Welcome to the Spring Semester!
Happy first day of classes! Read on to find more information on the Final Concierge Migration Deadline, AI Resources for Teaching and Updates to Teaching Tools and Technologies.
Important Dates for Instruction
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Last day to add/drop with no record – Undergraduate and Non-degree students - Wednesday, February 7
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Last day to add or drop any class with no record – Matriculated Graduate students Wednesday, February 14
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Holiday - Presidents’ Day – Monday, February 19
Moving to Canvas
As we move to 2024, there will be two final deadlines to request concierge migration services to move your course from Blackboard or Moodle to Canvas, March 1st and May 3rd, respectively.
A reminder that in June 2024, all remaining courses in Blackboard and Moodle will be moved, with the majority of courses being taught in Canvas for the Fall 2024 semester. Read more about the migration deadline, options for moving your content and more on the Provost LMS Transition page.
We're here for you! Schedule an appointment with us, get help via email, and/or join our drop-in help sessions. Questions on Canvas? 24/7 live support via chat and phone are always available!
Canvas Support Chat: Available for Instructors and Students 24/7. Support phone Line: +1 (855) 219-3080
Appointments and email support: Monday-Friday 9am - 4pm. Zoom or Bartlett 319
Drop-in Support: Monday-Friday 10am - 3pm. Zoom or Bartlett 319
We have multiple workshops focused on topics to help you explore Canvas, build your courses, and get the most out of your courses. You can watch recordings of previous workshops here, or get ready to join us for a live Zoom workshop in the Spring! Upcoming workshops can be found on the events page.
Canvas Trainings and Resources
Need on-demand training? Or maybe you learn better through text documentation. Check out our UMass Canvas Training and Resources course, and practice what you learn in your Canvas Sandbox.
Read More about Accessing your Training and Sandbox Course
Canvas Bi-Weekly Updates
We have optional emails to keep you up-to-date about news around Canvas, highlight new features and tools in the platform, let you know the latest in training, support, and experience updates in Canvas.
New in Instructional Design
Our new Generative AI pages are live today. The information is curated and designed to help promote AI literacy and help instructors make informed decisions about when, or when not to, incorporate AI into their courses. The pages are set up to help give instructors a starting point to facilitate their learning and understanding of AI.
Continuing from the Fall semester, IDEAS and the CTL are hosting discussions with faculty and staff from across campus around navigating AI in education. Come ask questions, share your experiences, and learn from your colleagues. The next session will be AI Syllabus Statements in Practice: Enhancing Compliance and Navigating Implications in Your Course, on February 15, 2024 at 11:30am.
New features and interface changes have arrived in some of our most used teaching tools and technologies. For more information, refer to the article linked above to learn more about updates to Echo360, Zoom, iClicker, and more external tools.
Learning Management System Updates
Summer 2024 Course Requests Open in SPIRE
Summer 2024 course requests will open in SPIRE on March 18th. Don’t forget need to request a Canvas course for each class you plan on using it to teach.
For step by step instructions on requesting a Canvas course see: Request a Canvas Course in SPIRE
Thinking about Summer Migration
UMass Amherst has partnered with a third-party vendor to migrate courses from Moodle and Blackboard to Canvas. Spring 2024 course migrations are on schedule. There will be several more opportunities for migrating content. If you are teaching in Canvas in Summer 2024, you can request concierge migration for your courses.
Teaching in Summer 2024
Submit requests by March 1, 2024
Note: Requesting course content migration from Moodle or Blackboard to Canvas is a separate process; you still need to request your course in SPIRE to be able to teach in Canvas in Summer 2024.
Requesting concierge migration of course content does not mean you must teach in Canvas for that semester. However, if you plan on teaching using Canvas in those semesters, make your request early to ensure your course is migrated and you have time to get familiar with it.
Canvas Tip of the Month - Preparing your Course for the Spring
We have lots of resources to assist you in preparing for the first day of classes in Canvas, including a course checklist, training course, dozens of articles in our Canvas knowledge base on a variety of topics, along with Canvas support options.
For instructors interested in exploring the advanced features of Canvas, we’ve outlined a few of these options that can help create dynamic content for your students.
- New Quizzes: New Quizzes offers a modern quizzing interface, more question types, and additional quiz setting functionality including additional question options, quiz reports, and more.
- Embedding Multimedia Content with Studio: Canvas studio, a part of Canvas’ rich content editor found in Assignments, Discussions, Groups and pages, allows you to create and embed multimedia content and create multiple representations for students.
- Explore External Tools: From Zoom to H5P and everything in between, external tools can add new functionality and learning modes to your course.
Canvas Updates
Canvas has a number of planned updates to help enhance you and your students experiences. You can read more about them in the recent Canvas Release Notes. A few of these tool updates include:
- Calendar: Event Times can now be input manually
- Grades: Submitted Date column now available
- New Quizzes: Answer frequency summary for additional question types
- New Quizzes: When a course is copied that includes a new quiz with an item bank, the item bank is shared with the new course automatically.
- The New Analytics feature option default status is changed to Enabled/Locked for all institutions. New Analytics allows instructors to track student average course grades, online activity and attendance using an interactive chart graph or table.
Planned Downtime
There is no planned downtime for Canvas this month.
Summer Course Requests Open in SPIRE
Summer 2024 Course Requests will open in SPIRE on March 18th. Don’t forget need to request a Moodle course for each class you plan on using it to teach.
As part of a multi-year process the campus will be moving to a single LMS – Canvas. You can request a Canvas course instead of a Moodle course in SPIRE. Some useful information for making this decision:
The IDEAS Team is running a series of webinars to introduce Canvas and give you hands-on experience and practice.
All instructors have access to a Canvas Sandbox course and Canvas Training and Resources Course.
For step by step instructions on requesting a Moodle course, see:
Planned Downtimes
If you suspect an unplanned outage, you can check the status of Moodle, Zoom, and other supported teaching technologies on the IT Services Status for Remote Teaching and Learning page.
Scheduled routine maintenance windows for UMass Amherst Moodle in the Cloud are Thursdays 11pm-12am (ET). Regular maintenance is a necessity for a stable, secure, and improving service. Many of these maintenance windows will not actually have the site unavailable for more than a few minutes, but it is still not advised to plan activities or set due dates during maintenance windows.
Summer Course Requests Open in SPIRE
Summer 2024 Course Requests will open in SPIRE on March 18th. Don’t forget need to request a Blackboard course for each class you plan on using it to teach.
As part of a multi-year process the campus will be moving to a single LMS – Canvas. You can request a Canvas course instead of a Blackboard course in SPIRE. Some useful information for making this decision:
The IDEAS Team is running a series of webinars to introduce Canvas and give you hands-on experience and practice.
All instructors have access to a Canvas Sandbox course and Canvas Training and Resources Course.
For detailed instructions in requesting and using Blackboard, see:
iClicker No Longer Available for Use in Blackboard
iClicker integration directly with Blackboard will be unavailable during the Spring 2024 semester. If you would like to use iClicker and you are using Blackboard to teach, please reach out to the IDEAS Team (instruct@umass.edu) for assistance with your options.
Planned downtimes
There are no planned downtimes for Blackboard this month.
You can check the status of Blackboard, Zoom, and other supported teaching technologies on the IT Services Status for Remote Teaching and Learning page.