New Instructional Designer
Dr Pat Abrego introduced our newest member to our Team. Dr. Nirupama Akella will be working remotely on assisting faculty with course development. She brings a wealth of curriculum design experience and in-depth knowledge of instructional technologies.
The eLearning Team continues to assist faculty through the QM course development process for courses being taught online. For an overview of the course development process, visit our Development Process of Distance Education Courses page.
QM Courses Certified
The following three courses have been QM certified since the last DEITC meeting in October of 2022.
Learning Technologies Week (LTW) 2022 Session Recordings and Recap Video
It was a successful LTW 2022! Thank you to all who presented and participated. There was a total of 112 faculty/staff that attended throughout the week. Presentations were excellent and faculty presenters received positive feedback from session attendees. Below are some statistics on participation:
Below is a video recap of the the session presentations including the giveaway winners and the student scavenger hunt recap and winners that were part of this week's celebration.
In case you missed a session, faculty may find the links to view the session recordings and resources via the "Faculty Resources" course shell in Blackboard. All faculty have access to this course shell under "My Courses". If this is not available to you, contact the eLearning group (elearning@tamiu.edu) for access to these resources.
Top Hat Implementation
Coming in Spring 2023, Top Hat, a response system application used by faculty to make their presentations interactive, will be available free of charge to the entire TAMIU community. To facilitate deployment of Top Hat, the implementation will include Single Sign On (SSO) through Blackboard. Faculty can begin setting up their accounts and course information on Top Hat at any time by contacting an implementation specialist at https://go.oncehub.com/TopHatTAMIU. In addition, the eLearning group will be conducting informational sessions for faculty starting the week of November 28 - December 2 and on in CWT 112. If you or your college/colleagues would like to schedule an individualized or group training, contact the eLearning Team at elearning@tamiu.edu.
A new look to Blackboard Learn
Blackboard will be updated to Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation after the end of the Fall 2022 semester, but faculty, don't you worry! This is mostly a cosmetic update and the main impact will be to the landing page, what is currently the "My Institution" tab. Your course information, look and feel will remain the same with the exception of course themes. The new look will resemble the unified Blackboard app so it's a seamless transition from your PC to your mobile device.
What is the Ultra Base Navigation? -- It is a modern, intuitive navigation menu that lives outside of courses. It includes links to new pages such as the Activity Stream, Calendar, Messages, etc. that provide quick access to the most critical information consolidated from all your courses.
Acadeum
The Course Exchange Program was previously used across the Texas A&M System for course-sharing. Now, the Texas A&M System started an agreement with Acadeum, a third-party course-sharing vendor, that allows institutions to offer their courses to other institutions through their platform. Students in need of a course not being offered at TAMIU may participate in Acadeum based on their Advisor's recommendation.
TAMIU is currently working on:
- Policy Guidebook
- Advising and Registration Process
- Institutional Agreements
After the policies and procedures are finalized, the Spring 2023 semester will be used for training advisors over TAMIU’s involvement with Acadeum. There are no immediate plans to have TAMIU as a course provider in the Acadeum system.
Quality Matters has also joined in with Acadeum. It established an Advisory Committee and a Working Group of academic leaders with extensive online course sharing experience at two-year, four-year, public and private institutions. Dr. Patricia Abrego is part of the Working Group. At the conclusion of this project, institutions seeking to enroll students in a partner institution’s course through Acadeum will have the option of searching for courses that align with QM’s quality standards.
SACSCOC Visit
Ms. Karol Batey announced that SACSCOC will be visiting TAMIU in 2025 so preparation for it is underway. There are different committees actively working on each of the accreditation standards to be ready for the visit.
She also announced that faculty can start submitting their PPE forms through AEFIS over the December break or in January. She is working on developing training videos to assist faculty through this process. If faculty have any questions, there will be a representative assigned from each college to assist with AEFIS.
Graduate Program and Academic Partnerships Update
Dr. Jennifer Coronado informed that the A. R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business is working with AP on updating specific modules for the MBA Graduate Online Student Orientation. It will launch mid December 2022 for the Spring 2023 semester. Contact the Graduate School if your college would like to implement program specific modules in the graduate online orientation.
Office of the Registrar - Important Upcoming Dates
Mr. Rene Prado announced the following important dates:
- Finals Exam Period is November 30 - December 6, 2022
- Grades for graduating students are due by December 7, 2022
- Graduation is December 8, 2022
- Final Grades for all students are due December 9, 2022
Next Meeting
Next DEITC meeting will be held on January 30, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. CST. Location TBD.
