eLearning is pleased to announce the addition of a new member to our team: Dr. Jan Brott. Dr. Brott has been in the A&M system for over 10 years in a variety of key positions such as Instructional Designer, Associate Director, and Director at TAMUK and as an Instructional Consultant and Assistant Director at TAMUCC. She originally introduced QM to our institution in 2010 and brings a wealth of knowledge to our team. Welcome onboard!!
New COAS appointee
Welcome our new College of Arts and Sciences appointee, Dr. Donovan Weight.
Dr. Weight teaches in the department of Humanities where he enriches his course content with instructional technology. His presentations at our annual Learning Technologies Week exemplify his support of technology in the classroom. Presentations include: Using TopHat Test to Streamline Exams in Large Classes (2019), Robocop: Strategies for maintaining online classroom integrity (2019), and Weaving threads together, using VoiceThread for Discussion forums in class and online (2021).
Dr. Weight has also developed and redesigned HIST 1301: The US to 1877 and HIST 1302: The US Since 1877 for QM certification.
His experience with instructional technology and Quality Matters makes him an excellent addition to the DEITC committee. We are happy to have him join!
Turnitin Update
Attention faculty: Starting summer session 2022, you will no longer find Turnitin under the same menu inside of Blackboard. Turnitin is currently located under the Assessments menu and it will be moving to under the Build Content menu. The reason for this move is due to a new integration from its current building block to a better streamline Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) connection. Some of the advantages of this new connection are:
- More secure connection and better integration experience
- Names and role provisioning services
- Easier approach to setting up assignments
- Better assignment and grade services
But don’t worry. elearning will be running these two systems concurrently for the Spring 2022 semester. The building block connection will be turned off after the semester ends and will be solely running on LTI. The assignment settings on the LTI connection remain mainly the same with a few minor changes, however, the building block Turnitin assignments will not work on the new integration connection. It is recommended that faculty begin recreating their current Turnitin assignments from the Build Content menu. In Fall the Turnitin building block will be unavailable through Blackboard; however, any old assignments drop boxes and submissions from past semesters will still be accessible to view on the Turnitin website itself.
TAMUS New Accessibility Training
The Texas A&M System announced the release of a new EIR (Electronic Information Resources) Accessibility Training. Plans to make this training mandatory to faculty are still unknown but TAMIU decided to require faculty teaching online to take this training as part of our 2018 Accessibility Plan. This is a more comprehensive training than the one TAMIU had created in-house and covers essential tips on how to make your content accessible, Universal Design for Leaning (UDL) concepts, and explains VPAT requirements. The EIR Accessibility Training takes approximately 30-45 minutes to complete. Currently, online faculty will get it assigned starting February 1, 2022 and will have one month to complete it. Faculty teaching Flex term will be assigned to it on February 9th. So far, this training has to be completed once to meet the requirement for online teaching.
Members of DEITC encourages everyone to take this training as soon as possible even those faculty members not teaching online that integrate digital resources in their courses.
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
Since the last DEITC meeting in November 2021, there are 23 more courses that have been QM certified.
Upcoming 300 QM certified courses celebration
TAMIU is reaching the 300 QM certified courses milestone! We are at a total of 265 total historically and are rapidly reaching this next mark. The eLearning will be creating a video asking course developers to participate in celebrating this achievement.
New QM Master Reviewer
Congratulation to Dr. James Norris on become a certified QM reviewer! The Master Reviewer Certification (MRC) is an advanced certification course for experienced QM Peer Reviewers. The role of the QM Master Reviewer is integral to ensuring the rigor and consistency of the peer-review process. The MRC is a requirement for Team Chairs on all official course reviews.
Open Agenda
Feedback Fruits
Unfortunately, even though DEITC was in support of continuing with the Feedback Fruits pilot, TAMIU and the company could not come to an agreement on pricing and the software will be disconnected in mid February. The eLearning team is available to assist faculty on finding alternate solution's and recreating their assignments on other platforms.
QM Research Online Conference
Delve into the latest online learning research at the QM Research Online Conference — February 17 from 12:00 to 3:30 p.m. Central. Join leading experts in the field to find out what the research says about key topics, including: Synchronous Learning, Voice & Choice, QM Implementation, Design Structure, and more!
Register for this event here, and select "Purchase Order" as the payment option. By typing "TAMIU" in caps for the Purchase Order Number, OIT will cover the cost of your registration. Enjoy the conference!
Preferred Name and Pronoun on Uconnect
Students can update their preferred first name and/or personal pronoun on Uconnect. The preferred name will appear on Blackboard as their first name. Having a preferred name is optional. If there is no name in the field, their first name on Blackboard will be their actual first name that is on record. See below on how to update:
Next DEITC Meeting
Next DEITC meeting is schedule for February 28, 2022 at 3:00 P.M.
