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ACTT In-progress Project Presentation for MiddCreate

Tuesday, July 5 from 3-4pm
LIB 105A or Polycom 712833

The new ACT Team process includes in-progress project presentations. These presentations are meant to inform the community about how things are going, what has been done and what still needs to be done, what is going well and what are the challenges.

Evelyn Helminen will be sharing the MiddCreate project, currently in the pilot stage moving into production for the fall.  After we will discuss how MiddCreate fits into Middlebury’s academic cyberinfrastructure.

In-progress project presentations are open meetings, anyone may attend.

Notes for Canvas Update

This is a large transition from Moodle to Canvas, impacts majority of campus, faculty, students and staff.

Proposal Review: http://sites.middlebury.edu/canvas/2016/01/29/canvas-adoption-proposal/

What has been done

Recommendation Summary was accepted and things are moving forward to make them happen.

Web Services, went forward before we received budget approval and provisioned Canvas in Course Hub. Will make transition easier for faculty. Tentatively scheduled for July 1st.

Account Creation and Provisioning

  • currently working
  • challenge, accounts needed to exist before user can log into Canvas
  • Guest Account can authenticate with Canvas

Organization

-broken down by term College Fall ‘16, Institute Fall ‘16

-sandbox are in default

Canvas Course Creation

-Bob was able to make in Pilot

Currently available for four language schools, to enable moving forward with LS pilot. The Schools participating are Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, and Russian.

Communication out, announced 5/24. Approximately 250 visits to site.

MIIS had a gathering around Canvas that had about 15 people interested. Bob is planning some further outreach.

Joe has has gotten some positive feedback via email.

Sandbox sites

–Joe has been creating some sites

-will make for faculty that would like to work on course materials before launch in July

-prefered vs Canvas free for teacher offered by Canvas

Training Materials

-Focus has been for language schools, they have the most immediate need.

LS LMS/Moodle Usage

Graph of LS LMS use: SPAN longtime user with high usage

FREN cut back on Moodle when SANSpace was introduced

Other Schools vary

RUSS piloting Canvas this summer

Will watch LS transition from Moodle to Canvas

Canvas has been integrated into LS faculty curricular tech introduction. Session is limited to 1 hr, also need to cover Course Hub. Little time from session to class start.

Canvas Migration Guide drafted

Amy S. and Sean working on two Canvas Classes to orientate LS instructors

-One for Teacher

-One for Student

 

Planning UG migration from Moodle to Canvas

Graphs on Undergrad LMS/Moodle Usage

-some departments are increasing others are decreasing

-generally increase with sciences, decrease with languages.

2015-16

443 sites

181 instructors

DMT have begun Canvas training

Department Support, academic staff reaching out to each department. Some assignments have been made.

Reviewing training opportunities:

-Canvas onboarding for technologists.

-New Faculty Orientation

-Teaching & Writer’s Retreat

-Pedagogy Series/DM Bootcamp

-Worksessions?

-Course Templates

Librarians are beginning to orientate themselves to Canvas.

Publicising 24/7 support from Instructure/Canvas is important. Will be new to encourage use of Instructor/Canvas support. Qualtrics also has this.

Goal of paid support is to free Middlebury staff to assist with curricular develop in place of how to use Canvas (image upload, other point-and-click activities)

 

Needs to be done

Where are Canvas documents being stored and shared?

–Joe will create shared space for documents being drafted

Bob is point person for Canvas at MIIS, does this remain through production?

Staff backups/redundancy? We still need to figure this out.

Moodle Decommissioning Plan needs to be drafted

-host Moodle instance on Midd Servers?

-Contract expires 8/17

-LS Summer ‘17 Canvas Use

-Fall ‘16 Canvas & Moodle sites can be created, though staff will encourage Canvas adoption

 

ITS Outreach

-WebHelpdesk Ticket Type needs to be created

-Training and orientation for Helpdesk Staff

Shared resources haven’t been created in Canvas: departmental resources, academic honesty tutorial…

LS Placement Exams will need to be transitioned
Chinese Adaptive Testing, currently being researched.

Notes for Google Apps and OneDrive Project Presentation

  • Cloud Services: Google and Microsoft
    • Goal: provide better (cloud-based) services to the community
  • Infrastructure
    • Storage
      • Available from anywhere
      • Private, secure, encrypted
      • Scales to demand
    • Access to info
      • Collaboration and sharing
    • Familiar and consistent
  • Why are we doing this?
    • Better consume our resources
      • Home directories on middfiles are 25TB
      • Grows a half TB a month
    • Enhance service offerings
      • Available anywhere on most any device
      • Scalable and efficient use of eresources
      • Cost effective
      • Highly available
      • On demand automatic provisioning
  • What we can provide
    • Google apps for edu
      • No longer in beta!
      • Online collaboration
      • Drive
    • 365
      • Online collaboration suite – word, excel
      • Software distribution (local office install)
      • Onedrive
      • More nuanced levels of licensing and access – differences between MIIS and Midd College, working through those issues
    • Email in the cloud!
      • Fully hosted or hybrid model
  • Where we are now
    • Groundwork has been laid
    • All midd users automatically have GAfE account
      • Including access to apps, drive, and youtube
    • All midd users automatically have an O365 account
      • College students can install local copies of Office through O365
        • Only for residential students, MIIS students can access cloud-based Office suite
      • Everyone has accounts but they don’t have access yet
    • All active directory groups exist in both GAfE and O365
  • Still to come
    • A series of projects as opposed to one big unveiling
      • Documentation and education project
      • Microsoft’s online collaboration apps
      • OneDrive and GoogleDrive
      • Home use software distribution Faculty/Staff
      • Everyone currently has access to Google Apps (but most people don’t know)
      • Everyone does not currently have access to OneDrive – still to come
      • Cloud-based email still to come
  • Decisions that still need to be made
    • Which service do we recommend to people?
    • How do different groups collaborate effectively?
    • Do professors choose one or the other?
      • Will students need access to both?
    • Others?

 

Questions

  • Do we want to offer the same level of support for both or favor one?
    • One platform may be better for certain uses than the other
    • We like the idea of a default/one that is better supported
  • Any support requests re: Google to date?
    • A few calendar items, nothing major
    • Most people are using web interface
  • I’m a student with a google account that I use for school work – I graduate and move on. How do I transition my work to my private account?  (Bill)
    • No fee, but there will be some hoops/procedures to go through
  • I’m a student with a Microsoft account that I use for school work – I graduate and move on. How do I transition my work to my private account? (Bill)
    • Currently more complicated than Google
    • Everything that is cloud-delivered is free
  • Do we have an inventory of what’s been turned on by Google Admin? (Joe)
    • Yes, a list can be shared
    • When you’re logged in you can see a list of some applications, but not all of them
  • How does a faculty member associate Google resources with a course?
    • A Course Hub integration would be helpful here; it’s currently tough to find the right group in Google
      • Create the resource, connect with the correct student group
    • With OneDrive, groups can own files/documents – more ownership-based management than Google-drive
      • If group owns documentation, data management is simpler from an administrative perspective. Group membership should be able to shift seamlessly
      • This is a nuance we’ll have to figure out between Google and OneDrive
  • Monterey and Midd campuses have the exact same access to this functionality? (Bill)
    • Yes, only difference is residential component for the College (Office installs)
    • This is an example of “big M” Middlebury thinking
  • For a guest lecturer or auditor, they could be added to a Google folder not a group?
    • Another nuance that needs to be explored/determination needs to be made about what to recommend to faculty
  • In terms of announcements/messaging/role out, does Course Hub integration need to be in place first?
    • We need to have nuances largely figured out before we make an announcement
  • So what’s the rollout timeframe?
    • Timeline needs to include various project teams
    • Probably not reality to have ready for fall 2016 roll out
    • Do we need to roll both platforms out at the same time?
      • It would behoove us to roll out the recommended platform first
  • We need to give faculty clear instructions about procedure change, as they are not accustomed to provisioning folders themselves (Joe)
    • Now they will need a folder with the appropriate permissions
  • What’s the motivation for having both services?
    • We have to have some of each. Google is already pretty ubiquitous in usage across Middlebury. We have to roll out Microsoft because of software distribution. Or do we? We can control what Microsoft functionality is available to avoid too much overlap with Google.
    • Encryption/security implications – Microsoft is superior to Google in this respect
    • Google doesn’t work in China – Jeff Cason currently testing OneDrive in China
    • A potential differentiation could be
      • Academic – Google. Administrative – Microsoft.
        • In reality this won’t happen
  • While Microsoft is in beta, the move to single sign on for everyone seems like a big step (Bob)
    • MIIS users having to sign on with @middlebury.edu account
    • We want to promote access to Google Apps – it would be disappointing if we couldn’t make an official announcement to the MIIS campus this fall even if the Course Hub integration is not in place.
    • What happens when students graduate? Some of our students are only here for a year, some do Peace Corps during their degree – leave campus for 2 years and come back.
      • How do the nuances of those different user needs get managed? We need an exit strategy.
    • Exit strategy for individuals and Middlebury as a whole is important.
  • Where is this project in terms of the ACTT life cycle? (Bob)
    • Should OneDrive be rolled out the same way Google Apps was?
      • Resource constraints
  • Is there a downside to MIIS announcing Google Apps rollout to campus? (Bob)
    • When Microsoft is rolled out, there may be an inordinate number of help desk tickets from people who want to migrate content from Google to Microsoft
    • It depends on when OneDrive becomes available
      • Timelines are not currently known, several different project teams
  • 2,000 Google Apps accounts active before syncing took place
  • There was already a OneDrive instance at MIIS that was being used by 40 people – no administrator
  • There’s nothing stopping any Middlebury user from using Google Apps (they just don’t know about it)
    • We are currently not fully committing or walking away from either

ACTT Panopto Pilot Proposal

Evaluation

Video has become a platform for course work and new pedagogies, co-curricular projects and more. It is also becoming a tool for internal and external communication (including for College governance). Our current solutions do not meet the expectations and needs of our academic community and administrative users, and do not scale cost effectively. We are going to implement a reliable, scalable and secure video streaming solution.

 

Last summer, the Curricular Technology Team evaluated services to meet Middlebury’s needs. A service was chosen, but was discontinued after being purchased by another company. The ACTT Video Streaming Service Project Team was charged with revisiting the evaluation. Included in the charge, they were asked to come up with an interim plan until a long-term solution could be determined by July 2017. To meet the charge, the ACTT evaluated three services: Panopto, Ensemble, and Arc.

 

Recommendation Summary

The Academic Cyberinfrastructure Transformation Team recommends piloting Panopto for Fall 2016.

 

  • Middlebury contract Panopto for one year
  • Middlebury pilot Panopto during fall term 2016
  • Panopto provisioning happens via the Course Hub
  • Faculty may access Panopto collections via Canvas

 

Why a Pilot?

  • Middlebury has not used an enterprise level vendor-hosted video streaming platform, and we will need to assess how we would use it.
  • Panopto would be a new service to Middlebury, also Canvas will be moving to the Enterprise stage. Middlebury academic support will be limited while all of us are learning.
  • Some schools have adopted both Panopto and Ensemble, each for different needs, and have had good experiences.
  • Arc integrates directly with Canvas, but is still in beta and does not meet all of Middlebury’s needs.
  • The recommendation at the end of the pilot should include needs that are not being met.

Recommendation: Middlebury pilot Panopto during fall term 2016

 

Timeline

Faculty will be more likely to use a new service if it is available for fall, winter and spring terms. Also, the extra time will provide us with more information on how Middlebury would use this kind of service. Web Technologies and Services need time to integrate Panopto with the Course Hub, this will allow ease of use for the open pilot and avoid conflicts should Middlebury decide to adopt Panopto in the future. It is possible for faculty and students to access content in Panopto from Canvas, allowing us will help us to better understand how these systems work together.

 

What Who When
Negotiate terms for pilot and purchase in FY’16 Academic Technology and ITS June 2016
Add Panopto to Course Hub and Canvas Web Technologies and Services June – July 2016
Implement Panopto, add authentication and organization schema Academic Technology,
Web Technologies and Services

 

 June – July 2016
Work with courses that self-select during open pilot Academic Technology,
Digital Learning Commons,
Digital Learning		 July 2016
MIIS Pilot Digital Learning Commons August 2016 – classes begin August 29, 2016
Middlebury Pilot Academic Technology September 2016 – classes begin September 12, 2016
Budget Proposal   January 2017
Budget Decision   May 2017

Recommendation: Middlebury contract Panopto for one year

Recommendation: Panopto provisioning happens via the Course Hub

Recommendation: Faculty may access Panopto collections via Canvas

Support

Escalation levels and SLAs would be similar as they are currently for Moodle and MiddMedia.

 

Outline of responsibilities

What Who
Course-related support Primary: Academic Tech, DLC, DL

Backup Support: Media Services
Administrative-use support (core functions) Primary: Media Services
Other academic support (creativity & innovation project, student internship w/ or w/out credit, faculty research, symposium) Primary: Academic Tech, DLC, DL

Backup Support: Media Services

 

 

 

ACTT In-progress Project Presentation for Canvas

The new ACT Team process includes in-progress project presentations. These presentations are meant to inform the community about how things are going, what has been done and what still needs to be done, what is going well and what are the challenges.

In this meeting we will talk about Canvas.

These are open meetings, please feel free to share the invitation with anyone you feel is interested in the topics discussed.

 

Middlebury will Adopt Canvas

In January, 2016, the ACTT (formerly CTT) submitted a recommendation for Middlebury to adopt Canvas. We have received budget approval, and will begin the work of moving Middlebury into the Canvas service.

Thank you to all of the faculty and students that participated in the pilot. Your participation and feedback (Midd and MIIS) helped to make a strong recommendation. And thank you to Joe Antonioli, Bob Cole, Bill Koulopoulos, Stacy Reardon, Shel Sax and Heather Stafford for supporting these classes during the pilot.

Also, thank you to all of the schools that provided us with insight and the benefit of their experience with Canvas. We learned a lot from you.

There is a lot of work still to be done to move Canvas from pilot to enterprise, but we do hope that you take a moment to celebrate this milestone and the collective effort to get to this point.

ACTT In-Progress Project Presentation for GoogleApps for Edu and OneDrive

[This meeting was rescheduled from May 17th to May 31st.]

Tuesday, May 31st from 3-4pm
LIB 105A or Polycom 712833

The new ACT Team process includes in-progress project presentations. These presentations are meant to inform the community about how things are going, what has been done and what still needs to be done, what is going well and what are the challenges.

Agenda

In this meeting we will look at the GoogleApps for Edu and OneDrive projects.

In-progress project presentations are open meetings, anyone may attend. Please feel free to share the invitation with anyone you feel is interested in the topics discussed.

ACTT In-Progress Project Presentation for GoogleApps for Edu and OneDrive

Tuesday, May 17th from 3-4pm
LIB 105A or Polycom 712833

The new ACT Team process includes in-progress project presentations. These presentations are meant to inform the community about how things are going, what has been done and what still needs to be done, what is going well and what are the challenges.

Agenda

In this meeting we will look at the GoogleApps for Edu and OneDrive projects.

In-progress project presentations are open meetings, anyone may attend. Please feel free to share the invitation with anyone you feel is interested in the topics discussed.