Salisbury University |  Instructional Design & Delivery Newsletter | May 21, 2024

Faculty Learning Community: Proposals Due Friday

Faculty Learning Community (FLC) proposals are now being accepted for the upcoming 2024-2025 academic year. Your proposal can be for a cohort-based or topic-based FLC. The proposal should be developed by the prospective FLC facilitator(s) with a budget not to exceed $1,250.

Proposals must be submitted by Friday, May 24, 2024. For more information on FLCs and the application process, please visit the Faculty Learning Communities website.

NCFDD 14-Day Writing Challenge

The National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) offers a variety of resources to help academics, of all stages, better align their professional and personal goals. Because SU is a NCFDD Institutional Member, these resources are free to use!

One of the most popular programs is the 14-day writing challenge, which uses best practices to help you create a consistent writing practice. The next opportunity to participate is July 15-July 28. During this time, you are asked to commit to writing every day for at least 30 minutes. You log on to the NCFDD’s online community, start the timer, complete your writing, post your progress and encourage others in your assigned writing group. Past participants credit this program and the accountability of the writing groups with helping them establish better writing habits or refresh stagnant ones. Registration closes Wednesday, July 5!

Need to establish your free NCFDD account? 

Review the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) page on the Center for Advancement of Faculty Excellence website for more information on how to participate in this webinar and engage with other NCFDD resources!

End-of-Semester Grade Deadlines

End-of-semester grades in GullNet are due as follows:

• Spring 7W2: Saturday, May 25 • 4:00 p.m.
• Spring Regular Session: Saturday, May 25 • 4:00 p.m.

Help the Registrar's Office and other campus units by submitting your grades by the above deadlines!

Check your email for additional information from the Registrar's Office about end-of-semester grading or visit their Faculty and Staff Resources site for GullNet grading instructions.

MyClasses Access to Courses with Incompletes

A question ID&D receives at the end of each semester is what happens to a course in MyClasses when a student has an incomplete? Can course access be extended?

Yes! Any course with a documented incomplete or extension in GullNet will automatically be extended to either:

• The mid-semester date of the next full semester, established by the Registrar's Office or
• A date the faculty member requests through the Incomplete Grade Extension form.

ID&D runs a weekly report between GullNet and MyClasses to update the section dates and provide continuity of access to the course. Extended access is applied to the entire course and not just for the individual student(s) receiving an incomplete.

Summer Session Tip: Identifying and Fixing Broken Course Links 

At the beginning of the summer sessions, it is important to review your course content to make sure that you are not accidentally directing students to broken links in your course. This may happen when linked content is removed or as an indicator that a course resource is unpublished (which may be momentarily intentional and may not need to be "fixed" right away). Please review the Identifying and Fixing Broken Course Links video for information about:   

1. How to identify potential issues when copying content from one course to another.
2. How to run a link validator for your course to identify broken links in the course.
3. How to determine which links are broken and how to fix them.
4. How to identify false positives and understand why they are included in the link validator results as an issue.

Please contact your department's instructional designer if you have any questions or need any assistance running through your link validator results!  

May 23 Moving to New Quizzes for Summer/Fall 2024

We are making the move to New Quizzes beginning summer 2024 and fall 2024 sessions. New Quizzes is the newest online assessment feature in MyClasses.

When importing/copying a course from a previous semester, assessments will automatically be migrated to New Quizzes.

To prepare faculty and staff for this transition, ID&D is providing the following resources:

• New Quizzes video explaining the scope of the transition, key terminology and features, and strategies for moving to New Quizzes.
• Knowledge base articles with step-by-step instructions for migrating existing assessments to New Quizzes.
• Submit a New Quizzes: Convert Assessment from Classic Quizzes help request for ID&D to convert your assessments for you!
• Schedule a meeting with your Instructional Designer liaison.

May 23 Discussions/Announcements Redesign Enabled

On May 23, 2024, ID&D will enable the Discussions/Announcements redesign feature for all courses. We are doing this ahead of the July 22, 2024 date that Instructure, the creators of Canvas (MyClasses) will be enforcing for all institutions. By doing this early, we are ensuring that the learning environment for summer regular and 5W2 courses will not have a mid-session disruption.

Please see the  ID&D Discussions Redesign KB Article for more details on the new features and the social media look/feel of these tools.