Welcome to the latest OAT Update,
produced by the Office of Academic Technology at CSU Stanislaus
Issue Contents
Announcements
Reminders
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New Announcements
Transitioning from Ally to UDOIT
On Monday, June 16, OAT will enable a new accessibility tool in Canvas: UDOIT (pronounced "you do it"). The tool will be enabled in the course menu of all courses by default (but hidden from students). It can be disabled if desired by the instructor like any other navigation item.
The existing Ally accessibility tool will be disabled after June 30.
With the change, two items will be added to the course navigation menu: "Declutter Course With TidyUp" and "Check Accessibility With UDOIT".
Two new links in the course navigation menu.
Click "Check Accessibility With UDOIT" to open the accessibility checker and begin remediating your content.
Comparing UDOIT and Ally
The overall work flow of UDOIT is very similar to Ally. Like Ally, UDOIT has the following features:
- One-click scan of the accessibility of course materials
- Simple percentage 'score' for the course
- A breakdown of issues by type and severity
- Guidance on fixing issues based on "easiest to fix" and "most urgent to fix"
- Make some fixes right in the accessibility tool or upload a replacement file
- Allows students to generates alternative formats of course items, such as MP3 or ePub
Improvements available in UDOIT
UDOIT has a range of features beyond what was available in Ally.
- UDOIT's accessibility score is more transparent and sophisticated in its calculation
- UDOIT scans more Canvas content areas than Ally, including:
- Announcements
- Discussion descriptions (not posts)
- Assignment descriptions (not submissions)
- Quiz questions added directly to a quiz (not question banks)
- Module links
- UDOIT ignores unpublished/unused course content, thus focusing on the content that is actually presented to students
- UDOIT can convert a PDF into a new Page in Canvas (more successful with simpler PDFs)
- UDOIT scans the text of links to make them more readable
- UDOIT allows users to manually mark an item as "resolved" for situations where that is warranted
Ally features not present in UDOIT
The main feature of Ally that instructors will not see in UDOIT are the colored gauges for each content item. Instead, UDOIT has a centralized remediation section of the course where all issues are presented.
Getting Started Resources
Workshops and Training
OAT is working on a schedule of trainings and workshops on UDOIT for the Fall semester. Details will be announced shortly.
In the meantime, instructors can contact OAT with any questions!
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Introducing TidyUp
As part of the roll out of UDOIT, instructors also have access to TidyUp, a file and content cleanup tool for Canvas courses.
TidyUp is intended to be the first step in course accessibility. It works by making sure only relevant files are in the course once you begin checking accessibility. When a course is scanned by TidyUp, the report that is generated shows all the files in the course and also where they are used. This allows the instructor to know what files can be safely deleted.
Click "Declutter Course with TidyUp" to open the tool and run the scan.
After the scan, instructors will see a report like the one in the screen shot below. (Click thumbnail to enlarge image)
In addition to course files, TidyUp also tracks Canvas Pages, highlighting any duplicates or unneeded content.
From the report, instructors can do three things:
- Change the published status of a content item
- Edit the name of the item
- Delete the item from the course (it will be recoverable from the hidden "/undelete" location in the course)
Though it's not required before using UDOIT, decluttering your course with TidyUp first will make the accessibility tasks more efficient!
Workshops and Training
OAT is working on a schedule of trainings and workshops on TidyUp for the Fall semester. Details will be announced shortly.
In the meantime, instructors can contact OAT with any questions!
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Reminders
New AI Feature in Discussions Plus
Better AI Activity Generation + Coaching
The AI integration in Discussions Plus (aka Harmonize) can help you generate rubrics or brainstorm instructions. The rubric you create in Discussions Plus can also become the assignment rubric back in Canvas.
Furthermore, students can also get generalized feedback on their writing (not prose suggestions) as it relates to the various criteria in the rubric to help them hone and improve their submission.
Questions? Contact OAT!
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Advanced Hypothesis Features
Using #tagging and @mentions for increased interaction
Take your social annotation activities further than just creating annotations to deepening the connections between annotations and between students using tagging and @mentions.
What is tagging?
Tagging is the adding of a keyword to an annotation. It allows the annotation to be categorized for easy filtering. For example, students can tag their annotations using agreed-upon keywords like 'NewToMe", "Confirmation", or "Question". As those tags are used, the annotations that use them become part of a collection of annotations that all share a common theme or idea. Users can filter all the annotations to just the ones containing the keyword.
What is @mentions?
Just released this week! While creating annotations, users can now type "@" and select a user who has already interacted with the document to create an email notification to that person about the annotation. This is a great way for students to notify the instructor about a question they have.
Learn more about email notifications
Hypothesis is available to every Canvas course. Explore OAT's resource page.
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Social Annotation Simplified with Discussions Plus
Discussion activities are better in Discussions Plus (powered by Harmonize), but did you know you can add social annotation of PDFs as part of that experience?
Within the assignment creation process, choose "PDF Annotation" in the activity choice screen.
After uploading a PDF, configure the Annotation Settings to limit viewing of annotations to just specific course groups, course sections, privately between the student and instructor, or keep them open to everyone in the course.
Students simply highlight text in the PDF and add a comment. Others can reply. All annotation activity appears in Speedgrader. Simple!
Learn more about PDF annotations
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New Assignment Type in Panopto
Track viewing time for completion points
Over the Winter break, OAT upgraded the connection between Canvas and Panopto, the university's video storage tool. As a result of the upgrade, instructors have gained the ability to award points in Canvas based on the percentage of a video that is watched by a student.
To create this assignment, simply follow the same creation steps in Canvas as you do for any other External Tool, and choose "Panopto Videos" for the tool. Because you're creating an assignment, you'll now see a new dialog box asking you to choose how Panopto should determine the final grade that is sent back to Canvas.
Complete instructions
Caveats
- Do not use a Panopto video that already has an embedded quiz in it.
- In Canvas, leave the number of attempts at Unlimited to allow students to stop and resume watching. Control overall access to the video using the Until date option in the assignment settings.
- Grade information is delayed by three hours from the time a student starts to watch the video. It's not instantaneously reported.
- The grade in Canvas will be updated each time the student accesses and watches more of the video.
So, instructors now have two ways to use Panopto videos for graded activities, either in the form of a built-in quiz or the new completion tracking type.
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Informal QLT Course Assessments for Fall Courses
All instructors who are teaching asynchronous online courses this Fall are invited to have their course informally assessed using the QLT rubric. QLT consists of 52 'objectives' spread across 9 categories of best practices in online course design. It was assembled by a collection of CSU instructional designers and faculty members and was most recently updated in 2022.
After requesting an assessment, OAT will review the course with the QLT rubric and send the feedback to the instructor only. A follow-up consultation to discuss the assessment can be scheduled if desired. This is a great way to get a second pair of eyes on your course for constructive feedback!
Email oatsupport@csustan.edu and specify which course you're interested in. Content should be in a regular Canvas shell.
Additional links:
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