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Dear Faculty,<\/span><\/p>\n As we head into our second summer with course delivery in Brightspace, we are proud of how well faculty have gotten <\/span>on board <\/b>with the new LMS, and inspired by all the <\/span>navigating<\/b> faculty have done to <\/span>sail<\/b> through the year so successfully with students and teaching! In this edition of our newsletter, you\u2019ll find guidance to help with your <\/span>Fall course prep<\/b>, details about OFDIT\u2019s summer <\/span>Office Hours<\/b> and <\/span>Faculty Support<\/b> services, and links out to the many <\/span>great tips shared in our Brightspace Day Unsession<\/b>.\u00a0 We hope you\u2019ll get moments this summer to <\/span>drop anchor<\/b> and relax, and know that your OFDIT <\/span>crew<\/b> is here to assist throughout!<\/span><\/p>\n Prepping Dev sites or your live course section sites for Fall? Following the steps in our guides below will ensure you sail through QA and into a great semester!<\/span><\/p>\n Need to know the best way to add your updated syllabus or other files into your course site?<\/b> In most cases, you\u2019ll want to <\/span>upload<\/b> rather than <\/span>link<\/b> \u2013 find out how and why in:<\/span><\/p>\n Adding Files to BrS Course for Accessibility<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Making any changes to graded items in your course?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Be sure to check the content areas against the corresponding gradebook items, verify the categories listed in your syllabus match the gradebook\u2019s categories, and review the settings overall to ensure clarity and accuracy for students by following:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Setting Up Gradebook for New Course Sites<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Are you a course lead for your program or want to make sure your own live site is ready for Course Prep and QA? <\/b>See our checklist below and linked guides for each reviewed area:<\/span><\/p>\n Course Site Prep Checklist for SPS Faculty<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Summer is the perfect time to refresh your course content and create engaging videos for your students! Whether you’re working on a course overview, a welcome message, or a faculty introduction, the OFDIT Media Team is here to help you shine.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here\u2019s how we can support your summer video projects:<\/span><\/p>\n To get started, email <\/span>matthew.lewis@cuny.edu<\/a><\/strong> or schedule a <\/span>Zoom consultation<\/a><\/strong> to kick off your project.<\/span><\/p>\n OFDIT\u2019s <\/span>open Brightspace office hours<\/a><\/strong> continue Tuesday evenings (6-7pm ET) and Wednesday afternoons (1-2pm ET) over the summer through August 15, when we\u2019ll resume our fall semester schedule. We look forward to seeing you in one of the drop-in zoom sessions with your questions!<\/span><\/p>\n OFDIT will continue providing limited weekend faculty support throughout the summer. While our Friday through Sunday coverage will be reduced during the summer months, we’ll still be monitoring <\/span>facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu<\/a><\/strong> for urgent issues that need immediate attention. For the quickest response to general questions and routine troubleshooting, <\/span>we recommend reaching out Monday through Thursday when our full support team is available<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nFall Course Site Preparation Support<\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
\nGet Support Making Instructional Videos<\/strong><\/big><\/span><\/h2>\n
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\nFaculty Support over the Summer<\/big><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nDid You Know?<\/strong><\/big><\/span><\/h2>\n
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At this year\u2019s Brightspace Day in May, faculty shared their tips on using Brightspace efficiently in our first ever <\/span>Unsession<\/b> and it was a lot of fun! Tips included <\/span>how to use Intelligent Agents<\/b> to automatically email students who haven\u2019t logged in for a few days, <\/span>how to use mentions with the @ symbol<\/b> in discussions, <\/span>how to pin courses<\/b> on the homepage, using <\/span>quicklinks<\/b> in courses, a shortcut for URLs, a guide to some of the <\/span>symbols in the assignments list,<\/b> and how to see what assignments a particular <\/span>rubric<\/b> is attached to. To check out any of these tips, see our <\/span>Unsession document<\/a><\/strong> and the <\/span>recording<\/a><\/strong> (26 min).<\/span><\/p>\n
\nFaculty Corner: Call for Submissions<\/strong><\/span><\/big><\/h2>\n
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\nDid you discover a setting, process, or tool that made teaching in Brightspace go more smoothly, or learn something new about our new LMS by trial and error this past year? Submit a teaching tip (in 200 words or less) using our <\/span>Faculty Corner Submission Form<\/a><\/strong> and we\u2019ll share it out with the SPS community in our newsletter! Your hard-won knowledge and experience is valuable to everyone!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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