Dear Faculty,

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

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SPS Faculty Community Site
Now a Communication Hub on OpenLab

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

Launch the Hub

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Brightspace Update

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

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

The first few lessons will help you:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Preparing Course Sites for Spring

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

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

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

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

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

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Teaching with Intelligence:
Generative AI in the Classroom

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

Decoding Generative AI: Navigating the Fundamentals

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s Talk AI: Student Roundtable. 

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

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

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

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CIED Workshop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Open Spring

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

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

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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

Dear Faculty,

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

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Open & Active Video Workshop

Interested in boosting student engagement? Consider interactive videos!

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

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LMS Transition News

January is a time to explore Brightspace!

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

Brightspace Demos for Faculty

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

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

Explore Migrated Courses 

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

Create a Practice Course 

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

Upcoming Brightspace Essentials Workshop

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

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

Migration of Dev Sites

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

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

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

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

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Screencast-O-Matic is Now ScreenPal!

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

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

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

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Calculating Final Grades Using Total Points/Weighted Total

As you prepare to wrap up the Fall semester, a reminder that Blackboard allows you to use Total Points or Weighted Total to calculate your final grades.

The Total Points column is created by default in Blackboard. The Total Points column will calculate final grades by simply adding up all the points a student earned. If you have selected “Calculate as Running Total” and percentage as the Primary Display for the column, the total points the student has earned is divided by the total points possible for their graded work, displaying the student’s average grade on the work they have submitted. If a student has missed an assignment submission, this average won’t be affected unless you enter a manual grade for them in that column. 

The Weighted Total column calculates a final grade based on the respective percentages assigned to categories or individual columns. The final grade is calculated independently of the points assigned to each graded item. It is important to note that the Weighted Total column is created by default in Blackboard, but it is empty unless you set it up.

Please keep in mind that you can change the format in which grades are displayed in both the Total and Weighted Total columns. When you change the Primary Display, this is the format that appears in the Grade Center and My Grades area for students. When you change the Secondary Display, this is only visible to you as the instructor in the Grade Center; students do not see the secondary display. We recommend changing your Secondary Display to either SPS Undergrad Letter or SPS Grad Letter, whichever is appropriate, as this converts the final grade into the appropriate letter grade which you’ll have to enter into CUNYfirst.

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

• Calculating Final Grades Using Total Points
• Calculating Final Grades Using Weighted Total

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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

Dear Faculty,

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

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OER Initiative Update

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

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

 

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

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Upcoming OER Initiative Workshops

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

Interested in boosting student engagement? Consider interactive videos!

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

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LMS Transition News

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

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

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

Brightspace Demo for Faculty: Register Here 

• Nov. 29 at 11:00am

Brightspace Q&A: Register Here

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

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

Dear Colleagues,

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

Sincerely,
UFS-LIT Committee

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

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Your Input Requested!
OFDIT’s Faculty Onboarding Programs Survey

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

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

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

Friday, December 8, 12-1 pm Register here

Join Professor Kenya Harris (Nursing), OFDIT’s Sarah Kresh, and faculty participants in the March 2023 Open for All Workshop for an info session describing the DEI and Open Pedagogy annotations to the SPS Course Review Rubric that were created for the workshop. The SPS Course Review Rubric determines the standards and criteria by which SPS courses are created, revised, and launched, thus faculty input on how it can be used to create greater inclusion, access, representation, and authentic learning experiences for SPS students is important! Please join this discussion to make your voices heard in an ongoing consultative process to improve the student experience and student learning outcomes at SPS.

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Upcoming CUNY Conferences and CFP

CUNY IT Conference

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

CUNY-wide Teaching and Learning Conference

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

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

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

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

Special Series for CUNY Faculty:
Disability & Accessibility

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

Offered on Fridays from 2-3 PM on Zoom.

• Friday, November 17: New York State IT Accessibility Policy and Your Class
• Friday, December 8: Best Practices for Teaching Students with Disabilities

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Get Video Captioned – We Welcome Your Requests!

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

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Descriptive Hyperlinks Makes Documents More Accessible

By Curtis Itzen, SPS Online Business Program

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

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

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

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OFDIT Fall 2023 Trainings

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

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

Introducing CUNY Pressbooks

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

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

• Thursday, Nov. 16 at 5:30pm Register Here

Panopto for SPS Faculty

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

• Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 4:00pm Register Here

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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

Dear Faculty,

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

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Open UDL Workshop starts
Monday, Oct. 23

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

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

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OLC Membership Benefits for all
SPS Faculty

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

OLC’s Quick Start for New Members:

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

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

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LMS Transition News

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

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

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

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Engagement Opportunities for
SPS Faculty

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

Topics include:

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

Registration is available through the link above.

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Special Series for CUNY Faculty: Disability & Accessibility

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

Offered on Fridays from 2-3 PM on Zoom.

• Friday, October 27: Disability Rights in Education
• Friday, November 17: New York State IT Accessibility Policy and Your Class
• Friday, December 8: Best Practices for Teaching Students with Disabilities

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Generative AI

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

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

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

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

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Hmpc1br?

 

Or “How Many Passwords Can One Brain Remember?”

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

 

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OFDIT Fall 2023 Trainings

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

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

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

• Thursday, Oct. 5 at Noon Register Here
• Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 5:30pm Register Here

Introducing CUNY Pressbooks

• Thursday, Nov. 16 at 5:30pm Register Here

Anthology Ally: An Introduction

• Thursday, Nov. 2 at 3:00pm Register Here

ePortfolio for SPS Faculty: An Introduction

• Thursday, Oct. 19 at 10:00am Register Here
• Monday, Nov. 6 at 1:00pm Register Here

A Cut Above: Making Your Videos More Professional

• Monday, Nov. 6 at 4:00pm Register Here

Panopto for SPS Faculty

• Wednesday, Oct. 18 at 1:00pm Register Here
• Monday, Oct. 30 at 1:00pm Register Here
• Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 4:00pm Register Here

Personalizing Your Panopto Video

• Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 1:00pm Register Here
• Monday, Oct. 23 at 1:00pm Register Here
• Thursday, Nov. 2 at 2:00pm Register Here
• Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 10:00am Register Here

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

• Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 4:00pm Register Here
• Friday, Nov. 3 at 10:00am Register Here

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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

 

Dear Faculty,

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

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

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New 2023-2024
Faculty Advisory Board

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

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

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LMS Transition News

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

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

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Open UDL Workshop:
Making Your Courses Accessible to All

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

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

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

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Generative AI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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JITP  – Call for Submissions

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

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

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OFDIT Fall 2023 Trainings

The Pedagogy of Social Annotations

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

• • Wednesday, Oct. 4 at 10:00am Register Here
  • Thursday, Oct. 5 at Noon Register Here
  • Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 5:30pm Register Here

Introducing CUNY Pressbooks

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

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

• • Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Noon Register Here
  • Thursday, Oct. 5 at 10:00am Register Here
  • Thursday, Nov. 16 at 5:30pm 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 and the accessibility gauge features that are now available to all in your courses and the support Anthology Ally provides in addressing any areas where accessibility can be improved, often very quickly!

• • Thursday, Sept. 28 at 1:30pm Register Here
  • Thursday, Oct. 12 at Noon Register Here
  • Thursday, Nov. 2 at 3:00pm Register Here

ePortfolio for SPS Faculty: An Introduction

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

• • Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 3:00pm Register Here
  • Thursday, Oct. 19 at 10:00am Register Here
  • Monday, Nov. 6 at 1:00pm Register Here

A Cut Above: Making Your Videos More Professional

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

• • Friday, Sept, 29 at 10:00am Register Here
  • Tuesday, Oct. 3 at 4:00pm Register Here
  • Monday, Nov. 6 at 4:00pm Register Here

Panopto for SPS Faculty

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

• • Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 11:00am Register Here
  • Wednesday, Oct. 18 at 1:00pm Register Here
  • Monday, Oct. 30 at 1:00pm Register Here
  • Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 4:00pm  Register Here

Personalizing Your Panopto Video

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

• • Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 1:00pm Register Here
  • Monday, Oct. 23 at 1:00pm Register Here
  • Thursday, Nov. 2 at 2:00pm Register Here
  • Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 10:00am Register Here

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

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

• • Wednesday, Oct. 11 at 10:00am Register Here
  • Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 4:00pm Register Here
  • Friday, Nov. 3 at 10:00am Register Here

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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

Welcome to the 2023 Fall semester!

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

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Steps for Course Prep

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

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

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

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Welcome to our new LMS Admin!

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

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New version of Digication in the Fall

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

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

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

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LMS Transition News

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

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Call for Faculty Corner Submissions

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

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

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

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

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Adjunct Faculty Teaching Excellence Award

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

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

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OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board: Nominations for 2023-25

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

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OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop
(July 10-23)

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

Dear Faculty,

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

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

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Helpful CUNY Resources

Entering Final Grades in CUNYFirst

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

Eduroam Wifi Access

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

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

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LMS Transition News!

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

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

Read More

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OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board Info Session

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

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

Register Here

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OER@SPS Summer 2023 Workshops

OER & Open Pedagogy Training (1 Hour)

From Open Educational Resources (OER) to Open Pedagogy

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

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

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Open & Active Video Workshop (June 5-20)

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

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

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OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop (July 10-23)

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

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

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OpenLab @ CUNY SPS

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

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

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

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

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Faculty Corner Discussion with Curtis Izen

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

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

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

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

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

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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

Dear Faculty,

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

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

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

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LMS Transition News!

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

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

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

Read More

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Survey from the OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board

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

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

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

Thank you!

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

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Teaching with Intelligence: Navigating AI in the Classroom

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

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

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

Register Here

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Engagement Opportunities for SPS Faculty

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Spring 2023 CITA Events

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

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

Hunter College ACERT Presents: Lunchtime Seminars

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

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

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

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

CITA Teaching Matters presents:
“Environmental Justice Across Spaces”

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

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

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Special CITA Sessions: Learning Disruption

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Calculating Final Grades using Total Points/Weighted Total

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • Calculating Final Grades Using Total Points
  • Calculating Final Grades Using Weighted Total

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OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

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

Making Your Course Content Accessible with Ally 

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

• • Wednesday, April 19 at 1pm Register Here

ePortfolio for SPS Faculty: An Introduction

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

• • Wednesday, April 26 at 4pm Register Here

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

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

• • Tuesday, April 18 at 4pm Register Here

Personalizing Your Panopto Video

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

• • Tuesday, April 18 at 2pm Register Here

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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

Dear Faculty,

We are excited to share a variety of engaging learning opportunities, from our spring faculty development workshops to additional CUNY professional development events scheduled in the coming weeks!

We encourage you to check out the our latest feature on video feedback in our Faculty Corner as well as the upcoming Open for All Discussion Series focusing on the themes of representation, inclusion/accessibility, and student agency through the lens of OER and Open Pedagogy approaches.

Don’t forget to register for OFDIT’s Spring 2023 faculty trainings, which feature some new topics such as Blackboard Ally, sessions on Panopto, OER, ePortfolio, and more!

Looking forward to seeing you at some of the events!

Engaging Opportunities for SPS Faculty

Open for All Discussion Series

Our discussion series on increasing inclusion in online courses continues this Friday, March 17, with the topic of Inclusion & Accessibility. How do students access content? How do they access concepts? Does everyone have equal and equitable access to the full range of materials and ideas in your course? Speakers will include Andrew Marcum, Academic Director and Distinguished Lecturer for Disability Studies at SPS, on the relationship between accessibility and equity, and OFDIT’s Jesse Rice-Evans and Kathryn Larkins introducing some of the features of Ally that go beyond basic accessibility and allow students to choose how to interact with online course content.

On Friday, March 24, our discussion will focus on Student Voice and Choice. 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? Kate Moss, Doctoral Lecturer in General Education and Liberal Studies at CUNY SPS, will share an open pedagogy assignment that exemplifies how students can be knowledge creators in the context of a course.

Discussion sessions are held from 12-1:30pm. All are welcome!  Register Here

Zotero Citation Management

Thursday, March 16, 12:30-1:30 pm

This workshop provides a hands on introduction to Zotero, a free open-source, bibliographic citation management tool that allows you to collect, store, and organize information as you research, and to rapidly generate citations and bibliographies with your word processor in a variety of styles as you write.

You will learn to install Zotero, capture items into your personal library, generate in-text citations and bibliographies, sync to the cloud and utilize many of the software’s functions.

This workshop is open to all CUNY SPS students and faculty
Register Here

CIED: Hidden Figures

Wednesday, March 22, 11:00am – 1:00pm

The Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity (CIED) is proud to present a panel discussion on Hidden Figures: Developing Student Identity within a Discipline. Attend to learn ways in which a student’s identity can be fostered and supported within a discipline; the tools to develop the identity within the discipline; and how to align a student’s identity with a balanced learning experience and professional success. Register Here

Teaching with Intelligence: Navigating AI in the Classroom

Friday, April 28, 12:00-1:00pm

All SPS faculty are invited to a discussion on ChatGPT and other generative AI in our classes. How do we gauge our students’ temperature and talk to them about it? What approach can we take if students do use it? What might we want to adjust in our course design and assessments?  With: Carolee Ramsay, Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards. Ruru Rusmin, Assistant Dean, Faculty Development and Instructional Technology

Register Here

Upcoming CUNY Events

SPRING 2023 CITA Events

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

Hunter ACERT Presents: March Lunchtime Seminars
Tuesday/Thursdays in March, 12:00-1:00 PM (Partner Virtual Event): Please register here.

• March 21: Integrating career exploration and preparation into the curriculum
• March 23: Global Learning Experiences- live from New York
• March 28: Attention! The art and science of student engagement

Environmental Justice Across Spaces
Friday, April 28, 10:00-11:00 AM (Virtual Event) -Please register here.
Rebio Diaz Cardona, Nathan Hosannah, Tomo Imamichi, Ryan Mann-Hamilton, and Ingrid Veras, LaGuardia Community College

Teaching and Learning with Transformative Texts
Friday, May 12, 2:00-3:00 PM (Virtual Event) – Please register here.
Karin Beck, Mila Burns, Alyshia Gálvez, and Julie Maybee, Lehman College

Faculty Corner: Providing Video Feedback

Dr. Sarah Ruth Jacobs, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Communication and Media and Liberal Studies discusses building rapport with her student using video feedback. Take a look!

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Video feedback has a few advantages to traditional feedback: it conveys tone better than the written word, it can show how a reader or viewer is interacting with the student’s work in real time, and it can make it easier to show a student the overall flow and structure of his or her work.

The first step to incorporating video feedback is to consider what assignment(s) would most benefit from such feedback. I personally choose to give video feedback on a one-page writing assignment that I think would benefit from students hearing my encouraging tone (despite a lot of otherwise critical feedback). Even though it is asynchronous, video feedback gives students the sense of a shared experience where I conversationally look over, point out, and discuss different portions of the assignment in an in-depth way.

When I give video feedback, I use Screencast-O-Matic, and I select the screen only option, so that the student’s work is what is visible. Prior to giving feedback, I read over and highlight different parts of a student’s work that I want to touch on—the good, the bad, and what is promising but needs work, using different colored highlights. This prevents me from having to read over the assignment in its entirety while giving feedback, though that could be an option if you want a student to hear his or her words. For a one-page assignment, I usually give 1 to 3 minutes of video feedback. I then upload the video using Panopto, and I will submit the video for captioning and transcripts.

Generally, video feedback works better for shorter assignments, or for multimedia assignments. Longer assignments may require more extensive line-by-line criticism, which can render video feedback a little bit awkward when students are revising. I therefore tend to give video feedback for assignments that do not require extensive revision. So far my students have responded positively to my feedback, and I believe that it helps to establish and improve my rapport with students.

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If you are interested in learning how to give video feedback, you can sign up for one of our OFDIT workshops on Panopto, VoiceThread or Screencast-O-Matic, or contact us for more information.

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

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OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

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Don’t forget to sign up for OFDIT’s trainings this spring! Our sessions are designed to encourage all faculty to add skills and get inspired about the tools available for your teaching! You may register using our public calendar or learn more below:

Introduction to Blackboard Ally
Learn how our new tool, Blackboard 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!

Thursday, March 16 at 10am Register Here
Monday, March 20 at 1pm Register Here

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

Monday, April 3 at 10am Register Here
Wednesday, April 19 at 1pm Register Here

Getting Started with Blackboard Mobile
In this session, we will explore the Blackboard Mobile application and gain an understanding of how students experience learning on the go. We will also discuss the major interface differences between Blackboard Mobile and Blackboard for Desktop and best practices for online course design for mobile devices.

Thursday, March 23 at 11am Register Here
Thursday, March 30 at 2pm Register Here

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

Thursday, March 23 at 10am Register Here
Monday, March 27 at 11am Register Here

A Cut Above: Making Your Videos More Professional
Learn simple steps to present yourself on video to enhance your connection with your students by looking more professional. Nowadays, we have multiple opportunities to be on camera for synchronous virtual meetings or recording content for our classes. Having your students see and hear you builds rapport and sparks excitement for learning. Whether you are trying this for the first time, or have been creating media for a while, this session will give you a set of guides to help make your videos look and sound professionally produced.

Thursday, March 23 at 4pm Register Here

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

Friday, March 24 at 10am Register Here
Wednesday, April 26 at 4pm Register Here

 

Screencast-O-Matic: Effective Editing Techniques
Screencast-O-Matic (SCOM), a powerful video creating and editing tool, is available to SPS Faculty. In this session, participants will learn effective editing techniques that will direct your audience’s attention to what’s important. Used in conjunction with Panopto, the SPS video hosting platform, SCOM makes advanced editing features simple. The result, you can produce a polished video with a few simple steps.

Tuesday, March 28 at 3pm Register Here
Wednesday, April 5 at 4pm Register Here

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

Monday, April 3 at 4pm Register Here
Tuesday, April 18 at 4pm Register Here

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

Tuesday, April 18 at 2pm Register Here

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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