ITSpotlight is designed to keep the campus up to date on ITS activities and services.
Complete These Start-of-Semester Activities for Course Management
Posted January 8, 2025
by IDLT
As a new semester approaches, the following tips may be useful for faculty.
Blackboard and Course Management:
-
If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course and want them in one Blackboard shell, please request that your sections be merged before starting work in your Blackboard courses.
-
If you want to copy a course from the previous semester, please follow these export/import instructions .
-
For assistance with building your course, contact the ITS Instructional Design & Learning Technologies team . The IDLT Teaching Toolkit also provides additional resources, including an accessible syllabus template, course planning grid, and other items.
-
For more tips on Blackboard, review this start-of-semester activities list, which includes what to do if you cannot see your course in Blackboard and how to make your course available before the semester begins.
-
Under ITS' 5+1 retention practice , only course shells from the five previous semesters, as well as the current semester, are kept in Bb. Course shells outside of 5+1 will be removed at the start of spring, summer, and fall semesters. Faculty are responsible for downloading and keeping copies of older course shells. No backups of deleted courses will be retained by ITS.
Synchronous Online Sessions & Lecture Recording:
-
YuJa is the video platform in which all videos should be stored. Please visit the ITS Training Services Organization in Blackboard for self-paced trainings. You can also refer to the ITS KnowledgeBase articles for YuJa .
-
As a reminder, the University is transitioning from Zoom to Microsoft Teams during FY25. Starting July 1st, Microsoft Teams will become SIUE’s primary platform for meetings, instruction, and collaboration, while YuJa will serve as our video storage and lecture capture solution. To ensure a smooth transition, we encourage you to start using Microsoft Teams now so you can get comfortable with it before the change takes full effect. The Microsoft Teams User’s Guide and Zoom to Teams Transition Guide are available to help you get started.
-
If you are going to continue using Zoom, it is continually updated to improve the user experience and security options. Please check that your Zoom client is updated to the latest version and use the ITS KnowledgeBase Zoom Resources to prepare for class, office hours, and meeting situations.
-
Turn on Zoom’s Live Auto-Transcription option for synchronous online sessions, and remember to caption all recorded lectures. YuJa videos are automatically captioned; however, please be sure to edit them for accuracy . Consider requesting captioning services through Online Services and Educational Outreach when recording lectures in advance.
For assistance, contact ITS at 618-650-5500 or help@siue.edu . On-demand training on many learning technologies is available from the ITS Training Services Organization (navigate to myOrganizations>ITS Training Services) in the Blackboard and IDLT Programs page. Overview and how-to articles on many learning technologies and University services are also available from the ITS KnowledgeBase .
