Survey Invitation: Help Us Shape IDEAS!
We want to hear from you! IDEAS is looking to develop our upcoming instructional design upskilling resources around what best suits our campus instructors. Your input will help us better understand the areas of educational technology, teaching, and training support that are most important to you.
We’ll be asking about your interests in specific educational technology, skill development topics, and any additional instructional resources or training that would be most beneficial to you. Your responses will guide us in shaping future services and support. The survey will take just a few minutes to complete.
Spring Course Requests Open November 12th
Requests for Spring 2025 courses will open in SPIRE on November 12th. SPIRE will be configured to only allow Canvas courses to be requested – if you’d like to teach in Moodle, you can complete a Moodle exception form, which requires dean-level approval and a justification to stay in the legacy LMS.
Exception forms to remain in Moodle will continue to be available through the 24-25 academic year. Moodle will no longer be available for teaching after the Spring 2025 semester.
EchoVideo Course Recordings on Election Day
Classes will not meet on Election Day this coming Tuesday, November 5. As a result, all scheduled EchoVideo recordings have been canceled. If you’re teaching in a classroom that uses EchoVideo and are planning to use that room to create a recording on the 5th, please reach out to instruct@umass.edu to schedule an additional recording.
iClicker Cloud Update
A new iClicker Cloud Update is now available, which introduces new features to improve the polling experience for both instructors and students. This update is completely optional, but will work to create an improved iClicker Cloud experience. You can download iClicker 6.1.1 below.
Canvas Updates: October 2024
Recent New Quizzes Updates: New Quizzes Settings, Add Time to Existing Quiz Sessions
Select New Quizzes Settings to customize time and feedback visibility for students, allowing instructors to control when quiz feedback is released or retracted. This feature standardizes the feedback process, enhances learning, encourages independence, and better aligns with review sessions. Check out New Quizzes: Manage Student Result View for more information.
Adding time to existing quiz sessions allows instructors to moderate a quiz and provide additional time for students. This feature allows instructors to accommodate for students needing extra time while the quiz is active, without affecting the instructor’s view. For more information, see New Quizzes: Add Time to Existing Quiz Sessions.
Canvas Gradebook Resources
With midterms in full swing, we’ve provided some resources on grading in Canvas along with our training course. Whether you’re looking for more information on some more well-known grading functions in Canvas, or would just like to have a repository of articles readily available, these resources will answer your common grading questions.
Need help with a specific issue? Canvas offers 24/7 live chat for instructors. For UMass-specific Canvas questions, reach out to instruct@umass.edu.
- How do I use the Gradebook?
- Canvas Course Checklist: Grading
- Welcome to SpeedGrader™: Canvas Training and Resources
Planned Downtime
There is no planned downtime for Canvas this month.