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.
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.
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).
- Wednesday, June 7th, 5:30 – 6:30pm Register here
- Thursday, June 8th, 12:00 – 1:00pm Register here
- Friday, June 9th, 9:00 – 10:00am Register here
- Tuesday, June 20th, 5:30 – 6:30pm Register here
- Wednesday, June 21st, 12:00 – 1:00pm Register here
- Thursday, June 22nd, 9:00 – 10:00am Register here
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
In 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
