{"id":2257,"date":"2021-01-14T10:35:15","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T15:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spsfaculty.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/?p=2257"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:20:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:20:52","slug":"2257","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/2021\/01\/14\/2257\/","title":{"rendered":"OFDIT Newsletter January 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2020\/10\/October-2020-newsletter-banner.jpg\"><br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/OFDIT-newsletter-banner.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-2258\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/OFDIT-newsletter-banner.jpg?resize=595%2C99&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"99\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/OFDIT-newsletter-banner.jpg?resize=300%2C50&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/OFDIT-newsletter-banner.jpg?resize=768%2C127&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/OFDIT-newsletter-banner.jpg?w=906&amp;ssl=1 906w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 595px) 100vw, 595px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center\">January 2021<\/h1>\n<p>Dear CUNY SPS Faculty,<\/p>\n<p>Happy New Year from the OFDIT Team! We\u2019re hoping that you had a relaxing holiday break, and &#8212; if you are teaching during the Winter &#8212; a successful start of the term.<\/p>\n<h2>Preparing for the Next Semester<\/h2>\n<p>Many of you are preparing your course for the Spring right now and might find our checklist <span style=\"color: #3366ff\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff\" href=\"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/Course-Site-Checklist-for-New-Semester-1-1-2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cGetting Your Course Site Ready for a New Semester\u201d<\/a> <\/span>a useful reference when making these course adjustments.<\/p>\n<p>Ensuring that all due dates for your course are accurate for the new semester is especially important; this includes dates mentioned in text items as well as Blackboard availability and due dates for assignments.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s <strong>Date Management<\/strong> tool, either individually, as a group of items, or all of the dates at once.\u00a0You can also use Date Management to see a list of all these dates in your course for review. 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/spsfaculty.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/date-management-in-blackboard\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff\">quick guide<\/span><\/a>, or contact our team for assistance.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2><strong>CUNY Acquires New Screen Capture Tools \u00a0 \u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/Snag-it.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2259 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/Snag-it.png?resize=126%2C126&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"126\" height=\"126\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/Snag-it.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/Snag-it.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/01\/Snag-it.png?w=316&amp;ssl=1 316w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 126px) 100vw, 126px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>CUNY has secured licenses for TechSmith&#8217;s <span style=\"color: #3366ff\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cuny.edu\/about\/administration\/offices\/cis\/technology-services\/snagit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Snagit<\/a><\/span>, a powerful screen capture software.\u00a0Licenses are available for all current faculty. With Snagit, faculty will have a wide array of options to create, edit and annotate screen captures, including panoramic scrolling when the content is larger than one screen, as well as the ability to blur personal or unneeded information.\u00a0In the spring semester, OFDIT will offer sessions to demonstrate SnagIt\u2019s most common and useful functions.<\/p>\n<p>Along with Snagit, CUNY has secured licenses for another TechSmith tool called <span style=\"color: #3366ff\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cuny.edu\/about\/administration\/offices\/cis\/technology-services\/camtasia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Camtasia<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0Camtasia offers tools to create professional-looking instructional videos.\u00a0It\u2019s a powerful video editor focused on creating educational content.\u00a0At SPS faculty have been using <a href=\"https:\/\/screencast-o-matic.com\/CUNY-SPS-OIT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff\">Screencast-O-Matic Pro<\/span><\/a> for features covered by both SnagIt and Camtasia. The OFDIT Media Team will continue to support Screencast-O-Matic.<\/p>\n<p>If you are interested in obtaining a license for Snagit or Camtasia, please contact the <span style=\"color: #3366ff\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff\" href=\"https:\/\/sps.cuny.edu\/about\/directory\/office-information-technology\/help-desk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SPS Help Desk<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>For support on any of the above or other questions, please contact our team at: <span style=\"color: #3366ff\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff\" href=\"mailto:facultysupport@cuny.edu\">facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu<\/a><\/span>. We are happy to support you via email, phone or a live Zoom session.<\/p>\n<p>All best for the upcoming year,<\/p>\n<p>Your OFDIT Team<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January 2021 Dear CUNY SPS Faculty, Happy New Year from the OFDIT Team! We\u2019re hoping that you had a relaxing holiday break, and &#8212; if you are teaching during the Winter &#8212; a successful start of the term. Preparing for the Next Semester Many of you are preparing your course for the Spring right now &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7715,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions\/7715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}