June

July

August

As part of our annual assessment plan, the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) encourages the campus community to complete the following annual survey of information technology services: 

http://umbc.edu/go/doitusersurvey

This brief (10 minute max), anonymous survey will help us in our planning for academic year 2015-16 and provides important feedback to understand what technology services are important to you and how well we are meeting your needs. The survey results are shared with our governance committees and used in our planning for the upcoming year.

If you have any questions about this survey or need more information, please contact our Technology Support Center (TSC) located on the first floor of the library or call 410.455.3838.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation and assistance. Your input is critically important in shaping the services we offer.

Adaptive Release provides controls to release content to students based on a set of rules provided by the instructor. The rules may be related to availability, date and time, individual users and user groups (such as course Groups), scores or attempts on any Gradebook item, or review status of another item in the course. Using adaptive release can help instructors keep track of student progress in the course, and release content items as they see fit.

Examples of Adaptive Release

Apply review status criteria as the student progresses

Your course is divided into sections, each containing an overview, readings, and a quiz. You want content to be released as the student progresses through content and marks items as reviewed.

• You want the overview to always be visible, so you apply no criteria.

• You want the readings to be available after the overview has been reviewed, so you apply a review status rule to each of the readings, selecting the overview.

• You want the quiz to be available after the final reading has been reviewed, so you apply a review status rule to the quiz, selecting that reading.

Apply date criteria as the term progresses

Your course is divided into three sections. You want the sections available on specific dates throughout the term.

• You want the first section to always be visible, so you apply no criteria.

• You want the second section to be available after February 1st, so you apply a date rule to each item in the section.

• You want the third section to be available after March 1st, so you apply a date rule to each item in the section.

Apply grade criteria for remedial purposes

You created additional course material for remedial purposes.

• You want the remedial material to be available to students who receive 65% or less on their midterm exams, so you apply a grade rule to the material based on this test score.

Best Practices

Since adaptive release allows distribution of content as the course progresses, unlike in the face-to-face environment, students do not see this process. Without a bit of explanation, they may be confused when items suddenly appear, or wonder why some students see different items than they do. No placeholder exists for items hidden due to adaptive release criteria. Students have no way of knowing where items may appear unless you tell them.

To eliminate such confusion, consider adding a statement to your course syllabus or getting started materials:

All students access content using the Course Documents link on the course menu. Some content is released based on the following rules:

• Date criteria: Some content is assigned a default release date. On that date, it is available to all students.

• Review status criteria: Students, who are progressing through course content quickly and marking the content as reviewed, see content before the default release date.

• Membership criteria: For group projects, the class is divided into several groups. Different material is released to each group. You will not see content that another group sees.

• Grade criteria: Students must receive 70% on each test before the next unit is released for viewing. Students who receive less than 70% on their tests can access additional review materials. After marking the additional materials as reviewed, the next unit is released for viewing.

Getting Started with Adaptive Release

To learn more about using Rubrics in Blackboard:

• visit our Blackboard Adaptive Release FAQ page  

• open an               RT Ticket for any technical issues

• view the schedule of training workshops on the   DoIT group page

• contact  the Instructional Technology Team with any questions or concerns

UPDATE:

Here's why we're changing...

And here's what we're changing...

Start

Main Menu

Groups

Promotions

Guide

The Guide replaces the Topics menu with a single page containing the most used resources, based on other users like you. Can’t find what you need? Don’t worry, the bottom of the Guide will have links to other Topics pages for resources that aren’t used as frequently. In this update we also tackled the issue of roles in myUMBC. Now, all users will see all of the resources available. Hurrah.

Events

Seeing a calendar with every event on campus can be overwhelming. That’s why we have redesigned the main Events calendar to show you upcoming events filtered by interest. This new approach will provide a much more intuitive way to find events you might want to attend, rather than sending you to a list of everything happening on a given day.

Community Groups

Community Discussions will be replaced with Community Groups -- a more focused venue for conversations. Each Community Group will be associated with a topic, such as Academics, Classifieds, Athletics, or Politics, etc. Also, because Community Discussions have been converted to Groups, you will now be able to follow individual community groups to keep track of when updates are posted. All groups will be visible to members of the community (login required).

A Final Thought...

DoIT Update is a selection of campus IT news and events emailed 3-4 times a year, typically around the start and end of each Fall and Spring semester. For more information, visit  doit.umbc.edu. 

HEADLINES

1. DoIT Recommends Course Copy vs. Export/Import

1. FAQs available and two workshops set for  April 28  and  May 12.

2. Deadline to Order Clickers for Fall 2015 is 3/27

3. New Workshops Announced for Rest of SP2015 Semester  including the following

1. Full Service or à La Carte: Enhancing Course Delivery  (3/25)

2. Faculty panel on iPads in the Classroom  (4/8)

4. DoIT Offers “4/15 Alternate Delivery Program (ADP) Information Session” and Partners in upcoming  ADP Call for Participation

5. FYI: Engineering Prof Conquers Snow Days with Virtual Class

6. FYI: Desktone is the Virtual Lab Students Need

For IT help, we recommend 1) consulting the  FAQs, 2) submitting an  RT ticket, or 3) contacting the  Technology Support Center  located on the Library’s first floor or call 410.455.3838. See also  doit.umbc.edu/support/tips/