Author: Fallon Saratovsky

August 19, 2025

OFDIT Newsletter August 2025

Dear Faculty,

In this edition of our newsletter, you’ll find lots of links to resources to guide your preparation for course opening on August 26th! We also share a few announcements about course naming, Panopto, and new enhancements to our Teaching Guides for CUNY SPS faculty. We look forward to seeing you at an OpenLab Support Hour or Brightspace Office Hour session to assist you with your course delivery, and we invite you to check out a few tips about using Brightspace features like the Drop Lowest setting or the Activity Feed in the coming term. Wishing you a wonderful start to Fall semester!

Course Prep For Fall

Finalizing course sites for Fall semester? You can refer to our Course Site Prep Checklist for CUNY SPS Faculty for steps and links to assist as you prep.

In the Checklist, you’ll find links to guides for how to:

Post your welcome announcement
Fill out your Instructor Profile Widget
Upload your Fall syllabus/course schedule
Check that due dates reflect upcoming semester’s calendar

In addition, on the SPS Faculty Community site, you will find an array of SPS quick guides from our OFDIT team, and you can always refer back to Brightspace Essentials units on adding content, rubrics, discussions, quizzes, grading, and video for help with any of these features!

Quick Tip: Initiate Panopto in New Course Sites

With the Fall semester around the corner, many of you are setting up a new or newly copied Brightspace course. When adding a video, have you found that the Panopto video embed tool appears empty, as if there are no videos to add? Some have reported this, but this just means Panopto hasn’t been initiated for that course yet.

To initiate, look for a module labeled “Panopto” or “Panopto Video” in the course table of contents. Click the link inside this module to open the Panopto Portal. Once the portal loads, your account will be authenticated for the course and you can go back to the Panopto Embed tool and add your video. Here are steps on Adding a Panopto Video to Brightspace, and if you don’t see a Panopto module, quickly add one using this guide, Creating a Panopto Portal in Brightspace.

Quick Note: Impacts of Editing a Course Name

Brightspace’s long course names got you down? Consider customizing the course name that appears in the course banner. Hover to the right of your course banner, click the three dots that appear in the banner’s top-right corner, select “Customize Banner Text,” and choose “Custom.” Then, enter your preferred title. We do recommend keeping the semester and year in any title edit—it helps everyone stay organized and ensures consistency across courses. Don’t forget to hit Save!

Important: We ask that you customize any name via the banner only, rather than making any change to the course name in the Course Admin panel. Changing the official course name can interfere with important administrative processes behind the scenes. Thanks for keeping things running smoothly and always leaving course names listed at their defaults in the Course Admin panel!

New Teaching Guide Enhancements

We’re excited to share some updates to our Teaching Guides website, home to a growing bank of tutorials designed to help CUNY SPS faculty make the most of Brightspace. Thanks to your feedback, we’re introducing new features to make finding the information you need both faster and relevant to your needs.

Sometimes you just need a quick reminder of the essential steps — without having to scroll through an entire tutorial. That’s why we’re adding a Quick Path to select guides, providing a concise list of major steps right at the top of the page. As we update the guides, you’ll see a breadcrumb trail of steps to help you navigate Brightspace expeditiously. Take a look at the Creating Groups in Brightspace guide to see it in action.

We’re also adding video to our most-viewed guides, giving you the option to either read the instructions or watch them. Two guides now feature video — Integrating Turnitin V2 in Brightspace Assignments and Viewing Deleted and Edited Discussion Posts — with more planned in the coming months.

Explore the updated guides and see how these enhancements can support your teaching and save you time!

Faculty Support and OFDIT
Brightspace Office Hours

OFDIT will continue providing some weekend faculty support via email to facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu and will do our best to assist with time-sensitive, urgent issues. For the quickest response to general questions and troubleshooting, we recommend reaching out Monday through Friday when our full support team is available. In addition, you can reach out to Brightspace help via D2L’s CUNY-dedicated support line at (888) 895-2511, or pop a question at any time into the virtual assistant chatbot by clicking the chat icon found on the lower right of any Brightspace course page.

Also, feel free to come by OFDIT’s Brightspace office hours as often as you like with your questions! Check our Brightspace Office Hours page for the weekly schedule and the link to join. We’ve added some extra sessions to support faculty for the weeks before and right after the semester’s start to assist you in getting the semester off to a great start.

Explore the OpenLab

Drop In, Connect, Create: OpenLab Support Hours Return for Fall 2025

The CUNY SPS OpenLab team is excited to announce the return of our Support Hours for the Fall 2025 semester! Join us to learn about CUNY SPS’s digital “third space,” where you can build your own projects and connect with other members of the CUNY SPS community.

These informal, come-as-you-are sessions are designed to provide flexible, real-time support for all members of the CUNY SPS community. No appointment necessary—just bring your questions, ideas, or curiosity. Whether you’re troubleshooting a technical issue, seeking design feedback, or simply want to brainstorm with the OpenLab team, we’re here to help.

🗓️ Fall 2025 Schedule:
Unstructured Support Hours will be held regularly via Zoom. Check the SPS OpenLab Open Road for the most up-to-date schedule and links.

💡 What You Can Do During Support Hours:

Get help customizing your portfolio or project site
Learn how to use OpenLab tools more effectively
Explore digital pedagogy strategies
Connect with other OpenLab users and share ideas

Join us this fall and make the most of what OpenLab has to offer! Whether you’re just getting started or looking to take your site to the next level, our team is here to support you. Drop in, ask questions, and get inspired.

For more information, visit the SPS OpenLab Fall 2025 events post or email us at openlab@sps.cuny.edu

Did You Know?

Do you have a Brightspace category of items (Discussion Board topics, quizzes, etc) that are all of equal weight, where you would like to drop the lowest score from students’ final calculated grades? Activate the Drop Lowest gradebook setting at the end of the term to do so!

Our Teaching Guide, Dropping the Lowest Grade from a Grade Category in Brightspace provides the steps to apply the setting, and again, the ideal timing to apply the Drop Lowest setting in a category is at semester’s end, as applying this setting at the beginning of the semester can lead to confusion since the “lowest” grade is relative and changes as more category items are graded!

Faculty Corner:
Foster Engagement with the Activity Feed

Submitted by Curtis Izen, CUNY SPS, Online Business Program

The Activity Feed tool in Brightspace offers a straightforward yet effective way to enhance communication and foster student engagement. The Activity Feed is a centralized, scrollable stream where students can view real-time updates, similar to a course-specific newsfeed. Unlike traditional announcements, the Activity Feed encourages a more conversational and interactive learning environment. Here are some of the benefits I encountered using the tool last term:

Real-Time Communication: The Activity Feed allows you to quickly share reminders, links, documents, or media—ideal for timely updates like deadlines, course evaluations, and final exam details—without navigating multiple menus.
Student Engagement: Enabling comments on posts gives students an easy way to ask questions or share insights, fostering engagement and lowering participation barriers, especially in asynchronous settings.
Mobile-Friendly and Accessible: Students using the Brightspace Pulse app receive instant notifications and can view their updates from anywhere.
Important Details Front and Center: Prominently placed on the course homepage, the Activity Feed keeps updates visible and helps students focus on timely, important information without getting lost in emails or module clutter.
Humanizes the Course: A quick note of encouragement or a helpful study tip can go a long way in making students feel supported and connected, especially in online courses

To learn more, check out the Teaching Guide: Using the Activity Feed in Brightspace

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

June 10, 2025

OFDIT Newsletter June 2025

Dear Faculty,

As we head into our second summer with course delivery in Brightspace, we are proud of how well faculty have gotten on board with the new LMS, and inspired by all the navigating faculty have done to sail through the year so successfully with students and teaching! In this edition of our newsletter, you’ll find guidance to help with your Fall course prep, details about OFDIT’s summer Office Hours and Faculty Support services, and links out to the many great tips shared in our Brightspace Day Unsession. We hope you’ll get moments this summer to drop anchor and relax, and know that your OFDIT crew is here to assist throughout!

Fall Course Site Preparation Support

Prepping Dev sites or your live course section sites for Fall? Following the steps in our guides below will ensure you sail through QA and into a great semester!

Need to know the best way to add your updated syllabus or other files into your course site? In most cases, you’ll want to upload rather than link – find out how and why in:

Adding Files to BrS Course for Accessibility

Making any changes to graded items in your course?

Be sure to check the content areas against the corresponding gradebook items, verify the categories listed in your syllabus match the gradebook’s categories, and review the settings overall to ensure clarity and accuracy for students by following:

Setting Up Gradebook for New Course Sites

Are you a course lead for your program or want to make sure your own live site is ready for Course Prep and QA? See our checklist below and linked guides for each reviewed area:

Course Site Prep Checklist for SPS Faculty

Get Support Making Instructional Videos

Summer is the perfect time to refresh your course content and create engaging videos for your students! Whether you’re working on a course overview, a welcome message, or a faculty introduction, the OFDIT Media Team is here to help you shine.

Here’s how we can support your summer video projects:

On-Campus Studio Sessions – Equipped with high-quality recording gear, our team will handle the filming, editing, captioning, and publishing—so you can focus on your message.
Remote Production Support – Staying remote this summer? No problem! We’ll guide you through the process of creating polished videos from home. From choosing the right software to editing and captioning, we’ve got you covered.

To get started, email matthew.lewis@cuny.edu or schedule a Zoom consultation to kick off your project.

Faculty Support over the Summer

OFDIT’s open Brightspace office hours continue Tuesday evenings (6-7pm ET) and Wednesday afternoons (1-2pm ET) over the summer through August 15, when we’ll resume our fall semester schedule. We look forward to seeing you in one of the drop-in zoom sessions with your questions!

OFDIT will continue providing limited weekend faculty support throughout the summer. While our Friday through Sunday coverage will be reduced during the summer months, we’ll still be monitoring facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu for urgent issues that need immediate attention. For the quickest response to general questions and routine troubleshooting, we recommend reaching out Monday through Thursday when our full support team is available.

Did You Know?

At this year’s Brightspace Day in May, faculty shared their tips on using Brightspace efficiently in our first ever Unsession and it was a lot of fun! Tips included how to use Intelligent Agents to automatically email students who haven’t logged in for a few days, how to use mentions with the @ symbol in discussions, how to pin courses on the homepage, using quicklinks in courses, a shortcut for URLs, a guide to some of the symbols in the assignments list, and how to see what assignments a particular rubric is attached to. To check out any of these tips, see our Unsession document and the recording (26 min).

Faculty Corner: Call for Submissions

Did you discover a setting, process, or tool that made teaching in Brightspace go more smoothly, or learn something new about our new LMS by trial and error this past year? Submit a teaching tip (in 200 words or less) using our Faculty Corner Submission Form and we’ll share it out with the SPS community in our newsletter! Your hard-won knowledge and experience is valuable to everyone!

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

May 13, 2025

OFDIT Newsletter May 2025

Dear Faculty,

It’s getting close to the end of the semester and we hope it has been smooth for you. After a full year of teaching in Brightspace, we’re wiser, more efficient, but still discovering new things! With this in mind, join us for Brightspace Day to learn and share alongside your colleagues on May 15 (see below for details). As we close out the semester, the OFDIT team shares a call from the Improving the Teaching and Learning Experience Strategic Planning Committee to provide input on a CUNY SPS Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). With the end of the term approaching, read on for some general grading advice and a new grading option coming soon. For our ePortfolio users, you’ll find a round-up of useful end-of-term resources for you and your students. And we wrap up this issue with a tip on how to connect with colleagues through OpenLab and an invitation for your submissions for our Faculty Corner. Looking forward to seeing you on campus or virtually on Brightspace Day!

Brightspace Day

Brightspace Day is on Thursday, May 15! We invite you to attend any part of the program and want to highlight a few sessions for you:

(In-person) Prepare your summer or fall course site in person in the morning, starting at 9:45 ET. Come and join us for breakfast and a hands-on working session in the computer lab in room 216. The OFDIT team will answer your specific questions and offer sessions providing general tips on Communications, Dates, and Grades.

(Hybrid) Join the hybrid UDL Collaborative session (see below for more info!) 12-1 EST

(Virtual) Come to the virtual afternoon session starting at 2PM EST. Join us virtually to work on your dev sites and get general tips about communications, dates, and grades.

(Virtual) Finish the day by sharing and learning at a virtual “Unsession” at 3:30 pm EST:
Join to share and hear your colleagues’ favorite Brightspace tips, tricks, or hacks! Whether it’s an efficiency hack you’ve discovered or a creative way of using Brightspace in your teaching, we encourage you to sign up on our registration form and bring your insights! We look forward to seeing you and collaborating together to enhance the teaching and learning experience!

Hybrid BYOL Session
UDL Collaborative Meeting
12-1pm ET

Room 104 (119 W 31st St, 1st floor) or via Zoom [Register Here]

We’re excited to invite you for the final UDL Collaborative meeting of this academic year (and our first in hybrid format)! Come celebrate our collective achievements and share insights as we wrap up the semester. We’ll explore the Ally tool and discuss how LMS features can enhance accessibility and support UDL principles in our courses. We hope to see many of you in person, if you can – bring your brown bag lunch!

Share Your Thoughts on a Center for Teaching and Learning at CUNY SPS!

The Strategic Planning Committee on Improving the Teaching and Learning Experience (ITLE) invites your input on a Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at SPS. A center of this nature would support faculty collaboration, pedagogical initiatives, and inclusive online learning practices. How could this be done? What is the priority for SPS? Tell the committee what you’d like to see in a CTL by taking a brief survey.

Take Survey

Your feedback is invaluable and will shape the future of teaching, learning, and scholarship at the college. Please return the survey by June 1, 2025 and feel free to email any questions or comments to ITLE@sps.cuny.edu.

Getting Ready to
Calculate Final Grades

As the term is winding down, it’s important to make sure things in your Brightspace Gradebook are in order for correct calculation of student final grades. You can refer to our Teaching Guides for steps to do the following:

Check to make sure all gradebook items are linked to the related activities in your course, and if you have moved items or edited any item names during the semester, it’s good to verify that names of related Gradebook item and Content items.
Review settings for any extra credit you may have offered during the semester.
Apply the “Drop Lowest” setting once due dates for all items in the related category have passed.

Guides for Managing
Special Grading Cases in Brightspace

We also have Teaching Guides for special grading situations you might encounter:

As the semester wraps up, in certain instances, you may want to set a gradebook exemption for an item for a student.
Grading a Group Project and students have not all earned the same points? Here’s how to adjust grades for individual students within a group assignment in Brightspace.
Have a student who turned in something late or did a revision and has earned a higher grade? One way to update the point total is to override the reported points in Gradebook’s Spreadsheet View.

Coming Soon:
Importing Grades from
Brightspace to CUNYfirst

A new optional feature will be available in CUNYfirst to import grades from the Final Calculated Grade column in the corresponding Brightspace course site. This feature is being offered for the first time this semester, and while you are free to test it out, you should carefully review the imported grades and adjust them if necessary, before you submit the grades to the Registrar. Watch for an email from the Registrar around May 20 with more details and instructions!

ePortfolio (Digication) Resources for
Students and Faculty

As we approach the end of the term, the ePortfolio Team is offering resources to help users complete all pending tasks in ePortfolio (Digication).

Students can join an ePortfolio Support Lab in the next two weeks to work with a member of the ePortfolio team to upload signature assignments or finish pending tasks in ePortfolio. If students would like to meet with the team one-on-one, they can schedule an ePortfolio Support Session, a 30-minute ZOOM call, with one of our team members, to discuss any questions they have about ePortfolio.

Faculty can email Karen Avila, ePortfolio Specialist, at karen.avila@cuny.edu, or schedule an ePortfolio Support Session to address any questions they have about signature assignments.

Did You Know?

An important reminder as you determine final grades is that, just like Blackboard, Brightspace letter grade schemas do not round up. For example, given that an A is 93 or above, Brightspace will translate a numerical grade of 92.99 as an A-. If you want to credit a student on the threshold of a letter grade with the higher grade, you can make that adjustment on your Grade Roster in CUNYfirst. You can leave the student individual feedback on their final grade by selecting Enter Grades from the dropdown menu for the Final Calculated Grade.

Explore the OpenLab!

Whether you’re teaching, supporting students, or working on a new initiative, the CUNY SPS OpenLab is your space to connect, collaborate, and create. Faculty and staff can sign in easily using CUNY Login (SSO) to join existing groups—from campus resources to student organizations—or start something new with your own project or portfolio site.

This is the perfect time to dive in, explore what others are building, and share your own work. The OpenLab is built by CUNY, for CUNY—come be part of the community!

How to Sign Up for an OpenLab Account
How to Join a Group

Groups you can join today:

- CUNY SPS Open Road
- Faculty Community Hub

Ready to get started? Log in to the OpenLab and start exploring today!

Faculty Corner: Call for Submissions

Each newsletter we publish a segment called Faculty Corner. It’s an opportunity for faculty to learn from faculty. With a year of Brightspace under our belt and the end of the term around the corner, we wanted to highlight two opportunities for you to share and learn from each other.

First, you can register for Brightspace Day’s “Unsession.” Share a teaching tip in 3-minutes or less and then learn some tips from your colleagues! The Unsession will be held in the afternoon on Brightspace Day (May 15 @ 3:30pm). Register for the event and drop your name in the hat to share a tip!

Second, we invite you to submit to the Faculty Corner itself. If you have a teaching tip (in 200 words or less) that you think will help others, we would love to hear from you! Add your tip to our Faculty Corner Submission Form and we’ll publish it in our next newsletter!

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

April 21, 2025

OFDIT Newsletter April 2025

Dear Faculty,

We hope you’ll join us for next month’s Brightspace Day event on May 15th! A year in: What have you learned from your experience using Brightspace? What would you still like to know more about? Sign up to share in one of our “Unsession” slots, or to attend a morning (in-person) or afternoon (virtual) session for training on an array of Brightspace topics. You’ll find registration and session descriptions in this month’s newsletter, along with links to learn more about the upcoming SPS Transformative Learning and Development Conference and the Bronx EdTech Showcase, too. We wanted to alert you to updates about the Brightspace email tool, and to share information about accessing CUNY’s Enterprise Copilot AI chatbot and a tip about creating a Practice Quiz in your course. We’re looking forward to seeing you at one of our spring training sessions and to hearing your discoveries and questions during Brightspace Day!

Brightspace Day is May 15!

Join us in-person in the morning or virtually in the afternoon. When you sign up, you can choose either the in-person session, the virtual session, or both. Here’s the day’s program:

Brightspace Day In-Person from 10:00am – Noon
119 W 31st Building (2nd Floor- Room 216)

9:45am Breakfast/light refreshments served
10:00am Session 1: Announcements, Notifications, Activity Feed, and Email
10:30am Session 2: Availability Dates, Due Dates, and Date Management
11:00am Session 3: Setting up Grades
11:30am Session 4: Ask Us Anything – open session

UDL Collaborative Meeting

Noon – 1:00pm Hybrid session hosted by the UDL Community: Register Here

1:00pm – 2:00pm Break

Brightspace Day Virtual Session from 2:00pm – 4:00pm

2:00pm Session 1: Announcements, Notifications, Activity Feed, and Email
2:30pm Session 2: Availability Dates, Due Dates, and Date Management
3:00pm Session 3: Setting up Grades
3:30pm Unsession: Share your Brightspace tips with SPS

The Unsession is dedicated time for faculty members to share their best Brightspace advice with the community. Show, demo, or talk about a tip, trick, or workflow you’ve used in Brightspace! It could be an efficiency hack you’ve discovered for yourself or for students, or a way of using Brightspace in your teaching that your colleagues might like to try. On Brightspace Day, Unsession participants will share their tip in 3-minutes or less. Sign up when you register in Zoom, or you can also sign up for and view the Unsession info on this page: CUNY SPS Brightspace Day Unsession

Brightspace Updates and Notes

You may have noticed that the Email tool no longer appears in the Brightspace minibar. That’s because that minibar tool allowed users to send messages beyond their course rosters, which raised concerns about privacy, FERPA compliance, and the potential for misuse—like mass emails to unintended recipients. As of April 11, 2025, CUNY has removed the Email tool from the minibar for all users, including faculty, staff, students, and admins. Don’t worry—course communication via email is still fully supported through the Classlist, so you can continue messaging students as usual within your courses. Check out our Sending Email in a Brightspace Course teaching guide to learn how to email individual students, groups of students, or your whole class, and steps for changing your email signature and for reviewing Sent Mail.

Events for SPS Faculty

CUNY SPS
Transformative Learning & Development Conference

Take part in the conversation about transformation at SPS! The inaugural Transformative Learning & Development Conference invites to you a collaborative community and supportive space to share activities, ideas, and best practices for creating transformative teaching and learning experiences at CUNY SPS. Come together to hear about the professional development and projects your colleagues found interesting and impactful.

All sessions will be offered online via Zoom on Wednesday, April 30 from 12-3pm

Register Here

12th Annual Bronx EdTech Showcase

On Friday, May 2, 2025, from 9 am- 4pm at Lehman College, you can explore the theme “Human-AI Synergy: Shaping Education to Promote Digital Equity and Inclusion” at the Bronx EdTech Showcase. The keynote speaker will be Ina Wanca, Chief Academic AI Officer at CUNY, to discuss insights on AI’s transformative role in education. There will be over 20 concurrent presentations on innovative methods and modalities, as well as a student panel featuring a candid discussion about how AI impacts learning and experience.

Register Here

UDL Collaborative: April Meeting

Join us for our upcoming UDL Collaborative meeting on “UDL and Accommodations” on Wednesday, April 23 from 2-3pm ET. where we’re thrilled to welcome staff from the Office of Student Disability Services (OSDS) as our special guests! This is your opportunity to learn directly from the experts who support our diverse student population daily. OSDS staff will share insights about their work and common student requests, and answer all those questions you’ve been wondering about but haven’t had the chance to ask.

Register Here

OpenLab

The CUNY SPS OpenLab is open!

We’re excited to introduce The Open Road, a site maintained by the OpenLab team to highlight the exciting projects, collaborations, and community-building happening on the CUNY SPS OpenLab.

By joining, you can stay in the loop with updates from student organizations, follow OpenLab news, and explore our growing collection of blogs.

Think of The Open Road as your go-to hub for OpenLab announcements, events, and helpful guides whether you’re new to WordPress, exploring Creative Commons licenses, or looking to get the most out of OpenLab’s features. Built by CUNY, for CUNY, since 2011.

Did You Know?

Did you know that CUNY faculty, staff and students have access to the Microsoft Copilot AI chatbot?

Why use Copilot? Copilot Chat is built on the same engine as ChatGPT, and includes features such as image generation, the ability to upload files, and citations for each response. It is available to all faculty, staff and students. You might ask:

How is this different from the free version of Copilot chat? CUNY’s Enterprise version includes data protection: chat data is private and secure, and is not used to train the model or shared with third parties.

Is this Copilot built into Word or other Office products? No, this version is for the standalone chatbot only. Integration with Office applications is a separate license and fee.

How do I access the Enterprise version of Copilot Chat? Go to office.com/chat and log in with your CUNYLogin (the same as you use for Brightspace).

Faculty Corner

Create a Practice Quiz without a Gradebook Column
Submitted by Curtis Izen, Online Business Program

Recently, I wanted my students to practice taking a quiz to make sure they were comfortable with the process. Therefore, I needed a Brightspace quiz that would NOT have an associated column in the gradebook. If you’d like to try this in your course, here’s how to set it up:

1. Go to your course and click on Quizzes under the Activities menu
2. Click New Quiz
3. In the “Grade Out Of” section, be sure to leave the selection as “Not in Grade Book”
4. Add questions to the quiz and set up your other options based on your criteria (i.e. Availability Dates and Conditions, Timing & Display, Attempts & Completion and Evaluation & Feedback)
5. Be sure to make the quiz visible to students and then click “Save and Close” when done

You can refer to the OFDIT page on Quizzes in Brightspace for details.

Now that your quiz is set to be “Not in Grade Book,” let your students know they can attempt the quiz for practice only — no grade book column involved!

OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings

OFDIT’s spring trainings can help you learn more about how you can use Brightspace tools and features to support efficient, accessible course delivery and foster student engagement. We look forward to seeing you at some of our upcoming sessions! Refer to our trainings page on the SPS Faculty Community Hub site or use links below to register.

Using ePortfolio in your Course

In this session, you will explore the structure of ePortfolio and learn how to use the platform from the instructor view. You will learn how to navigate the Digication in Brightspace, review your students’ signature assignment submissions, and share 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.

Tuesday, April 22 at 12:00PM Register Here

Advanced Gradebook Topics for SPS Faculty

In this training, we will discuss setting up your gradebook for the semester, how to add items for extra credit, using grade schema for items requiring special circumstances, and more!

Wednesday, April 23, 4-5 pm Register Here
Friday, April 25th, 8-9 am Register Here

Brightspace: Navigating and Grading Discussions

Learn to navigate the Discussions area seamlessly and to efficiently grade student participation in Discussion Boards in your course!

Tuesday, April 22 from 10am-11am Register here

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

March 17, 2025

OFDIT Newsletter March 2025

Dear Faculty,

Professional development opportunities are in full flower this month! Whether you’re looking for quick tips on setting accommodations for students, want to sign up for a beginning or advanced Brightspace training session, or are interested in attending a CUNY conference or an SPS learning community, check out the info and registration links below. Don’t miss the chance to join the SPS Faculty Fellowship on Teaching and AI, or SPS’s debut Transformative Learning and Development Conference, or the UDL and Open Pedagogy joint meeting with your campus colleagues, or the CUNY-wide Teaching and Learning Conference, or many more opportunities!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Please save the date! Thursday, May 15th is Brightspace Day! The OFDIT Team is busy preparing a day of activities to deepen knowledge and sharpen skills in our LMS. CUNY SPS faculty and staff will once again be invited to both in-person and virtual sessions on Brightspace Day. You can expect some hands-on workshops, interactive demonstrations, and an “Unsession,” where faculty members can take a 3-minute slot to share their best Brightspace tip or pose a question. Save the date for this opportunity to explore, learn, and ask us anything Brightspace!

Brightspace Highlight: Setting Accommodations

Need to allow extra time or for additional attempts on a quiz for a student, or to allow special access to a student or group of students for an individual assignment after a due date? Check out our Setting Accommodations in Brightspace teaching guide to learn how to provide these common accommodations in your courses!

CUNY SPS Events

UDL and Open Pedagogy: Fostering Student Agency

Join us for a joint meeting of the UDL Collaborative and Open for Al

Workshop on Friday, March 21 at 12pm (Register Here). Our discussion will focus on learner agency and explore Open Pedagogy practices that align with this UDL principle.

We invite you to share your experiences as students, instructors, or course developers of voice, choice, and agency in the classroom, considering the following questions:

How are students invited to represent themselves within the course? Within the field?
How can they be given the chance to contribute to the knowledge community of the classroom and of the field at large?

If you’d like to share out during the meeting, please sign-up on this Google doc with your name and a brief description, thank you.

UDL Collaborative: Join the OpenLab Site Now!
The OpenLab is open! All CUNY SPS community members can now sign up using your CUNY Login. Once you’ve signed up and logged in successfully, you’ll want to navigate to the UDL Collaborative group profile and click the “Join” button below the group avatar.

CUNY SPS Faculty Fellowship: Teaching and AI

Applications are now open for the CUNY SPS Faculty Fellowship on Teaching and AI. This fellowship supports faculty in developing innovative responses to AI’s presence in education. In a collaborative peer environment, participants will explore the impact of AI, study current practices in AI and education, and develop projects that integrate AI into coursework, adapt teaching strategies, create educational or policy materials, or leverage AI for instruction.

The fellowship kicks off in May and runs through the summer. Participants will pilot their projects in the Fall semester and present their work to their department and the CUNY SPS community during the 2025-26 academic year. Successful completers will receive a $500 stipend or NTA appointment. Applications are due April 15.

Visit the Teaching and AI Fellowship page for details and to apply.

CUNY SPS Transformative Learning & Development Conference

Registration is open CUNY SPS’s inaugural Transformative Learning and Development Conference (TLDC) on Wednesday April 30, 2025, 12-3 pm. The goal of the TLDC is to foster a collaborative community and supportive space to share activities, ideas, and best practices for creating transformative teaching and learning experiences at CUNY SPS.

OpenLab Support Hours

Bring your OpenLab questions and ideas for one-on-one support and collaboration! Join the OpenLab team this semester to learn about available tools and features, including building your own site, using our awesome single sign-on plugin, and joining the growing groups and conversations happening with other CUNY SPS community projects.

Thursday March 27, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link
Tuesday April 8, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link
Tuesday May 13, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link

Join the Open Road for updates!

Think of the Open Road as your hub for SPS OpenLab news, events, and some helpful blogs that explore what’s possible with WordPress, Creative Commons licenses, plugins, BuddyPress, and how to make the most of the OpenLab’s features! We’ve recently published our new Getting Started with OpenLab blog post designed for new users and total beginners. Sign up today and join The Open Road to receive email updates directly from the OpenLab team!

CUNY Opportunities for SPS Faculty

Meet CUNY’s Chief Academic AI Officer!

Bridging Vision and Action: Setting CUNY’s Academic AI Strategy for Transformative Impact, Ina Wanca, Chief Academic AI Officer, CUNY Central

This virtual session scheduled for Friday, March 21 from 11am- 12pm unveils CUNY’s academic AI strategy—a dynamic, human-centered roadmap designed to enhance education, align with institutional goals, and respond to emerging trends. By building an AI-ready culture, fostering trust, and driving ethical innovation, the strategy turns bold ideas into actionable steps that empower faculty, support student success, and streamline processes. This is an opportunity for CUNY-wide audience members to have conversations with the new Chief Academic AI Officer at Central Office; the session invites collaboration to innovate and lead the future of education. You can find additional details in the flyer. ASL & CART services will be provided. Register Here!

CUNY Teaching & Learning Conference

Registration to attend the 2025 CUNY Teaching and Learning Conference held April 3rd (virtual) and April 4th (in person at the Graduate Center) closes March 21, 2025! Join the conversation about innovative pedagogical practices and celebrate teaching excellence at CUNY! Register here.

CUNY Online Webinars

Thursday, April 3, 3-4 pm

Peer Power Up! Using Collaborative Reviews & Peer Mentoring learn how to create powerful peer review processes that ignite collaboration and propel student learning in your online courses. Register here.

Audio and Video Feedback in Brightspace

– Submitted by Dr. Sarah Ruth Jacobs, Communications and Media

Brightspace gives faculty the option to give students audio or video feedback to assignments, with automatic captioning. This option is through the “Record Audio” and “Record Video” links just below and to the right of the text box when giving feedback. I recently gave students audio feedback with captions on a short assignment, and I found the process to be quick and simple. My feedback was usually about 1 to 3 minutes in length. Out of the close to forty students that I gave feedback to this way, three or four responded with a personalized thank you note, including one student who sent me a three-minute-long video thanking me! I recommend that others try this for short assignments to see if their students will respond similarly.

Make the Most of ZOOM!

Did you know everyone at CUNY SPS — faculty, students, and staff — has access to a fully licensed Zoom account? That means unlimited meetings, no pesky time limits, and full integration with Brightspace!

To get started, simply sign up or sign in at cuny.zoom.us. We’ve also made it easy to bring Zoom into your courses by integrating it directly into Brightspace. If you’re looking for a quick way to add Zoom links to your course, check out our step-by-step teaching guide to get up and running in no time.

OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings

Using ePortfolio in your Course

- Monday, March 17 at 1:00PM Register Here
- Tuesday, April 22 at 12:00PM Register Here

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

In this training we will discuss how to navigate the gradebook and the options for grading in Brightspace.

- Wednesday, March 19, at 10:00AM Register Here

Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread

Creating engaging online courses is not easy. In many text discussion-board based courses, students feel isolated and disconnected from their instructors and classmates. VoiceThread bridges the gaps in social presence typically found in online courses. In this workshop, educators will learn how to establish a social presence and connect with their students using VoiceThread to improve course satisfaction and student learning. We will cover all of the basic VoiceThread features, demonstrate how everything works in D2L Brightspace, showcase a variety of examples from actual courses, and have an open Q&A throughout the training.

- Tuesday, April 15 at 10:00AM Register Here

Advanced Gradebook Topics for SPS Faculty

In this training, we will discuss setting up your gradebook for the semester, how to add items for extra credit, using grade schema for items requiring special circumstances, and more!

- Wednesday, April 23, 4-5 pm Register Here
- Friday, April 25th, 8-9 am Register Here

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

Learn to navigate the Discussions area seamlessly and to efficiently grade student participation in Discussion Boards in your course!

- Tuesday, April 15, 11am-12pm Register here
- Tuesday, April 22 from 10am-11am Register here

Using Video in Brightspace (Panopto/Video Notes)

Creating video content for your course can be a little overwhelming with the number of options available. Join this session to learn which tools work best for creating a reusable welcome message or lecture, a weekly update or one-time recordings, like giving feedback to students. In this session participants will be introduced to Panopto, the SPS video platform integrated into Brightspace, which streamlines video production. Participants will learn how to access Panopto and its features through Brightspace, focusing on a workflow to create, organize, and publish video content. The Brightspace platform itself has video tools too. We’ll highlight when it’s beneficial to use one over the other.

- Tuesday, April 8 at 11:00AM Register Here

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.

- Wednesday, March 19, at 6:00PM Register Here
- Monday, March 24, at 12:00PM Register Here

Advanced Panopto for SPS Faculty

As many of us have learned, Panopto is a handy tool to create video in Brightspace. But many of us have yet to unlock the powerful features inside it. In this session, participants will learn how to access the robust analytics showing us who watched a video and for how long. They will see how faculty can leverage the power of a low-stakes quiz with the in-video quiz tool. A video quiz can be automatically graded and mapped to your grade book. Finally, we’ll demonstrate how a regular assignment can be turned into a video assignment with students as the media creators. It’s all part of the Panopto platform built into Brightspace.

- Wednesday, March 26 at 11:00AM Register Here
- Thursday, April 10 at 4:00PM Register Here

Brightspace: Notifications and the Pulse App (30 mins)

Brightspace Pulse is a mobile app that can help users stay connected with their courses in Brightspace through a quick view of announcements, grades, course calendars and content. Learn what Brightspace features are and are not available through the app, and how to enable and view Notifications to enhance the app’s functionality.

- Thursday, March 27 at 9:00AM Register Here
- Friday, April 11 at 1:00PM Register Here

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

February 18, 2025

OFDIT Newsletter February 2025

Dear Faculty,

We have come a long way from one year ago, when we were inviting everyone to introductory Brightspace demo sessions and using the community’s feedback to create our brand new CUNY SPS navbar! With your ongoing input, we’re continuing to refine our SPS learning spaces and expand our professional learning opportunities to support you as you use them. In this month’s newsletter, you’ll find information about registering for our Open for All workshop and discussion series, dropping into one of SPS’s UDL Collaborative meetings, joining OpenLab Support Hour sessions, and signing up for one or more of OFDIT’s Spring Trainings on a variety of technical and pedagogical topics. We also share information about the second annual CUNY Teaching & Learning Conference (you can attend either in-person or virtually!), and dates of other CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy Events scheduled in the coming weeks. Looking forward to a great spring semester with you!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Save as draft is here! This oft-requested feature allows users to create a thread and then save it as a draft. Note that only threads, and not replies to threads, can be saved as drafts.

To get back to a saved Draft, users can choose Filter by: Drafts within the Discussion Topic:

Edit or complete the post, and then Publish. See our Teaching Guide on Using the Save Drafts Feature.

Brightspace Highlight: Personalizing your Homepage

In response to your Brightspace Feedback Survey responses, we want to share several ways to personalize your “view” of Brightspace, either within a course or on your Brightspace homepage! Check out our Personalizing Your Homepage in Brightspace teaching guide to see how you can filter what displays in the My Courses widget, pin or unpin courses as needed, and collapse and expand widgets to customize your user experience.

Brightspace Office Hours

OFDIT’s open Brightspace office hours continue this semester! We look forward to seeing you in a drop-in session with your questions!

Brightspace Day

Mark your calendars! Thursday, May 15th is Brightspace Day! Has it been a year already? Yes! And the OFDIT Team is busy preparing a day of activities to deepen our knowledge and sharpen our skills in our LMS. CUNY SPS faculty and staff will once again be invited to both in-person and virtual sessions on Brightspace Day. You can expect some hands-on workshops, interactive demonstrations, and a showcase of best practices and strategies. Save the date for this opportunity to explore, learn, and ask us anything Brightspace!

SPS Trainings and Events

Open for All Workshop – Registration Extended!

The CUNY SPS OER Initiative is pleased to once again offer the Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series (Feb 28 – Mar 28). This hybrid online (sync/async) workshop covers the intersection of Open Education and Inclusive Pedagogy. Participants review a course using the SPS course review rubric annotated with open and inclusive educational practices and create a proposal for incorporating inclusive pedagogical approaches. Register by Monday, February 24th.

The wider SPS community is also invited to our workshop discussions on Fridays to join the conversation and contribute their own insights into inclusive teaching and learning at SPS. See Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series for all the details, including the workshop syllabus and registration information, and a community call for contributions to the workshop discussions.

UDL Collaborative at CUNY SPS

Join the UDL Collaborative community of practice and explore best practices of Universal Design in Learning (UDL). Attend an upcoming meeting with your questions about accessibility and inclusion, where we’ll be brainstorming solutions together. All faculty and staff are welcome!

- Wednesday, February 19th at 2:00pm – Register Here
- Friday, March 21st at 12:00pm – Register Here
- Wednesday, April 23rd at 2:00pm – Register Here
- Thursday, May 15th at 12:00pm – Register Here

OpenLab Support Hours

OpenLab is open for business! Join the OpenLab team this semester to learn about available tools and features, including building your own site, using our awesome single sign-on plugin, and joining the growing groups and conversations happening with other CUNY SPS community projects! Please bring your OpenLab questions and ideas for one-on-one support and collaboration. We’re looking forward to helping you bring your ideas to life!

- Tuesday February 25, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link
- Thursday March 13, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link
- Thursday March 27, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link
- Tuesday April 8, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link
- Tuesday May 13, 2025 5-6PM – Registration Link

CUNY Opportunities for SPS Faculty

CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy workshops

AI Session 4: Exploring Generative AI Visual Literacy and Creativity in Pedagogical Environments
Friday, February 21, 11 am-12 pm

Participants will learn about where the datasets used to train AI image generators come from, how those sources impact what kind of images they create, how to recognize the biases and limits of AI image and text generators, and how to help students choose when and how to use (or not to use) AI tools in research, writing, and visual media. Register Here.

CUNY Online Webinars

Spark Discussions, Ignite Learning: Mastering Virtual Discussions
Thursday, March 6 , 3 – 4 pm

A guide to cultivating dynamic virtual discussions that transform your online courses into vibrant learning communities. See the calendar for more offerings in the CUNY Faculty Webinar Series for Online Instruction.

Credit for Prior Learning Showcase

CPL Showcase: Multi-Campus CPL Evaluation
Friday, March 14, 10 am–11 am

In this session, faculty will share their experiences working on multi-campus evaluation committees to make recommendations about CPL for industry credentials and other learning experiences. Learn about the evaluation process for determining curricular alignment and the benefits of engaging with faculty colleagues to explore the potential of CPL within a common discipline. Register Here.

CUNY SPS
Transformative Learning & Development Conference

Registration to attend the 2025 CUNY Teaching and Learning Conference to be held April 3rd (virtual) and April 4th (in person at the Graduate Center) is now open! Join the conversation about innovative pedagogical practices, with a keynote address by Christina Katopodis, author of The New College Classroom. Register Here.

OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings

Using ePortfolio in your Course

- Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 11:00AM Register Here
- Monday, March 17 at 1:00PM Register Here
- Tuesday, April 22 at 12:00PM Register Here

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, the accessibility gauge features that are now available to all in your courses, and the support Ally provides in addressing any areas where accessibility can be improved, often very quickly!

- Thursday, Feb. 27 at 12:00PM Register Here
- Thursday, March 13 at 1:00PM Register Here

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

In this training we will discuss how to navigate the gradebook and the options for grading in Brightspace.

- Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 9:00AM Register Here
- Wednesday, March 5, at 12:00PM Register Here
- Thursday, March 13 at 6:00PM Register Here
- Wednesday, March 19, at 10:00AM Register Here

Brightspace: Feedback (30 mins)

There are many options in Brightspace for giving students feedback on their work. In this short brown-bag training, we’ll go over how to give feedback on discussions, assignments, quizzes, and group assignments and show you how students access your feedback so you can guide them through making the most of it.

- Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 5:00PM Register Here
- Thursday, March 6 at 9:00AM Register Here

Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread

- Tuesday, March 4 at 4:00PM Register Here
- Tuesday, April 15 at 10:00AM Register Here

Brightspace: Managing Groups (30 mins)

In this training we will discuss how to set up groups, group discussions, and group assignments in Brightspace.

- Wednesday, March 5, at 6:00PM Register Here
- Thursday, March 6th, at 8:30AM Register Here

Brightspace: Managing Dates and Visibility of Items (30 mins)

In this training we will discuss due dates, start and end dates, the calendar, and the date management tool and how the visibility toggle interacts with start and end dates.

- Thursday, March 6, at 6:00PM Register Here
- Wednesday, March 12, at 6:00PM Register Here

Using Video in Brightspace (Panopto/Video Notes)

- Tuesday, March 11 at 12:00PM Register Here
- Tuesday, April 8 at 11:00AM Register Here

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

- Wednesday, March 19, at 6:00PM Register Here
- Monday, March 24, at 12:00PM Register Here

Advanced Panopto for SPS Faculty

- Wednesday, March 26 at 11:00AM Register Here
- Thursday, April 10 at 4:00PM Register Here

Brightspace: Notifications and the Pulse App (30 mins)

- Thursday, March 27 at 9:00AM Register Here
- Friday, April 11 at 1:00PM Register Here

Faculty Corner

Reordering Gradebook Items in Brightspace, Submitted by Curtis Izen (BUS):

After a few weeks into the term, I often find I’d like the columns of my Gradebook to be set up in a different order. Turns out we can quickly move the columns around. Like most instructors, I use categories to organize assessments. To move items in the same category, follow the steps below:

Click the Manage Grades tab
Then click the “More Actions” button
Select Reorder

On the view that opens, use the drop down menu to select a number for the associated gradebook item. Select the numbers in the order you want the columns to appear in your Gradebook Once you have the numbering in the desired order, click “Save” to complete the gradebook update.

NOTE: Most CUNY SPS courses use categories to group assessment types or graded items. You’ll see the ability to reorder applies to items inside a category level, and you can also reorder the categories themselves.

If you have a pedagogical tip from your new experiences in Brightspace (in 200 words or less!) that you think might help others, 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.

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

January 14, 2025

OFDIT Newsletter January 2025

Dear Faculty,

We hope your 2025 has gotten off to a smooth start! We’re excited to begin the new year with a very open invitation to connect with our Media Team for support making videos for your course, several OpenLab events to introduce you to SPS’s new platform, and an Open for All workshop where you can learn more inclusive pedagogy approaches!

In addition to all these grand openings, we’re sharing a call for proposals for the inaugural CUNY SPS Transformative Learning and Development Conference, feedback from our Brightspace Experience Survey, a request for volunteers to try out the Activity Feed widget in their Spring semester courses, and a Brightspace tip or two! We look forward to seeing you at a workshop, discussion or training session soon!

Get Support Making Instructional Videos

With the Spring term approaching many of you are making course overview, welcome message, and/or faculty introduction videos. The OFDIT Media Team is available to assist faculty with creating instructional videos. Look to us for:

On-Campus Production Support – Reserve our studio space on campus, equipped with high-quality recording equipment. The OFDIT Media Team will film, edit, caption, and publish your video.
Take-2 Tuesdays – The OFDIT Media Team prioritizes staffing and studio reservations for faculty on Tuesdays. If you’re on campus for another reason, why not record in the studio? Request a time slot for Take-2 Tuesdays: Studio Booking Form
Remote Production Support – For faculty looking for remote support, the OFDIT Media Team can help! They will consult with remote faculty to make high quality recordings, offer advice on which recording software to use, and assist with creating visuals, editing, captioning, and publishing.

Get the Process Started! Email matthew.lewis@cuny.edu or set up a Zoom consultation. Or if you’re coming to campus on an upcoming Tuesday, request a studio reservation!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Brightspace Feedback Survey

Thanks again to those who participated in the feedback survey last November. There are a few initial configuration changes that we are making in response to suggestions.

The college home page navbar has been reorganized, and you will see a new CUNY Resources menu. The College Resources and Student Resources menus have some additional links.

In the course home pages, we will be moving the Instructor Profile widget higher. The Instructor Profile widget should display your contact info, so a higher placement will make it quicker for students to locate this important information. Because space on the widget is limited, “about me”-type content can be placed in Syllabus/Course Info instead.

“Save draft” is coming to discussion forums! This commonly requested feature is currently being tested but will likely be implemented in time for Spring courses.

While these are a few changes that can be implemented quickly, we are still discussing and advocating for others. We are also creating support resources that address some of the questions and issues that have been brought forward. We’ll continue to report out in the next newsletter, so watch this space!

Brightspace Highlight: Updating Names of Gradebook items

An important tip to remember about Brightspace: When you rename a discussion Board topic, a quiz, or an assignment in the Content or Activities areas in a course, the name does not automatically update in the related/associated item in the Grades area.

We suggest following any update to the name of a graded item in a course with navigation to Grades>Manage Grades and:

Clicking the down arrow to the right of the name of the Gradebook column item and clicking Edit from the dropdown:
and then typing the new name into the Name field or fields, (using a shorter version in the “Short Name” area, if desired), and clicking the Save and Close button:

If you want to quickly copy in the name as it was updated in the associated item in the course content area, you can click and drag over the title as it appears in the Association field (highlighted in first line above) and copy/paste that text into the Name field and then click Save and Close.

NOTE: The inverse is true as well: if you make a change to the name of a grade item in the Grades area, Brightspace does not automatically update the name of the related item back in the Content or Activities areas of the course. Whenever you change the name of a graded item in Brightspace, be sure to update it in both the course area and in Grades.

Happy updating! Check out the Course Site Prep Checklist for CUNY SPS Faculty for more information about prepping course sites for Spring semester.

Volunteers Wanted! Try the Activity Feed Widget in Brightspace

Seeking to have more interaction with your students in Brightspace? We are looking for faculty volunteers to pilot the “Activity Feed” widget in their course site in the Spring semester!

Activity Feed provides a central hub on your course homepage where you can share timely updates, course materials, and important reminders. The tool allows you to post quick messages, attach files, and link to course activities, all while maintaining control over student participation levels. You can customize settings to allow student comments, enable full posting privileges, or maintain read-only access. As a complement to your regular Announcements, Activity Feed offers an alternative way to strengthen course communication and student engagement. We welcome interested faculty to join our testing group for the spring semester via this form.

Brightspace Office Hours

OFDIT’s open Brightspace office hours will pick up again this week! We look forward to seeing you in a drop-in session with your questions!

Events and Announcements for SPS Faculty

OpenLab Events

OpenLab is open! Learn more about available tools and features, including building your own site, using our awesome new single sign-on plugin, and joining the growing groups and conversations happening with other CUNY SPS community projects!

OpenLab 101 will provide a guided tour of the OpenLab site, including setting up your own user profile, how to join existing groups for timely updates, and more! For Drop-In Hours, please bring your own questions and ideas, and work on your OpenLab site with built-in support and feedback! Sign up at the links below to get a reminder email!

OpenLab 101 (followed by Drop-In Hours)

Tuesday Jan. 14, 12-12:30pm
Monday Jan. 27, 2025, 4-4:30pm

Drop-In Hours:

Tuesday Jan. 14, 12:30-1:30pm
Wednesday Jan. 22, 2025, 5:30-6:30pm
Friday Jan. 24, 2024, 12-1pm
Monday Jan. 27, 2025, 4:30-5:30pm

Want to see what’s happening on the OpenLab now? Join the faculty discussion in the Faculty Community Hub!

CUNY SPS Transformative Learning & Development Conference

SPS’ inaugural Transformative Learning and Development Conference (TLDC) will be held on Wednesday April 30, 2025, 12-3 pm. The goal of the TLDC is to foster a collaborative community and supportive space to share activities, ideas, and best practices for creating transformative teaching and learning experiences at CUNY SPS.

Submit a proposal by January 15! All SPS faculty and staff are invited to share their professional development activities and research projects completed in AY 2024/2025. Faculty-student research collaboration proposals are also welcome. See the flyer for more information and links.

Open for All Workshop

The SPS OER Initiative is pleased to once again offer the Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series (Feb 28 – Mar 28). This hybrid online (sync/async) workshop covers the intersection of Open Education and Inclusive Pedagogy. Participants review a course using the SPS course review rubric annotated with open and inclusive educational practices and create a proposal for incorporating inclusive pedagogical approaches. The wider SPS community is invited to our workshop discussions on Fridays to contribute their own insights into inclusive teaching and learning at SPS. See Open for All Workshop & Discussion Series for all the details, including workshop syllabus and registration information, and the community call for contributions to the workshop discussions.

We will have an info session on the DEIA annotations to the SPS Course Review Rubric that participants use in the workshop on Friday, Feb. 7, 12-1 pm (Registration). All are welcome!

Faculty Corner

Intelligent Agents in Brightspace

Submitted by Curtis Izen (BUS):

The Intelligent Agent is an excellent tool for automating specific tasks in Brightspace. It allows instructors to set up criteria to create a report or email students who completed or did not complete an action within the course. I find it useful early in the semester to email students who have yet to log in, access the course, or miss an assignment.

Examples of criteria that can be set up include:

Login Activity: If the student has or has not logged into Brightspace
Course Activity: If the student has or has not accessed the course
Assignments: If a student has or has not submitted an assignment
Discussions: If a student has or has not posted to a discussion topic
Quizzes: If a student has achieved a specific score, if they have completed a quiz attempt, or if they haven’t completed a quiz attempt
Content: If a student has completed, not completed, viewed, or did not view a content topic
Grades: If a student received a specific score on a grade item or if they haven’t completed a graded item

Learn more about it from the Brightspace Community knowledge base: About Intelligent Agents

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

December 16, 2024

OFDIT Newsletter December 2024

Dear Faculty,

We hope your semester has been wrapping up smoothly! In this issue of the newsletter, we present to you links to many of our Brightspace teaching guides about grading, a note about OFDIT’s office hour schedule, information about upcoming OpenLab training and events, and an invitation to the SPS UDL Collaborative’s next meeting. We’ve been very grateful for the gift of all of your input, effort, and patience as CUNY moved from Blackboard to Brightspace, and for your commitment to supporting the best student experience possible at CUNY SPS!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Brightspace survey last month! Over 260 students, faculty, and staff provided feedback about their experience using the new LMS. In general the response has been positive; the average rating for the question “How would you rate your overall user experience in Brightspace?” was 3.98, with a median of 4, on a scale of 1 to 5. We are doing a deeper dive into the responses to other open-ended questions, and will be using the feedback to explore reconfigurations, advocate for changes with CUNY and D2L, and improve our support resources. More to come in the next newsletter! If you missed the survey but would still like to give feedback on the platform configuration and set up, please write to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

Brightspace Highlight
End of Semester Grading: Zeroes and Exemptions

At the end of the term, it’s often the case that there are empty cells in your gradebook for missing assignments that you will want to put 0’s or exemptions in to ensure that the final grade is calculated correctly. The easiest way to enter 0’s in empty cells is to open your gradebook in “Spreadsheet View.” See How to Quickly Fill In Grades for Missing Student Work. To remove an item from the grade calculation total, you can add exemptions, either by assignment or by student. See How to Set up Gradebook Exemptions for steps.

Grading Guides

It’s that time of the semester! Would you like to drop the lowest grade from a grading category? Need to reset quiz/exam attempts? Ready to fill in grades for missing student work? Want to allow extra points for an item or create an extra credit item? We have a teaching guide for you – browse our site for step-by-step help!

Brightspace Office Hours

OFDIT’s open Brightspace office hours will continue through December 20th and will pick up again in mid-January. We look forward to seeing you in a drop-in session with your questions!

Events and Announcements for SPS Faculty

Save The Date: OpenLab Events

OpenLab is open for business! Join us in January to learn about available tools and features, including building your own site, using our awesome new single sign-on plugin, and joining the growing groups and conversations happening with other CUNY SPS community projects!

Tuesday Jan. 14, 12-12:30pm
Monday Jan. 27, 2025, 4-4:30pm

Drop-In Hours:

Tuesday Jan. 14, 12:30-1:30pm
Wednesday Jan. 22, 2025, 5:30-6:30pm
Friday Jan. 24, 2024, 12-1pm
Monday Jan. 27, 2025, 4:30-5:30pm

Want to see what’s happening on the OpenLab now? Join the faculty discussion in the Faculty Community Hub!

UDL Collaborative at CUNY SPS

Join the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Collaborative at our first meeting in the new year, scheduled for Monday, January 13 from 12.30-1.30pm ET. Please use this link to register.

All CUNY SPS faculty and staff are welcome: whether you’re a regular attendee or have never joined us before, we’d love to have you participate. This January meeting will be an opportunity to reconnect, share ideas, and continue fostering our collective commitment to Universal Design for Learning.

Help us plan future meetings! We’ve created a short survey to gather your input on your interest in sharing an ongoing project or idea at a future UDL Collaborative meeting, as well as your availability for future meetings so we can schedule at times that work best for everyone.

We appreciate your input, thank you!

Faculty Corner

Granting Extra Time and Special Access for Quizzes and Assignments
Submitted by Curtis Izen (BUS):

Brightspace’s Special Access feature allows you to modify quiz and assignment settings for individual students without affecting the entire class. Whether a student needs extra time, a different due date, or multiple submission attempts, this can be achieved in Brightspace.

To grant special access, first locate the quiz or assignment in your course, then edit the activity. For quizzes, click the down arrow next to the quiz and select “Edit,” and for assignments, click the down arrow next to the assignment and select “Edit Assignment.” Click to expand the Availability Dates and Condition section and select Manage Special Access. Choose Allow Selected Users Special Access to this quiz/assignment. To add special access users, click Add Users to Special Access. You can adjust such settings as due dates, time limits, or number of attempts for specific students. Finally, save your changes.

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

November 19, 2024

OFDIT Newsletter November 2024

Dear Faculty,

We are thankful that the first Fall semester in our new LMS, Brightspace, has gone so smoothly, evidencing your commitment to learning the system, listening to each other, and leading students through their new “classrooms.” We invite you to reach out to our Media Team as you work to update your course videos for the coming year, and to join the new SPS Accessibility & Inclusion Community of Practice to learn more about UDL initiatives on campus. Please take a minute or two to send us your suggestions and reflections in our Brightspace Feedback Survey — we are eager to hear and be guided by your perspectives!

Fall trainings for faculty continue, with upcoming sessions covering using ePortfolio and Social Annotations in your courses, navigating the Gradebook and grading in Brightspace, and exploring a variety of ways to give feedback to students using Brightspace tools. Registration links for all sessions are below, along with a link to register for the upcoming CUNY IT conference. We leave you with a cornucopia of Brightspace tips from your fellow instructors, and our best wishes for a successful conclusion of the semester!

Get Support Making Instructional Videos

The OFDIT Media Team is available to assist faculty with creating instructional video! As we approach the Spring term, now is the perfect time for faculty to update their course videos, especially with the bulk of our transition to Brightspace behind us. With the new platform in place, refreshing the standard videos (ex. course overview, welcome message, and/or faculty introduction) is more pertinent than ever!

- On-Campus Production Support – Reserve our studio space on campus, equipped with high-quality recording equipment. The OFDIT Media Team will film, edit, caption, and publish your video.
- Take-2 Tuesdays – Getting to campus might be tricky, but we’ve noticed that Tuesdays often bring faculty face-to-face for meetings. The OFDIT Media Team will prioritize staffing and studio reservations for faculty on Tuesdays. If you’re on campus anyway, why not record in the studio? Request a time slot for Take-2 Tuesdays: Studio Booking Form
- Remote Production Support – For faculty looking for remote support, the OFDIT Media Team can help. They will consult with remote faculty to make high quality recordings, offer advice on which recording software to use, and will assist with creating visuals, editing, captioning, and publishing.

Get the Process Started! Email matthew.lewis@cuny.edu or set up a Zoom consultation. Or if you’re coming to campus on an upcoming Tuesday, request a studio reservation!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Brightspace Feedback Survey

Have you noticed the announcement in Brightspace about a user feedback survey? OFDIT is gathering feedback from faculty, students and staff about their user experience in Brightspace. We plan to use the feedback to make some adjustments for Spring courses, and to improve our training and support resources. We have heard from a good number of students, but not so much from faculty! Please take the opportunity to share what is useful, describe where the points of friction are, and make suggestions for changes in layout, content, or configuration. Thank you!

Brightspace Highlight

From Lilly Matthew: The Pulse app is great for getting notifications about students’ posts in the Q & A forum, so you can answer them quickly from wherever you are. Students really appreciate that kind of responsiveness, which helps them keep their momentum when they’re working on assignments. When you receive a notification on your phone, you can open it and it will take you directly into the Pulse app where you can post a quick reply.

To set up instant notifications:

1. In the notifications settings of your Brightspace account, in the Instant Notifications section, be sure you’ve ticked the boxes for Discussions. (See Managing Notifications in Brightspace – Teaching Guides)
2. Install the Pulse App on your mobile device.
3. Enable notifications from the Pulse App on your device.
4. In your course, subscribe to the Q & A forum.
5. NB: Select ‘Send me an instant notification’.

Events and Announcements for SPS Faculty

Accessibility & Inclusion Community of Practice

After a successful inaugural meeting in October, join us for our second monthly meeting of the Accessibility & Inclusion Community of Practice for faculty and staff on Friday, November 22 at 12pm ET via Zoom. We’ll discuss principles of Universal Design in Learning (UDL), brainstorm implementation ideas, and share actionable tips for creating accessible documents. Register here.

The CoP is part of the broader UDL Collaborative by the CUNY Office of Student Inclusion. As part of this effort, the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy is offering a year-long asynchronous training course on UDL guidelines, for which you can register here.

CITA Series on Generative AI

Friday, 11/8, 11:00 am-12:00 pm – CITA Book Club “Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning” by Jose Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson

Friday, 11/22, 11:00 am-12:00 pm – Supporting Students’ Ethical Use of AI: Ideas and Practices in Humanities and STEM Fields

CUNY IT Conference 2024

Registration is now open for the 23rd Annual CUNY IT Conference, December 5-6 at John Jay College. This year’s theme is “Advancing CUNY: Intentional Connections and Smart Collaborations,” with speakers including Aleks Berditchevskaia, Principal Researcher at Nesta’s Center for Collective Intelligence Design.

SPS will be well represented with 4 presentations:

- - Building a Collaborative Strategy for Transfer Student Success Using Navigate360, on Thursday, December 5 at 1 pm, with Angela Francis, Leah Chajeczkis, Joseph Contreras, Cindy Lin, and Ashley Hoyt
  - Harnessing AI, Python and APIs for Smart Data Collection, on Friday, December 6 at 1 pm, with Joseph Foy and Calvester Legister
  - Tech Tools for Fostering Intentional and Engaging Collaborations in Education, on Friday, December 6 at 1 pm, with Lilly Mathew, Olga Kagan, and Mary Joy Garcia
  - The Four Cs: Keys to a Successful LMS Transition, on Friday, December 6 at 2:15 pm, with Ruru Rusmin, Matt Lewis, Lianna Scull, Kathryn Larkins, and Sarah Kresh

CUNY SPS OpenLab Launches SSO

After many trials and tribulations, single sign-on is available on the CUNY SPS OpenLab! If you already have an OpenLab account, you’ll receive a communique to inform you that your account has been updated, signaling that you’re ready to log into the OpenLab with your CUNY Login credentials. (You use these to login to Brightspace, Outlook, and CUNY First, among others.)

If you’ve been waiting for a streamlined login experience, you can now sign up using your CUNY Login. This officially makes us the first OpenLab integrated with CUNY Login!

OFDIT Fall 2024 Trainings

OFDIT’s fall trainings can help you teach, assess, and engage your students in high-impact, accessible, and efficient ways. We look forward to seeing you at some of our upcoming sessions! Refer to our trainings page on the SPS Faculty Community Hub site or click links below to register.

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

In this training we will discuss how to navigate the gradebook and the options for grading in Brightspace.

Tuesday, November 19th at 1:00 pm – Register Here
Wednesday, December 4th at 9:00 am – Register Here
Friday, December 13th at 12:00 pm – Register Here

Brightspace: Feedback (30 minutes)

Monday, November 25th at 12:30 pm – Register Here
Monday, December 9th at 6:00 pm – Register Here

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

Monday, Nov. 25, 5:00 pm – Register Here
Monday, Dec. 2, 5:00 pm – Register Here

Advanced Panopto for SPS Faculty

Wednesday, Nov. 20th at 4:00 pm – Register Here

Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread

Monday, Dec. 2 at 1:00 pm – Register Here

Faculty Corner

From Hannah Miller (LARTS):

When I reply to student posts in Discussion Boards, I use a “text expander” to always include the same emoji and my name in the subject line of my response, e.g., “🌿 Prof. Hannah to [Student’s name].” This rapidly “flags” my replies visually for students when they are scanning over topic responses, and allows me or students a quick way to pull up my replies by performing a search for that emoji in the Discussion Topic. I use the low-cost text expander “TypeIt4Me” on the Mac.

Submitted by Curtis Izen (BUS):

Recently, I needed to include a text grade item in my course that would allow me to include an “Incomplete” or “Complete” for a student submission not counted towards their final grade. The following steps allowed me to create text-grade items:

1. On the Navbar, click Grades.
2. On the Manage Grades page, from the New button, click Item.
3. Click Text.
4. In the General area, enter your grade item details.
5. To attach a rubric to the item, in the Grading area, click Add Rubric.
6. In the Display Options area, you can override display options for this item.
7. Click Save and Close.

All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team

October 16, 2024

OFDIT Newsletter October 2024

Dear Faculty,

We’re excited to share many opportunities for professional learning and growth as the semester gets underway! This newsletter issue highlights new features and support resources for some of our Brightspace tools, announces extended registration for our funded Open UDL workshop, and welcomes SPS’s new and returning Faculty Advisory Board members. You’ll also find links to register for many CUNY-wide trainings and discussions on generative AI, Credit for Prior Learning, and online instruction, as well as for the CUNY IT Conference on December 5-6th. Lastly, proposals are due for the CUNY 2025 Teaching and Learning Conference on November 15th – don’t miss your chance to share your considerable and hard-won expertise in online pedagogy, accessible content creation, and approaches to assessment and student engagement with other CUNY faculty!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Brightspace Highlight: New Demo Student Tool

A CUNY-built tool now allows you to participate as a test student in your course!

As you may know, you can switch to View as Learner in a course in order to see how course content appears for a student, and to test submission of an assignment or quiz. However, in order to test grading and feedback, it was necessary for CUNY to build a custom tool. The new Demo Student tool allows instructors to create a temporary Demo Student in a course. Instructors can impersonate the Demo Student, submit course work, switch back to Instructor to grade, and then impersonate the Demo Student again to view grades and feedback from the student point of view. Please visit this guide for details on how to use the Demo Student tool.

VoiceThread Troubleshooting

With a full semester launch under our belt, we’re pleased with the integration of VoiceThread (VT) in our new Brightspace home. While most users have no issues to report, occasionally they do arise. For troubleshooting, check out the VoiceThread for SPS Students page on the Faculty Hub. We’ve collected solutions for the most common VT errors, usually related to browser settings. In rare cases, students affiliated with another CUNY campus that are now working in VT in an SPS course may run into an issue with access. So far only three students have reported this issue, which we have discovered can be quickly remedied; however, the vendor must be contacted to resolve. For situations like these, please reach out to FacultySupport@sps.cuny.edu for assistance.

UDL at SPS

Open UDL Workshop: Registration extended to Oct. 17th!

OFDIT and the CUNY SPS OER Initiative are pleased to invite all faculty to participate in the Open UDL Workshop: Making Your Courses Accessible to All (October 21 to November 4, 2024).

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.

Eligible faculty participants will be compensated with 7 NTA hours upon successful completion of the workshop. Registration is extended to Thursday, October 17! For more details, please see our Advanced Workshops page on the SPS Faculty Community Site.

Join our new Accessibility & Inclusion Community of Practice

We’re excited to announce the launch of the Accessibility & Inclusion Community of Practice for faculty and staff at CUNY SPS, which is part of the broader Universal Design for Learning (UDL) initiative by the CUNY Office of Student Inclusion.

Join us for our inaugural meeting on October 30th at 12pm ET via Zoom, featuring quick, actionable tips for creating accessible documents and an open forum for your questions and ideas. Register here.

This meeting marks the beginning of a monthly series offered for faculty and staff to learn about accessibility and Universal Design in Learning (UDL) principles, share implementation ideas and challenges, and learn about best practices.

Welcome to the new
OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board members!

A warm welcome to new members of the OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board (FAB), and an appreciative welcome back to our returning advisors! The advisory board kicked off for the academic year last week and are looking forward to working on projects including hosting faculty discussions (both in-person and facilitated on OpenLab) on AI in the classroom, advising on best practice recommendations for instruction in Brightspace, and serving on the selection committee for the Teaching Excellence Award in the spring!

Members of the Board:
Mark Friedman (2024-26) – Disability Studies
Lilly Mathew (2023-25) – Nursing
Hannah Miller (2024-26) – General Education
Faime Moussavi (2023-25) – Business
José Roldan Rivera (2024-26) – HRL / ILAW / Sociology
Norlene Thomas (2024-26) – HIM / HSA
Chris Kchao (ex officio) – Office of Student Disability Services
Mahdu Mammen (ex officio) – Information Technology

ePortfolio: A Journey of Reflection

The ePortfolio Team invites you to our inaugural event of the 2024-2025 academic year. We’re welcoming the CUNY SPS community to learn from students who are building their portfolios this semester. Whether in their first semester, at the final term of a degree, or somewhere in between, this event will capture and showcase students’ work at distinct junctures and discuss the role of reflection along the way.

We need your help!
If your course is using ePortfolio this semester, please fill out this form and help us showcase your students’ portfolios!

CUNY Opportunities for SPS Faculty

CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy workshops

Teaching Matters series on generative AI is back for the 24-25 academic year.

Participants will be introduced to ideas for how to use generative AI tools in their classroom to enhance student motivation and learning.

Friday, 10/25, 11:00am-12:00pm – Student Motivation and Engagement: AI and Non-AI Assignments to Enhance Learning

This fall, CITA, is also hosting a series of workshops on Credit for Prior Learning (CPL).

In this showcase, presenters from Lehman College and CUNY SPS, who were recognized with CAEL-WICHE Equity Awards, will share examples of innovative Credit for Prior Learning practices that are leveraging faculty expertise and improving student success.

Friday, 10/25, 2:00pm-3:00pm – Showcase: Lessons from CAEL-WICHE Equity Award Winners

Dr. Wendy Kilgore, Senior Director of Research at AACRAO, will share key insights from Enhancing Accessibility and Inclusion: The 2024 Landscape of Credit for Prior Learning in US and Canadian Higher Education, a report of AACRAO’s recent survey of 399 colleges and universities about the relevance and impact of CPL as a mechanism for enhancing student success and accessibility and equity.

Friday, 11/15, 11:30am-12:30pm – The Importance of CPL in Today’s Higher Ed Landscape

CUNY Online Webinar Series –
Creating a Positive Student Experience in Your Online Course

Maximize Student Growth: Effective Feedback Strategies for Online Courses

Learn how to turn feedback into a catalyst for student success. This session will explore techniques to provide meaningful feedback that enhances student engagement and fosters academic growth in your online courses.

Tuesday, 10/22, 3:00pm – Registration Link

Engage and Inspire: Creating Impactful Short Videos for Online Courses

Say goodbye to monotonous presentations! Discover how to create short, dynamic videos that capture attention, boost engagement, and improve knowledge retention in your online courses.

Thursday, 11/21 at 3:00pm – Registration Link

Also available is the recording of the 9/26 webinar Engaging Your Students in Online Courses.

CITA Book Club

Interested in “emerging and powerful research on the seismic changes AI is already creating in schools and the workplace” and how that might affect your instructional design and practice? Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson will be the focus of CITA’s next book club meeting!

Friday, 11/8, 11:00 am-12:00 pm – CITA Book Club

CUNY IT Conference 2024

CUNY 2025 Teaching and Learning Conference

Share your pedagogy! Proposal submissions for the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy (CITA) CUNY 2025 Teaching and Learning Conference (April 4 and 5, 2025) are due 11/15!

Click this link to submit a proposal by Friday, 11/15

Faculty Corner

From Business faculty Curtis Izen

“Here’s a Brightspace tip I’ve found quite useful. There may be times when you would like to contact students who have not submitted a particular assignment. In just 3 clicks, Brightspace will pull together an email with only those students in need of a reminder. You can type your message, add an attachment and hit send. I’ve written a teaching guide showing you how here: Contacting Students with Missing Assignments.”

OFDIT Fall 2024 Trainings

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 Ally provides in addressing any areas where accessibility can be improved, often very quickly!

Friday, October 18th @ 12:00pm – Registration Link
Wednesday, October 23rd @ 9:00am – Registration Link

Brightspace: Managing Groups

In this training we will discuss how to set up groups, group discussions, and group assignments in Brightspace.

Thursday, October 17th at 5:30pm – Registration Link

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

In this training we will discuss how to navigate the gradebook and the options for grading in Brightspace.

Tuesday, October 29th at 12:00pm – Registration Link
Thursday, October 31st at 5:00pm – Registration Link
Tuesday, November 19th at 1:00pm – Registration Link
Wednesday, December 4th at 9:00am – Registration Link
Friday, December 13th at at 12:00pm – Registration Link

Using ePortfolio in your Course

Thursday, October 24th at 6:00pm – Registration Link
Tuesday, November 12th at 11:00am – Registration Link

Using Video in Brightspace (Panopto/Video Notes)

Wednesday, October 23rd at 10:00am – Registration Link

Advanced Panopto for SPS Faculty

Thursday, November 7th at 10:00am – Registration Link
Wednesday, November 20th at 4:00pm – Registration Link

Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread

Wednesday, November 13th at 4:00pm – Registration Link
Monday, December 2nd at 1:00pm – Registration Link

All the best,
Your OFDIT Team

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Course Prep For Fall

Quick Tip: Initiate Panopto in New Course Sites

Quick Note: Impacts of Editing a Course Name

New Teaching Guide Enhancements

Faculty Support and OFDIT Brightspace Office Hours

Explore the OpenLab

Did You Know?

Faculty Corner: Foster Engagement with the Activity Feed

Fall Course Site Preparation Support

Get Support Making Instructional Videos

Faculty Support over the Summer

Did You Know?

Faculty Corner: Call for Submissions

Brightspace Day

Hybrid BYOL Session UDL Collaborative Meeting 12-1pm ET

Share Your Thoughts on a Center for Teaching and Learning at CUNY SPS!

Getting Ready to Calculate Final Grades

Guides for Managing Special Grading Cases in Brightspace

Coming Soon: Importing Grades from Brightspace to CUNYfirst

ePortfolio (Digication) Resources for Students and Faculty

Did You Know?

Explore the OpenLab!

Faculty Corner: Call for Submissions

Brightspace Day is May 15!

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Events for SPS Faculty

CUNY SPS Transformative Learning & Development Conference

12th Annual Bronx EdTech Showcase

UDL Collaborative: April Meeting

OpenLab

Did You Know?

Faculty Corner

OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings

Using ePortfolio in your Course

Advanced Gradebook Topics for SPS Faculty

Brightspace: Navigating and Grading Discussions

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Brightspace Highlight: Setting Accommodations

CUNY SPS Events

UDL and Open Pedagogy: Fostering Student Agency

CUNY SPS Faculty Fellowship: Teaching and AI

CUNY SPS Transformative Learning & Development Conference

OpenLab Support Hours

Join the Open Road for updates!

CUNY Opportunities for SPS Faculty

Meet CUNY’s Chief Academic AI Officer!

CUNY Teaching & Learning Conference

CUNY Online Webinars

Audio and Video Feedback in Brightspace

Make the Most of ZOOM!

OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings

Using ePortfolio in your Course

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread

Advanced Gradebook Topics for SPS Faculty

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

Using Video in Brightspace (Panopto/Video Notes)

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

Advanced Panopto for SPS Faculty

Brightspace: Notifications and the Pulse App (30 mins)

Brightspace Updates and Notes

Brightspace Highlight: Personalizing your Homepage

Brightspace Office Hours

Brightspace Day

SPS Trainings and Events

Open for All Workshop – Registration Extended!

UDL Collaborative at CUNY SPS

OpenLab Support Hours

CUNY Opportunities for SPS Faculty

CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy workshops

CUNY Online Webinars

Credit for Prior Learning Showcase

CUNY SPS Transformative Learning & Development Conference

OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings

Using ePortfolio in your Course

Anthology Ally: An Introduction

Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading

Brightspace: Feedback (30 mins)

Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread

Brightspace: Managing Groups (30 mins)

Faculty Support and OFDIT
Brightspace Office Hours

Faculty Corner:
Foster Engagement with the Activity Feed

Hybrid BYOL Session
UDL Collaborative Meeting
12-1pm ET

Getting Ready to
Calculate Final Grades

Guides for Managing
Special Grading Cases in Brightspace

Coming Soon:
Importing Grades from
Brightspace to CUNYfirst

ePortfolio (Digication) Resources for
Students and Faculty

CUNY SPS
Transformative Learning & Development Conference

CUNY SPS
Transformative Learning & Development Conference

Brightspace Highlight
End of Semester Grading: Zeroes and Exemptions

Welcome to the new
OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board members!

CUNY Online Webinar Series –
Creating a Positive Student Experience in Your Online Course