ACTT Notes

News & Updates

Joe is still working with Panopto on testing updated integrations before activating. Faculty are seeing errors when they preview a quiz in Panopto.

Agenda:

  1. Discussion: ITS Governance

The portfolio meeting last week provided a more formal review and discussion of the ITS governance process that ACTT has been introduced to in prior meetings. The team is hopeful that the process will improve prioritization of academic and digital learning projects relative to the other portfolio groups.

Questions remain about the relationship between the ACTT and the ATDL portfolio group. ACTT in its current configuration may well serve to help academic projects ‘bubble up’ to the next level for improved visibility and prioritization. ACTT’s work can help inform the governance process through evaluations, pilots, and recommendations. The portfolio group is a place where such activities can be shared to help inform decisions about projects.

The governance process will require some adjustment to technical processes and perhaps some additional communication and education of stakeholders to help non-IT community members engage.

Some questions arose in reflecting on the first meeting:

  • How might we better engage all members of the portfolio team in discussions of academic tech and digital learning beyond technical considerations?
  • How might we work to develop shared language to talk about academic projects and needs?

Additional questions considered:

  • First question: Do we all need to be there?
  • What representation do we want/need?

No immediate decision or changes agreed on regarding current membership or attendance at ITS gov monthly meetings. Expected organizational directions and may result in revisions to current portfolio group membership in governance process. This topic will be revisited.

 

  1. Discussion / Action: Canvas Orientation sites for students to be added to Course Hub as a resource

We briefly reviewed a couple of resources with a student audience:

Sean’s site – https://middlebury.instructure.com/courses/123

Bob’s site – https://middlebury.instructure.com/courses/364

Canvas orientation site for students project will need to continue to be improved and revised. Agreed on a desire to update a single resource for all Middlebury students and faculty. Monterey integrated the student quickguide for students at the course-level menu in the Institute’s sub-account for all courses. Based on schools abroad and Institute sites, different strategies for presenting Canvas orientations were discussed.

What do we want these sites to do for students? What needs to be there?

Sean is interested in getting some additional feedback from students (ODL and DLC interns) to determine how we to proceed. Expects to work with Amy S. on ways to collaborate, collect feedback, and improve the orientation experience for first-time Canvas users.

Action Plan:

  • Joe will add a link to the Student Canvas Orientation (Sean’s version) in the Primary Canvas HELP menu
  • Adam will add the Orientation site to Course Hub (College and Monterey) as a “shared Canvas resource”
  • Sean will follow-up with Amy Slay regarding input from students and revision of the orientation site for an all-Middlebury student audience
  • ACTT will plan to track usage of the orientation site through AY17-18 via Hub and Canvas analytics before making further recommendations

 

  1. Added Discussion: Course Hub Refactoring & Integration

Bob raised the issue of integrating College and Institute Course Hub sites. Adam provided an update on the status of the Course Hub Drupal 8 and Refactoring project which had previously been cancelled. Bob agreed to be a co-sponsor on the project to help advocate for continued integration of currently separate platforms (e.g. sites dot WordPress at Midd and MIIS) link to project: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fnzG_T18DP5E0ReWQ6PG39vSuSMBFwN8QiSTV3Gvf1M/edit#