites students to create knowledge rather than to merely consume it. If you find this one-hour introduction inspiring, you might want to register for the two-week OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop in July (see below).

Open & Active Video Workshop (June 5-20)

The Open & Active Video Workshop is hands-on! Each faculty participant will create an accessible video, enhanced with an interactive element, to address a pedagogical need in their course, and then share the video and activity as an Open Education Resource (OER). In the first week, faculty discuss how to use video effectively and how to create a video that is OER. In the second week, they create a video and add interaction.

Eligible faculty participants are compensated 7 NTA hours by the OER Initiative upon completion of this workshop. (See Advanced Workshops for full description. Registration open through May 30.)

OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop (July 10-23)

This two-week workshop introduces the theory and tools that support OER and Open Pedagogy in online courses. In the first week, participants investigate OER identification and adoption/adaptation, attributes and examples of Open Pedagogy, and how OER can be used as Open Pedagogy. In the second week, participants find, adapt, or build OER or Open Pedagogy lessons to implement in their own courses.

Eligible faculty participants are compensated 7 NTA hours by the OER Initiative upon completion of this workshop. (See Advanced Workshops for full description. Registration open through June 30.)

OpenLab @ CUNY SPS

We’re excited about CUNY SPS OpenLab, coming fall 2023!

A new digital collaboration space will be launching this year for SPS students, faculty and staff. The CUNY SPS Open Lab is an open-source web platform that can host clubs, groups, projects, events and more.

Do you need a central hub site for your student club or organization? Planning your future collaborative projects? Thinking about what open digital pedagogy tools are available to collaborate, create, and explore?

You can contact our OpenLab Manager, Jesse Rice-Evans with questions or to brainstorm ideas about how OpenLab sites can foster creativity and collaboration at SPS!

Faculty Corner Discussion with Curtis Izen

Click to play videoIn this installment of the Faculty Corner Discussion, Matt Lewis talks to Curtis Izen, a full-time Senior Computer Information Associate at Baruch College and Adjunct Faculty with the CUNY SPS Online Business Program, about humanizing online learning. They define this topic as strategies that make the virtual learning experience more personal, interactive, and engaging for students.

Humanizing online learning is a vast topic, Curtis and Matt focus their discussion on one tool that can help build a sense of community and connection among students. Watch the interview to learn how Curtis converted traditional threaded discussions into asynchronous video discussion using VoiceThread and, according to Curtis, “never looked back.”

OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board:
Faculty Survey and Nominations for 2023/24

If you haven’t responded yet, we would still like to hear from you! The OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board invites your feedback about faculty development needs through this short survey. Thank you for your time and suggestions!

Interested in serving on the Faculty Advisory Board in the next academic year? Please fill out our nomination form. We are looking for new members to join our board in the fall and would value your participation.

As always, OFDIT is here to help! We are available for one-on-one support and are also happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the best,
Your OFDIT Team

OFDIT Newsletter April 2023

Dear Faculty,

We hope that the break allowed for rest, productivity, or just time to recharge in some way!

In this edition of the newsletter, you’ll find an announcement about CUNY’s system-wide transition to a new LMS, Grade Center tips for final grade calculations, and a request for participation in FAB’s faculty development needs survey. We also invite you to join an upcoming SPS conversation about ChatGPT and other generative AI in the classroom. Finally, we share information about and registration links for OFDIT trainings and CUNY-wide professional learning sessions scheduled in April and May.

We’re excited to support your teaching, course design, and professional growth this spring!. Looking forward to seeing you at some of the events!

LMS Transition News!

Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost, Wendy Hensel, announced on April 3rd that after an extensive needs assessment and RFP process, CUNY will be transitioning to a new Learning Management System (LMS), D2L “Brightspace.” The transition will be phased over two years, and by Fall 2025, all courses will be delivered in Brightspace.

Preparatory work for the transition from Blackboard to Brightspace has begun, and information about the full governance framework, committee descriptions, an overview of the transition process, and a detailed timeline can be found on CUNY’s transition website.

OFDIT will be actively involved in the planning and transition, and will keep the CUNY SPS community informed as more information becomes available. We look forward to working with CUNY Office of Academic Affairs and Evan Silberman, CUNY Online University Executive Director, who is leading the transition. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu or lmstransition@cuny.edu with questions, and keep an eye out for regular updates in our OFDIT newsletters.

Read More

Survey from the OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board

The OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board invites your feedback about faculty development needs through this short survey.

The purpose of the survey is also to better understand your teaching experiences at our school. We realize that in the wake of the pandemic, there have been a lot of changes at our institution, and we want to be sure that programs and processes continue to meet your needs.

If you haven’t yet, please take a few minutes to make your voice heard!

Thank you!

Interested in serving on the Faculty Advisory Board in the next academic year? Please fill out our nomination form.

Teaching with Intelligence: Navigating AI in the Classroom

Friday, April 28, 12:00-1:00pm (Virtual Event)

All SPS faculty are invited to a discussion on ChatGPT and other generative AI in our classes. How do we gauge our students’ temperature and talk to them about it? What approach can we take if students do use it? What might we want to adjust in our course design and assessments?

With:
Carolee Ramsay, Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards
Ruru Rusmin, Assistant Dean, Faculty Development and Instructional Technology

Register Here

Engagement Opportunities for SPS Faculty

Spring 2023 CITA Events

CUNY’s Innovative Teaching Academy will be offering the following opportunities:

Tuesday/Thursdays in April, 12:00 -1:00 PM (Partner Virtual Event)

Hunter College ACERT Presents: Lunchtime Seminars

“ChatGPT, what’s happening? Examples from the classroom (4/18)
“ChatGPT, what’s happening? An open conversation (4/20)”

Thursday, April 27: 4:00 – 6:00 PM (In-Person Event)

Transformative Learning in the Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center
“Transformative Power of Meaning: Poetics and Pedagogy with Tracie Morris”

Friday, April 28, 10:00 – 11:00 AM (Virtual Event)

CITA Teaching Matters presents:
“Environmental Justice Across Spaces”

Friday, May 12, 2:00-3:00 PM (Virtual Event)

Karin Beck, Mila Burns, Alyshia Gálvez, and Julie Maybee, Lehman College
“Teaching and Learning with Transformative Texts”

Special CITA Sessions: Learning Disruption

CITA is hosting cross-institutional conversations about learning disruption and other experiences resulting from the pandemic. There will be two sessions in the Spring 2023 Learning Disruption and Recovery Discussion Series (Virtual Event)

Session 1: Student Perspectives on Learning Disruption (Register Here)

  • Friday, April 21, 12-1pm
  • Welcome Remarks: Wendy F. Hensel, Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost
  • Discussion Moderated by: Salimatou Doumbouya, Chairperson of the University Student Senate and Student Trustee

Session 2: Faculty/Staff Perspectives on Learning Disruption (Register Here)

  • Friday, May 5, 12-1pm
  • Opening Presentations: Andrea Soonachan, University Dean for K-16 Initiatives; Sarah Truelsch, University Assistant Dean for Policy Research
  • Discussion Moderated by: Laura Baecher, Professor, School of Education, Hunter College

Please email innovative.pedagogy@cuny.edu if you have any questions.

Calculating Final Grades using Total Points/Weighted Total

As you prepare for the end of the Spring semester, a reminder that in Blackboard you can use Total Points or Weighted Total to calculate your final grades.

The Total Points column, created by default in Grade Center, calculates final grades by adding up all the points a student earned. If you select “Calculate as Running Total” and “percentage” as the Primary Display for the column settings, the total points the student earns is divided by the total points possible for their graded work, yielding the percentage.

Tip: Total Points will display the student’s grade based on the points earned on the work they have submitted out of the points possible for those submitted assignments. If a student has missed submitting an assignment, this Total Points calculation won’t be accurate unless you enter a manual grade of zero for the student in the related column. 

The Weighted Total column calculates final grades based on respective percentages assigned to categories or to individual columns. The final grade is calculated using the total of the student’s earned points on submitted work weighted according to the respective category or column percentage weights assigned.

Tip: While the Weighted Total column is also created by default in Blackboard, it will not calculate a final grade based on the courses’s grade percentage breakdown unless you assign weights to all graded items or categories. See our linked guide below to learn how to do this!

Please visit our quick guides for further Grade Center help, or contact us with any questions!

OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

Don’t forget to sign up for OFDIT’s trainings this spring! Our sessions are designed to encourage all faculty to add skills and get inspired about the tools available for your teaching!

Making Your Course Content Accessible with Ally 

Want to make your documents and Blackboard course content accessible but don’t know where to start? Join us for a training session to learn how! We will cover accessibility principles and provide practical tips on how to use Blackboard Ally to make your course files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Blackboard content (such as font, headers, images, charts, graphs, hyperlinks) more accessible to all your students.

ePortfolio for SPS Faculty: An Introduction

If this is the first time you are using Digication’s ePortfolio in your course or if you need a quick refresher, this workshop will help both new and existing faculty get acquainted with ePortfolio. We will discuss the current practice of using ePortfolio at CUNY SPS, navigate through the tool in a course site, review the responsibilities of instructors when using ePortfolio, and showcase the various support resources available for both students and instructors. There will also be time to answer any questions you might have about ePortfolios at CUNY SPS.

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

This training will introduce VoiceThread, an asynchronous video discussion board. VoiceThread allows faculty and students to create multimedia presentations that creates a classroom community through threaded audio and video discussions. You and your students can add commentary to a presentation by means of microphone, webcam, keyboard, or phone. The ensuing conversation feels like a live classroom, but in an online environment. In this session, SPS faculty will learn how to create a VoiceThread and integrate it into their Blackboard course.

Personalizing Your Panopto Video

As many of us have learned, using Panopto to create a video is a simple process. But many instructors have yet to unlock the powerful features inside Panopto that can transform video to maximize its impact. In this session, participants will look inside the Panopto video editor to discover tools for trimming or cutting video, adding additional content (ex. YouTube videos), or challenging students with in-video quizzes. Finally, we’ll review Panopto’s robust viewer analytics that tells us who has watched the video and for how long. Join us to make your next video go from good to great!

As always, OFDIT is here to help! We are available for one-on-one support and are also happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the best,
Your OFDIT Team