OFDIT Newsletter February 2024

Dear Faculty,

We hope you’ve had a good start to the semester, and we are excited to share several updates and opportunities coming this spring! Thank you in advance for providing your feedback on some of our Brightspace LMS menu and homepage proposals, and we’ll look forward to seeing you at some of the Brightspace demo sessions OFDIT and CUNY will be offering over the next few weeks (links below!). 

This Thursday, you can get new pedagogy perspectives by attending the SPS Student Roundtable session or a CEID workshop delivered by SPS faculty from our Business program. Other professional opportunities we want to share include application deadlines for a new CUNY faculty fellowship and an NEA publishing institute opportunity at the end of the month. Last, please find details and registration information about SPS’s Open Spring workshop in March, the upcoming SUNY Online Summit, the D2L Connection one-day event, and the 2024 CUNY-wide Teaching and Learning Conference. We hope this round-up of offerings helps you spring forward into new skills, connections, and inspiration!


Brightspace Update

We are in the exciting phase of customizing our Brightspace environment for the SPS community. As part of this project, we are sharing some mockups of the home pages and navigation menus (or navbars) for SPS and SPS courses. This first pilot attempt will be followed by iterative development as needed in the future. 

    • We welcome feedback on the Brightspace landing page for SPS students, faculty and staff (College homepage and College navbar)
    • We also welcome feedback on the home page for SPS courses (Course homepage and Course navbar)
    • The home pages and navbars we decide on will become the default for SPS.  Navigational consistency within our LMS is very important to our students. However, faculty are able to make adjustments to meet learning needs.
    • Programs may also decide to customize their own versions going forward to better match the needs of their courses.

Please view mockups of the pilot homepages and navbars on this website. If you would like to share any feedback, please follow the survey links on the webpage and complete the Brightspace Environment Feedback form by Monday, February 19.  We’ll keep the form open over the long weekend to allow for the maximum time for input. Your thoughtful consideration is much appreciated! 

Training also continues this month with the addition of Brightspace demos for SPS faculty and staff (see below).  Other options include facilitated CUNY workshops and the self-paced SPS Brightspace Essentials. Please visit our Brightspace training page for all current offerings 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at brightspace@sps.cuny.edu


SPS Spring 2024 Events

Brightspace Demos for SPS Faculty

Join us over Zoom for a live demonstration of the new Brightspace learning environment.  Led by our very own OFDIT team, this 1-hour session will demo the most common features for those new to the platform. Starting with how to access Brightspace, the session will go on to demonstrate accessibility features, basic navigation, the student experience, and the instructor experience. 


Let’s Talk AI: SPS Student Roundtable 

Join our panel discussion about SPS students’ experiences with generative AI tools in their learning. Learn about some ways students might leverage generative AI, and their motivations and concerns. Understand student perspectives on the support and resources necessary for an optimal learning experience that acknowledges the presence of generative AI. 

Open to students, faculty, and staff


CIED Workshop

The Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity (CIED) is pleased to offer a workshop on “Pedagogy Grounded in Reality: Incorporating Chattel Slavery’s Contribution to Higher Education.” 

Presenters: Dr. Tara Barca and Dr. Linda L. Ridley

About the workshop:
Traditionally, the fundamentals of management teaching have been aligned with the belief that conventional management theories were developed separate and apart from the institution of chattel slavery and the management of race (Aufhauser, 1973; Blackmon, 2008; Cooke, 2003; Roediger & Esch, 2012). This workshop will incorporate the results of a qualitative study that examined the exclusion of chattel slavery in the teaching of the history of American business (Baptist, 2014; Katznelson, 2005). Participants will be encouraged to enhance their research knowledge and reshape their pedagogy to include the true origins of educational concepts and theories, and through workshop activities and guided discussion, gain cutting-edge tools to facilitate inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible pedagogy.

Open to all CUNY SPS students, faculty and staff


March is Open Spring at CUNY SPS!

The OER Initiative is sponsoring the Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series (March 1-28), a hybrid online (sync/async) workshop on best practices at the intersection of Open Education and Inclusive Pedagogy. Synchronous online discussions on the themes of representation, accessibility and inclusion, and student agency will take place Fridays at lunchtime and are open to the whole SPS community!

    • We are seeking proposals for participation in the discussion from students, faculty, and staff by Feb. 21. Please share this invitation with your students!
    • Registration for the workshop is open to faculty and staff through Feb. 26.

For more information about the workshop or the discussions, please see bit.ly/OpAll or come to our info session Friday, February 16, 12-1 pm, in which we will discuss the DEIA Annotations to the SPS Course Review Rubric that we created as a tool for reflecting on how to build inclusivity and belonging into online courses.


Engagement Events for SPS Faculty

Call for Applications: CUNY Strategic Innovation Faculty Fellowship

New Faculty Fellowship Opportunity! From Summer 2024 – Fall 2024, CUNY Strategic Innovation Fellows help to advance the development, delivery, and governance of university-wide solutions in a number of areas that will strengthen the academic enterprise and outcomes for CUNY students.  Strategic Innovation Fellows work in a variety of Offices within the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) at CUNY Central, informing policies and initiative while earning valuable professional development and exposure. 

Depending on the Fellows’ host office, sample responsibilities include: creating a fellowship focused on supporting high school students enrolled in College Now courses; integrating career connections into degree pathways; informing educational technology deployments; developing experiential learning opportunities in healthcare sectors; and participating in other projects as determined by Office leadership. 

Application deadline: February 29, 2024 at 5pm ESTClick here for more information about the Strategic Innovation Fellowship and a link to the application portal


SUNY Online Summit

Attend for a fee in-person at the SUNY Global Center (116 East 55th Street), or for free online with live-streamed sessions about online program administration, instructional design, pedagogy and student support. Links to recordings will also be provided to registrants. Open to all!

February 28 and 29, 2024 – Click here to register


D2L Conference 

D2L, parent company of our new LMS, Brightspace, is having a free one-day, in-person event at the SUNY Global Center on March 1. Held in conjunction with the SUNY Online Summit, this event is an opportunity to learn more about accessibility, inclusive learning, student engagement, ways to establish instructor presence, and other tips and tricks. 

March 1, 2024 from 8:45am- 2:20pm –  Click here to submit a proposal or to register to attend  


National Endowment for the Arts Open Education Publishing Institute:
Collaborative Knowledge and Social Justice

Interested in giving your students transferable skills in writing, research, and publishing while disrupting the canon and centering diverse voices? The Institute for Advanced Topics in Digital Humanities will support faculty in creating Open Educational Resources, designing classroom assignments, or developing publications from June 2024 – May 2025. 

Proposals due March 1, 2024  –  Apply here


CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy – Generative AI Series

This series is a monthly, free, one-hour summit of CUNY faculty and staff devoted to sharing innovative teaching strategies and student-centered learning methods.  Save the dates below, more details to come:

    • Session 1: Teaching and Learning ABOUT and WITH AI: Discipline-Specific Ideas | Friday,  February 16, 2024, 11 AM – 12 PM ET – event registration full, but keep an eye out on the  CUNY Innovation Teaching Academy website for session recording.
    • Session 2: Using AI Collaboratively with Students: UDL, Open Pedagogy, and Student Motivation | Friday, March 8, 2024, 11 AM – 12 PM ET – Register here
    • Session 3: What AI Cannot Do: Equipping Students with Humanistic Skills in the Age of AI | Friday, April 12, 2024, 11 AM – 12 PM ET – Registration will open March 14th on the CUNY Innovation Teaching Academy website 

Save the Date: March 22 is the CUNY-wide 2024
Teaching and Learning Conference 

Want to share or learn more about outstanding teaching practices, exchange innovative ideas, strategies, and research findings? The CUNY Teaching and Learning conference is a great chance to present your research, facilitate connections, and network across the system. Event is free, open to all, and will be held in–person at the CUNY Graduate Center. 

Sign up to attend by March 14, 2024Click here to register


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 January 2024

Dear Faculty,

We are happy to welcome you to the new year and hope it brings you health and much fulfillment. In this newsletter edition, we have an announcement about our SPS Faculty Community Site, updates about the LMS transition, and some guidance for preparing your course sites for the spring semester. We’d also like to invite you to upcoming workshops examining generative AI in the classroom, reflecting on the impact of a critical analysis of chattel slavery in the teaching of business, and the Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series. We are looking forward to 2024 and are excited to support your teaching and professional learning in the months to come.


SPS Faculty Community Site
Now a Communication Hub on OpenLab

For more than 10 years, OFDIT has cultivated and shared online teaching resources via the SPS Faculty Community site on CUNY’s Academic Commons, and we are pleased to announce this valuable resource just got even better! We’ve moved it to the CUNY SPS OpenLab, a powerful open-source digital platform for the SPS community to connect and collaborate through blogging, publishing, and social networking. The new SPS Faculty Community Hub is live! You’ll find all the previous teaching and learning content from the Commons, but enhanced with the power of the OpenLab. SPS now has a space where faculty and students can work together, experiment, and innovate. Please update your bookmarks, and come visit the new SPS Faculty Community Hub!

Launch the Hub


Brightspace Update

As we head into the Spring semester, training for faculty and staff in our new LMS is ramping up!

Brightspace Essentials, a self-paced and bite-sized learning experience for SPS faculty and Staff, has launched! This series of self-paced mini-lessons have been crafted to equip you with the fundamental skills for using the Brightspace Learning Management System (LMS). 

The first few lessons will help you:

  • Get familiar with the fundamental navigation and functions of Brightspace
  • Create course content modules
  • Learn about the great features in the Brightspace Editor
  • Become familiar with communication tools
  • Manage discussion

Dive into these 15-minute lessons as a launching point for your Brightspace explorations.

You can also sign up for a Brightspace Demo offered by the CUNY Central team that introduces basic navigation, course structure, the student experience, and accessibility. Register here for 1-hr webinars on Jan 18 at 1:00pm or Jan 23 at 11:00am.  Prefer to watch a recorded session right away? View the Brightspace Demo recorded on Nov. 29, 2023.

Finally, the CUNY Central team has also announced their Spring Workshop schedule, with sessions on:

  • Getting Started in Brightspace: overview of key features and tools, course management – class list, groups/sections, communicating with students, adding content basics, assignment basics, quiz basics, adaptive release, key terms and resources for instructors.
  • ABCs of Content: overview and table of contents, modules; adding content to courses (from existing course content, building it from scratch), creating activities for learners, instructor settings for assignments, discussions and quizzes.
  • Engaging Learners: brief UDL overview and overview of accessibility in Brightspace, tools and features for communication (announcements, activity feed, discussions and virtual classroom), tools and features for engagement (calendar, progress)
  • Assessing Learning: assignments, quizzes, evaluating learners via quick eval and submissions, rubrics, gradebook basics.

February and March sessions are open for registration, with further workshops continuing through June.


Preparing Course Sites for Spring

Our Course Site Checklist for Faculty can be helpful when prepping your online course for the new semester. 

You will find useful SPS quick guides from the OFDIT team and links to Blackboard Help pages, as well as a checklist of all the elements that need to be updated in a live course site for an upcoming semester, including:

  • Welcome announcement
  • Instructor card
  • Syllabus/Course Schedule
  • Due Dates 

Ensuring that all dates for your course are accurate for the new semester is especially important; this includes dates mentioned in text items as well as assignment and folder availability. 

Though you will need to manually update any dates mentioned in any text, Blackboard availability and due dates can be reviewed and updated via Blackboard’s Date Management tool, either individually, as a group of items, or all of the dates at once. This is a great option if you are using content from a previous semester and would like to adjust your dates for the new semester. To learn more about how to use this tool, please see our quick guide, or contact our team for assistance.


Teaching with Intelligence:
Generative AI in the Classroom

An early alert about a series of events exploring generative AI in higher education in February:

Decoding Generative AI: Navigating the Fundamentals

What is AI, and how is it impacting the classroom? What are some current approaches and latest updates in this rapidly-growing area?

  • Friday, February 2, 12 pm
  • Thursday, February 8, 6 pm
  • Open to faculty, staff, and students

Using ChatGPT and other AI tools as a brainstorming tool to enhance course learning outcomes and student success with experiential learning opportunities.

A CUNY Career Success Fellows event, presented by Drs. Joseph Foy (Business) and Isabelle Elisha (Psychology) 

  • Monday, February 5, 12 pm
  • Open to faculty and staff

Let’s Talk AI: Student Roundtable. 

What do CUNY SPS students think about generative AI and their learning? What are advantages and issues regarding the use of these tools? What more would be helpful?

  • Thursday, February 15, 6 pm
  • Open to students, faculty, staff

Hold the date and keep an eye out for an announcement and registration links in the next few weeks!


CIED Workshop

The Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity (CIED) is pleased to offer a workshop on “Pedagogy Grounded in Reality: Incorporating Chattel Slavery’s Contribution to Higher Education” on Thursday, February 15 from 12:00 – 1:30 PM. 

Presenters: Dr. Tara Barca and Dr. Linda L. Ridley

About the workshop:
Traditionally, the fundamentals of management teaching have been aligned with the belief that conventional management theories were developed separate and apart from the institution of chattel slavery and the management of race (Aufhauser, 1973; Blackmon, 2008; Cooke, 2003; Roediger & Esch, 2012).

This workshop will incorporate the results of a qualitative study that examined the exclusion of chattel slavery in the teaching of the history of American business (Baptist, 2014; Katznelson, 2005). 

Participants will be encouraged to enhance their research knowledge and reshape their pedagogy to include the true origins of educational concepts and theories, and through workshop activities and guided discussion, gain cutting-edge tools to facilitate inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible pedagogy.

This event is open to all CUNY SPS students, faculty and staff. Please register here.


Open Spring

For Open Spring at CUNY SPS 2024, the SPS OER Initiative is pleased to once again offer the Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series (March 1-28). The hybrid online (sync/async) workshop covers the intersection of Open Education and Inclusive Pedagogy. Participants review a course using a course review rubric annotated with open and inclusive educational practices and create a proposal for incorporating new inclusive pedagogy approaches. Registration is open through February 26, 2024.

During the workshop, synchronous online discussions featuring the themes of representation, accessibility and inclusion, and student agency will take place Fridays at lunchtime and are open to the whole SPS community! The call for proposals for the community discussions is open through February 21, 2024. For more information, the workshop registration form, and the call for participation in the community discussions, see Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series.


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 December 2023

Dear Faculty,

We hope the end of the semester is wrapping up smoothly! We wanted to present you with registration links for our upcoming Open and Active Video workshop (NTA hours available!) and Brightspace trainings happening in January, news about LMS and Screencast-O-Matic transitions, and some options for calculating final grades in your courses. It’s a gift to work with such committed faculty, and we hope the upcoming break is a good one for you all! 


Open & Active Video Workshop

Interested in boosting student engagement? Consider interactive videos!

The Open & Active Video Workshop (January 8-22, 2024) is a 2-week asynchronous online workshop on how to source and create openly-licensed content for an educational video, how to film and edit the video, how to add interactive components by incorporating questions right into the Panopto player or by embedding the video in a VoiceThread, and how to openly license and share the video. Faculty who complete the workshop are eligible for compensation of 7 NTA hours and are invited to produce a second video for an additional 4 NTA hours. Registration is open through January 2, 2024!


LMS Transition News

January is a time to explore Brightspace!

You may want to take advantage of the break between semesters to explore the following opportunities: 

Brightspace Demos for Faculty

Basic navigation, course navigation, the student experience, a look at a sample course and accessibility in Brightspace. Staff are welcome to attend.

You can register here to attend on January 10th, 18th, or 23rd

Explore Migrated Courses 

Access Brightspace using your CUNYlogin (Firstname.Lastname##@login.cuny.edu) and explore how your Summer 2023 and other past courses look in Brightspace.

Create a Practice Course 

Create a practice site using the widget found on the dashboard after logging in. There are two limitations: practice sites may not include SPS-specific tools like VoiceThread, Digication, and Panopto, and faculty cannot currently enroll students despite the default text in the widget. 

Upcoming Brightspace Essentials Workshop

Brightspace Essentials, a self-paced, asynchronous workshop organized in bite-sized chunks of micro-learning units, will be available to SPS faculty and staff by January. 

Keep an eye on the new training page of the SPS LMS Transition site for regularly updated resources and event details.

Migration of Dev Sites

The migration of SPS dev sites (also known as master sites or parent sites) will take part in two phases:

  • 3/4/7/10-week dev sites: migration begins January 15 and finishes by February 15
  • 15-week dev sites: migration begins March 15 and finishes by April 15 

CUNY Faculty will continue to have access to Blackboard and Blackboard content through the end of 2025.

Have other questions about the LMS transition? Please visit our Brightspace Transition site or reach out to us at brightspace@sps.cuny.edu.


Screencast-O-Matic is Now ScreenPal!

Screencast-O-Matic (SCOM), is available to SPS Faculty. The tool is a powerful video recorder with a robust editor that can be used to create video lectures, tutorials, demos, and more! 

ScreenPal can record and capture your entire screen or specific areas of your screen, as well as add audio and/or webcam video narration to the video. The software can be used with various operating systems, including Windows, Mac, or Chromebook.

Please contact FacultySupport@sps.cuny.edu for more information and access to ScreenPal.


Calculating Final Grades Using Total Points/Weighted Total

As you prepare to wrap up the Fall semester, a reminder that 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 the 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!


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 November 2023

Dear Faculty,

Fall ahead with OFDIT as we give updates about our OER initiative and our LMS transition and share registration links for an info session on DEI in the SPS Course Review Rubric, the November CUNY IT Conference, and two Disability and Accessibility series events. We want to announce an RFP for the CITA Teaching and Learning Conference and invite your participation in a brief survey about our faculty onboarding programs. Finally, you’ll find both OFDIT’s new captioning request form and a tip about creating accessible hyperlinks in your course materials. We wish you a great month, and we are always thankful for SPS faculty’s demonstrated commitment to student learning needs and preferences!


OER Initiative Update

The SPS OER Initiative is excited to share that Zero-Textbook-Cost and OER courses have now saved SPS students over $3 million! SPS currently offers three undergraduate Z-degrees, allowing students to graduate without any textbook costs at all, and we have a fourth Z-degree in the works.

Check out our new Z-Degree badge designed by OFDIT’s Sharon Jorrin! This badge will appear on the program pages for our Z-degree programs. 

 

The research on OER and open education, such as this recent talk at OpenEd23, consistently demonstrates that ZTC is associated with higher student retention, higher student persistence, and higher overall grades, so we appreciate you, SPS faculty, for your work in support of our OER Initiative. OFDIT is here to help you reduce textbook costs and develop open pedagogical practices–just reach out at  facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.


Upcoming OER Initiative Workshops

Mark your calendars! For Open Spring at CUNY SPS 2024, we’ll once again be presenting the Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series (March 1-28). This hybrid workshop covers the intersection of Open Education and Inclusive Pedagogy. Live online discussions featuring the themes of representation, accessibility and inclusion, and student agency will take place Fridays at lunchtime and are open to the whole SPS community. Over the course of this 5-week workshop, faculty participants review their own courses with the help of a course review rubric annotated with suggested DEIA educational practices, culminating with a proposal for increasing inclusivity and student belonging in their course design and instruction. The discussion series portion will be open to our whole community of SPS faculty, staff and students. 

Interested in boosting student engagement? Consider interactive videos!

In January, we’ll be running the Open & Active Video Workshop (January 8-22, 2024). This 2-week workshop covers how to source and create openly-licensed content for an educational video, how to film and edit the video, how to add interactive components to the video by incorporating questions right into the Panopto player or by incorporating the video into an interactive VoiceThread, and how to openly license and share the video. Faculty who complete the workshop are eligible for compensation of 7 NTA hours and are invited to produce a second video for an additional 4 NTA hours. Registration is open now!


LMS Transition News

The core staff managing the transition at SPS have been working with D2L and CUNY CIS to set up our SPS Brightspace organization within the CUNY-wide platform. We have been exploring how to manage courses and users, and have been testing the third-party applications we use at SPS (Panopto, VoiceThread, Digication, etc.).  

The CUNY LMS Transition team is making progress on providing access for faculty and staff to explore the Brightspace platform. Once you have access, you will be able to work in practice course sites so that you can get some hands-on experience with Brightspace. The course migration test from Blackboard to Brightspace is also in process. The university plan is to migrate past course content, and SPS has also requested migration of our course development sites. 

In the meantime, the OFDIT team is preparing training resources tailored to SPS, while the CUNY team still has a few more sessions of the CUNY Brightspace Demo and Q&A workshops scheduled:

Brightspace Demo for Faculty: Register Here 

  • Nov. 29 at 11:00am

Brightspace Q&A: Register Here

  • Nov. 16 at 11:00am
  • Nov. 30 at 1:00pm

Finally, we share with you the following message from the CUNY University Faculty Senate. 

Dear Colleagues,

As part of its responsibilities for this academic year, the University Faculty Senate’s Library and Information Technology Committee (UFS-LIT) is charged with tracking the transition to the new Learning Management System (LMS), Brightspace. In preparation for our December 5th UFS Plenary meeting, where we will be meeting with the LMS transition team at CUNY, we are trying to gather feedback from the faculty regarding the transition to Brightspace. Please complete this short form to share any questions or concerns you have about the LMS transition by Friday, November 17th.

Sincerely,
UFS-LIT Committee

Have more questions about the LMS transition? Please visit our Brightspace Transition site or reach out to us at brightspace@sps.cuny.edu.


Your Input Requested!
OFDIT’s Faculty Onboarding Programs Survey

As you know, CUNY will be transitioning to the Brightspace Learning Management System (LMS) over the next two years, and SPS will be delivering courses on Brightspace starting Summer 2024. This presents OFDIT with an opportunity to reflect on the effectiveness of our faculty onboarding programs, including the Blackboard Basics self-paced course, the Preparation for Teaching Online Workshop, and our Faculty Peer Mentoring Program. We will use your input as we review these programs and redesign them for your future colleagues. 

When you have a few minutes, please fill out this 5-10 minute survey. Your insights are invaluable and will directly impact how we revise these programs over the coming months. The survey will close November 30, 2023.


Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
in the SPS Course Review Rubric

Friday, December 8, 12-1 pm Register here

Join Professor Kenya Harris (Nursing), OFDIT’s Sarah Kresh, and faculty participants in the March 2023 Open for All Workshop for an info session describing the DEI and Open Pedagogy annotations to the SPS Course Review Rubric that were created for the workshop. The SPS Course Review Rubric determines the standards and criteria by which SPS courses are created, revised, and launched, thus faculty input on how it can be 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 ongoing consultative process to improve the student experience and student learning outcomes at SPS.


Upcoming CUNY Conferences and CFP

CUNY IT Conference

The 22nd Annual CUNY IT Conference, Us and It. CUNY in the Age of Generative AI,” will be held from November 30-Dec 1 at the John Jay campus. Hear about generative AI from speaker David Birss, learn effective ChatGPT prompt management from SPS faculty Joe Foy, and explore sessions about the impact of AI on bias, assessment, and student engagement!

CUNY-wide Teaching and Learning Conference

CITA, the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy, has put out a request for proposals for the upcoming CUNY-wide Teaching and Learning Conference, which will be held March 22, 2024 at the CUNY Graduate Center. Read more about the conference goals from the link above, and submit your proposals to CITA for talks, panel sessions, workshops, or poster presentations on topics like educational technology, pedagogical approaches to AI, student engagement, or any other topics related to teaching and learning by December 11, 2023 for consideration. All CUNY faculty and students can benefit when you share your expertise!


Engagement Events for SPS Faculty
Growth Mindset​: Using Stewardship as a Model to Develop a Sustainable Learning Environment

This workshop is an immersive experience on how growth mindsets can be used to improve student performance. The workshop will focus on the social nature of a classroom and how to integrate strategies to strengthen the student’s skills when meeting new students, working inside a team to develop critical thinking skills. Stewardship will be used as a model to develop a sustainable learning environment.

  • Presented by Professor Sue Brandt, Entertainment Technology @ City Tech
  • Nov 17, 2023 @ 12:00 pm
  • Virtual workshop — Register Here

Special Series for CUNY Faculty:
Disability & Accessibility

In Spring 2023, CUNY entered into a Voluntary Compliance Agreement (VCA) with the U.S. Department of Justice. The CUNY Office of Student Inclusion Initiatives and Disability Programs is sponsoring virtual events this fall, open to all faculty and staff. The final session on teaching best practices may be of particular interest. 

Offered on Fridays from 2-3 PM on Zoom.


Get Video Captioned – We Welcome Your Requests!

This may not be a big surprise to the SPS faculty community, but captioning a video benefits everyone. Studies have documented improvements in “comprehension of, attention to, and memory for the video” when captions are present (NIH Policy Insight, 2015). At SPS we use a professional captioning service, 3Play Media, to caption video used in our courses. No matter where your video is hosted or if it is owned by a third party, we welcome your video requests for captioning. Check out our Caption Request page to get started!


Faculty corner imageDescriptive Hyperlinks Makes Documents More Accessible

By Curtis Itzen, SPS Online Business Program

Try using a descriptive hyperlink, rather than copy-pasting a URL, to help your readers better navigate your document. Ideally, descriptive links provide clear information about where the link is pointing. The MS Office Suite and most applications use a common workflow to add descriptive links. For example, in a Word document to add descriptive text for links, you’ll use the “Insert Hyperlink” dialog box. You can open this dialog box in one of two ways:

  • Use a keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-k on a PC or Cmd-k on a Mac, or
  • Use the Toolbar Ribbon: Click the Insert menu tab, and then click on “Link”  

In either case, the insert hyperlink dialogue box opens allowing you to add descriptive text, instead of a long string of characters. For details on adding descriptive text as hyperlinks you can review my guide: Adding Descriptive Hyperlinks. Try it in Outlook, Google Docs, Teams, or PowerPoint. It makes adding accessible links a breeze!


OFDIT Fall 2023 Trainings

November trainings from OFDIT include opportunities to learn more about Panopto and how to create and adapt OER materials for your courses!

You can consult our Faculty Commons Site for a full description of our trainings.

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.

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!


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 October 2023

Dear Faculty,

We hope the fall semester is going well for you and your students! Thanks to those who have volunteered to serve on school LMS transition committees to support all aspects of the move to Brightspace for our campus. In this edition of the newsletter, you’ll find registration information about a funded opportunity to attend a UDL workshop, information about CUNY’s fall professional learning opportunities for faculty and our upcoming OFDIT technical and pedagogical training sessions, along with a tip and OLC membership benefits to support your teaching practice.


Open UDL Workshop starts
Monday, Oct. 23

Registration is extended through Wednesday, October 18, for this 15-day asynchronous workshop that covers best accessibility practices and the intersection of Open Pedagogy and Universal Design for Learning.

Eligible faculty participants will be compensated with 7 NTA hours upon successful completion of the workshop. For more details, please see our Advanced Workshops page. All faculty are welcome!


OLC Membership Benefits for all
SPS Faculty

CUNY SPS faculty can take advantage of our school’s membership in the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), one of the leading organizations for online educators.

OLC’s Quick Start for New Members:

  1. Create your own OLC User Account/Profile – ensures member benefits are available to you
  2. Sign up to receive OLC Today (weekly newsletter) – this is our best means of communicating what’s new in the world of online learning and education.
  3. Explore our Home Page and check out free resources available to you (download from our Tools Faculty Playbook or Communities of Practice in Higher Education playbook, sign up to watch OLC Webinars (live or recordings), explore the OLC Research Center.
  4. Rejuvenate: Take time to refuel – commit to a higher level of learning and involvement. Explore OLC Online Teaching Certificate Programs to advance your career.

For Active OLC Members:
OLC is here to support you with resources to help with your online teaching and learning goals and objectives.


LMS Transition News

Progress is underway in our transition to Brightspace: core staff training began and the implementation committees have started to organize their work. In September, OFDIT staff attended train-the-trainer and LMS admin workshops. More advanced training continues, along with development of resources for faculty and student training. We are looking forward to getting access to our own SPS “node” within the CUNY system, so that we can explore course and user management.

We’re also pleased to share that the four implementation committees – Communications, Technical, Training & Support, and Pedagogy & Practice– have kicked off and started to organize their work. It’s not too late to get involved and join a committee.

Please visit the Brightspace Transition site or reach out to us at brightspace@sps.cuny.edu for more information.


Engagement Opportunities for
SPS Faculty

CUNY’s Innovative Teaching Academy will be offering the Learning Disruption and Recovery series to provide an opportunity for all CUNY community members to deepen our understanding of learning disruption, and explore ways to proactively support students in and out of the classroom.

Topics include:

  • How learning disruption is manifested
  • Academic support: Best practices from campuses
  • Mental health and other non-academic support for students

Registration is available through the link above.


Special Series for CUNY Faculty: Disability & Accessibility

In Spring 2023, CUNY entered into a Voluntary Compliance Agreement (VCA) with the U.S. Department of Justice. As part of its commitment to the VCA, the CUNY Office of Student Inclusion Initiatives and Disability Programs is sponsoring a 3-part series of virtual events this fall, open to all faculty and staff. December’s workshop on best practices might be of particular interest for teaching faculty!

Offered on Fridays from 2-3 PM on Zoom.


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.

The CUNY Teaching Matters Generative AI Series workshops are at capacity, but recordings and slides for the first and subsequent events can be found on the Teaching Matters events page.

  • Friday, September 29: What is AI and What Can it Do? (recording available)
  • Friday, October 27 (11-12pm): AI in the Classroom
  • Friday November 17 (11-12pm): Bias, Accuracy and Ethical Issues of AI

This year’s CUNY IT Conference theme is “Us and It. CUNY in the Age of Generative AI.” Registration is open for this event, which takes place November 30 – December 1, 2023.


Hmpc1br?

 

Or “How Many Passwords Can One Brain Remember?”

This month’s tip comes from the CUNY Graduate Center Digital Fellows. Discover useful ways to create secure and memorable passwords here.

 


OFDIT Fall 2023 Trainings

If you haven’t gotten the opportunity already to attend any of OFDIT’s trainings so far this semester, check out our upcoming series of offerings below.

You can consult our Faculty Commons Site for a full description of our trainings.

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

Introducing CUNY Pressbooks

Anthology Ally: An Introduction

ePortfolio for SPS Faculty: An Introduction

A Cut Above: Making Your Videos More Professional

Panopto for SPS Faculty

Personalizing Your Panopto Video

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty


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 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