OFDIT Newsletter April 2023

Dear Faculty,

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

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

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

LMS Transition News!

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

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

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

Survey from the OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board

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

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

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

Thank you!

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

Teaching with Intelligence: Navigating AI in the Classroom

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

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

Engagement Opportunities for SPS Faculty

Spring 2023 CITA Events

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

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

Hunter College ACERT Presents: Lunchtime Seminars

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

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

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

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

CITA Teaching Matters presents:
“Environmental Justice Across Spaces”

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

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

Special CITA Sessions: Learning Disruption

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

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

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

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

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

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

Calculating Final Grades using Total Points/Weighted Total

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Calculating Final Grades Using Total Points
- Calculating Final Grades Using Weighted Total

OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

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

Making Your Course Content Accessible with Ally

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

- 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

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

March 16, 2023

OFDIT Newsletter March 2023

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

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!

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.

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!

OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

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

All the best,
Your OFDIT Team

February 16, 2023

OFDIT Newsletter February 2023

February 2023

Dear Faculty,

We at OFDIT are excited to share our spring faculty development calendar, along with other opportunities for professional learning and dialog in the coming weeks!

In this edition we feature the upcoming CUNY Mindset Summit, with a session led by our own Assistant Dean Angela Francis. We also share information about our CUNY SPS Open for All Workshop (registration open until Feb. 24), on using OER and Open Pedagogy to support inclusive teaching, and an update on the SPS Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group.

You can also browse OFDIT’s Spring 2023 faculty training calendar, which features some new topics such as Blackboard Ally and an OpenLab info-session, along with sessions on Panopto, OER, and ePortfolio, and more!

Last, check out the many events offered this month and next by the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy (CITA), including a session on ChatGTP coming up Friday, Feb. 17 and the CITA Summer Institute 2023 (with registration due March 10).

Looking forward to seeing you at some of the events as you hone your professional practice!

CUNY Mindset Summit 2023

Friday, March 3, from 9:30am-12:30pm bit.ly/3HJK2WQ

Assistant Dean of General Education and First Year Experience, Angela Francis, will be leading a breakout session on Growth Mindset Beyond the Classroom.

ALL CUNY COLLEAGUES ARE WELCOME including faculty, staff, and administrators – those who are new to the area, and those who are familiar with the concept of learning mindsets!

This inaugural CUNY-wide summit will be an opportunity to review the three learning mindsets, collectively called Mindset GPS: Growth Mindset, Purpose and Relevance, and Sense of Belonging, and discuss how to translate the framework into equity-focused practices. The event will kick off with a plenary panel discussion featuring nationally renowned experts in the field of learning mindsets and equity, followed by three concurrent workshops facilitated by colleagues from across our campuses who have been serving as CUNY’s mindset leaders.

Join our growing community of open practitioners for Open Spring!

Open for All Workshop (March 2023)

Open Spring at CUNY SPS 2023 will cover the intersection of Open Educational Resources (OER), Open Pedagogy and Inclusive Pedagogy through the implementation of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility (DEIA) educational practices. The Open for All Workshop (March 3-31), built around a series of five live online discussions with a supporting Blackboard course and resource site, is a process-based workshop focusing on how to evaluate a course for inclusivity along different dimensions (ex., representation, accessibility, and student voice and choice), and how Open Pedagogy and OER can be leveraged to increase inclusivity. As a final workshop project, participants will conduct a review of an SPS course that they have developed or taught and present a proposal for increasing inclusivity in the course using specific DEIA and open practices. All SPS faculty and course developers are invited to participate in the workshop, whatever their level of experience with DEIA pedagogies, OER, or Open Pedagogy.

See our Open Spring at CUNY SPS page for more info.

Workshop Registration open now through Friday, Feb. 24.

Spring is a great time for Open! We are offering our one-hour training on OER and Open Pedagogy at the end of February, and Jesse Rice-Evans, manager of our soon-to-come Open Lab, will be introducing that platform in early March, coinciding with OE Global’s Open Education Week, March 6-10. See info and registration links for those two SPS sessions below.

Open Education Week is a celebration of the global movement of OER and Open Pedagogy educators. It’s an opportunity to share your own open projects and to see how OER and Open Ed are being implemented by colleagues all over the world. The call for submissions is open now! Also, be sure to check the OEWEEK site March 6-10 to see all of the activities and resources that are shared.

Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group

The SPS Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group kicks off its spring meetings on Tuesday, February 28, 2-3pm with a discussion of ChatGPT. For more information, email Elizabeth Alsop (elizabeth.alsop@cuny.edu).

OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

For more information and to register for any of the trainings below, please see Training Sessions for SPS Faculty.

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!

Thursday Feb 16 at 4pm Register here
Tuesday Feb 21 at 3PM Register here
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. 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 February 17 at 10am Register here
Thursday March 23 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 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!

Wednesday Feb 15 at 11AM Register here
Wednesday March 1 at 10AM Register here
Tuesday April 18 at 2PM Register here

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!

Wed. Feb 22 at 6pm Register here
Thursday Feb 23 at 12 pm Register here
Friday Feb 24 at 9 am 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. 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.

Monday Feb 27 at 12pm Register Here
Friday March 24 at 10am Register Here
Wednesday April 26 at 4pm Register Here

OpenLab Info Session

Planning your future collaborative projects? Curious about what digital tools will be available at CUNY SPS in the near future? Thinking about what open digital pedagogy tools are best to collaborate, create, and explore? In this one-hour informational session, we’ll introduce the CUNY OpenLab. We’ll explore projects on other CUNY-based OpenLabs and take an informational tour of other OpenLab sites to explore the possibilities of a new, open-source platform coming soon to CUNY SPS. At the end of this interactive info session, we’ll share upcoming opportunities to participate in other workshops geared toward open digital pedagogy.

Monday, March 6, 2023, 12:30-1:30PM Register here
Thursday, March 9, 2023, 6-7PM Register here

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

Tuesday, April 4 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.

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

Monday April 3 at 4pm Register here
Tuesday April 18 at 4pm Regi ster here

Upcoming CITA Events

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

Friday, February 17, 2-3pm (Virtual Event)

Introduction to ChatGPT

Laura Baecher, School of Education, Hunter College and Jack Kenigsberg, Acting Coordinator Rockowitz Writing Center, Hunter College will be leading an overview of ChatGPT’s implications and possibilities for higher education.

To find out more about what ChatGPT is capable of and to consider ways you might create assignments keeping ChatGPT in mind, check out the event page on Eventbrite for more information and to register.

Friday, March 10, 2:00-3:00 PM (Virtual Event)

The New College Classroom

Cathy Davidson and Christina Katopodis, CUNY Central Office

March 14, 1:59 PM (3.14159) (Virtual Event)

Sharing a Slice of Pi: Pi Day Celebration

Mathematics and pastry chef faculty will join efforts in this interdisciplinary presentation to celebrate Pi Day. The presenters will share fun facts about pi and pie with the goals of generating interest and motivating learning. The participants will have the opportunity to try a hands-on activity and to share their favorite pi/pie activity or story. All are welcome!

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

Environmental Justice Across Spaces

Rebio Diaz Cardona, Nathan Hosannah, Tomo Imamichi, Ryan Mann-Hamilton, and Ingrid Veras, LaGuardia Community College

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

Teaching and Learning with Transformative Texts

Karin Beck, Mila Burns, Alyshia Gálvez, and Julie Maybee, Lehman College

CITA Summer Institute 2023

Interested in promoting equitable and inclusive STEM teaching and learning? The CITA Summer Institute will be held from May 30 – June 5th, 2023 (2 days in-person, 3 via Zoom) in support of projects which implement high impact practices at the classroom, department, or school/college level that promote equitable and inclusive teaching and learning in undergraduate STEM.

Project proposals could include curriculum development, new course proposal, course redesign, student learning activities, or student support activities. Collaborative projects are encouraged! Selected participants who complete the program will receive a $1000 stipend and the opportunity to present their developed projects.

Click here to learn more and apply. Applications are due March 10th, and applicants will be notified of acceptance by March 31st.

Call for Faculty Corner Submissions

If you have a useful or interesting pedagogical or technicall 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!

As always, OFDIT is here to help with any questions you may have. We are available for one-on-one support and would be happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. You can contact us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu.

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

January 19, 2023

OFDIT Newsletter January 2023

January 2023

Dear Faculty,

Happy 2023 from your OFDIT team!

This month’s newsletter includes updates about Ally, a new accessibility tool enabled across all SPS course sites in Blackboard. We also share some details about the upcoming CUNY Games Network as well as Teaching Matters workshops, along with information to assist with your Spring course preparation.

We hope you had a wonderful break, and look forward to supporting your work with students in the coming year!

Course Accessibility with Ally

We’re excited to announce that Blackboard Ally, an accessibility tool, was enabled for all CUNY SPS course sites on January 3, 2023.

Ally provides the following:

Alternative content formats for a variety of devices and assistive technologies, available to all course users. Alternative formats can be accessed for both students and instructors by clicking on the Ally icon found to the right of the item, and includes format options such as HTML, ePUB, audio (MP3), electronic braille, and translated language versions, among others.

Accessibility scores and accessibility improvement guidance, for instructors only. Instructors will see an accessibility gauge icon next to all individual attachments and files in their courses, which indicates the accessibility score for that item. If the gauge icon indicates a low accessibility rating, clicking the icon gives instructors access to a Feedback Panel for detailed explanations and how-to steps for making that item more accessible.

Accessibility Report, for instructors only. Instructors can view a summary of the accessibility scores and issues for their course site via Ally’s Accessibility Report, available under Control Panel – Course Tools on the course menu. It includes a list of the course’s content items, accessibility scores, and issues.

Ally Resources and Support

See our Blackboard Ally Resource Page for more details, helpful links and resources, or watch this recording of an Ally instructor training.

OFDIT will also be offering Ally trainings for SPS faculty next month; details will be announced at the start of Spring semester.

Questions regarding Ally can be directed to Faculty Support (facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu). We are pleased about the tools Ally provides for creating more accessible courses for all at SPS, and know you will be, too!

Announcing Ally to Your Students

Below we’ve drafted some language explaining Ally, which you can share with your students via an announcement in your course, if you would like (please edit as you see fit):

Dear students, I have some exciting news: CUNY SPS now has a Blackboard accessibility tool called Ally. You may have noticed the Ally icon next to course content text and attachments. You can click on this icon to access available alternative formats for the course material. For example, you can convert a PDF into an HTML document for easier reading on mobile devices, or into an MP3 audio file for a text-to-speech version. You are welcome to explore this tool at your convenience but please note you are not required to do so.

For more details, see the resources listed below, or contact the Office of Disability Services (disabilityservices@sps.cuny.edu) with any questions about this new tool.

Upcoming CUNY Events

Interested in game-based pedagogies? Want to learn more about using observation and dialogue-based inquiry to connect with your students and extend their critical thinking skills? The following hybrid and online events are open to CUNY instructors:

CUNY Games Conference

January 23 and 24, 2023 (Hybrid – in-person and online) the CUNY Games Conference 9.0 will be presented by the Games Network of the City University of New York. See the CUNY Games Conference website for more information and to register.

Art as a Tool for Empathic Teaching

Teaching Matters Professional Development Series:

Friday, February 3, 10:00-11:00 AM (Virtual Event)

Art as a Tool for Empathic Teaching, presented by Cris Scorza and Dyeemah Simmons, from the Whitney Museum of American Art. See the event page on Eventbrite for more details and to register.

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 our 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.

Making Video for your Online Class

As the new semester approaches many of you will be recording video introductions and overviews. Making a video for your online class is really about making a connection with your students. Seeing and hearing their professor builds community in the classroom and increases engagement. If you’ll be making a video, please check out our guide: Making Video for your Online Class. This 2-page guide offers tips on increasing the production value of your recording, or in other words, how you can look more professional on camera. Alternatively, faculty are welcome to visit us on campus to use the OFDIT Media Studio for full video support.

Call for Faculty Corner Submissions

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!

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

January 19, 2023

OFDIT Newsletter December 2022

December 2022

Dear Faculty,

As you work to wrap up the semester, OFDIT is here with support and resources for you! January is a great time for reflection on pedagogy and for learning new teaching practices. In this month’s newsletter, we feature opportunities for professional development coming up: CUNY Central OAA’s Innovative Pedagogy team is offering their very popular Growth Mindset workshop and we at OFDIT are offering our Open and Active Video workshop. In other news, we share an exciting announcement about Blackboard Ally at SPS. Finally, don’t miss a fabulous video introduction to the resources and faculty support available through OFDIT’s Media Studio! Sit back, press play, and enjoy the tour!

We wish you a wonderful break and all the best in the coming year!

Faculty Professional Development Opportunities

In January 2023, CUNY Central OAA’s Innovative Pedagogy Team will offer a learning mindset course for 100 CUNY faculty from all CUNY schools. This 2-week, 15-hour asynchronous course will be online and run January 12-27, 2023. In this course, designed and led by the University of Virginia’s Motivate Lab, full and part-time faculty are invited to further explore evidence-supported tools and techniques that can help students succeed. The discussion portion of the course will be facilitated by Motivate Lab experts and the CUNY Faculty Mindset Fellows who have been chosen based on their experience with learning mindsets.

If you are interested in participating in the course, submit the following form by the end of Friday, December 16: Motivating Learners Course (MLC): Starting Strong — Mindset Course

Selected participants will be notified by Thursday, December 22. For any questions, email CUNY Central OAA’s Mari Watanabe-Rose and Dominique DiTommaso at CUNYMindset@cuny.edu

Blackboard Ally

We’re excited to announce that starting with courses in the Winter/Spring 2023 semester, Ally for LMS, an accessibility tool, will be available for CUNY SPS courses in Blackboard. Ally will be launched in all course sites on January 3rd, 2023.

Ally provides instructors with guidance on how to correct accessibility issues with digital course content. For students, the tool provides access to alternative content formats for a variety of devices and assistive technologies.

See Blackboard’s Ally support page for more details and links to helpful resources for instructors, or watch the recording of the Ally instructor training from November 2022.

Questions regarding Ally can be directed to

Instructors: Faculty Support at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu
Students: Office of Student Disability Services at disabilityservices@sps.cuny.edu

Open and Active Video Workshop

Looking to increase student engagement and lesson effectiveness? Don’t miss the hands-on SPS Open & Active Video Workshop, Monday, January 9 to Monday, January 23, 2023.

This workshop combines the pedagogical why and the practical how to help you generate an interactive video to use in your courses. We start by identifying a course need that can be addressed by the addition of multimedia content presented in an active learning context. Then we’ll train you on how to script, record, and edit your video, adding interactive elements. In the second week, you’ll work independently (with our support) to create the video and accompanying activity.

Thanks to the SPS OER Initiative, eligible faculty participants will be paid for 7 Non-Teaching Adjunct hours upon successful completion of the workshop. To be eligible, faculty must be first-time participants in the workshop, be within their workload restrictions with an additional 7 NTA hours in the semester they complete the workshop, and have approval from their Academic Director.

See the full workshop description including learning objectives and workshop requirements on our Advanced Workshops page.

Registration is open through Wednesday, January 4: https://forms.gle/nBWwT62HLYge3doB8

OFDIT Media Studio

As most of us are teaching online, it may not surprise you to learn that student engagement and satisfaction increase when students feel a sense of connection, or ‘human touch,’ in an online environment. Using instructor-created video has a particular strength in conveying social connections across vast distances. For this reason, at SPS we encourage faculty to add video elements to their courses to build a stronger community of learners. The OFDIT Media Team is here to support you by helping with all aspects of video production, especially time-consuming technical aspects, so that you can focus on creating content and connection.

To learn more, watch our studio orientation to see how we help:

Faculty Corner: Grade Center Tip

The Blackboard Grade Center has several tools that help manage your course grades. In my BUS 325, Principles of MIS course, I use the Grade Center’s color coding feature to get a “birds-eye” view of my assignments and the entire class. With just a glance at the Grade Center, this feature lets me see if a student needs additional help with a topic, is struggling in the course, or if the class is struggling with a particular assignment. I’ve set up color coding to display high or low scores and the status of a grade. To get started with Color Coding in the Grade Center, I’ve prepared this brief tutorial. – Curtis Izen, Online Business Programs

Call for Faculty Corner Submissions

Faculty Support Drop-In Hour

Need live faculty support? Stop by during our Faculty Support Drop-In Hour every Tuesday 3-4pm to speak to an OFDIT team member who can help.

You can access the drop-in hour session via the Zoom link.

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

January 19, 2023

OFDIT Newsletter November 2022

November 2022

Dear Faculty,

Winter is coming! As you cozy up with your hot beverage of choice, we invite you to read this month’s newsletter and catch up on the latest OFDIT and CUNY-wide news.

First, we share information about the many faculty development opportunities that are taking place soon, including the CUNY IT conference, the Teaching Matters series, and events from the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy.

Please read on for tips on setting up your Final Grades column, as well as information about our captioning and transcription service which we encourage you to use for the instructional videos in your course.

Speaking of videos, we invite you to watch Dr. Jennifer Sparrow, CUNY SPS’ Interim Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, speak with Jeffrey Yan of the Digication Scholars Conversation Podcast. Last but certainly not least, don’t miss this month’s Faculty Corner! In this video, Dr. Linda Paradiso talks with OFDIT’s Matt Lewis about the benefits of incorporating reflective learning opportunities into your course.

Thank you for reading and happy sipping!

Faculty Professional Development Opportunities

The CUNY IT Conference, whose theme this year is “The Power and Perils of Scripting,” will be taking place in-person at John Jay College from December 1-2, 2022.

CUNY SPS speakers include conference co-chair Bronwen Stine (IT), as well as Tara Barca, Joe Foy, Ed Knox (all of Business) and Ruru Rusmin (OFDIT), who will be presenting “Paving the Path: Online Course Frameworks for Consistent, Frictionless Curriculum Delivery.” To register for this free event, please visit the CUNY IT Conference Events page.

Continue expanding your instructional practice with events from the Innovative Teaching Academy (ITA) as well as the Teaching Matters Series. Upcoming workshops include:

Teaching Matters: Modeling Your Assignments after Your Own Writing Practices with Karen Miller. Friday, December 2, 2022, 10 – 11 AM ET. Register here.
Community Inside and Outside of the Classroom (Online). Friday, December 2, 2022, 12—1:30 PM. Register here.
Not the Master’s Tools: Building Community in the Classroom (Online). Tuesday, December 6, 2022, 4—5 PM. Register here .
Equity through Creativity: Examples of Transformative Teaching Across Disciplines (Online). Wednesday, December 7, 2022, 4—5 PM. Register here.

Training is also available on Ally, a Blackboard tool which evaluates content uploaded into a course and provides instructors with steps on how to improve the accessibility of that file. In addition, Ally provides students with multiple formats of the original content so students can select a format which best fits their needs.

Friday, December 2nd – 12:00-2:00pm. Register here (Registration closes November 30th)
Tuesday, December 6th – 12:00-2:00 pm. Register here (Registration closes December 4th)

Open Pedagogy in the Teaching Matters Series

On Friday, September 16 from 2 PM – 3 PM, Shawna Brandle from Kingsborough Community College will present “Choosing Your Own Adventure: Increasing Student Engagement with Open Pedagogy.” For more details and to register, click here! To read more about Teaching Matters offerings, or to submit a proposal for a workshop, please see Teaching Matters – The City University of New York.

Calculating Final Grades Using Total Points or Weighted Total

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 a 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!

Captioning Videos in SPS Courses

This may not be a big surprise to the SPS community, but captioning a video benefits everyone. At SPS we would like every video added to a course to have captions and/or a full transcript. SPS has contracted a professional captioning service, 3Play Media, to make the addition of captions as easy as possible. Recently, OFDIT updated our caption request form to allow for multiple video submission pathways.

No matter the location (YouTube, Panopto, Dropbox, etc.), you may submit videos used in SPS courses for professional captioning. You may also submit dual language videos (Spanish/English) for captioning. You can even submit videos for captioning that you did not create, such as YouTube links created by a 3rd party.

Get your videos captioned today using the OFDIT Caption Request Form. Please bookmark this link and in the future, when you need a video captioned, you’ll know where to go to get professional captions!

Dr. Jennifer Sparrow interviewed for the Digication Scholars Conversation Podcast

In this episode, “How to Make the Student Experience Better with Outcome-Driven A ssessment” on the Digication Scholars Conversation podcast, Jeffrey Yan chats with Dr. Jennifer Sparrow on topics such as outcome-driven education with an emphasis on the use of teaching and learning technologies to improve the student experience.

Highlights include:

The Need For Outcome-Based Education
Use of Technologies in Education (Teaching and Learning) for Improving the Student Experience
The Benefits of Going Online with Educational Technology
Measuring the Student Experience Through an Outcome-Driven Assessment

And more…

Faculty Corner Discussion on Reflective Learning

In our first ever Faculty Corner video, Dr. Linda Paradiso speaks to Matt Lewis about the use of reflective learning in the Nursing Organizational Leadership Program. Click on the image to view the video.

Call for Faculty Corner Submissions

Faculty Support Drop-In Hour

Need live faculty support? Stop by during our Faculty Support Drop-In Hour every Tuesday 3-4pm to speak to an OFDIT team member who can help.

You can access the drop-in hour session via the Zoom link.

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

September 16, 2022

OFDIT Newsletter September 2022

September 2022

Dear faculty,

We hope your semester is off to a great start!

In this month’s newsletter we share info about OER and Open Pedagogy opportunities you might be interested in, as well as our full schedule of faculty trainings for Fall. Whatever online teaching skill you want to pick up next, we’ve got you covered! And remember, Faculty Support Virtual Drop-In Hours are every Tuesday 3-4 pm via this Zoom link.

Open & Active Video Workshop Registration Extended through Friday!

Register by Friday, September 16, at noon

Looking to increase student engagement and lesson effectiveness? Don’t miss the hands-on Open & Active Video Workshop, Monday, September 19 to Monday, October 3, 2022.

This workshop, sponsored by the CUNY-SPS OER Initiative, involves one week of asynchronous discussions on the pedagogical role of video, active learning, and OER, and training on how to create a video. In the second week participants create a video activity to complement the materials in their courses. See the full workshop description including learning objectives and workshop requirements on our Advanced Workshops page. Eligible faculty who complete the OAV Workshop are compensated with 7 NTA hours and are eligible for OER Initiative funding to create an additional video during the semester.

Registration extended through Friday, September 16, at noon: https://forms.gle/nBWwT62HLYge3doB8

Open Pedagogy in the Teaching Matters Series

OER and Open Pedagogy

(Oct 17-20, 2022)

October is a big month for the Open community. OpenEd22 takes place Oct. 17- 20 online. This is a great conference for anyone interested in OER or Open Pedagogy, with talks from experts in the field, higher ed leadership, open activists, and faculty sharing their experiences of implementing, revising or creating OER with their students. Early registration rates run until Thursday, Sept. 15 & the CUNY SPS OER Initiative can support a few early registration fees for part-time faculty. If interested, please contact Sarah Kresh (sarah.kresh@cuny.edu).

Our OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop for SPS Faculty runs Monday, October 24 to Sunday, November 6, 2022. This workshop introduces the theory and tools that support OER and Open Pedagogy in online courses. Extending on the content of past sessions, this workshop is open to all SPS faculty, even those who’ve previously completed the OER Workshop or who’ve developed OER or ZTC courses. If you’re interested in creating materials with your students, giving them a more authentic way of demonstrating their learning, or simply replacing expensive materials with ZTC content and activities, this is the workshop for you!

Eligible faculty who complete the OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop are compensated with 7 NTA hours thanks to the CUNY SPS OER Initiative. More information and eligibility criteria can be found on our SPS Faculty Community Site’s Advanced Workshops page.

Registration open through Monday, October 17: https://forms.gle/SVZJuSVHxyRh4yYs8

We’ll be offering a short intro to OER and Open Pedagogy in early October as well, so if you are curious about the subject but would like to know more before enrolling in a two-week workshop, check out the Fall Trainings listed below.

Fall Trainings for SPS Faculty

Panopto for SPS Faculty

Weds, September 21, 4-5pm (Register Here)
Thurs, September 29, 10-11am (Register Here)
Tues, October 18, 1-2pm (Register Here)
Weds, October 19, 4-5pm (Register Here)

A Cut Above: Making Your Videos More Professional

Fri, September 30,10-11am (Register Here)
Thurs, October 20, 4-5pm (Register Here)

Personalizing Your Panopto Video

Mon, October 17, 4-5pm (Register Here)
Mon, November 14, 4-5pm (Register Here)

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

Thurs, September 22, 10-11am (Register Here)
Tues, October 11, 4-5pm (Register Here )

Screencast-O-Matic: Effective Editing Techniques

Fri, November 11,10-11am (Register Here)
Mon, December 5, 4-5pm (Register Here)

Getting Started with Blackboard Mobile

Tues, September 27, 12-1pm (Register Here)
Tues, October 18, 10:30-11:30am (Register Here)

Making your Blackboard Course Content Accessible

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 make your documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Blackboard course content (such as font, headers, images, charts, graphs, hyperlinks) accessible to all your students.

Thurs, October 27, 3-4pm (Register Here)
Thurs, November 10, 10:30-11:30am (Register Here)

Accessible Multimedia

In this session, we will discuss tools for multimedia such as Collaborate and Zoom. We will cover tips such as how to add captioning and transcription for audio and video as well as how to write alt-text for images.

Wed, November 2, 11-12pm (Register Here)
Wed, November 16, 10:30-11:30am (Register Here)

From Open Educational Resources (OER) to Open Pedagogy

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’re curious about OER & Open Pedagogy, but aren’t sure you want to commit to the two-week workshop, this training offers an intro to the topic and the types of projects possible in the workshop.

Frid, Oct 7, 12-1pm (Register Here)
Wed, Oct 12, 9-10am (Register Here)
Thurs, Oct 13, 5-6pm (Register Here)

ePortfolio for SPS Faculty: An Introduction

Thurs. Sep 29, 1-2pm
Weds. Oct 12, 10-11am
Tues. Oct 25, 6-7pm

Faculty Support Drop-In Hour

Need live faculty support? Stop by during our Faculty Support Drop-In Hour every Tuesday 3-4pm to speak to an OFDIT team member who can help.

You can access the drop-in hour session via the Zoom link.

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

September 16, 2022

OFDIT Newsletter August 2022

August 2022

Dear CUNY SPS Faculty,

The Office of Faculty Development and Instructional Technology (OFDIT) is excited to welcome you to our Fall 2022 semester! In this newsletter, we share news about our completed transition to Panopto’s video platform.

Speaking of videos, our Open & Active Video Workshop will also be offered again, starting up on Monday, Sept 19th, and we would love for you to take part. Please find details below.

As always, please feel free to reach out to us for any assistance you may need as we begin this new semester and throughout the term. Below, you will see information about our Faculty Support Drop-In Hours which we hold every Tuesday afternoon via Zoom. We welcome any and all questions you may have!

Last but not least, we kick off our Fall Faculty Corner with a useful idea shared by Curtis Izen about using an Outlook distribution list to stay in touch with your students.

Stay tuned for more information about our Fall training sessions in our next newsletter!

Panopto is Here! Updated Video Tools in Blackboard

The Panopto video platform has been fully integrated within Blackboard. In previous newsletters, we announced that our original video system, Ensemble Video, was purchased by Panopto. Over the summer OFDIT and Panopto migrated all SPS content to our new service. Faculty that were using Ensemble Video will now find their content located in their Panopto account. All links and embeds created with Ensemble Video will be maintained.

Moving forward, to ensure the best experience when using Panopto with Blackboard, all users must allow their web browsers to open pop up windows from Blackboard. When accessing Panopto from Blackboard a pop up window is needed to log in users (instructors and students). The pop up opens, logs in the user, and closes in a couple seconds. This needs to happen once per Blackboard session. We’ve documented steps you can share with your students if video playback is interrupted by a user’s browser blocking the pop up. Please visit our support site Panopto for SPS Faculty for these resources.

Please feel free to explore Panopto and its myriad of features including in-video quizzing, deep viewer analytics, and interactive transcripts, just to name a few! Access Panopto in Blackboard by clicking on the “Tools” link in the left-hand navigation menu, and then clicking on “Panopto Content.” You can also log in to the Panopto portal directly here: CUNY SPS Panopto (use your CUNYFirst login). Be on the lookout for upcoming trainings on using Panopto with your courses. In the meantime, please contact facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu for any questions related to Panopto.

Open & Active Video Workshop

Looking to increase student engagement and lesson effectiveness? Don’t miss the hands-on Open & Active Video Workshop, Monday, September 19 to Monday, October 3, 2022.

What’s more, thanks to the OER Initiative, participants can be compensated for their work. Upon successful completion of the workshop, eligible participants will be paid for 7 Non-Teaching Adjunct hours. To be eligible, faculty must be first-time participants in the workshop, be within their workload restrictions with an additional 7 NTA hours in the Fall 2022 semester, and have approval from their Academic Director. See the full workshop description including learning objectives and workshop requirements on our Advanced Workshops page.

Registration is open through Friday, September 9: https://forms.gle/nBWwT62HLYge3doB8

Faculty Support Virtual Drop-In Hours

Need live faculty support? Stop by during our Faculty Support Office Hours every Tuesday 3-4pm via the Zoom link. An OFDIT team member will be on hand to assist with any Blackboard questions

Faculty Corner: Notifying Your Students Outside of Blackboard

“The archetypal method to send announcements or email to your entire class is through Blackboard. How would you contact your students if Blackboard was down or you are traveling and don’t want to use the Blackboard app to inform your class of important information?

I create an Outlook distribution list of my student’s SPS emails each semester by downloading the roster from CUNY First. Follow this link to learn how to Notify your Students Outside of Blackboard.“ – Curtis Izen, SPS Adjunct Faculty, Business

Wishing you a very successful Fall semester!

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

September 16, 2022

OFDIT Newsletter May 2022

May 2022

Dear CUNY SPS Faculty,

The Spring semester is winding down and the summer is almost upon us!

In this edition of our OFDIT newsletter, we share a short recap of this year’s Faculty Development Day and give a big thank you to all our presenters and session chairs. We also announce the migration of Ensemble to Panopto, and invite you to learn about upcoming faculty development opportunities at SPS and CUNY: a free webinar from ICAI on group collaboration online, SPS’s own Adult Learners, Andragogy, and Active Learning workshop, and the CUNY Mindset June mini-course. In addition, we highlight the benefits of becoming an Online Learning Consortium member.

At the end of our newsletter, you will find a short grading tip for the end of the semester as well as information about our Faculty Support Drop-In Hour.

Faculty Development Day Resources

Thank you again to all those who presented and participated in this year’s Faculty Development Day. The theme was Inclusive Teaching: Reaching All Students. Faculty members presented on various topics including engaging students using renewable assignments, how to use Ensemble to create video lessons, techniques when using voice and video threads, integrating self-evaluation style assignments within course design, and empowering students through language choice.

If you missed a presentation or want to catch up with colleagues’ contributions, please visit the Faculty Development Day webpage for recordings. Also, check out the padlet site where participants provided their ideas and insights on Inclusive Teaching.

Once again, thank you to all who attended and a special thanks to our presenters and session chairs!

Ensemble Video Migrating to Panopto

Our video hosting service, Ensemble Video, has been acquired by Panopto and SPS will be managing the transition over the summer. All current content, including all video, playlists, and quizzes, will be seamlessly migrated to the new service. There will be no impact on videos currently published in courses or elsewhere. Moving forward, we will refer to Panopto rather than Ensemble as the service that hosts our video content, and we will be able to take advantage of the wider range of features offered by Panopto. More details and training opportunities will be announced soon!

Free Webinar: The Changing Nature of Group Collaboration in the Online Environment (May 27th, 2022)

Sign up for the free ICAI webinar that will take place May 27th, 2022 from 12pm to 1pm: The Changing Nature of Group Collaboration in the Online Environment. The webinar will cover the nature of group work in online courses and engage participants with a discussion on creating and managing expectations throughout a group project.

Adult Learners, Andragogy, and Active Learning Workshop

OFDIT invites CUNY SPS faculty to participate in the Adult Learners, Andragogy, and Active Learning asynchronous workshop.

As an institution that primarily serves adult learners, we recognize they have unique strengths and needs that require additional support and approaches to teaching. Learn the theories, strategies, and activities that will enable you to better meet the needs of your students. When student learning needs are met, they are both successful and satisfied with their learning experience. Use this training to help improve your own teaching. If you are an instructor, a trainer, or if you are a leader who works with adult learners, this workshop is for you.

This asynchronous workshop is open now to all CUNY SPS faculty/staff. A limited amount of grant money is available for compensation to eligible adjunct faculty starting now until June 13, 2022.

For details please see: Adult Learners, Andragogy, and Active Learning Workshop

Intro to Learning Mindsets Mini Course

In June 2022, CUNY Central OAA’s Innovative Pedagogy Team will offer an Intro to Learning Mindsets course designed by the University of Virginia’s Motivate Lab. For more information about the CUNY Mindset Mini-Course, check out the flyer: Motivating Learning Mini-Course Flyer.

If you are interested in participating in the CUNY Mindset Mini-Course, please register here by Monday, May 23rd, 2022.

Online Learning Consortium Membership

The Online Learning Consortium is the leading professional organization for online educators. CUNY SPS is an institutional member of the OLC, so faculty can benefit from a number of high-quality resources and workshops. Member benefits include:

Free webinars
Member pricing on workshops ($100 savings)
Discounted pricing ($300 – $500 savings) on all OLC Certificate Programs, including Online Teaching and Advanced Online Teaching
20% discount on all OLC publications
Discounted member pricing on OLC conferences

To create a free OLC account affiliated with CUNY SPS,

Go to the Online Learning Consortium homepage and Log In
Click on “Create an Account”
Enter your email address — please use your work address so that your account will connect to your organization and its membership
Complete the profile form
Set your password – you may be asked to reset your password
Select your account to update your profile.
Once logged in, the system will now recognize you as a member and you can use your OLC Institutional member benefits.

For more information, please visit the OLC Member Resources Page.

Grading Tip: Setting Letter Grade as Secondary View

Instructors who use Weighted Total or a Total column with 100 points can choose to display the CUNY SPS Undergrad or Grad Letter Grade as the Secondary View. This does not appear to students, but it is visible to instructors so that they can type this letter grade into their CUNYfirst course roster.

Please follow the below steps to ensure your Secondary View displays the appropriate Letter Grade:

1. Go to your course’s Full Grade Center

2. Click to edit your Total or Weighted Total column, whichever is used to calculate final grades.

3. For Secondary Display, select either SPS Undergrad or SPS Grad Letter grade.

4. Click Submit.

Faculty Support Drop-In Hour

Need live faculty support? Stop by during our Faculty Support Drop-In Hour every Tuesday 3-4pm to speak to an OFDIT team member who can help.

You can access the drop-in hour session via the Zoom link.

As this is our last edition before the end of the Spring semester, we would like to wish you a wonderful and restful summer!

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

April 27, 2022

OFDIT Newsletter April 2022

April 2022

Dear CUNY SPS Faculty,

It is the home stretch for the Spring 2022 semester! We hope your classes are going smoothly.

In this edition, we invite you to participate in our upcoming “Inclusive Teaching: Reaching All Students” Faculty Development Day on May 5th, 2022. We welcome any submissions related to inclusive teaching practices and technology. Please consider submitting a proposal if you have created an OER/ZTC course or used Open Pedagogy. We look forward to reading your submissions!

We also bring to your attention some Blackboard items including Blackboard mobile application messages and course archives.

In exciting news, we provide details about the “Inclusive Zoom Practices” presentation led by OFDIT’s own Antonia Levy and Matthew Lewis, a call for nominations for the upcoming ePortfolio Showcase, and a request for faculty feedback on recognizing and rewarding teaching excellence.

Please read on to find information for the next Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group meeting and our faculty trainings.

Deadline Extended: Faculty Development Day Call for Participation

CUNY SPS OFDIT is hosting

Faculty Development Day 2022

“Inclusive Teaching: Reaching All Students”

Thursday, May 5th, 2022, 2-5pm

Virtual

Have you been experimenting with any new and inclusive teaching practices such as ungrading, assignment choices, and technology?

We would love to learn what you are doing in your courses to increase equity by actively identifying and removing barriers to learning.

Proposal topics can include:

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Accessibility
Anti-racist Pedagogy
Representation (e.g. LGBTQI+)
Alternative Assessments and Ungrading
Building Community and Connection
Culturally Inclusive Pedagogy
Pedagogy of Kindness/Trauma-Informed Pedagogy
CUNY SPS Open Showcase (OER/ZTC and Open Pedagogy)

If you have created an OER/ZTC course or used Open Pedagogy, we invite you to share that as one of the approaches to inclusive teaching. In this spirit, the inaugural CUNY SPS Open Showcase will be one of the day’s afternoon sessions.

To send in your proposal, please submit one paragraph to this short proposal form by Sunday, April 17th, 2022.

Be sure to indicate one of the three formats below and the time you would like allotted for your presentation (10, 20, 30 minute slots). We will try to accommodate requests as best we can while including as many presentations as possible.

Presentation formats:

How-to Mini-workshop/Immersive Demo (on a teaching tool or a process that works well for you)
Presentation on a teaching practice (ex., a new assignment, alternative assessments, a structure for engagement, etc.)
Student/Faculty Presentation (joint presentation that discusses teaching strategies and its impact on the student experience)

We also invite everyone to attend on May 5th, 2-5 pm!

Blackboard Mobile Application Messages

Due to a recent update to the Blackboard mobile application, the “Messages” feature is now prominently displayed in the course homepage. If your students use this feature to message you, you will only see a notification if you use Blackboard mobile.

If you do not use the Blackboard mobile app, we recommend that you either ask your students to avoid the Messages feature, or update your notification settings on desktop.

For more information on updating your notification settings, visit our Quick Guide page on Blackboard Mobile messages.

Blackboard Course Archives

Spring Break is a good moment to make an archive of your course!

We would like to remind you about creating and downloading archives of your courses on a regular basis as a recommended practice, and particularly following significant course activities such as the administration of a critical exam (such as a midterm) or the submission of important student work. We recommend downloading the archive file to personal storage at the time it is created.

For more information on creating archive files of your courses, visit our Quick Guide page on the Blackboard Archive Courses feature.

Workshop: Accessible and Engaging Class Meetings on Zoom

Matthew Lewis and Antonia Levy (OFDIT) have been selected to lead a live, virtual workshop with the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy as part of its workshop series Teaching Matters.

In this session, participants will learn about the accessibility features offered in Zoom, review best practices for leading accessible and inclusive online meetings, and discuss the implementation of these principles in their own teaching practice.

Please join them on Thursday, April 14th from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m ET.

Call for Nominations for ePortfolio Showcase

We invite you to nominate your students to the CUNY School of Professional Studies 2022 ePortfolio Student Showcase! The showcase gives students an opportunity to share their journey as an online learner at CUNY SPS. Winners receive a $100 cash prize, a digital badge, and are shared through social media feeds.

Faculty may nominate students using this link, https://bit.ly/ePFacultyApplication, by May 4, 2022. This marks the 7th year CUNY SPS has held an ePortfolio Showcase, take a look at our past winners here: ePortfolio Showcase Site .

CUNY Recognizing and Rewarding Excellence in Teaching Task Force

With the aim of prioritizing teaching and innovative pedagogy at CUNY, Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and the Office of Academic Affairs have established the CUNY Recognizing and Rewarding Excellence in Teaching Task Force.

The Members of the “Rewarding Teaching” Subcommittee is seeking feedback from instructional faculty by April 25, 2022. Please click this link to respond to a four question survey.

Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group

The Reflective Pedagogy Reading Group meeting will be Tuesday, April 26th, at 2pm. The focus will be on Chapter 1 from bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress. All are welcome! For more information, please contact Elizabeth Alsop (elizabeth.alsop@cuny.edu).

OFDIT Faculty Trainings

Making Efficient Use of Blackboard

During this session, we will cover tools which can make your grading and communication more efficient. Some of the tools we will cover include discussion boards, Needs Grading, Color Coding, Smart Views, Single Student View, Grade Reports, and the Email tool.

April 22nd – 10-11am Registration Link
May 5th – 9:30-10:30am Registration Link

VoiceThread for SPS Faculty

This training will introduce VoiceThread, a collaborative, multimedia program that allows faculty (or students) to upload various media like slides, images, or video and engage the class in an enhanced discussion. You and your students can add commentary by means of microphone, webcam, keyboard, or phone. In this session, SPS faculty will learn how to create a VoiceThread and how to integrate it into their Blackboard course.

Friday April 29th 10am-11am Registration Link

The VoiceThread Grader

VoiceThread, an asynchronous audio/video discussion board integrated into Blackboard, can be set up for efficient grading. Join this session to learn about the three different assignment types, their advantages/disadvantages, and common obstacles students encounter. By using the assignment builder your VoiceThread will be contained inside a grading tool that aggregates student comments, provides a gallery of student work, and pushes grades to a column in the Blackboard Grade Center.

Tues April 26th 4pm-5pm Registration Link

More VoiceThread Workshops Available

If you’re interested in VoiceThread, you can find several workshops offered by VoiceThread. Please visit https://voicethread.com/workshops and review their sessions to find one fits your schedule.

Student Engagement in Online Learning

Review approaches to enhance student engagement, including different ways to present content, the role of feedback in sustaining engagement, activities to promote student interaction, active learning approaches, and connecting your course content to the real world. Discuss your engagement successes and challenges with colleagues.

Monday, May 2 – 5-6 pm Registration Link

Faculty Support Drop-In Hour

Need live faculty support? Stop by during our Faculty Support Drop-In Hour every Tuesday 3-4pm to speak to an OFDIT team member who can help.

You can access the drop-in hour session via the Zoom link.

All the best,

Your OFDIT Team

LMS Transition News!

Survey from the OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board

Teaching with Intelligence: Navigating AI in the Classroom

Engagement Opportunities for SPS Faculty

Spring 2023 CITA Events

Special CITA Sessions: Learning Disruption

Calculating Final Grades using Total Points/Weighted Total

OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

Engaging Opportunities for SPS Faculty

Open for All Discussion Series

Zotero Citation Management

CIED: Hidden Figures

Teaching with Intelligence: Navigating AI in the Classroom

Upcoming CUNY Events

SPRING 2023 CITA Events

Faculty Corner: Providing Video Feedback

OFDIT Spring 2023 Trainings

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

September 2022

August 2022

May 2022

April 2022

Using ePortfolio in your Course (45mins)

Welcome to the CUNY SPS OpenLab!

Support