Welcome back!

Good Evening ESU Canvas Community!

PRODUCT RELEASE AND SCREENCAST

• The next Canvas update - scheduled for August 26^th - includes minor product updates: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-11998#jive_content_id_SpeedGrader
• The last product update was August 5^th and also included minor product updates: https://community.canvaslms.com/videos/3075-canvas-new-feature-screencast-2017-08-05

DOCUMENT PREVIEW (DOCVIEWER) UPDATE

Instructure (Canvas) continues to release updates and enhancements to DocViewer – the replacement for Crocodoc in Speedgrader. They have completed five of the top nine user community concerns. If interested, you can follow the product updates here: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-11679-docviewer-plan

VERICITE

• Vericite (plagiarism detection) has been fully licensed at ESU! We plan to collect more user feedback over the fall term with the goal of replacing Turnitin at the end of the fall 2017 semester. There are three primary concerns with Turnitin: First is the intellectual property of the student submissions. Using Turnitin, submissions are forfeited to the company and added to an international database of papers. While this increases the potential matches, the university and the student no longer control the ownership of the submission. Using Vericite, the university maintains control of the intellectual property and can download/save all student submissions if necessary. Second, Vericite is easier to set up in Canvas. A simple checkbox in the Assignment creation section. Third, the cost for Vericite is a fraction of Turnitin. Other campuses using Vericite include the University of Washington, Colorado State, and the University of New Hampshire. 

CANVAS TIPS/TRICKS: We have a couple of tips and tricks in this communication….

Course Cards: Did you know you can add images to the course cards? This option is available inside your course Settings > Course Details.

Connect an Amazon Echo to Canvas. If you’re an Amazon Echo user, you can download a free Alexa “Skill” for Canvas. This voice-activated skill provides up to 50 different voice commands. Students can check course grades, announcements, upcoming events, and a number of other features. Instructure and Amazon worked together on this new feature. You can watch a short video of how it works here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obRrmlr1lz4

 

BLOG AND TWITTER FEED

If you want more information about anything you read here, check out our blog at http://emporiastate.blogspot.com/ or follow us on Twitter @esulearningtech.