This message is sent from the Office of the Provost to all UHD faculty, deans, and associates.
September 07, 2023
Dear Colleagues,
The full Canvas transition is almost upon us, starting with our December minimester. This message provides a few reminders and updates about deadlines and resources—please review carefully and you can find this again along with other information on our LMS communications page.
This fall, 42% of our faculty are already teaching in Canvas! We look forward to continuing to learn from their experiences. For faculty who are not in the fall soft launch, TTLC staff will reach out to you to offer help. Please take them up on it!
Training:
All faculty must complete the required Growing with Canvas at UHD training by October 16. If you have many courses in Canvas, this GWC may have "fallen off" the priority view list. You can go into these instructions from the TTLC newsletter for how to find it.
Canvas experts will be on campus on September 28 and 29 with trainings on a variety of topics. Stay tuned for details of those trainings and check out the TTLC training schedule for other opportunities to learn about Canvas.
Migration and BB Access:
- Summer 2023 will be migrated in mid-September 2023
- Fall 2023 will be migrated in February/March 2024
- BB access update based on faculty feedback
- NEW: Faculty will be able to access their full former BB courses until June 1, 2024; however, this is essentially for viewing only—no edits made after December 2023 will be migrated.
- No student data will migrate at any time—if you need student work, grades, discussions, etc., you will need to collect it from BB prior to June 1, 2024.
- The university will retain BB information and student data for emergency use only through December 2024 (e.g., grade appeals from 2023).
- Students will have access to BB only through December 2023; after that, it will be by special request only.
LMS Best Practice Requirements (per Faculty Senate Endorsement):
All faculty in all modalities will be expected to post the following in their LMS shells starting with December mini:
- Syllabus on or before the first day of class (PS 3.A.29)
- Major grades in the gradebook often enough that students can follow their own progress and understand how a final grade was calculated
- Requirements for all major assignments (e.g., worth 10% or more)
- Default landing page for the first week to include welcome message, course name/section, faculty name/contact, meeting location, first steps for course
Automated Canvas Publishing of Shells for All Modalities (Faculty Senate Endorsement):
- Each semester, all course shells regardless of modality will be published in the early hours of the day that classes start (e.g., if the first day of the semester is a Monday, they would open after midnight on Sunday night).
- All faculty can publish their shells for students to access any time in the two weeks prior to the start of classes and are encouraged to engage best practices by communicating with students early and often.
Accessibility:
Our move to Canvas also highlights the importance of making all materials in our published courses accessible. All items in a published course shell will impact your course Ally score—it doesn't matter if they are visible to students. Therefore, please build your new Canvas courses with accessibility in mind using resources on our Ally website as well as those provided through the Accessible Education Center.
Best,
Michelle Moosally
Associate VP, Programming and Curriculum