Zoom Notice for Health Sciences Users
Zoom training (15 minutes) is required for all new Health Sciences staff and students prior to the start of fall semester:
- Health Sciences staff or students new to the University of Minnesota must take Zoom: Understand HCC Requirements in order to attend classes or meetings on Zoom that require authentication.
- Students who are transferring into the Health Sciences and already have a UMN Zoom account need to take Zoom: Understand HCC Requirements training.
- Once they complete the training, students should allow up to 30 minutes for their completion to be logged in our system.
- After the 30 minute period, they should log in to zoom.umn.edu.
- Finally, they will receive an email from Zoom asking them to transfer their existing UMN Zoom account to the UMN Health Sciences Zoom instance.
Start of Semester Checklist
Fall 2024 semester is about to begin! Use this comprehensive Canvas: Start-of-Semester Checklist to get your site ready for your students.
Canvas Updates
Assign Pages and Modules
Now you can assign Pages or entire Modules to a student or section. Important: Instructure, who designs Canvas, moved all Assign To activities to a fly-in tray when editing Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions. This change was unpopular so in August, the ability to manage Assign To properties will return to the bottom of editing windows for Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions in place of the tray fly-out menu that will still be used when assigning entire Modules to students or sections.
Discussions Redesign
Similar to social media apps, you can now tag people in a discussion reply. Just type the @ symbol and a list of taggable users displays in a pop-up. Instructors can also set up discussions so that students can report a reply as inappropriate. This feature does not automatically remove the reported post, but it does alert the instructor with a notification for them to take action to remove the reply. Update your Canvas Notifications so you're alerted about these new Discussion features.
Other Canvas Enhancements
- Combat grading fatigue by randomizing the order students appear in Speedgrader.
- Set availability dates for Announcements.
- See which students have dropped the course so you can remove them from manually-created sections.
- Add auto-responses and a signature to your Inbox.
- Find and replace in the Rich Content Editor.
- Visit the Message Students Who feature in the Gradebook—there are several more ways to provide targeted messages to specific sets of students.
For more in depth technical details on these changes in Canvas (as well as other academic technologies over the summer), read What's New in Learning Technologies for Fall 2024.
Kaltura Updates
Kaltura player upgraded to version 7 on August 1, 2024
The various Kaltura players used for thousands of videos and other media in Canvas and MediaSpace upgraded to version 7 on August 1, 2024. Read more about the benefits of this updated player. In your Canvas course sites, if you have used the Add Kaltura Media button in the Rich Content Editor or added to the Media Gallery, those upgraded smoothly, and your students will get all of the benefits of this new player.
Important: Embed codes that were previously created in Kaltura MediaSpace and posted elsewhere are now broken. Viewers will instead see a spinning rainbow-colored progress circle. Some broken embed codes exist in Canvas courses. If you do come across media not working properly in your course site, refer to steps to replace old MediaSpace embed codes. An announcement about the upgrade is posted on the Canvas Dashboard until August 30, 2024.
Zoom Updates
Zoom AI Companion features available
Zoom's AI Companion is a suite of AI tools that enhance the in-meeting and post-meeting experience. The University is currently leveraging the following AI Companion tools:
Read Zoom AI Companion -- Guidance for Instructors before using these tools for instruction. It is important to note that Zoom does not use any of the data captured by the AI tools to train the Large Language Model. However, data may be passed to third-party AI model providers for processing. Find more information about how Zoom's AI Companion handles data.
Google Jamboard is retiring in Fall 2024
Starting October 1, 2024, the Google Jamboard app will become view-only. You’ll no longer be able to create new or edit existing Jams on any platform, including the web, iPhone, iPad, Android, and Jamboard devices. After December 31, 2024, Jamboard fully retires, and you’ll no longer be able to access the Jamboard app or your Jam files. If you are currently using Jamboard in your courses, consider using Zoom Whiteboard as an alternative solution and update your course materials accordingly. Learn more about the Jamboard retirement and recommended actions for the University community.
Learn how to use AI in your University work
This fall, Extra Points is featuring a new series focused on how faculty and staff around the University of Minnesota use generative AI within their work. A conversation with Cody Hennesy, computational research librarian for the Twin Cities campus, kicks off the series. Hennesy puts generative AI into the greater context of large language models, and shares how he uses genAI in his own work and supports faculty using genAI. Read GenAI Explorations: Conversation with Cody Hennesy.
Use the link validator tool in Canvas to check your course for broken links
Verify that all of the links in your course content are working by running the Canvas link validator tool. This tool searches through your course content and returns invalid or unresponsive course links in both published and unpublished content. Note that some links flagged as unresponsive are inaccessible by Canvas servers and will still work for students (i.e. links that may require a student login to view). The link validator also includes deleted links and missing images. Deleted links are links that are still in the course, but their linked content has been deleted (such as a course file or page).
New Office for Digital Accessibility poised to help make course sites accessible
The Office for Digital Accessibility (ODA) launched this summer in response to recent Department of Justice clarifications on Title II of the ADA specifying that disabled people have the right to participation in not only built spaces but also in digital spaces. The ODA is charged with organizing and coordinating the University’s efforts to support accessible and inclusive digital experiences for all who engage with the University’s services, programs, and activities. This includes making all course content accessible by April 2026. The Teaching with Technology Newsletter will be highlighting ODA resources each month as we all work to achieve this accessibility goal. For right now, the ODA asks us all to “start small, start now to provide accessible and inclusive digital experiences”:
Spotlight
Introducing Course Works: A University of Minnesota Course Materials Program
Course Works is the University of Minnesota’s new comprehensive course materials program—offered to all undergraduate, degree-seeking students—which allows students to access their required course materials by the first day of class, for a flat rate of $279 each semester during the 2024-2025 academic year. Students may also select materials on a course-by-course basis or opt out of the program entirely. Watch the Intro to Course Works Video (2:05) for further details.
This program is a cost-effective way for all students to have access to course materials right when the class begins. Benefits for faculty and instructors include:
- Preserve academic freedom: Whether you assign library materials, paid publisher content, or free resources, all types of course materials are available for adoption. If you determine that printed materials are required for pedagogical purposes, they will be made available to students.
- Enhance insights: You will be able to use Canvas to gain greater insight into how students who have opted in to the program are engaging with materials.
- No change in how materials are adopted: This is not an outsourced or commercial program. Campus stores and libraries continue to collaborate to deliver your content and continue to support the development and adoption of open educational resources.
- Important: If you previously used the VitalSource Bookshelf LTI to insert ebooks into your Canvas page through the Inclusive Access, that will not be necessary anymore. The Course Works integration (via RedShelf) will be providing these books now, and no setup is required by instructors. As usual, you still need to make your ebook request with the campus store for this functionality to work.
See the Important Dates page on the Course Works website to view when you will have access to your Shelf in Canvas. The Faculty / Staff Resources page lists dates and times you can attend an open Q&A webinar on Course Works. For more information, FAQs, and contact information, please visit courseworks.umn.edu or email us at [email protected] with program questions.