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QUT Blackboard Bulletin - Edition 13, August/September 2008 |
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Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the QUT Blackboard Bulletin. This bulletin is aimed at keeping you updated with the progress of the QUT Blackboard service. In this edition:
QUT Blackboard updateTo ensure that the service — and the tools — keep up with client expectations, QUT Blackboard support staff are:
Read more about these topics in the articles in this bulletin. If you have anything that you would like us to cover in future bulletins please email Megan Hartley (megan.hartley@qut.edu.au). Be sure to mention the information of the QUT Blackboard Bulletin to your colleagues at your staff meetings or at your Teaching and Learning committee meetings. If they want to receive this bulletin too, they can self-subscribe through QUT Virtual. Dianne Nilsson, Using audio visual files in QUT BlackboardYou can upload audio or video files on your unit site via QUT Blackboard. These files can be of various formats (such as mp3, avi, mov, and more) and can be linked to or displayed directly in the page. Media files like these are great tools to help students understand concepts in various formats to suit various learning styles. However, it is important that you keep in mind some possible student considerations:
With these needs consideredAfter taking these things into account, the following may help you effectively use your audio or video files:
* Students with visual impairment can use ‘Screen Readers’ (software tools that read the content of the page for them). If you include a text version of your media clip, please include appropriate headings so that visually impaired students can browse the page using this formatting to skip over content they have already heard. Teaching and Learning Expo in JulyThe Teaching and Learning Expo for 2008 was held on 10 July at Kelvin Grove. The expo was held as an academic showcase of innovative teaching and learning initiatives from across the university. Academics were invited to come together to share and discuss teaching and learning strategies through a series of poster presentations and a supporting presentation stream. The day was a great success and we have had very positive feedback from those who attended. Everyone involved in the day expressed their appreciation in being able to talk and share ideas with other colleagues from across the university. The presentation stream, while not the main focus of the day, was extremely popular and rated highly by those who attended. The presentations that were so popular they had ‘standing room only’ included:
Thank you to all who participated and attended on the day. TALSS looks forward to coordinating more events like this in the future. Related links:
SafeAssign, the new Blackboard plagiarism detection tool — pilots in the summer programWhat is SafeAssign?SafeAssign is plagiarism detection software that is part of a subsequent release of Blackboard. It is part of the QUT Blackboard Enterprise licence and could therefore be available to all Blackboard users without additional licencing costs after the test period. How does SafeAssign work?SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a set of databases and web sources to identify areas of overlap between the submitted paper and already existing work. The tool can be used to detect and prevent plagiarism, but it also creates opportunities to help students understand the complexity of how to cite sources rather than paraphrase them. QUT will use the tool as an educational tool to support students and unit coordinators in their efforts to understand academic citation. What are we testing?A pilot program will be run by TALSS over summer. Five selected pilot groups (summer program units) will test the usability and the acceptance rate of this educative plagiarism detection tool with their students. The test is educative, not punitive and has three main branches: technical, usabilty and policy. If the test is successful a recommendation will be made to adopt SafeAssign for Semester 1, 2009. For more information, contact the Project Manager Geoff Gillan or the Change Manager Bergita Shannon. Reminder: QUT Blackboard Gradebook doesn’t export to CurwenThere is no way to directly export data from QUT Blackboard’s Gradebook into the Curwen system. The longer term view (next 18 months or so) is to provide essential support for Curwen with minimal development until a replacement becomes available through the new Assessment Management System (AMS) Stage 2 or 3 development and additional in-house enhanced Gradebook functionality. If you are transferring results form Gradebook to Curwen there is detailed information on how to do this located on the ‘Gradebook, Excel and Curwen Results’ tipsheet. The Semester 1 pilot of the Gradebook transfer of results to AMS was completed successfully and will be available to all Gradebook clients for the transfer of the final percentages from unit sites to AMS at the end of the semester. Please contact your school or faculty about their guidelines for Gradebook and AMS use before using Gradebook to transfer the final percentages to AMS. For more information about the AMS project, please visit their website: https://wiki.qut.edu.au/display/ams/Home Related links:
Support spotlight: Browsers, Digital Dropbox and errorsOur support staff have noticed that some common QUT Blackboard queries are occurring in Semester 2, 2008. Here are the top three queries and their answers, solutions or workarounds: Browsers: What internet browsers are supported by QUT Blackboard?
Digital Dropbox: Is this tool supported in QUT Blackboard?
Errors: What do I do if I get the ‘unavailable’ error in QUT Blackboard?
Previous Editions of QUT Blackboard Bulletin:
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