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IST Faculty eNewsletter: September 2017

 

As a College of IST faculty member, you are receiving this email to help assist you with Canvas and online learning.

 

Welcome to the College of IST Learning Design eNewsletter September 2017

 

Canvas Updates

The latest release from Canvas happened September 16th.  Not all of the updates may apply to Penn State’s usage of Canvas. Of note from Canvas:

Expiration Date for Course Export 

From the Canvas release notes: After a content file import, the imported file displays as a file download in the Current Jobs section. The imported file expires after 500 days and can no longer be downloaded. Previously the files had no expiration date.

Student Assignments Filter Buttons

From the Canvas release notes: When assignments are organized by assignment group, the student Assignments page displays buttons to filter by date and by type. The buttons have been updated to read as Show by Date and Show by Type, respectively.

This change has been implemented to resolve a bug previously in Canvas. The Date and Type buttons used in the student Assignments page contained no labels for screen readers. Now the update allows for buttons with Canvas styling and screen reader functionality. 

For complete release notes, visit Canvas. 

Canvas UX Report Available

As a follow-up to previous Canvas UX studies, World Campus students from the College of IST and around Penn State participated in a Spring 2017 course design pilot which featured previously indicated student preferences for the course home, syllabus, and navigational structure.  

The Learning Design group is using information from this study for the College of IST (World Campus) Course Templates.  The Spring 2017 pilot supported previous research in this area, which noted that students like Modules as the course home page, a streamlined syllabus approach, and a navigational structure that facilitates students finding crucial course information. 

More information, including a research report, is available online. 

Grading Scheme Issue with Canvas

IST Learning Design has found that Canvas grading scheme settings do not always copy consistently in Canvas. A grading scheme in Canvas is a table of “cut-off” points of final grades that correspond to the various “letter” grades assigned to students’ work and their final grades. At times, a grading scheme that is set in one course (template or section) sometimes does NOT copy into a new section. Therefore, instructors should check Canvas settings in live sections to ensure that:

Fall 2017 IST World Campus (WC) sections:

No action is needed. Learning Design personnel have already enabled the “Recommended IST Course Grading Scheme” in all sections. Your syllabi also include this grading scheme.

Fall 2017 IST Residential Instruction (RI) sections:

This includes the traditional face-to-face residential sections and the residential and web sections copied from World Campus templates.

All of these sections require the following steps to ensure correct grading scheme is activated:

  • Open Settings from your left navigation
  • Click Course Details tab
  • Click the Enable course grading scheme checkbox
  • Click the link to view grading scheme
  • If Canvas displays a default grading scheme, you may need to select another grading scheme to match your syllabus and grading intentions. To do this, click the “Select Another Scheme” link and select or create the appropriate grading scheme.

 

Please let us know if we can be of assistance or answer any questions regarding these settings or any other Canvas questions. You can contact us at ld@ist.psu.edu.

Contact Us

http://istlearningdesign.psu.edu/contact-us/
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