This article is a part of Instructional Technology's Planning Your Go Online (GO) Kit series. Explore communication, active learning, and assessment strategies in an online environment to keep your course on track in the event of campus closure. View our in-depth webinar recording from March 11.  

Maintaining student learning during an academic disruption requires preparation to ensure communication is clear and active engagement opportunities are provided. Assessment of student learning is an important part of maintaining academic continuity. When classes must be canceled, faculty can leverage different instructional technologies to translate the assessment process into a virtual environment. 

What assessment tools and tips help faculty plan and stock their own Go Online Kit?

• Blackboard is the cornerstone of this process, allowing faculty to deliver tests, collect student submissions for assignments, and facilitate graded discussions. Any graded activity in Blackboard automatically receives a gradebook column for easy tracking. Rubrics and virtual feedback tools help streamline the grading process. 

• If you use paper exams or collect papers from students, consider posting a practice quiz or low-stakes assignment in Blackboard to get used to the tools. Many UMBC students are already familiar with using Blackboard, which reduces their immediate adjustment to a new delivery format. 

• Panopto, Collaborate, and VoiceThread are great alternatives to class presentations and group work, allowing students to narrate their slide decks and demonstrations. Post links to discussion forums where peers can provide feedback and ask questions.

• Reduce cheating by checking for originality with SafeAssign on written assignments or creating unique tests for each student with questions pools (Ultra) and random blocks (Original) in Blackboard.

• Faculty can also use Respondus LockDown Browser with Monitor enabled to secure the high-stakes assessment environment. This custom browser locks down the testing environment within Blackboard, preventing students from using other applications or system tools, and recording students via webcam. A proctoring AI flags potential exam violations for faculty to review.

• Third party tools* offer additional assessment opportunities via Blackboard. Publisher tools provide interactive exercises, self-check activities, and quizzes built on textbook curriculum. Most third-party tools send grades back to Blackboard. 

• Google Assignments allow faculty to distribute assignment templates for graded activities and provide feedback during creation or after submission with reusable comment banks. 

Flexibility is important, not just in the selections of tools. Review your syllabus and identify areas where you can adjust expectations for assessment collection. It’s also important to remember students may have time management or emotional needs to navigate during an emergency (Gravenberg, Carey-Butler, & Horowitz, 2008) so faculty should be prepared to adjust due dates for one, some, many, or all students in a course. Also, ensure students who require accommodations can receive needed support.

Whether classes are postponed due to weather, illness, utility and infrastructure, or other emergencies, DoIT offers many resources beyond Blackboard to support academic continuity. Know which instructional technologies you can use in your Go Online (GO) Kit to maintain academic continuity when your class cannot meet in person. Join instructional technology for this interactive webinar. Click this link to register for the session. 

Reference

Gravenberg, E. V., Carey-Butler, S. R., & Horowitz, R. (2008). Learning from disaster: The lessons of Hurricane Katrina. Fairfax, VA: United Negro College Fund Institute for Capacity Building. Retrieved from https://www.uncf.org/pages/FDPRI-Reports

*With the exception of publisher integrations and licensed tools that have their own support staff, you should avoid requiring software or services that are unsupported by UMBC. If students encounter any technical issues, they will not be able get help from the Technology Support Center or Instructional Technology staff.

This article is a part of Instructional Technology's Planning Your Go Online Kit series. Explore communication, active learning, and assessment strategies in an online environment to keep your course on track in the event of campus closure. View our in-depth webinar recording from March 11. 

Campus may be closed, but that does not mean there has to be disruption to your course schedule. After creating and sharing a communication plan with students, you can take steps to foster an active online learning environment. Active online learning takes two primary forms: content creation and course engagement. 

Content Creation

How can you share course content and materials to keep students on track? To get started, be sure that you have shared the course in Blackboard, specifically reminding students of your expectations when campus is closed. Next, identify course content that can be converted into a digital format using a variety of different tools: 

• G Suite for Education: Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Create content on the web using a rich text editor, and files that are easily shareable for collaboration. 

• Google Drive File Embed: Instructors can directly link items from their Google Drive, like a Google Doc, into a Blackboard course. A view-only copy is accessible to students.

• Microsoft Office 365: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel are available to download for all members of the UMBC community. Save your files to your OneDrive with 1TB of storage, and access Office 365 from the web.

• Panopto: Create lecture recordings and screencasts with Panopto, a video platform for instructors to easily publish and share their videos. Panopto adjusts the size of the video, depending on the viewer's screen size and internet connection. 

Especially in an online learning environment, the abilities of all learners should be taken into account. Ally is a tool built into Blackboard courses that scans uploaded course content, performs a series of steps to make them more accessible, and provides alternative formats for both students and faculty to read or listen to content. 

Active Online Learning means Continuous Learning

Captivating content and encouraging active participation will keep students on track to meet learning objectives. Even with campus closure, students will be able to meaningfully engage and participate online. Engage with your students using synchronous and asynchronous tools in Blackboard.

This article is a part of Instructional Technology's Planning Your Go Online (GO) Kit series. Explore communication, active learning, and assessment strategies in an online environment to keep your course on track in the event of campus closure. View our in-depth webinar recording from March 11. 

Communicating with students during an academic disruption begins with a clear strategy. Follow these steps to quickly get started during an emergency: 

• Download the student class roster and email addresses from Blackboard Original or from PeopleSoft. 

• Send students an email, or Blackboard announcement, as soon as possible to let them know how you will be communicating (email, phone, text, Bb announcements).

• Tell students your response time to emails or messages (i.e., within 24 hours). 

• Inform students about how they will submit assignments (email, Blackboard assignments). 

• Select one communication tool that supports either synchronous (real-time, online interactions) or asynchronous (does not occur at the same time) engagement. 

• Synchronous tools include Blackboard Collaborate, Webex, or Google Hangouts. 

• Asynchronous tools include Blackboard discussion forums, Ultra messages, and VoiceThread. 

This month's Ultra update focuses on increasing the visibility of Ally in Ultra courses. Faculty who upload files directly to the Course Content area or within folders and learning modules will see more prominent Ally accessibility meters. These tools are also available when content is embedded in Ultra assessments. Students can also access Ally's alternative file formats for content more easily.

Blackboard also enhanced self-enrollment for student groups, allowing students switch groups themselves within the instructor-specified enrollment period. This month offered a few quality improvement fixes. For example, line spacing is improved for Ultra discussion board spacing to improve the readability of posts. Additionally, students who are disabled in an Ultra course because they dropped the class will no longer appear in the participant list.

The next Blackboard Learn update will be posted to our test site around February 11th and pushed to production in March 5th 2020. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. 

As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 
• What’s new in Ultra? | Known Issues 
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Sign up for a webinar & other training 
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff
• Review your course content with Ally