News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.
Academic Technology Services and Innovation staff will be installing Moodle updates to make sure we have the latest security and bug fixes on Thursday, June 18, at 9 p.m. We expect to have Moodle available again by 10 p.m.
Please direct any questions or concerns to atsi@up.edu.
The following tips and updates are offered by academic technology services and innovation, according to Ben Kahn:
Assignment feedback annotation: Moodle has an ability for teachers to grade and annotate student papers from right in your web browser. With the large increase in assignment submissions in Moodle, the Annotate PDF feedback feature in Moodle assignments will now be opt-in instead of turned on by default. This will help ATSI manage our compute resources and make the grading process smoother for everyone, whether you are grading essays in your browser or using assignments to collect other types of files (like images, computer coding files, etc…). If you want to use the in-browser annotation feature, just enable it when setting up your assignment by checking “Annotate PDF” under the Feedback Types heading. See step 4 of the Moodle guide for adding assignments for detailed instructions.
Timezone settings: With many students now logging in to our courses from across the country or even the world, did you know anyone can change their timezone settings so that Moodle shows due dates, etc. in the correct time for them? It’s easy. Please share this Moodle Guide with any students who are learning at distance in other time zones.
As always, please reach out to atsi@up.edu with any questions.
Working on getting your spring Moodle course set-up before the new semester starts? Drop by Franz 33 any time between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Monday, January 6 through Thursday Jan 9. Academic technology services and innovation staff will be there to help with issues or questions big and small.
Come for help with setting up online assignments or quizzes, getting your gradebook squared away, get an introduction to some of our great new integrated tools, or just say hello and happy new year.
For more information contact Ben Kahn, academic technology services and innovation, at kahn@up.edu.
Moodle will be down on the evening of Wednesday, August 14 (8 p.m.) until 8 a.m. on Thursday, August 15, for an annual system update. Information service will be updating to Moodle version 3.6. The new version includes improvements to performance, privacy, and security, as well as a modern course dashboard.
For real-time updates or to subscribe to email alerts for UP systems status and outages please visit our System Status page.
Any questions or concerns? Please contact atsi@up.edu.
The Committee on Teaching and Scholarship cordially invites all regular faculty to submit proposals to receive funding from the Arthur Butine Faculty Development Fund. Faculty can download Butine application materials, review selection criteria, and consult the timeline for applications through the Teaching and Scholarship Moodle site. Submission of post-Butine reports, new Butine applications, and all supporting letters are also through the Moodle site. The committee’s deadline for submission through Moodle and the applicants’ respective department chairs (if CAS) and deans is no later than noon on Friday, February 10 (it is the applicant’s responsibility to be aware of any different internal department or school deadlines). Please note also that applicants must discuss their Butine proposals with their respective deans prior to submitting applications for consideration.
Please contact Aaron Wootton (TAS@up.edu) for further information.
It’s getting to be that time of the semester – projects are wrapping up, finals being taken, and there are crucial grades to be entered. This week’s Teaching and Learning Collaborative tip offers faculty a few helpful pointers for entering grades into Moodle. This short video offers three easy tips to make entering grades into Moodle efficient and hassle-free.
A reminder: all faculty can contribute to the Teaching & Learning Collaborative. Those who have ideas for resources the TLC could provide to promote excellent teaching and professional development for UP faculty, or questions to be tackled, are asked to contact Karen Eifler, Garaventa Center, at eifler@up.edu.
For additional training on Moodle or any other academic technology, contact Ben Kahn, information services, at kahn@up.edu. For more handy tech tips around technology at UP, please visit the UPTechTips blog.
Academic Technology Services (ATS) have completed upgrades to UP’s Moodle environment. To support faculty with their Fall ’15 Moodle courses, ATS will be staffing drop-in lab hours for support and training. We will be available in Franz Hall 10 the week prior to classes starting and the first week of classes Monday to Thursday.
Drop In Hours:
Monday August 24 – Thursday, August 27 from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Monday August 31 – Thursday, September 3 from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
After September 7, you can attend a scheduled Moodle training.To reserve your spot in an upcoming training session, please visit: https://sites.up.edu/vlc/workshops/
If you can’t make one of the reserved times please contact Ben Kahn at kahn@up.edu to schedule a one-on-one professional development for Moodle and other academic technologies.
Academic technology services will launch the new version of Moodle on August 19, 2015. This new version of Moodle brings a fresh new look, simplified gradebook, Celly integration, improved turnitin.com assignments, and much more. it is also designed to work much better on mobile devices.
As part of the upgrade, academic technology services built new servers with full redundancy and enhancements to improve performance, and will not migrate 100 percent of content from the old server. To request that a prior semester’s course be moved to the new Moodle server, fill out the form at https://sites.up.edu/migrations/. Once a course is moved, it can be imported using the standard “import” feature. More information can be found at this link.
If you have questions about the migration of courses contact Tony Box at box@up.edu. To start working on fall courses in the new version of Moodle, please visit https://learning3.up.edu.
Good news for the many users of the Moodle Learning Management System: an upgrade is on the way with more features and a fresh new look. The upgrade will take place on August 19 and will replace the current version of Moodle. Users will still login the same way as they do now to reach the new version, but will need to request that course content be moved from the old version to the new version by filling out this form. Look for upcoming e-mail, postcards, flyers, and other communications about the upgrade soon. To hear Moodle administrator Tony Box talking about a preview of the new tools and features, listen to this episode of the Tech Talk podcast at https://sites.up.edu/techtalk/new-moodle-coming-soon/.
Academic technology services will offer face-to-face training workshops in the dedicated training lab located in Franz Hall. The first of these will be a Moodle workshop covering the basics of the Moodle grade book on Monday, January 26, from 11 a.m. to noon, in Franz Hall room 010. Many faculty members are busy getting their grade books in order, and now is the best time to learn what to do and what not to do to prevent headaches down the road (and confused students). Classes will cover setting up grade categories, adding grade items, overview of grade weighting methods and which you should use, how to enter grades, do’s and don’ts, and other tips and tricks.
Space for this workshop will be very limited. Faculty can fill out a registration form at http://tinyurl.com/krx7dq9. For more information contact Tony Box (pictured), information services, at 8774 or box@up.edu.