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May 26, 2009
"UMBC in the Loop: Dr. Carlo DiClemente" airs on the ResearchChannel
UMBC's new series profiling researchers, authors and artists continues this month with and interview with professor of psychology Dr. Carlo DiClemente. Mike Lurie, former Director of Media Relations at UMBC talks with Dr. DiClemente about two of his books: "Changing for Good" and "Addiction and Change."
The seres is produced by UMBC's New Media Studio.
The ResearchChannel is a consortium of higher education institutions broadcasting nationally to 38 million satellite and cable television subscribers. It can be viewed on UMBC cable channel 16.
Airdates - Eastern:
June 17 @ 7:30am, 1:30pm, 7:30pm
June 18 @ 1:30am
You can also view the program online at the ResearchChannel's Video Library or on UMBCtube.
Posted by shewbrid at 5:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 20, 2009
Windows Lab Profile Changes
On Sunday June 7th DoIT will be changing our Windows lab user profile environment. We will begin the switchover at 1pm Sunday afternoon and should be completed by 7am on Monday June 8th. This change is being done to enhance the overall lab experience by improving login times as well as reducing the number of quota issues faced by lab users. In order to prepare for this migration all lab users will need to backup any files currently stored in their Windows profile. This will not affect any faculty, staff or student computers, only lab profiles need to be backed up.
Examples of Windows Profile Data:
• My Documents folder
• Favorites folder
• Bookmarks
• Desktop background picture
• Pictures
• Music
DoIT recommends backing up your data to either an external drive (flash drive, writeable CD\DVD) or your S: which will be unaffected. This includes any files saved to the desktop, My Documents folder and the favorites folder. Bookmarks will also need to be exported and saved as will your background picture if you have changed it. If you need assistance backing up any of your data, please contact our helpdesk at x53838 and someone will be able to assist you.
Why is DoIT changing lab profiles?
This change is being made to improve overall performance as well as reduce the number of quota issues faced by users during the semester. This change will also reduce the load on our servers. The use of a standard Windows profile is commonly used at other Universities to mitigate performance issues and to ensure stability within the labs.
How will this affect me?
Before the migration you will need to backup any existing data located in your profile or it will be lost. This includes any documents, pictures, music, bookmarks or other data you may have stored. Anything saved to the desktop including your desktop picture will need to be saved prior to the migration. This will only affect lab profiles, faculty, staff and student computers do not need to be backed up for this change.
Where should I save my data to?
OIT recommends saving your data to an external drive such as an usb flash drive or a writeable CD\DVD disk. You can also use your S: which will be unaffected during the migration.
What will be different after the migration?
After the migration everyone will receive a standard profile which will no longer be customizable. Login times should be much faster and you should no longer run into “out of quota issues.” There will be a folder on your desktop called “My Documents” which is where you will be able to save any data you need to keep for future Windows lab sessions. Your My Documents folder will follow you wherever you login and will come with a 50MB quota.
Posted by mikec at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 14, 2009
Use Wimba Classroom for Great Communication
In this age of sustainability and fear of contagion, there is a tool in Blackboard that can help with both of these issues – Wimba Classroom. Wimba Classroom is an online delivery tool – great for hybrid classes and distance education, but general classes and meetings should embrace it also. It could save travel time and expenses for meetings and guest lecturers (non-UMBC people can be invited to participate). Maybe all classes should be prepared to meet this way - no losing important lecture/class time with school closings due to weather/health , etc.
Participants need internet access and a headphone with a microphone. The presentation can be archived for review or later access if there is a problem with their connection. With Wimba Classroom you can present a power point presentation, share whiteboards, applications, desktops, websites and host guest lecturers. Many classes require group presentations –use WC to set up group space for your students to meet, discuss, plan their work.
Please check out tutorial presentations, documentation, etc from the Wimba site - http://wimba.com/services. On campus, our Wimba info person is Joan Costello in AC IV 219, x53685, jcostello@umbc.edu. She will be happy to meet one on one, or a group to help you get started.
Posted by rarmstro at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 8, 2009
Summer 2009 Blackboard Update
UMBC Blackboard Update is provided by the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) for students, faculty and staff using Blackboard at UMBC. If you have questions or suggestions, contact John Fritz (at fritz@umbc.edu or 410.455.6596) or Bob Armstrong (at rarmstro@umbc.edu or 410.455.3885). For support requests, create a ticket at http://my.umbc.edu/help/request. For more information about using Blackboard, visit the "Blackboard Help" tab before or after you login through myUMBC or directly at http://blackboard.umbc.edu.
HEADLINES
1. Faculty Senate's CPC Approves Blackboard Course Retention Policy
2. Spring 2009 Course Shells Expire 6/15
3. SU2009 Course Shells Created with New “Student Administration” System
4. WT2009 ADP Student Survey Results
5. Faculty Request: Show Each Other How Good Students Use Blackboard
6. FYI: Hybrid Course Re-Design Workshop 6/4
7. New “Show & Tell” Screencasts on How to Use Wimba
8. FYI: BbWorld 2009 is July 14-16 in DC
Posted by rarmstro at 12:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Faculty Senate's CPC Approves Blackboard Course Retention Policy
To improve Blackboard performance, minimize downtime during upgrades, and manage growing disk usage, the Faculty Senate's Computer Policy Committee (CPC) approved a DoIT proposal to delete all courses that are more than six years old at the end of each academic year. In addition, all empty, unavailable, auto-created course shells that have not been accessed by students or faculty will be deleted at the end of each semester.
The full policy approved by the CPC is as follows:
UMBC Blackboard Course Retention Policy
To improve Blackboard performance, minimize downtime during upgrades, and manage growing disk usage, DoIT will implement the following changes after the Summer 2009 semester:
1. All empty, unavailable course shells that have not been accessed by students or faculty will be deleted at the end of each semester.
2. Any course shells that are more than six (6) years old will be deleted at the end of the current academic year.
3. Instructors can archive any course at any time and keep a local copy for their own records, but only DoIT system administrators can “restore” an archived course to the UMBC Blackboard production server.
Note: Blackboard’s license with all clients stipulates that the company must only support “backward compatibility” of up to two (2) full versions from its current, generally available release. For example, Bb’s current release is version 9.0. UMBC is now operating under version 8.0 and upgraded to version 7.0 in January 2007.
4. Faculty are encouraged to “copy forward” the most current version of their courses, by copying into an empty course shell and then requesting to delete past versions of the course.
If they use the Blackboard grade book, faculty are also encouraged to download and keep a copy of it after each semester.
5. DoIT will broadly communicate this policy at the end of each spring semester, but only implement it at the end of the summer special session.
Posted by fritz at 9:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spring 2009 Course Shells Expire 6/15
The SP2009 course shell duration date will expire on June 15th by default. After that date, students will no longer have access to the courses even though courses appear “Available” to instructors. This feature has been set up so that students do not accumulate links to large numbers of old Blackboard courses on their “myBlackboard” page.
If you would like to give students continuous access to the course shells, you can change the duration date by going to the course Control Panel –> Settings –> Course Duration, select “Continuous” or modify the date and click “Submit”.
Posted by rarmstro at 9:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SU2009 Course Shells Created with New “Student Administration” System
DoIT has created new Summer 2009 Blackboard course shells for all courses in the Schedule of Classes as of 5/1/09. By default, a Bb course shell is unavailable (to students) until the instructor of record makes it "available."
With the creation of the summer shells, users will notice that the course id format has changed to reflect the new Peoplesoft Student Administration system. Course ids can be found with the appropriate course listings under the “myCourses” tab. Instead of the usual “SCI100_7050_SU2009” course id, the new format will be “SCI100_1.1099_SU2009. The number “1.1099” comes from the schedule/class number that appears in the schedule of classes and is generated by the Student Administration system.
Automatic course enrollment is also controlled by this new id number and is listed in the description field of each course. The course auto-enrollment process will not have any changes except for the number.
Posted by rarmstro at 9:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WT2009 ADP Student Survey Results
In an effort to determine the effectiveness of hybrid courses at UMBC, DoIT and the Office of Summer, Winter and Special Programs (OSWSP) have begun to survey students about their experiences in special session hybrid courses. Initially, only summer and winter courses that are taught by faculty that have participated in the Alternate Delivery Program (ADP) have been surveyed. Eventually, we are hoping to survey all special session courses.
This first survey showed that 69% of the students who responded had never taken a hybrid or online course before and 48% strongly agreed they would take another. The complete set of results from winter 2009 survey can be found online.
If you have any questions about the survey results, please contact Bob Armstrong at rarmstro@umbc.edu or submit a ticket at http://my.umbc.edu/help/request.
Posted by rarmstro at 9:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Faculty Request: Show Each Other How Good Students Use Blackboard
To help DoIT’s ongoing study of how good students use Blackboard, the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) would like to encourage faculty to post their final grades in the Blackboard grade book using “GRADE” as the column heading (please omit quotes and make the column heading ALL CAPS).
This is a totally voluntary action on your part that will allow DoIT to run a script that determines the average hits per student by grade distribution. DoIT has been reporting final grade distribution by Blackboard activity for the past two years, and we will include SP2009 results after final grades are officially submitted. If you do not want your Bb final grades to be included in the overall, anonymous grade distribution report summary, then do nothing.
If you want to run your own grade distribution report for your own class, visit the "self service reports" on the UMBC Blackboard Reports site.
As a matter of convenience to students, we know posting of final grades in Blackboard is a wide-spread, informal practice among many faculty now, and should not be construed as a replacement for “official” submission of final grades. But until we can link Blackboard activity and official sources of final grades in the new Student Administration, this voluntary action by faculty is the only way we can begin to see what relationship, if any, exists between student activity and performance.
Note: DoIT is NOT suggesting there is a correlation between Bb activity and grades. However, we are interested in Bb activity as AN indicator of student engagement. As such, we would like to see how good students (as measured by final grades) tend to use Blackboard. We are also interested in seeing whether feedback to all students – by showing their grades against an anonymous summary of their peers – can be effective in helping them be more aware about their own performance during the semester, when they might be able to do something about it.
For more information, visit http://www.umbc.edu/blackboard/reports.
Posted by fritz at 9:42 AM | TrackBack
FYI: Hybrid Course Re-Design Workshop 6/4
The Office of Summer, Winter & Special Programs (OSWSP), in cooperation with DoIT and the Faculty Development Center, will again sponsor an “Hybrid Course Re-Design Workshop” for those interested in learning how to develop a hybrid class. If the course is to be offered during WT2010, OSWSP provides a one-time, $1,500 course development stipend as part of its Alternate Delivery Program (ADP).
The Hybrid Course Re-design workshop consists of an all-day workshop focusing on pedagogy and good course design in the morning, a panel discussion from past participants during lunch, and effective practices using instructional technology in the afternoon. Both sessions are required and will be held in ITE, Room 456. Following the face-2-face workshop sessions, participants who wish to receive the one-time, $1,500 ADP stipend will be required to present two “learning objects” During the Fall 2009 semester (dates TBD). While the Hybrid workshop is NOT required to participate in the ADP, it has been shown to help faculty prepare to meet the ADP’s requirements.
The ADP faculty presentations are open to the campus, especially departments of participating faculty, and will be videotaped for online viewing by future participants through UMBC’s iTunesU and UMBCTube video distribution sites. To register, go to the Hybrid Design Workshop training site.
Posted by rarmstro at 9:41 AM | TrackBack
FYI: BbWorld 2009 is July 14-16 in DC
Registration for the BbWorld 2009 conference has begun. The conference is being held at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center in Washington D.C. from July 15-17, 2008 and is described as “the most concentrated Bb training and development opportunity of the year".
To register for the conference, just complete the form on the Blackboard website. Several staff from OIT will be presenting at the conference and we look forward to seeing you there.
Posted by rarmstro at 9:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack