North Campus to be Closed on Sunday, May 26, 2024

When: Sunday, May 26, 2024 (7 a.m. to 7 p.m.)

Location: North Campus – all buildings including the University of Guelph-Humber, Residences and the Arboretum/Centre for Urban Ecology.

Purpose: To perform planned annual high voltage preventative maintenance on electrical infrastructure.

The Humber North Campus will be closed on Sunday, May 26, 2024. Students and employees will not be allowed entry into the College facilities (with the exception of Residence) during the hydro service interruption.

All mechanical, electrical and technology systems across North Campus will be offline during the shutdown.

Central systems including Banner, Blackboard, Email and humber.ca will not be accessible through on-campus services. However, central systems will be accessible through an individual’s own internet connection (such as home internet, 3G and LTE).

For schools/departments with a refrigerator/freezer in their area (or a common area or staff room), please remember to empty/throw out unused food as the power will be off across Campus.

The Centre for Trades and Technology (Carrier Drive) and the Transportation Training Centre (Woodbine Downs) will not be affected by the hydro service interruption.

For more information or if you have questions, please contact Chris Nanos, Manager, Plant Services and Building Maintenance, at chris.nanos@humber.ca.

At this time of year it is common for instructors to experience an influx of requests for extensions on assignments and tests. Please consider the following:

• Students may miss assignment deadlines or tests/exams. For students with disabilities, it could be due to an unpredictable flare-up of their condition outside of their control. 

• It can be difficult for faculty to balance academic rigor and accountability for what students are to learn, with a fair and manageable process for those who miss required tests/exams and assignments. 

• Consider creating a contingency supplemental assignment or alternate version of each test/exam that can be used during the semester as needed.  

Please view the attached article on suggestions to manage missed exams and assignments: Dealing With Students Missing Exams and In-Class Graded Assignments – Association for Psychological Science – APS

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.

Here are the highlights of this month’s new and improved features in Blackboard Ultra. For more details, please follow the links below:

AI Design Assistant – Context picker for Learning Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Journals

Last month, a feature called context picker was released which allows specific course items to be associated with particular tests, resulting in more focused questions generated by the AI Design Assistant. For this release, the context picker was extended to Learning Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Journals, enabling the AI Design Assistant to auto-generate more relevant content associated with the item instructors select.

Default question points value changed from 10 to 1

Many instructors prefer assigning a value of 1 point to a test question. Responding to these requests, the default value has now been changed from 10 to 1.

Duplicate questions in Assessments, Forms, and Question Banks

Instructors often spend a significant amount of time adding questions to an assessment on Blackboard Ultra. The feature to duplicate questions is now available in the latest release. This saves time and reduces errors in creating questions, as there is no need to go through the same steps each time for similar questions.

Likert answer options expanded to include 4 and 6

Likert questions were recently introduced in Forms, originally with answer options limited to 3, 5, or 7. These odd numbers allow for a neutral option, though this may not be suitable for some questions. To add flexibility, options now include 4 and 6, letting instructors choose any number between 3 to 7.

Auto-submitted indicator in attempt logs

Attempt log of individual student can be accessible from each assessment from the Gradebook. Now events include “Auto submitted” which allows instructors to see if the submission was manual or automatic. This gives instructors more insight into student behaviors and enables them to track student progress more effectively.

Long names visible and sorting controls for the Student Activity report for assessments on small devices and mobile app

This modification improves the usability of the Student Activity report on small devices, while also promoting inclusivity.

Individual date adjustments from Batch Edit

The batch edit feature is accessible from the content page, located just below the "student preview". This tool allows instructors to modify visibility status and adjust due dates. For this release, an additional function has been added to allow editing the "show on" and "hide after" dates. With this update, instructors can alter these dates from a single page, eliminating the need to navigate through each content item.

To adjust the "show on" and "hide after" dates, click on the calendar icon at the right side of the item on the batch edit page. This new feature enhances convenience for instructors.

Student feedback remains visible to students regardless of release condition settings

When the release condition hides assessment items, grades given to the assessment are visible but associated comment weren’t visible. With this update, students can view comments given to the assessment that is hidden by its release condition. This behavior aligns better with what’s expected of the Gradebook.

Anonymous posts for Discussions

By default, discussion posts are not graded. Anonymity can sometimes lead to more engagement on certain topics. This release allows instructors to make non-graded discussions anonymous, offering greater flexibility.

Usability improvements for flexible grading

Several improvements have been made to flexible grading to minimize confusion. Previously, both the submission grade pill and overall grade pill were visible, making it easy for instructors to inadvertently override a grade. The updated version only displays the submission grade pill by default. It also allows instructors to easily navigate between different submissions by positioning the attempt pull-down menu to the left of the grade pill. To override a grade, instructors must intentionally click '...' to reveal the grading pill. These usability enhancements significantly reduce confusion among instructors.

Add question feedback when grading by student in Flexible Grading

General feedback is beneficial when instructors must provide overall comments on assessments. However, if there are multiple questions and each requires individual comments, it's more efficient to provide feedback at the question level. This month’s release includes this feature, enhancing usability for both instructors and students.

The full list of April updates is available on the Blackboard Help Center website.

The full article is also posted on BB Hub: New and Improved Features in Blackboard Ultra – April 2024 Update

Need additional support? The IL Support Centre is here to help!

We are pleased to announce that the “Summer 2024 Student Employee Hiring Guidelines” is now available.

This document is available via the Student Employee Hiring Leads Teams group on Microsoft Teams. If you are an employee involved in recruiting student workers on campus, you can request access to join this Teams page by following the link below.

Once you have joined, here is some of the information you will find within these guidelines:

• Important summer 2024 contract dates
• Information about summer Appendix G (more than 24 hour roles) contracts
• Eligibility information and maximum working hours criteria for student employees
• Job application process information for students (including workstudy application info)
• FAQs and more!

For additional details on hiring student employees, please visit the Work on Campus webpage.

Thank you for your commitment to supporting our student community!

Links

• Student Employee Hiring Leads Teams group
• Work on Campus webpage