OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Open search box
The Learn@OregonState Advisory Committee guides the design, implementation and development of the Learn@OregonState ecosystem in alignment with OSU’s strategic goals. The committee’s charter is to review, evaluate and prioritize proposed changes to the Learn@OregonState platform. Evaluation criteria are based on impact to learners, instructors and data, as well as potential legal, technical, FERPA and disability access issues.
The Learn@OregonState Advisory Committee works in partnership with a standing team called the Learn@OregonState Task Force. This team works directly with tools in the platform; they meet bi-weekly throughout the year to review new features, upgrades, integrations, user communication and support, vendor relationships and product management, and ongoing evaluation and assessment of current and new learning tools.
In December Duo multi-factor authentication was enabled to allow access Canvas from the web and Canvas mobile apps. This made the Canvas login experience consistent with most other OSU IT services, and improved security for the OSU community. Users who access Canvas with a personal account (e.g., PACE, Faculty Staff Fitness, Studio sites) are not be required to use Duo to log in.
Unizin developed a data warehouse called the Unizin Data Platform (UDP) - which contains learning activity data from Canvas and other tools (Kaltura, Top Hat, etc). In fall 2020 Unizin staff developed ‘collections’ of data that reduce the complexity for our programmers to access data and create our own visualizations and reports.
Unizin staff also created dashboards that provide examples of what we at OSU could build with the data collections. The advisor committee briefly previewed a few of the dashboards as part of UIT's evaluation of whether or not to continue our membership in the Unizin consortium. Membership was extended through June 2021.
Oregon State University began using Canvas in winter term 2015. Consequently the Past Enrollments list on the All Courses page in Canvas became unmanageably long for many faculty. Course selection tool functionality (e.g., during the Course Import process) was negatively impacted when faculty had too many past-term courses on their list. We began archiving courses that are three+ years old, which has helped alleviate these issues.
Archived course sites are not deleted or removed. Everything in the course site - all course content, quizzes, student submissions, grades, rubrics, assignment comments etc. - is preserved. Faculty can request to have archived sites re-enabled so they can access course content.
The archiving process runs once a year, and only for credit-bearing course sites. Studio sites and PACE course sites are not archived. Student access to Canvas courses is not affected by the archiving process.
As recommended by the Academic Success Center, an “Academic Support” link was added in January to academic Canvas course navigation menus. It connects to a centralized repository called Where Do I Go. In September the course link was relocated to a button on the global Canvas navigation menu to make it more stable and visible; the web page will eventually include centrally-managed content that is required in course syllabi.
In March we deployed an integration between Qualtrics and Canvas. Among other things, the integration allows faculty to deploy Qualtrics surveys through a Canvas assignment and have Qualtrics return a grade to Canvas when students submit the survey. It also allows faculty to leverage the full range of Qualtrics features; Canvas surveys are quite limited and are not truly anonymous.
H5P is a platform that supports creation of interactive learning artifacts (simple quizzes, drag-and-drop knowledge checks, etc.). Ecampus has been creating H5P objects via the free version available in Pressbooks. A commercial hosting service called H5P.com created a Canvas integration that includes gradebook sync and usage analytics.
This integration was implemented, but only for Ecampus courses due to a FERPA issue in which anyone with Author role can see all student results for any H5P content that they have authored. Because it is challenging to limit access to Author role, the H5P integration currently needs to be centrally managed.
The Solutions Architecture task force and the Learn@OregonState advisory committee have reviewed and approved the following tools and updates in Canvas.
The Peerceptiv peer-reviewing tool was upgraded to a newer version of the LTI 1.3 integration standard. Peerceptiv is primarily used by Ecampus courses, but two academic units have purchased licenses in order to use it in their campus-based sections.
The native Canvas ePortfolio tool was disabled due to a mild security risk (it can be enabled and used for non-academic purposes). A similar tool called Folio will remain in-place. One benefit over the native Canvas tool is that users retain access to Folio eportfolios after they leave OSU.
The Academic Technologies team created a template that is applied to all new Canvas course sites. The template applies menu and course settings are optimized for student use. Departmental content-bearing templates are not possible at this time, due to issues with Canvas content import
Canvas New Analytics was enabled for all course sites.
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Lynn Greenough (chair) | Academic Technology - UIT |
| Mike Bailey | Computer Science - Faculty Senate representative |
| Tasha Biesinger | Academic Technology - UIT |
| Stefanie Buck | Open Oregon State |
| Raffaele de Amicis | Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Faculty |
| Jon Dorbolo | Academic Technology - UIT |
| Lindy Foster | Academic Technology - UIT |
| Mike Jefferis | Associate Registrar |
| David Goodrum | Academic Technology - UIT |
| Cub Kahn | Center for Teaching and Learning |
| Brian Lindsley | Research Analyst - Extended Campus |
| Randy Ocampo | Disability Access Services |
| Robin Pappas | IT Innovation - UIT |
| Rene Reitsma | College of Business Faculty |
| David Rios | Academic Technology - UIT |
| Lyn Riverstone | Academic Technology - UIT |
| Karen Watte | Course Development and Training - Ecampus |
| Kara Witzke | OSU-Cascades |
| Zach Wellhouse | Libraries |
The Solutions Architecture task force reviews and approves the majority of proposed updates to Canvas. The following table illustrates the criteria that generally determine whether a request falls within the purview of the task force, or whether it should be reviewed by the larger advisory committee:
| Criteria for Task Force decision (i.e., authority to act on request, and report results to Learn@OS Advisory Committee) | Criteria for escalating to Learn@OS Advisory Committee for review and disposition |
|---|---|
| Canvas feature (developed by Instructure) that is Optional (either for a defined time or on-going) | Tool/feature not intended for all Learn@OS users |
| OSU has existing contract with 3rd party provider | Requires review of academic or other policies |
| No contractual or functional impact if used/accessed by non-ONID users | OSU development resources needed (beyond LMS admin capacity) |
| Publisher with LTI integration | License or resources supplied by department outside of Information Services |
| Technical requirements won’t exceed capacity of LMS admins’ routine work | Significant impact to Learn@OS users (training, functionality, technical support. . . ) |
| Product manager identified (if 3rd party system) |
Learning Innovation Center (LINC)
Academic Technologies
165 SW Sackett Pl Rm 466
Corvallis, OR 97331
Contact Us