Summer Updates!

Good Morning ESU Canvas Community!

The latest Canvas update – scheduled for June 3^rd - includes several new features related to the Rich Content Editor, Grades, Course Announcements, and more.

PRODUCT RELEASE

·         June 3^rd Detailed Release Notes

DOCUMENT PREVIEW IS CHANGING!

The third party company known as “Box” is deprecating their Crocodoc product at the end of the year. You know Crocodoc as the content previewer in Speedgrader. All the major LMS companies that rely on Crocodoc have been building alternative products in response. Sometime between June 14^th and June 24^th Instructure (Canvas) will release the replacement to Crocodoc. You can read more about the new Document Previewer.

SUMMER UPDATES

Several enhancements have been implemented for the start of summer courses:

·         We added Microsoft Office365, OneDrive, OneNote, and Google Drive/Apps capabilities to all courses. These tools provide easier access to cloud-based documents and journaling. Students can also collaborate on cloud documents using these resources.

·         Vericite (plagiarism detection) has been added as a test product until mid-August. You will find it listed as a checkbox when you create an assignment. If you are teaching this summer, we strongly encourage you to try Vericite rather than Turnitin. We are considering moving to Vericite as a replacement to Turnitin and would welcome your feedback.

·         Adobe Connect will be discontinued on July 1 in favor of Zoom. ESU participated in a voluntary Zoom pilot sponsored by KanREN (Kansas Research and Educational Network) about 2 years ago to gauge faculty interest in an improved statewide webconferencing product. With very little solicitation, Zoom usage skyrocketed. The adoption rate has been tremendous with over 320 faculty, staff, student, and GA Host accounts created in that 2-year period. Zoom is used by KSU, KU, FHSU, JCCC, BCC, HCC, Tabor, and scores of Kansas municipalities and academic organizations, to name a few. Hence, IT made the decision to adopt Zoom as our webconferencing platform.

CANVAS TIPS/TRICKS:

Do you want to make document annotation in the Speedgrader a little easier? The ESU Math Department makes extensive use of Wacom graphing tablets that allow faculty to use a stylus to markup student submissions. This is particularly useful for quantitative assignments where the faculty want to see a problem resolved in a series of steps. These tablets include a screen and writing pen that allows for a more natural notation process – versus a mouse that can be less dexterous. If interested, let one of the Instructional Designers know and we can arrange for a demonstration.

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.

Turnitin (New for Spring 2016)

Good afternoon ESU Canvas Community!

There is an important change coming to the Turnitin (TII)/Canvas integration. Currently there is a checkbox that appears within the Assignment creation parameters that allows the faculty to easily enable TII plagiarism detection. That feature, called an Application Programming Interface, or API, is being deprecated by the company that makes Turnitin. Instead they have developed a new integration format based on the Learning Tools Interoperability standard, or LTI. This new LTI integration is an industry norm; however, it significantly affects the workflow regarding how plagiarism detection is enabled within Canvas. To our disappointment, there will no longer be a checkbox within the Assignment parameters, so it may be a little less intuitive. However, there are several new affordances provided with this integration. Moreover, the integration between the products is deeper allowing for more of the TII features to be used during grading. 

This short tutorial will help you through the process:

 As always, please feel free to contact us at Learning Technologies when if you need help, we're glad to help! 

Turnitin

Turnitin is a feature that you can enable in Canvas and allows you to check the percentage of plagiarism on an uploaded assignment. Turnitin is an LTI app and can easily be added to any assignment where students are uploading assignments. This step-by-step tutorial will help you enable this feature in canvas and get started with the tool! For questions, contact Learning Technologies at acatters@emporia.edu.