EDUCAUSE recently published this article on Microlectures and about how to use them strategically to increase student engagement and learning: Short and Sweet: The Educational Benefits of Microlectures and Active Learning
News
Technology Teaching Fellows Institute Online, June 20-August 5, 2022
Apply to become a Technology Teaching Fellow and join faculty colleagues, CTL consultants, and learning technologists at the 2022 Technology Teaching Fellows Institute! The UW Center for Teaching and Learning invites applications focused on:
- Developing a new online/hybrid course
- Creating an online version of an in-person course
- Redesigning an existing online course
- Developing interactive digital components for a hybrid or in-person course
Applications are due March 18. Learn more about the Institute, fellowship benefits, and the application procedure on our TTFI page.
New Zoom Feature
Spice up your slideshow presentations with a nice picture -in picture effect! Set your PowerPoint as your virtual background and place yourself on top of the PowerPoint. Easily move and resize your video to ensure you don’t block any crucial information. This feature will help you add an extra communication channel while people look at your slides. This feature is found under the “Advanced” tab in the “Share Screen” Zoom menu.
Better Email Spam Detection
All incoming email is automatically scanned in search of illegitimate messages (junk mail, phishing, etc.). UW IT has been working on finding a replacement for the current email filtering system. This new system will be rolled out during the month of March, and even though we do not anticipate any service interruption or negative impact, we certainly hope this will decrease undesired email messages. You can find more information about this change at the IT Connect website.
Login to Eduroam
Eduroam is a secure, encrypted Wi-Fi network available at the UW and the preferred Wi-Fi connection method for UW. As we return to our face-to-face activities, you may experience problems reconnecting with this network. This is due to recent changes in the technology used to authenticate your device. As of February 1, 2022, Connecting to eduroam via your UW NetID and password has been switched off and replaced with certificate-based authentication.
If you’re unsure if your device uses a UW NetID/password or a certificate, then we recommend you reconfigure it using our tool. Please visit our Eduroam Onboarding Guide for step-by-step instructions or click onboard.wifi.uw.edu to onboard right away.
College Database Updates 128
Work Complete 1/24/22 – 2/11/22
Applicant Review
- (Complete) The Apply Committee tool (assign new committee members to existing applications) will not prune reviewers that have a reason other than “Committee”. For example, if you added a reviewer because they were “Mentioned by Applicant” they won’t be removed by Apply Committee.
OnCourse
- (Complete) Student facing public view of course plan is available. The old courses database public URL now redirects to the new version.
- (Complete) Add Meetings report that shows sections with meeting times displayed chronologically across a week.
- (Complete) Add explanation for section letters like ?A. These are created when one section takes another section’s section id letter. When you view one of these sections an explanation is show under the header with links to help you fix it.
- (Complete) Update Faculty Year report for Area Chairs to show a three-year view (previous academic year, current AY, next AY).
- (Fixed) Accepting instructors in the UWTS comparison tool updates the instructor summary displayed in header and list views.
- (Fixed) Don’t import Independent Study (IS) supervisors when updating from Student Web Service.
- (Complete) Don’t add log messages when deleting a Note that was created from a previous log message. This is part of the Curriculum Manager’s notification and To-Do management process.
NARF
- (Complete) Added max length attribute to section letters on Course entry form. Long values here were causing a cryptic error.
TREQ
- (Complete) Provide system to mark users Inactive and replace them with another user on all pending orders. This system allows the fiscal team to swap out former employees in TREQ with their replacement.
- (Complete) We no longer provide a Delete button on Department Approval cards. Functionally this was identical to Send Back (order goes back to creating and original submitter gets email, the Send Back button is still there and more clearly explains itself.
- (Complete) Added max length attribute to item name input to keep users from adding long descriptions that don’t fit in the database field.
- (Fixed) Returning to the project form and editing a field changed the owner to current users. This is fixed, now the original project owner is retained.
Infrastructure
- (Complete) Update all college database user fields to support longer Shared NetIDs. New Shared UW NetIDs can be up to 20 characters long. NetIDs for people (students, faculty, staff) are still limited to 8 characters.
- (Fixed) Corrected a redirect rule where adding a trailing slash to a URL would delete the app name (e.g. “/oncourse/”) from the URL.
College Database Updates 127
Work Complete 1/3/22 – 1/21/22
Applicant Review
- Update report filters to follow current COE Areas. Keep TEP and Undergraduate as their own report filter group since these have their own distinct review process and timing.
- Add “Reason” field to application Reviewers. The Reason field allows Office of Student Service to describe why a particular reviewer was added to an application. The default reason (reviewer is part of default Committee, is not displayed). Noted reviewer reasons are “Area of Interest”, “Faculty Mentioned by Applicant”, or “Referred by Other Faculty”.
- Update to ECO application prompt.
Budgets / Effort
- Add option to see and edit allocations that have ended. Effort module was built as a forward planning system, but real-world use cases require editing historical records.
OnCourse
- Implement Public / Student view of course plan. This view shows limited parts of the OnCourse plan appropriate for COE students. It requires UW Login, but no specific authorization, anyone with a valid UW Login may view it.
- Correct Joint Section representation in CSV file download.
- Experimental report showing faculty year by area. (Area chairs would like this expanded to 3 year view.)
- Fix “Full Term” sync with UWTS for Summer quarter.
- Fix unexpected meeting time formats in SDB data.
TREQ
- Gift Card acknowledgement page points users to documentation and spreadsheet template when their order includes Gift Card purchase.
College Database Updates 126
Updates deployed 12/20/2021 – 12/29/2021.
OnCourse
- Course Variant names are displayed on report pages when section has a non-default Variant. Course Variant names are displayed in Italics with asterisk. Clicking Variant name will display the course curriculum title.
- Removed Canceled sections from Instructor Review report.
- Most table headers will stick at top of viewport when user scrolls through a long table.
- Fixed table sort (by clicking headers) would stop working after changing report filters.
- Course Fees added to detail view. Added report of sections with course fees.
- Limit syllabus file upload types to PDF and MS Word.
- Add Needs Room Preferences report, shows sections for an upcoming quarter where no instructor has provided room preferences. Also provides email contact list for instructors of those sections.
- When user edits a section in a joint group the following properties are kept in sync across all sections in the joint group: instructors, meetings, section type, grading system, online code, modality, fees.
- When a joint group has only one remaining section, the joint group record and joint status on that section is deleted.
- Add instructor detail list to UWTS comparison page, this is useful information when resolving changes that must be entered in SDB.
- Only update actual enrollment and SCH from UW data after SLNs have been assigned. Before SLNs this is bad data.
- Fixed Merge Person, when multiple records for same person appear in UWTS data.
- Update course shared data used by other college databases to use OnCourse, example: search links in NARF to resolve to OnCourse search.
- Report OnCourse user authorization changes to college user audit tool.
Room Schedule
- Update Room Schedule (MRBS) for School Psychology observation rooms.
Remember to Clean up Your Email Inbox
Email is considered a record containing evidence of official University business. As such, email (along with other kind of electronic records), can be part of Public Records Requests. Every UW employee is individually responsible for handling and managing these records in accordance with existing policies and procedures.
From this perspective, there are two kinds of email: Transitory and Substantive. Transitory emails can be deleted as soon as their purpose is met. Substantive must be retained following UW’s retention policies.
| Substantive Content Examples | Transitory Content Examples |
| Policy
Procedure Approvals Invoices/Receipts Customized Responses |
Preliminary Draft
Routine requests Meeting scheduling thread Announcements, acknowledgments Copies, automated notifications, etc |
Resources
Help UW-IT build a better website for tech tools, services & support
Have time to help make IT Connect better? IT Connect is the UW’s go-to website for info on tech tools, services and support. It is being reimagined and rebuilt to better serve the University. Help improve IT Connect for everyone!
Visit the IT Connect user research page to volunteer for focus groups, card sorting and user research studies. When you participate in a user research study, you’ll get $10 on your Husky Card. (More money in your Husky Card account is great for campus services, dining, vending and more!)