{"id":6651,"date":"2024-09-17T13:54:58","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T13:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/?p=6651"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:19:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:19:36","slug":"ofdit-newsletter-september-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/2024\/09\/17\/ofdit-newsletter-september-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"OFDIT Newsletter September 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"Dear Faculty,<\/p>\n

We hope you have had a great start to the semester! Faculty and staff have worked incredibly hard to update courses and get themselves and the curricula ready to deliver in our first fall in Brightspace, and student feedback so far has been very positive! We recommend inviting students to collaborate with you by sharing feedback<\/strong> about what is working, what could work better, and if they spot any residual mentions to Blackboard in directions, files, videos, or anywhere else in your course site.<\/p>\n

In this newsletter issue, we share updates and tips about various Brightspace features, information about ongoing training and support for teaching in Brightspace available for faculty, an upcoming ePortfolio showcase, and an Open UDL workshop. We\u2019re excited to support ongoing teaching excellence at CUNY SPS, and proud<\/strong> of our faculty\u2019s agility and dedication to the student experience. Thank you!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Brightspace Updates and Notes<\/span><\/strong><\/big><\/h2>\n

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Instant Messaging tool deactivated system-wide<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the request of the University Faculty Senate, CUNY CIS has disabled the Instant Messaging (IM) tool across the entire CUNY Brightspace system, due to concerns about student privacy.<\/p>\n

Module Start, End, and Due Dates<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please note that these work differently than availability dates in Blackboard.For modules with start dates in the future, learners will see the list of module content, but none of it is clickable (grayed out). Once a module end date has passed, the content is similarly inaccessible (grayed out). You can instead use a module due date, which will still appear in the calendar, but keeps content accessible. Of course, you can also manually set a module to active\/inactive, by clicking on its eye icon, which will display\/hide the module entirely.<\/p>\n

OFDIT is working on training and documentation on this topic, particularly the technical aspects. While there is no one size fits all suggestion for using start\/end\/due dates, pedagogical best practice is to keep course materials such as readings and videos available to students.<\/p>\n

Notifications settings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like and subscribe \u2013 and notify! You may have subscribed to discussions in your course (such as a course Q and A topic), but in addition to subscribing, you may need to update your notification settings in your profile in Brightspace if you want to receive an email alert of new posts. Check part 4 of the Notification guide<\/a> for directions and specifics!<\/p>\n

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Brightspace Highlight: Emailing Your Class<\/span><\/big><\/h3>\n

Posted an announcement and want to then send the announcement out as an email to your class as well? Wanting to email the whole class a file or other information all at once? You can do so quickly using either the Classlist or the Gradebook email tool.<\/p>\n

Emailing using Classlist<\/strong>:<\/p>\n