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Welcome to the latest issue of the OAT Update, produced by the Office of Academic Technology at CSU Stanislaus!
Note: With this issue, OAT Update will go on hiatus until January, 2024.
Issue Contents
New Announcements
Reminders
Miss an update? Browse all OAT Updates
New Announcements
Use Turnitin With Discussions Plus Activities
Discussions Plus (a.k.a Harmonize) is a tool available in Canvas that enables more engaging discussion activities. OAT is excited to announce that our Discussions Plus installation now includes the option for Turnitin similarity checking on the posts students make in the discussion.
How? When you edit the Post Settings of the activity [1] in Discussions Plus, simply check the box for Turnitin Settings [2]. This new feature is not part of Canvas's own discussions tool.
About Similarity Checking in Discussions Plus
Here are some things to keep in mind with this new feature.
- Only a student's posts are sent to Turnitin. Replies to other students are not checked.
- Only posts longer than 30 words will be checked.
- It's important to let students know to expect Turnitin checking on their posts. Students must accept an authorization agreement shown to them on their very first post in any Discussions Plus activity that has Turnitin enabled. The authorization does not need to be done ever again.
Learn more about using Turnitin in Harmonize
Discussions Plus overview
Questions? Contact OAT!
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Reminders
Set Up Extra Credit in Canvas
Extra credit in Canvas can be confusing. There isn't an obvious 'tool' or built-in setting in Canvas that walks you through implementing extra credit in a course. Plus, there are many ways instructors can offer extra credit. So, we've started working on a resource to (hopefully) bridge that gap.
Give it a try!
Go to resource
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Introduction to Hypothesis Annotations
In Fall 2023 our students and instructors made nearly 16,000 shared annotations in documents using Hypothesis, an increase of 20% over Fall 2022. Social annotation deepens engagement with course readings by placing the discussion inside the document itself. For example instructors can use Hypothesis to guide or "coach" students through an article by adding question prompts in specific passages (or inserting definitions). Students can also bring in outside resources (links, videos) into their annotations or in replies to others'. Any kind of document with selectable text can be used in a Hypothesis activity (and even YouTube videos if they have a transcript). Hypothesis is an external tool that is accessed through Canvas.
Watch this testimonial from a 2023 Social Learning Innovator awardee about how Hypothesis has transformed her classroom experience. (10 min)
Excited now? Come learn more about Hypothesis on January 16 from 12-1 pm. Hypothesis users Jey Strangfeld (Sociology), Kelly Cotter (Psychology), Jamie Gravell (Teacher Ed), and Kyra Pazan (Anthropology) will be sharing their knowledge and experience!
Register now
Learn more about Hypothesis
Bonus: Hypothesis Academy - Social Annotation 101 is taken enrollments (free) for the February and April cohorts. Learn more
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Introduction to GoReact in Canvas
Funding has been secured to make GoReact available again for video submission assignments in Canvas for the remainder of the 23-24 academic year.
Join us January 17 at 12 pm for an introduction to this valuable tool. Profs. Christopher Claus and Joe Carranza from Communication Studies will demonstrate how GoReact has become a gamechanger for evaluating student video presentations.
Register now
Learn more about GoReact
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Introduction to VoiceThread Presentations
VoiceThread enables more humanized conversations about media files, such as PPT slides, images, videos, and documents. Using voice and video comments, a VoiceThread can be used to assemble and deliver a lecture in an online course, hold a class discussion, or be used by students to prepare presentations at the end of a semester. VoiceThread is an external tool that is accessed through Canvas.
Come learn more about this tool on January 18 from 12-1 pm.
Register now
Learn more about VoiceThread
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Informal QLT Course Assessments for Winter and Spring Courses
All instructors who are teaching asynchronous online courses in Winter and Spring 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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Canvas Support Options
All Canvas users have access to various support options when questions or problems arise.
Instructors
Options for instructors are:
- Call Canvas support 24x7 (open Help menu)
- Chat with Canvas support 24x7 (open Help menu)
- Email oatsupport@csustan.edu
- Review online documentation
In general, the OIT Tech Support desk cannot help with Canvas issues - all Canvas administration is handled by OAT and it is best to start with one of the options listed above.
Students
Students can get basic support in these ways:
- Chat with Canvas support 24x7 (open Help menu)
- Review online documentation
Any issue that cannot be solved by Canvas support will be redirected to OAT for further assistance.
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Ally Accessibility Gauges
Ally is the automated accessibility checking tool that is installed within Stan State's Canvas system. This tool makes it easy to spot accessibility issues with your course materials and ensure access for all students. There are two main purposes of the Ally tool:
- Scan every piece of content/document/image in a course and gauge its accessibility. Instructors are then guided through steps to address the accessibility issues. The severity of issues (and the lack of issues at all!) are indicated by a color-coded system of gauges.
- Provide students with alternate formats for most content, and even language translations in some cases. Alternate formats may be PDF versions of documents, spoken audio versions of documents, etc.
Gauge Colors & Access
Ally uses a small gauge icon next to each piece of content or image to represent its accessibility status. The colors correspond to those on a traffic stop light:
The gauges are only visible to instructors. Students never see the accessibility status of an item. Instead, they only see a small "download" icon next to each item that allows them to access alternative formats for the item.
More Information
Learn more about Ally and accessibility.
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