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Issue Contents
Announcements
Reminders
Missed an update? Browse the OAT Update archives
Announcements
January Workshop Recordings
Below are links to workshops OAT held recently:
- Better and Easier Peer Review with Harmonize
- Social Reading with Harmonize
- What's New in Canvas (Spring 2026)
- Topics covered:
- Graded surveys in New Quizzes
- Schedule grade and feedback release to students
- A.I. question creation in New Quizzes
- A.I. rubric creation
- Turnitin update to Full Inbox assignment type
- Training Recording
Questions? Contact OAT Support!
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Regular & Substantive Interaction in Online Courses
Federal regulations require that online ("distance") courses, primarily those that are asynchronous in their delivery, contain adequate opportunities for regular and substantive interaction between the instructor and the students, as well as between students.
How to get started
OAT has developed a template module that can be downloaded and installed into any Canvas course through the Canvas Commons tool. Once added to a course, all of the content in the template can be modified. The template is also a starting point - its content does not conform to an officially sanctioned body of requirements. However, it's a great way to get started!
On Canvas, click the Canvas Commons icon and then search for "Regular & Substantive Interaction". Click the "Download" button to choose the course where the module will be added.
Review the module contents
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TidyUp Course Files
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!
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UDOIT
Continue using UDOIT! The tool is enabled in the course menu of all courses by default (but hidden from students).
Two new links in the course navigation menu.
Click "Check Accessibility With UDOIT" to open the accessibility checker and begin remediating your content.
What does UDOIT do?
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
Getting Started Resources
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Turnitin A.I. Detection FAQ
Stan State provides access to Turnitin's A.I. Detector tool for all instructors. Normally, the detector is used as part of a Canvas assignment that uses Turnitin in some way. However, it is possible to have a stand-alone file uploaded to Turnitin for analysis.
When submitted to Turnitin, a paper is given a 'score' that corresponds to the percentage of long-form prose (i.e., sentences contained within many multiple paragraphs) that the detector has high confidence was not human-produced. Longer submissions are more accurately scored, while shorter submissions may be more frequently incorrectly flagged. The A.I. detector does not reliably detect AI-generated text in the form of non-prose, such as poetry, scripts, or code. Nor does it detect short-form/unconventional writing such as bullet points (short, non-sentence structures) or annotated bibliographies.
Remember: Turnitin's A.I. score is a flag for further consideration, not an accusation of misconduct in and of itself.
How does it work?
What parameters or flags does Turnitin’s model take into account when detecting AI writing?
What does the percentage in the AI writing detection indicator mean?
If students use Grammarly for grammar checks, does Turnitin detect it and flag it as AI?
If students use Grammarly’s paraphrasing tool, will it flag their content as AI-generated?
How should instructors interpret the results?
Complete FAQ
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Reminders
A4L Accessibility Hot Tips
Design & Remediation Hot 🔥 Tips
1. Downloading PDFs from Canvas Shells with UDOIT and Submitting for Remediation
AI Video Demo and directions for downloading PDFs from course shells:
Open your Canvas shell, look for 'Check Accessibility With UDOIT' on the left side*, open UDOIT, grant it access to scan your course. After scanning is complete, click on 'Home' at the top and scroll down to find/open the high impact scorecard, click on "PDFs", review your PDFs and download any that present with an error such as "File lacks tags needed for navigation by assistive technologies" or "Image-based file detected."
The error of "File is missing a title element" is very simple to fix on your own so we recommend you stick to submitting those with the more complex errors as listed above.
To submit PDFs for remediation, simply open our TDX form and submit a ‘Accessibility Work Request - On-Demand File Remediation’. Our student team will take care of the technical part! After your files are remediated and returned to you, simply go back to the Course Files tab in UDOIT and individually replace them by clicking "Replace file with an uploaded file" and UDOIT will do the rest for you!
* Students cannot see UDOIT or TidyUp links
2. Be Careful When Using with Tables in Canvas | Tables Are Not For Layout
Tables are sometimes used to create visual layouts on a web page, such as text arranged into two "columns", or to position an image next to a block of text. Back in the early days of the web, this was a common work around for the lack of regular HTML to do fancy page layout kinds of things.
We do not recommend this practice anymore. Tables should be used only for tabular data or content. Using tables to lay out regular page content will cause problems for screen reader users. For example, tables on web pages (i.e., Canvas pages) must have header rows and/or header columns so the screen reader can navigate through the table structure. If you're using a table to do page layout, your "table" doesn't have a structure like that, and that's confusing.
Have questions about how to lay out pages or images without tables? Contact OAT!
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Exam Integrity in the Age of A.I.
Upcoming training schedule
Respondus is offering training sessions throughout January. Check it out!
Dates: January 22, 27, 29
REGISTER HERE
About Respondus
Did you know Stan State has a site license for Respondus LockDown Browser (LDB), and it can be required for the completion of any Canvas quiz? If you are concerned about students generating quiz answers by copying and pasting your quiz questions into ChatGPT, then requiring the use of LDB to complete the quiz may worth considering.
What is LockDown Browser?
LockDown Browser is a custom web browser that restricts the user to just their Canvas account. Within a course, LockDown Browser locks down the testing environment for a quiz. It prevents students from capturing screen content, opening other tabs or websites on the Internet unless those sites are part of a quiz question, and using any other programs on their computer. Only after the student submits the quiz are they permitted to quit the browser. At that point, all normal functionality on the computer is restored.
Watch an overview of LockDown Browser
How is LockDown Browser enabled?
- On the settings page of the Canvas course, open the Navigation list and enable the LockDown Browser tool. It will appear as a link in the course navigation (hidden from students)
- Open the LockDown Browser link to view the LockDown Browser dashboard
- Open the configuration arrow for the specific quiz that will require use of the LockDown Browser and click "Settings"
- Enable the LockDown Browser requirement
- Review the "Advanced Settings" if desired
- Click "Save + Close" to complete the set up process. No other changes need to be made to the quiz itself.
What is the student experience?
First, students generally must use a standard laptop or desktop computer to take a quiz that requires LockDown Browser. Mobile devices are not supported except for iPads and then only if the instructor enables that setting (not recommended). All campus computer labs have Respondus LockDown Browser installed.
Second, students will be prompted by the exam to download and launch the LockDown Browser application if they access the quiz using a regular web browser.
When launched, LockDown Browser goes directly to Canvas and the student logs in the same way they do in a regular web browser (including the Duo authentication). The student then opens the course and proceeds to the quiz. The usual "Start the Quiz" button appears and the rest of the quiz experience operates as normal.
Share this student overview video with your class: https://web.respondus.com/lockdownbrowser-student-video/
Things to consider:
- LockDown Browser makes cheating on a Canvas quiz harder and more time-consuming but not impossible. In an unproctored environment, LDB cannot prevent actions that occur on other devices that students might have in their possession.
- Enable the recording settings of LockDown Browser, Respondus Monitor, if you want to record the student's screen and/or webcam
- Monitor will detect unauthorized activity in the student's environment, such as other individuals, cell phones, etc.
- With Monitor enabled, you can permit students to switch into MS Excel or MS Word during the exam.
- Students must have a practice quiz available beforehand. This allows them to get acquainted with the LockDown Browser process. Do not overlook this! Create a simple quiz with one or two questions, and configure that quiz to require LockDown Browser.
- Idea: consider using Canvas's module requirements feature to make the practice quiz a formal prerequisite for taking the real quiz. Learn more.
- Canvas quizzes with LockDown Browser enabled cannot accommodate an "open note" or "open book" quiz policy if those materials are only stored in Canvas. However, specific web domains can be allowed if configured in the LockDown Browser settings. Remember, the point of LockDown Browser is to "lock down" the environment to just the quiz.
Resources for more information
Have more questions? Contact OAT!
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