In This Email

• Quick Tip - Course Cards
  
• Proactive Captioning - Apply to Benefit All Students
• What's New with Webcourses@UCF
• Video Tip - How to Trim Your Zoom Recording
• Chuck D. Dziuban Award - Fall 2020 Submission Opens Soon
• Design with Quality in Mind - Variety of Materials
  
• Kelvin's Corner - Pandemic Campus Diaries

The Proactive Captioning initiative encourages and supports faculty in captioning their multimedia content for the benefit of all students rather than depending on the accessibility accommodations process. The Proactive Captioning Proposal Application is open. A total of 10,000 minutes of closed captioning is available from now until June 30, 2021 for online (W) courses. Complete the application to have a W (completely online) course reviewed for captioning eligibility. A special announcement for proposals may be called if captioning minutes remain available toward the end of fiscal year 20-21 (July 1-June 30). Review the FAQs on the Proactive Captioning website for additional information.

New Analytics – CSV Reports

New Analytics provides downloadable CSV files, which open with a spreadsheet program, for missing assignments, late assignments, excused assignments, the class roster, and course activity data. Using APIs, all reports provide real-time data except for the Course Activity report, which includes data that may be delayed up to 24 hours. Additionally, all report data is verified against user permissions.

• This change provides instructors with table visualizations of essential course information via Canvas APIs into a consumable format.
• The New Analytics page includes a Reports tab. Filtered content for each report can be downloaded and exported as a CSV format.
• Find out more about New Analytics in the Canvas Guides.

For more information about Canvas (Webcourses@UCF) updates, view the September 19, 2020 Canvas Release Notes.

Click the How to Trim Your Zoom Recording video to see how to trim excess time off of the beginning and end of your Zoom video. Visit the Webcourses@UCF Support webpage to view other Zoom Guides.

Chuck Dziuban is Director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at the UCF where he has been a faculty member since 1970 teaching research design and statistics. Faculty member since 1970, Dr. Dziuban was named UCF’s first Pegasus Professor for extraordinary research, teaching, and service; received the honor of Professor Emeritus in 2005; and is renowned for award winning and groundbreaking research into online education. 

The Chuck D. Dziuban Award for Excellence in Online Teaching recognizes one UCF faculty member who has recently taught an exemplary online, W-designed course. The next submission period for the Fall 2020 award opens Monday, September 28 at 8:00 a.m. and closes Sunday, October 11, at 11:59 p.m.

Review award eligibility requirements and application procedures.

Research supports incorporating visuals into online course content for two reasons: brains process visuals faster than they process text and today’s students are used to viewing multimedia. The CDL Graphics team helps faculty supplement their online courses with visuals and course enhancing multimedia elements.

Looking for tips on designing your online course? Design with Quality in Mind is a collection of brief articles that explore best practices in online course design. Each post in this collection highlights one item that exemplifies quality online course design, based on UCF’s Quality Course Review, and showcases examples from UCF faculty. The newest post of the collection, Offer a Variety of Materials and Media in Your Online Courses, explains why offering a variety of materials and media gives the highest chance that students will connect with the content.

We're in this together. Hearing inspirational stories from others helps us to see our own situation in new ways. “Pandemic Campus Diaries” is a 7-part mini-series within the EdSurge Podcast hosted by Jeff Young. Visceral and compelling, voices of faculty and students throughout the US are woven to address new themes in each episode.