blackboard - university of otago · 2014. 6. 16. · assessments are one of the most common tasks...

AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

E

As well as individual work Blackboard can also be used to encourage collaborative work amoung peers. Using collaborative tools such as blogs and wikis learners can work together to produce content or critique their peers’ work.

Online testing in Blackboard is a powerful tool producing assessments to test the learner’s knowledge of a subject for end of year grades, or self assessment revision tests. Pick from more than ten question types and a variety of test options including: timed tests, one attempt only, or automatic submission. Where possible tests are automatically graded with grades being stored in the Grade Centre.

Use the Grade Centre to manage all the grading within your paper. Download all the grades, or upload grades from external assessments. View the changes to grades and set up automatically calculated weighted grades for students to see.

Communicate with your students via discussion boards, class announcements or email.

KEY FEATURES• Class Announcements

• Discussion Boards

• Tests, Assigments and Surveys

• Email

• Wikis

• Blogs

• Journals

• Plagiarism checking

• Grades

• Integrates with Otago Connect and Otago Capture

• No charge to University Departments

Blackboard is the learning management system used at the University of Otago. It allows lecturers/tutors to upload lecture notes, reading lists, assessment information and other course-related material to their Blackboard site so that students may access them. It also contains functions that enables students and teachers to interact via class announcements, email, discussion boards, and tools used for assessing students, such as on-line tests and assignment submission.

WHAT IS A LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LMS)?An LMS is a software programme that allows you to deliver educational material combined with the ability to track and document your student’s learning.

Blackboard is much more than a content respository. Use Blackboard to track a learner’s progress and help spot those in need with the Rentention Centre, or structure course material so students work through the content in a prescribed fashion.

BLACKBOARD

http://blackboard.otago.ac.nz

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Find out more:Help site: http://help.otago.ac.nz/blackboard

ITS Service Desk: [email protected] Training: http://www.otago.ac.nz/its/services/training

Discussion Boards (or forums) are great for question and answer areas, or use them to aid group work and peer critiquing.

Blackboard’s Discussion Boards can be set up privately for a small group or for the whole class. Students can be allowed to post entries or simply respond to a question posed by a teacher.

With icons to illustrate unread posts and the ability to subscribe to forums it is easy to see new posts or have them emailed to you as they are created.

Need a hand checking essays and assignments for plagarism? Blackboard provides a plagiarism detection tool called SafeAssign which can help match submitted text to electronically available resources and previous assignments. SafeAssign produces a report for each submitted assignment, which is also available to students on their draft submission. Help your students build an awareness of correct referencing procedures.

Assessments are one of the most common tasks people use Blackboard for. From basic automatically-graded multi-choice tests to assignments checked for plagiarism, Blackboard can be used for much more than just the basics. Why not check students really understand a concept before giving them new content? You can do this by releasing new content based on the grades of a test.

Have you ever wondered what prior knowledge your class has before you start teaching? You could survey them to find out and tailor extra content to those who need it.

ONLINE COMMUNICATION TOOLS - DISCUSSION BOARDS

ANTI-PLAGIARISM: SAFEASSIGN

ASSESSMENTS: TESTS, SURVEYS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Otago Blogs is a blogging service offered at the University of Otago for teaching and learning, administration and research. You could keep a research diary, publish your projects online, or create an interactive website.

WHAT IS A BLOG?A blog (web-log) is a type of website that easily maintains chronological posts (articles, journal entries), images and static pages. Typically blogs have a few things in common:

• A main area with chronologically listed posts (newest to oldest)• An archive of older posts• Comments and feedback from readers• A list of links to other related or interesting sites• RSS (Rich Site Summary) feeds

Run behind the scenes by the popular blogging platform Wordpress, Otago Blogs is an intuitive to use and powerful system. Use Pages to create static content while adding chronologically displayed content with the Posts feature.

Otago Blogs has a simple to use media uploader where you can drag and drop media items such as images, photos, audio, video and documents into the browser. You can use basic image editing tools like cropping, resizing and rotating. The Media Library stores your files for reuse, rather than uploading the same item multiple times.

Customise your blog to match departmental themes or to help it stand out. Using the basic University of Otago webpage theme you can change the banner image (or display multiple images) as well as building your own navigation menu, all while still looking like an official University of Otago website.

Keep your readers up to date with automatic Tweeting when you publish something, or allow your users to subscribe by email to keep updated. Your readers can use social media to publicise your content for you by ‘Liking’ things on Facebook or Tweeting your articles on Twitter.

Blogging is not a one-way conversation. If you allow it readers can comment on any published content. You still have the ability to turn off this discussion, or limit it to certain posts. If you’re concerned with the privacy of your content you have a couple of options: either a fully public site, or a private site that only specified University of Otago users can log in to.

AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

EOTAGO BLOGS

http://blogs.otago.ac.nz

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

WHAT IT’S BEING USED FOR:

• Publishing content online

• Collaborative websites

• Student journals

• Research diaries

• Public and Private sites


Find out more:Help site: http://help.otago.ac.nz/blogs


RESERACH JOURNAL

Trying to do research with a group and losing track of what everyone is up to? Why not get everyone to keep a journal of what they’re working on and what they’re having trouble with.

An Otago Blog can be a hub for your research group or team to share findings, or central area for all related administration.

The chronological nature of blogs mean that content can be viewed as it develops. If you use tags and categories for your posts readers will be able to find related content easily.

Need your students to reflect on lessons learned or perhaps you’d like them to keep a diary of their postgraduate study experiences? Why not give them their own private space to manage these thoughts. Otago Blogs is safer than scraps of paper with its nightly backups.

Students can also opt to allow other students to be members of their site as a “Contributor”, allowing them only to comment on entries.

Are you organising a conference or reunion and need a quick website to publish all the details? An Otago Blogs is a free and easy way to get this set up without the requirement for indepth/lengthy training.

Make use of the events and calendering functionality so your readers know exactly what is going on when. You can also embed Google Maps so everyone knows where to go.

To make life easier when your candidates arrive at the conference Otago Blogs can also be accessed on mobile phones and devices via a mobile friendly theme, and there is even an iOS and Android app so you can edit the site while on your mobile device.

TEMPORARY EVENT WEBSITES

REFLECTIVE DIARIES

Otago Podcasts enables users to disbute audio and video files over the internet. This service can be used for teaching, research or administration. You could distribute recordings of your lectures, instructional videos or even create a site of your original music.

WHAT IS A PODCAST?A podcast is simply a multimedia file that can be downloaded and played. Normally each file would be part of a series, almost like an episode of a TV series. The term podcast comes from a combination of iPod and broadcast. Typically a user subscribes to a podcast series with an Rich Site Summary (RSS) feed and they are delivered updates as soon as a new podcast episode is published.

Built on the popular blogging platform Wordpress Otago Podcasts is an intuitive to use and powerful system. Upload podcasts using the custom written Add Podcast feature, or use Pages to create static content while adding chronologically displayed content with the Posts feature. Each podcast episode is also chronologically displayed and automatically included in the site’s RSS Feed.

Otago Podcasts has a simple to use media uploader where you can drag and drop media items such as images, photos, and documents into the browser. There are basic image editing tools like cropping, resizing and rotating. The Media Library stores your files for reuse, rather than uploading the same item multiple times.

Customise your podcast site to match departmental themes or to help it stand out. Using the basic University of Otago webpage theme you can change the banner image (or display multiple images) as well as building your own navigation menu, all while still looking like an official University of Otago website.

Keep your viewers up to date with automatic Tweeting when you publish something, or get your users to subscribe by email to keep them updated. Your viewers can use social media to publicise your content for you by ‘Liking’ things on Facebook or Tweeting your episodes on Twitter.

Using RSS Feeds your viewers can subscribe and download your podcast episodes in iTunes, which alllows them to be easily viewed on iPods, iPhones and iPads. Viewing is not limited to iOS devices as each site is also mobile-compatible.

Using Otago Podcasts each of your podcast episodes is automatically embedded with a video or audio player on your site. AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

E

http://podcasts.otago.ac.nz

KEY FEATURES• Distribute audio and video

• Subscribe via secure RSS feeds

• Public or Private sites

• Download files in iTunes


OTAGO PODC ASTSINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Find out more:Help site: http://help.otago.ac.nz/podcasts


SUBSCRIBE WITH iTUNES

Want your students to be able to review your lectures at the gym or on their way home from class? Ensure your lectures are easily downloadable for your students. Using the custom built podcasting features of Otago Podcasts your RSS feed for iTunes is automatically created. This allows your listeners to subscribe to your podcasts with iTunes and automatically download them to their iTunes Library. Once in your iTunes Library the files can be easily synced with your iOS device, iPhone, iPod or iPad, and listened to or watched where ever you are.

Ever wondered who is accessing your content or where they are in the world? Once you have set up a free Google Analytics account it is very easy to link this to your Otago Podcast site and start getting statistics.

Google Analtyics enables you to see the number of people currently accessing your site and where they are from, or compare data from different date ranges. Find out what pages users access your site from, or what pages they are on when they leave your site. This can offer valuable insight into which podcasts get the most ‘hits’, meaning the content was interesting or students needed to view the content more than once.

Got loads of entries and everything is getting a bit hard to find and manage? Why not use Wordpress’s inbuilt categories and tags feature? Categories allow you to put your entries in broad groups: e.g baking and dessert. Tags allow you to be more specific about the entry: e.g brownies, chocolate and walnuts. You can build a hierarchy of categories and allow users to view all entries in a category or even all the entries with the same tag.

TRACK YOUR USERS WITH GOOGLE ANALTYICS

SORT AND ORGANISE YOUR ENTRIES

Otago Wikis are a simple way for your group to efficiently manage your information. Otago Wikis allow you to collaboratively build informative online resources.

WHAT IS A WIKI?A wiki is a website where a group of people can add and edit pages using their web browsers. One of the most popular and well known examples of a wiki is Wikipedia, an Internet encylopedia written, edited and maintained by global volunteers.

Otago Wikis are built on the same software platform that powers Wikipedia: MediaWiki. Using the same software it has some additional features for Otago, including increased security and user management features. This means you can restrict your site to a list of University of Otago users. Otago Wikis is also styled to match the University of Otago’s web brand.

Wikis are ideal for collaborative work. Each page of content has a dedicated Discussion page where contributors can can discuss the contents of the page as well as changes made or even suggest future changes. Otago Wikis also has an extensive history of all the changes made to a page and who made them. This makes it easy to review changes or even revert to old versions.

Content is easily created using the text editor or MediaWiki’s mark-up language - this will be very familiar to Wikipedia contributors.

Sites may be organised using Categories. Once a category is assigned to a page, a category listing is automatically created by MediaWiki, which is useful for grouping related pages together. You can add Pages and Catgeories to your wiki menu to create a well-structured site. Wiki users may also use the built-in search to find content.

AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

E

http://wiki.otago.ac.nz

KEY FEATURES• Version tracking

• Easily add University staff and students as content editors

• Create a public or private wiki

• Use categories to organise content

• Upload and embed files in Wiki pages


OTAGO WIKISINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Find out more:Help site: http://help.otago.ac.nz/wikis


DEPARTMENTAL WORKSPACE

Spend all your time keeping track of meeting minutes and departmental procedure documents? Why not store them all in one central location that is easy to maintain and access. Write meeting minutes for everyone to access and enable discussions around procedures. You will no longer have to worry about having the right version of a document as there is only one page. If needed, you can review the change history of the content to see who made a change and when it was done.

Got a specialist subject that you don’t want on Wikipedia? Why not create your own Wikipedia. Perhaps the subject matter is not for general consumption and is specific to your students or research group. You can limit access to the site to those users you want to have access. Keeping content safe and secure, as well has being able to see who has made what changes to the content and when.

Thought up an amazing group project for your students but not sure where to have them do the work? Why not get them to create a wiki and build the content together. You could end the semester with a wiki built just for your paper for future students.

SPECIALIST SUBJECT GUIDES

COLLABORATIVE WRITING SPACE

Otago Capture is the new lecture recording system installed in selected Dunedin ITS-managed lecture theatres in 2014. It uses Echo360 devices and software to record lectures or events. These recordings are called Echoes.

Lectures can be scheduled to record automatically, lecturers need only turn on the microphone and give their lecture. Alternatively lecturers can choose to log in and record in the theatre much the same as the old Lecture Recording system. Schedules can exclude public holidays and semester breaks.

Lectures can be recorded in various formats: audio only podcasts much like the old system or screen and audio where what is displayed through the projector is recorded along with the audio. Finally if the lecturer has booked a camera operator through Media Production, the video can also be recorded as well as the projector and the audio. Recordings can also be live streamed.

All recordings for a paper are displayed in the EchoCentre. The EchoCentre can be linked to Blackboard; as long as students can access Blackboard they can access the EchoCentre.

The EchoCentre is for more than just holding the recordings. Students will be able to see upcoming recording schedules and live events. It will also give lecturers and staff information about what the students are actually watching (view count, heat map etc).

Playing an Echo from the EchoCentre will load the EchoPlayer. Using the player students can bookmark places in the recording, discuss the lecture and search through the recording.

When a lecture is recorded it will need to be processed first. After this process is complete you will be notified by email and you can edit the Echoes with the simple online Presentation Editor. You can choose not to make the recording automatically available for students until you have done the editing. However if you don’t want to edit you don’t have to, you can choose to have the recording automatically available to the students.

AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

E

http://capture.otago.ac.nz

KEY FEATURES• Scheduled automatic recording

• Records more than the audio

• Students view through Blackboard

• Live Streaming of Lectures

• Online editing of Lectures

• Screen Capture with Personal Capture

• Student viewing habits & statistics.

• Student feedback


OTAGO C APTUREINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Find out more:Help site: http://help.otago.ac.nz/capture


CAPTURING FROM YOUR OWN COMPUTER

You can download software called Personal Capture (PCAP). PCAP is available from the Downloads tab in Otago Capture. The software allows you to use your own computer to create recordings that can be available for the students in the EchoCentre. It can record your screen, a web cam and the audio. Some of the examples of this are short demonstrations of something specific that was mentioned in a lecture, a screen recording of how to do something or flipping the classroom (making a video students should watch before a lecture). These recordings will be added to the Echoes in your paper.

Otago Capture records what students are actually watching in the lecture and gives you a Heat Map of the lecture, with hotspots being those that students are watching frequently. You can use Heat Maps to analyse your lectures, see what areas students are watching more than others and learn your students viewing habits and patterns.

You can get reports on what your students are watching, including student specific reports. These reports will give you what lectures each student is has watched and how many times they’ve watched it You can download these reports as an Excel document from which you can create your own reports. These reports can be specific to individual students or give more a more general overview.

WHAT STUDENTS ARE REALLY WATCHING?

LIVE STREAMING

Any lecture that records audio and screen can be live-streamed via the EchoCentre. When a lecture is streaming live students or other viewers can join a live chat discussion. It offers your students another way to view your lecture; even if they’re sick in bed they won’t be disadvantaged.

A live-streamed lecture can be viewed on laptops and desktop computers with the option of mobile devices coming in the future.

Live-streamed lectures are also recorded like a normal Echo; the discussion from the live stream is saved and added to the Echo once processed. This means you can still get all the statistics and reports as per usual, including views from the live presentation.

Otago Connect is a web conferencing solution for online meetings and webinars used by the University of Otago. You can create and deliver online courses, virtual classrooms, interactive training programs and seminars. It contains functions that encourage online participation and collaboration, with tools such as Q&A pods, online surveys, screen sharing, document sharing and live webcam and audio capability built-in.

Otago Connect is:“a bit like Skype to use – but with a lot more functions to deliver [online classrooms]” at any time and to almost any one with an internet connection.

WHAT IS WEB CONFERENCING?Web conferencing is the term used to describe a service which allows events like workshops, conferences or classes to be shared at remote locations via the Internet.

Otago Connect uses the popular web conferences solution, Adobe Connect and is run in a web browser or even on mobile devices. Otago Connect allows you to customise your meeting room and fill it with a collection of pods. Each individual pod has a different functionality, one can list everyone currently in attendance and show you if they are trying to get your attention by raising their hand. Hosts and presenters in the meeting room can share content like a Powerpoint presentation by using a Share Pod. You can also use a Share Pod to share a whiteboard that everyone can draw on together. Perhaps you have a list of websites you want your attendees to visit, distribute them in the Web Links Pod. Most commonly used is the Video Pod, you can use your own webcam to show yourself speaking to the room, you attendees can also use theirs but it might be a bit busy. If webcams are not for you you can still communicate with the room using a microphone to provide audio, or just via text chat in the Chat Pod.

To ensure you answer everyone’s questions attendees can ask questions in the Q+A Pod and these can be displayed to everyone in the room, or you can ask the room a question for a poll - very useful if you’re trying to guage prior knowledge.

AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

E

http://connect.otago.ac.nz

KEY FEATURES• Integrates with Blackboard

• Audio conferencing

• Video conferencing

• Shared presentations

• Shared whiteboards

• Text chat

• Audience Polls

• Shared desktops

• Recorded meetings


OTAGO CONNECTINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Find out more:Help site: http://help.otago.ac.nz/connect


ONE-ON-ONE TUTORIAL

Got a tricky concept you need to explain to a student? Hop on Otago Connect and talk to them one-on-one. Share your desktop to show your working, or use your webcam to walk them through a hard equation. Record and edit your recorded tutorial afterwards and redistribute to your whole class as a learning tool.

You can use Otago Connect to introduce a broad topic to your class and then split them out into breakout rooms to discuss more specific topics in smaller groups. The smaller groups can work together on a whiteboard, communicate via text, audio or video.

Is your research group scattered around the country, or the globe? Why not continue to have regular face-to-face meetings over the Internet. You can use Otago Connect to have a discussion, or present your latest findings. Record your meetings so those that couldn’t make it can review it at their own pace later.

RESEARCH GROUP MEETING

GROUP DISCUSSIONS AND BREAKOUT ROOMS

ITS offers a free iPad short-term loan service which provides university staff and departments class sets of 3rd generation iPads, iPad Minis or individual iPad Minis for use in teaching, research and administration.

The iPad class sets are provided with a bulk charging station and SmartCovers which are all packaged in a robust wheeled roadcase suitable for transport. The individual iPad Minis are stand-alone devices and a single wall charger and USB cable is provided. The recommended loan period is for up to one month but longer loans are able to be negotiated depending on other bookings for the devices.

The iPad loan scheme provides departments flexibility when completing tasks without the need to invest in physical hardware and the costs of maintaing it. The loan devices also provide departments the ability to complete proof-of-concept testing before purchasing their own devices.

The use of the devices is only limited by your imagination and they have successfully been used for survey data collection, video assessment, collaborative group work and interview administration.

The iPad devices are available outside of Dunedin and can be couried to other University of Otago campuses or locations around New Zealand. The cost of this is the responsibility of the department or group that has loaned the devices.

AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

E

http://www.otago.ac.nz/ipadloan

KEY FEATURES• See www.otago.ac.nz/ipadloan for

booking and checking availability

• The iPads can be used for research, administration or teaching

• Portable, easy to move

• Easy to use

• Additional teaching tool

• Try before you buy!


One iPad class set showing the iPad devices, charging station, SmartCovers and MacBook Pro that are included in the class set

iPADSINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Find out more:Help site: http://www.otago.ac.nz/ipadloan


USES FOR THE iPADS

SURVEYS: Use an online survey service (survey.otago.ac.nz or surveymonkey.com) and then get users to complete the survey directly on the iPads. This removes the need to enter the data manually.

RESEARCH AND ONLINE RESOURCES: Allow students to combine online resources with traditional class materials and group discussions without needing to move from the classroom.

ASSESSMENT: Record videos of students’ work or allow students to create videos which can be assessed at a later date.

The use of the iPads is only limited by your imagination.

iPADS9.7 inch Retina display16 GB of storage5 mega-pixel camera

iPAD MINIS7.9-inch Retina diplay16 GB of storage3G capability for mobile Internet

Want to install other apps? Both free and paid apps can be pre-installed onto the iPads after a discussion with ITS. Any costs for paid apps must be covered by the department requesting the loan.

1. Check the iPad Calendar page and see if the iPad devices you want to use are available

2. Complete the booking form on the ITS website. Once this is submitted it will be reviewed and ITS will make contact with you with any questions about your loan

3. Collect the iPads. If you require the iPads to be transported via courier this can be arranged via the Mail Room at the Dunedin campus.

SafariPhotosApp StoreMapsPhoto BoothRemindersCameraMailFaceTime

iTunesMusicCalendarMessagesNewsstandVideosGame CenterContactsNotes

DEFAULT APPLICATIONS

The iPad booking calendar that can be used to see when iPads are booked.

KEY DEVICE SPECIFICATION AND DEFAULT APPLICATIONS

BOOKING THE iPADS

UniTube is a place for University of Otago staff and students to upload and share educational material. Like an on-campus YouTube you can share a wide variety of media types: video clips, audio files, Word documents and Powerpoint presentations.

If you have a small collection of media files you’d like to make public or want to reuse on another website/Blackboard, UniTube is a great place to store your media files. You can use special embed code to add a video or audio player that allows viewers to play your media file.

Upload your media quickly from any web browser or email your file to UniTube for it to be automatically uploaded. You can organise your media into albums to help viewers find more related content.

If you want to publicise your new item UniTube allows you to send a Tweet while you’re uploading your file to the UniTube Twitter account - then all UniTube’s followers can see your latest addition.

While you can easily share your UniTube content with users on Facebook, Blackboard or any other webpage, your viewers can also subscribe to your using Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds. Any time you upload something new subscribers will be notified that there is a new media file to review.

AN

ELE

AR

NIN

G S

ER

VIC

E G

UID

E

http://unitube .otago.ac.nz

KEY FEATURES• Upload audio files

• Upload video files

• Upload documents

• Create zoomable images

• Annotate images

• Embed in webpages

• Synchronise audio and presentation files

• Link to Twitter

• Allows subscriptions


UNITUBEINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Find out more:Help site: http://unitube.otago.ac.nz/help.do


PRESENTER - SYNC AUDIO AND PRESENTATION

Have you recorded the audio of your lecture but want to make something a bit more useful for your students? You can use UniTube to synchronise your audio file with your Powerpoint Presentation file. Go through your audio file and set where each slide change should take place. Once complete publish your media and let your students know where it is so they can watch it. You can also define a list of University of Otago viewers that will be able to view your content if you do not wish to make it publically available.

Got a microscope slide image or perhaps an annotated diagram you’d like to publish? Use UniTube to create a zoomable photo so you can see all the granular detail of an image. You can also annotate your images as well as measure items within your file.

This tool allows students to go indepth with key teaching images and is a good way for students to review class material from labs and lectures.

Got a series of related help videos you’d like to publish somewhere? You can create an Album in UniTube to store the whole series, this helps your viewers find related clips. With the videos stored in a central location you can reuse and share them on webpages, Facebook or Blackboard with their individual embed codes.

When uploading a file you can choose to allow everyone to view the files, or limit viewing to a list of University of Otago users.

IMAGE VIEWER

INFORMATIONAL PUBLIC VIDEO SERIES

blackboard - university of otago · 2014. 6. 16. · assessments are one of the most common tasks...

Documents