EdTech Updates

The accessibility statement was updated to reflect current testing and audits.

Blog Post: JISC Insights Survey Pilot (22-23)

LJMU is running a pilot project to increase our understanding of the level staff and students’ digital capability. The aim of the project is to see if the JISC digital capability insights survey helps to reveal new insights that lead to new or support current initiatives to support our staff and students’ digital capabilities.

Blog Post: Automated Archiving and Deletion of Unused Panopto Videos (Staff)

We’re changing the way that recordings are stored in Panopto.

If a recording is not viewed by anyone it will go into archive mode.

Archived recordings can be restored by any Panopto user with the link to the recording, or from the search page. Restored recordings will automatically be made available for viewing again within 48 hours.

Blog Post: Important Changes to Turnitin

There are currently two integrations between Canvas and Turnitin, the ‘old LTI’ and the ‘Plagiarism Framework’. The Teaching and Learning Academy (TLA) will be removing the ‘old LTI’ from Canvas in August 2022.   This will co-inside with the removal of Turnitin’s Feedback studio where student feedback can be provided via Turnitin.

Blog Post: Recent Assessment and Feedback Developments in Canvas (Staff)

This blog post will concentrate on two new assessment functionalities, which are small in themselves but offer a creative opportunity to rethink how we connect students with their feedback.

Blog Post: Changes to your Canvas Course Menu (Staff)

The TEL team are continually looking to improve the teaching and learning experience for all staff and students. Our recent exploration into consistency across multiple courses found that some students are finding it difficult to locate some resources on their course. Aligning course menus across all Canvas courses helps students find the information they need.

The new icon maker allows you to create simple and reusable Icons directly inside Canvas. You could use them on your homepage to help signpost information or help improve the visual interest of your course.

Blog Post: Introducing the new Canvas Icon Maker (Staff)

Blog Post: Canvas Induction Sites (Staff)

Canvas induction sites have been developed to support online induction activities. These are now available in Canvas and provide an option for programme teams to support online induction through using a bespoke Canvas site for induction activity for all new students.

Blog Post: Canvas Integrates with Microsoft Teams and OneDrive

Canvas recently announced that they would be integrating with Teams to ensure Tutors and Students can stay connected. Canvas are working with Microsoft to release the integration in the coming months

Blog Post: Panopto Update

Panopto will be available on the 14th August On Saturday, August 14, Panopto will be making a number of updates to the Panopto Cloud infrastructure to improve performance and scalability.

Blog Post: Panopto Support

The LJMU Panopto licence now includes additional support! Staff and students are able to contact Panopto directly with any support enquiries. This will help to ensure you continue to obtain a rapid answer to your query.

Blog Post: Important information about using Zoom at LJMU

You must not schedule any Zoom meetings via the Zoom app or website and do not share meeting links on social media and external websites.

Blog Post: Canvas Updates 19/06/21

Canvas is updated every month, these normally include background changes or minor amendments to ensure the system works as effectively as possible. But this month the good people over at Canvas have developed some interesting new features!

Blog Post: Panopto Update 26/06/21

We are excited to share information about new Panopto features, upcoming beta features, details on the June 26 downtime window, and other key dates this summer.

Blog Post: Vevox now embedded in Teams

Vevox, the institutional classroom voting system, is now available within MS Teams. This means, if you are running a Teams meeting you can add Vevox as an additional app and allow attendees to interact with questions and Q&A functions without ever leaving the Teams interface.

Blog Post: New Annotation Submission Type now available in Canvas

A new submission type is now available in Canvas Assignments. It allows you to upload a file for students to annotate on and submit this directly in Canvas.

Blog Post: Canvas and Zoom Accessibility Updates

Both Canvas and Zoom have recently been updated to include some really useful Accessibility features. Canvas – Microsofts Immersive Reader is now incorporated into Canvas.

Blog Post: Canvas Assessment Updates (20/03/21)

Canvas have developed some really useful assessment features which will be introduced this Saturday on the 20th March update.

Blog Post: Canvas and Zoom Accessibility Updates

Both Canvas and Zoom have recently been updated to include some really useful Accessibility features. Canvas – Microsofts Immersive Reader is now incorporated into Canvas.

Blog Post: Vevox/Canvas LTI (Staff)

Vevox is the institutional classroom voting system which provides a whole range of ways to engage your students. We want to make it as easy as possible to access this tool. We have now added a link to all Canvas course menus for staff to access this system. This is a staff only link that will log you in and provide a ‘session room’ titled after your Canvas course so you can start engaging students with Vevox more easily.

'Blog Post: Vevox Updates (Staff)

Vevox staff accounts must use the Microsoft login 'username@ljmu.ac.uk' and LJMU password to log in to Vevox, from now on; this includes login to the PowerPoint add in.  This change removes the original Vevox login option to use a LJMU email address and a Vevox password, and replaces it by only offering the Microsoft login. This does not affect students’ access to Vevox.

Blog Post: New Feedback Dashboard

The Teaching and Learning Academy have worked with Academic Staff and JMSU to create a system within Canvas that aggregates an individual student’s electronic feedback into a single Feedback Dashboard. This has now been released as a beta version for staff to use with students to help them understand the value of feedback and use it more effectively.

Blog Post: December Learning Technology Updates (Staff)

On the 19th December, both Panopto and Canvas will be updated. This weekend sees the introduction of a new course Student preview tool in Canvas and Panopto have a number of updates including the ability to tag videos, new Smart Chapters, delete streams and Online Panopto Capture. Panopto will require some downtime between 10:00pm Dec 19th and 1:00am on Dec 20th.

Blog Post: Vevox Autumn 2020 Updates (Staff)

Vevox have have a number of interesting updates arriving on the 16th November. If you’ve been debating whether to include polling in your Zoom meetings, take a look at some of their new features:

Blog Post: Online Learning -What's Working (Staff)

‘What’s working?’ provides an outline of key issues raised in cross-institutional student feedback from the the BluePulse Survey.

Feedback indicates that there is a lot of excellent practice right across LJMU, and that students appreciate the efforts that academic staff are making to support their learning.  The focus of ‘What’s working?’ is on those elements of online teaching and learning practice that students find particularly helpful and supportive. These ideas reflect a broad picture, but you might want to think about how they relate to your own area.

Blog Post: Changes to Zoom

• The new Institutional default setting now places non-LJMU accounts in the waiting room, any users with LJMU accounts will bypass the waiting room.
• There are no changes to the Canvas Zoom meetings scheduler. The waiting room option is still checked as it relates to the institutional default.
• To set the waiting room to all users, you must change this in your Zoom settings.

The Teaching and Learning Academy have developed a tool which creates helps you to create multiple copies of the same group across a different Canvas course in a programme. Copy Groups.

The Canvas Enhanced Analytics Dashboard allows Academic Staff to view student engagement with Active Blended Learning Tasks in relation to other students on their programme. This Can help staff to identify those students who may be be participating in the course as much as they should and could also be a valuable tool in identifying how student engagement could be enhanced with respect their own learning materials.

Digital accessibility is even more critical at this particular time. The Teaching and Learning Academy, IT Services and Student Advice and Wellbeing have collaborated to ensure all support workers, working alongside a student to support them academically, are enrolled in Canvas. Digital Support Workers in Canvas.

Canvas induction sites have been developed to support online induction activities. These are now available in Canvas and provide an option for programme teams to support online induction through using a bespoke Canvas site for induction activity for all new starters. To enable teams to develop sites that meet their specific needs, induction courses are not pre-populated with any content. They are unpublished, meaning that students will not have access to sites if teams opt not to use them. Find out more about Canvas Induction Sites.

The Teaching and Learning Academy are pleased to announce that Zoom is now available for Teaching and Learning.

Please note, on Saturday, August 15, Panopto will be making a number of updates to the Cloud infrastructure to improve performance and scalability. These updates will require downtime for Panopto. We expect up to 3 hours of downtime, with a target start time of 10:00 pm BST. The update has been scheduled at this time to avoid as much disruption as possible. For more information see the blog post: Panopto Downtime - August 15th

Please note, on Saturday, August 15, Panopto will be making a number of updates to the Cloud infrastructure to improve performance and scalability. These updates will require downtime for Panopto. We expect up to 3 hours of downtime, with a target start time of 10:00 pm BST. The update has been scheduled at this time to avoid as much disruption as possible. For more information see the blog post: Panopto Downtime - August 15th

Canvas have made some improvements to the file upload process, see our blog post: Course File Upload Improvements for more information.

The team are currently trialling and evaluating a number of video conferencing solutions including Teams, Zoom and Big Blue Button (Conferences in Canvas). An announcement about Video Conferencing solutions will be made in the coming weeks.

We have developed a Course Checklist and Minimum Specification to help you develop your course for the new academic year.

It offers guidance and recommendations about Module Information, Course Access, Course Content and Assessment, but don’t panic, you’re already doing most of this. This document simply good practice in course design and some helpful reminders of what to add and when.

Course checklist

Learning is characterised by students having both cognitive and social presence in the learning environment. Current approaches tend to the classroom as the ‘location’ of presence, with the VLE in a supporting role to offer materials for independent learning. A future approach has to ensure that cognitive and social presence is a feature of both online and face-to-face teaching.  Active blended learning is offered as an approach.

Active Blended Learning Guide

A new Key Module Information Area will automatically be added to your Canvas Course. The new design allows students to access key documents in a consistent way across a program. The new area will contain the following resources for students to access:

• Delivery Hours
• Assessment Details
• Learning Outcomes
• Reading Lists
• Module Proforma
• Module Evaluation
• Teaching Team

The new design should be available in your course in the coming weeks.

You may have noticed that there have been a few changes to the Learning Technology website to help you find tools and enable you to browse themes more easily. We are also in the process of adding additional good practice guides alongside existing content to help you get the most out of your course.

You may also have noticed that there is a section labelled ‘Things to think about this month’ on the homepage which provides better access to timely help and information.

The Teaching and Learning academy recently announced improvements to the publishing workflow within Canvas.

Canvas Updates: Course Publishing Improvements 

In light of the current public health situation, alternative assessment is required for any assessment strategy that requires face to face contact.  This includes invigilated examinations and presentations. This blog post makes recommendations for alternative assessments, via Canvas.

Keep Assessing with Canvas