Members

Invitees: Mike Bailey; Tasha Biesinger; Stefanie Buck; Raffaele De Amicis; Jon Dorbolo; David Goodrum; Lynn Greenough; Michael Jefferis; Cub Kahn; Melanie Kroening; Katherine McAlvage; Randy Ocampo; Robin Pappas; Rene Reitsma; David Rios; Lyn Riverstone; Karen Watte; Zach Welhouse; Kara Witzke; Weiwei Zhang; 

Attendees: Tasha Biesinger; Stefanie Buck; Lynn Greenough; Cub Kahn; Randy Ocampo; Reindert Reitsma; Zach Wellhouse; Kara Witkze; Weiwei Zhang;

Minutes/Notes

New and proposed integrations

Ed Discussions

Ed Discussion is a STEM-focused discussion platform

  • EECS only
  • There are other discussion platforms designed for Humanities courses, but we do not have a license
  • Canvas Discussion tool has room for improvement
H5P
  • Interactive learning objects (technology replaces Flash, which is no longer supported by web browsers). Appealing because H5P objects can be created by faculty and/or instructional designers
  • Free hosting no longer available (currently used for OER’s)
  • Pressbooks offers an H5P hosting service oH5P.com integration currently under technical review
  • OSU's license model TBD (e.g., Ecampus only?)
  • FERPA concerns with H5P.com need to be addressed
VoiceThread
  • New integration type; will only be used for Ecampus courses
Ally accessibility management (for Canvas)
  • Spring term evaluation of Ally in Test Canvas
  • Potential contract savings via Unizin
  • OSU currently uses ReadSpeaker/TextAid and UDOIT for accessibility checking and alternative content formats
  • UDOIT is a free tool created by University of Central Florida; not certain how long they will continue to update the tool. OSU currently hosts it on our servers
  • Ally offers institutional reports on accessibility of all content in Canvas and alternative content formats for students on demand
    • Download as mp3 and other alt formats
    • Can be plugged into accessibility tools

Planned and potential changes for Canvas

Final grade upload request
  • longtime request from faculty to make the process easier
  • 2-phased approach, starting with a way to download gradebook to a Banner-friendly Excel or csv format
  • Canvas has 4 ‘final grades’ columns; different views for faculty and students
  • Grading schema a factor (to convert percentages to letter grades)
  • Need to align columns and give faculty a way to overwrite, round up, etc.,
  • Faculty will need to enter last date of attendance, “I,” for incomplete, etc. and do final review prior to upload to Banner
  • No CRN in Canvas
  • Faculty want a way to manage data in a way that students don’t see in their gradebooks (e.g., many faculty use Excel for calculating grades).
  • Canvas gradebook applies uniform logic and is not always user-friendly/flexible
  • Some OSU grading practices are complex; some are simple
Course archiving
  • Course archiving FAQ
  • Course list is unmanageable (esp. for faculty who have many sections/courses)
  • Committee has reviewed options for ‘archiving’ courses in prior meetings; recommendation was to inactivate faculty enrollments
  • We'll start doing archiving in Sept. 2021; this will leave 2 years’ of courses in All Courses list
  • Thereafter archive annually on June 1 (or nearest weekday)
  • Not inactivating Student or Observer roles (this preserves faculty settings when restricting student access to past-term courses)
  • Easy to reactivate faculty enrollments upon request; all content retained. Course code is helpful –is it on the course listing. Ideally would like to have subject, course number term, year and section

Other Items

Unizin Update
  • Decision on whether to remain in the consortium expected by end of April
  • Primary benefits are s/w license contract savings(Canvas; Kaltura; Top Hat; Turnitin)
  • Unizin Data Platform (UDP)
  • E-reader platform –new vendor partner will be announced soon; business process and policy considerations would need to be addressed
Student display names/confidential information
  • Ability to edit Canvas display name not enabled
  • No way to flag inappropriate names
  • Canvas admin would need to make changes
  • Confidential status (in Banner) not recognized in Canvas
  • Has been an issue for some students who need identities not to be disclosed in Canvas
  • Admins can manually change as needed, and with review by OtR
Button/link to syllabus info in Canvas
  • currently on hold, per Curriculum Council
Top Hat subsidy requested
  • Student purchase Top Hat licenses; $25K subsidy from Academic Technology prior two years
  • Subsidy yields average of $151K annual cost avoidance for students
  • Institution license is an option (I.e., no out-of-pocket cost for students), but probably not feasible in coming year