The College Employer Council has posted "Ontario Public Colleges Enter Conciliation with OPSEU Faculty" on its site. 

The College Employer Council (CEC) is the government mandated bargaining agent for the 24 Ontario publicly funded Colleges that negotiate collective agreements with unionized staff. The following information is being distributed on behalf of the CEC.

Respondus Lockdown Browser was recently removed from Blackboard Ultra. In light of this change, Innovative Learning wants to share some recommendations and alternatives to the Respondus Lockdown Browser to protect your tests and quizzes. There are three potential alternatives:

1. If you have a low-stakes online assessment, secure your assessment using features available to you in Blackboard, without using additional tools.
2. If you have a high-stakes online assessment, secure your assessment using ProctorTrack.
3. If you have an in-person assessment, secure your assessment using LanSchool.

Please note that the Innovative Learning Support Centre will support removing the Respondus Lockdown Browser from any assessment that used this tool upon completing a support request.

Secure your assessment in Blackboard: For low-stakes online assessment

Innovative Learning recommends using Blackboard's features to secure your assessment in lower stakes assessment. There are a few ways you can secure your tests in Blackboard, without the use of any additional tools:

• You can consider using question banks, which can be made with Blackboard's AI Design Assistant, and can use your content using the Context Picker, or you can make them manually. When using question banks, you can randomize the questions that appear on each students' test by following the instructions.
• You can also consider randomizing answers for test questions, adding password protection, as well as prohibiting backtracking, displaying only one question at a time, randomizing the order of questions, prohibiting late submissions, and setting a time limit in the test settings, which can also be used to help with test security.

The Innovative Learning Support Centre can support you with any of these items if you need.

Secure your assessment using ProctorTrack: For high-stakes online assessment

Innovative Learning recommends using this tool only in high stakes assessments due to the cost associated with using this tool. Proctortrack is a remote proctoring tool available in Blackboard that leverages automation and AI to provide proctoring in online testing environments. This tool also uses multiple devices and cameras which students must agree to use before starting their assessment.

The use of this Blackboard tool needs to be approved by your department and/or faculty. Costs of about $12-19USD per student per one hour exam go directly to the department and/or faculty using the tool.

Once the Associate Dean agrees with the addition of Proctortrack to the courses requested, CRNs can be submitted to the Innovative Learning Support Centre team to have courses approved for use of ProctorTrack. The approval process for the Innovative Learning Support Centre may take 1-2 days during busy periods, like at startup, midterms or before final assessments.

Support for ProctorTrack

Instructors can learn more about ProctorTrack by going through the Instructor Support Guide. If students encounter a technical problem during a test, they should first speak with the proctor/instructor for help via a chat that is available at any time during the exam. If the proctor or instructor is unable to address the issue, the student is directed to the ProctorTrack technical support team by chat, phone, or email.

There is also a Humber DIY Student Guide, as well as a Humber DIY Learner Guide for using ProctorTrack for the first time that could be beneficial for instructors and students to review before their ProctorTrack test.

Securing your Tests using LanSchool

Innovative Learning recommends using this tool only for in-person assessments, as this tool is not available for use in Blackboard. LanSchool is an in-person, lab-based proctoring tool available in certain Humber computer labs that enables instructors to view and monitor lab room computers. You can learn more about LanSchool by accessing their website.

The list of labs that has LanSchool enabled is available by request for ITS at Humber. Tests using LanSchool and these computer labs will need to be scheduled for the upcoming semester by your faculty and/or schedulers.

Support for LanSchool

You can find the LanSchool Classic Teacher Guide, which shows how to use the Teacher Console, as well as a Quick Reference Card of features in the Console. There is also a Quick Start Guide, which shows the available features and how teachers can use them. For further support, you can find resources at the LanSchool help desk.

Need support? Contact the Innovative Learning Support Centre. We are here to help!

Over 6.9 million individuals living in Canada experience food insecurity:

• A recent Statistics Canada report collected data from the 2021 Canadian Income Survey (CIS).  
• The report found people with disabilities are twice as likely to experience food insecurity. 
• 26.4 per cent of people with disabilities reported living in a food insecure household, compared with 12.5% of those without disabilities, an increase from 2019 data of 18% of persons with disabilities compared to 10.8% of people without.
• Persons with disabilities have higher economic needs and lower economic resources and often ration their resources on food or medications to manage basic living expenses. 
• Additional stressors such as food insecurity can exacerbate disability related symptoms and impact academics. 

View the full report.

Visit our ALS Information for Faculty website to learn more about accommodating students with disabilities.  

Please email us at accessible-learning@humber.ca with suggestions for key accessibility-related topics that you would like us to address through the Communiqué.