Online Learning Posts
Please click on the link below to register for the professional development sessions:
https://ptcgwd.wufoo.com/forms/z19ka1ny0rhgtkc
A link to the PD event will appear on Outlook calendar within 2-3 days of the scheduled PD event.
The registration deadline has been extended until Thursday May 8th , 2025 until 3:00 pm ET .
What policies or guidelines on using AI are in place at your institution for grading student work by the faculty? Specifically:
GPT, short for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is a series of advanced AI models created by OpenAI, designed to produce human-like text and content with remarkable fluency and coherence. If you are not familiar with a GPT, it is a specialized ChatGPT AI tool I created in my account that has been “infused” with specifications to look for certain things. The instructions include the assignment description, a list of typical feedback, an exemplary paper to use as a reference, and instructions not to allow re-writing through the GPT.
In the online courses that I teach, I do not use AI to grade student’s work, but I provide them with an AI-based GPT that they can use to “pre-flight” their draft papers before they submit them. The GPT does not grade their work – it is designed to indicate to students where their work needs attention, such as fulfilling the assignment requirements and covering all the topics.
Students are not required to use the Pre-Flight Evaluators, and I have provided a separate page that explains what the GPT does and what the results mean/don’t mean. The goal is to provide “feedback before feedback” so that it also reduces remediation effort by the instructor.
I have attached an anonymized sample paper for you to try it yourself. Go to my Pre-Flight GPT, upload it, and review the results. AI has the potential to enhance feedback in various ways, though it remains in an experimental stage.
Attachments
COM 680 Sample 4.docx 33.35 kB
COM 680 Option 1 Pre-flight Evaluator
Steve Covello
Senior Instructional Designer
Senior Adjunct Online Faculty
University of New Hampshire
(603) 513-1346
This feature enables instructors to provide bulk feedback to learners directly within the Assignments and Discussions submission pages, enhancing efficiency and user experience.
Key capabilities:
With last month’s update to the type of questions available in the New Quiz Evaluation Experience, content parity now exists between the two forms. Most instructors are already using the New Quiz Evaluation Experience, but the option to opt-out of the New Quiz Evaluation Experience will being going away during our July 2025 update.
Following our Brightspace Training webinar series, all past recordings and information from the trainings are accessible via the Discover tool from the Brightspace homepage where instructors can now self-enroll in the course. This course is purely for the archival of webinar training content but it has been opened for Instructor view!
If you have not done so already, please feel free to access our D2L guided instructor training course by clicking the link with the D2L moose on your homepage. At first this training looks barren with only a few items, but as you complete each module a new one will open up! This training goes through the basics of D2L all the way through more advanced tools and is available to all instructors of the college. You will also be entered to win some D2L branded prizes such as a Morris the Moose plushie, travel pillows, and tumbler cups!
How can online college courses better support student motivation, engagement, and help-seeking behaviors?
Join the Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative for a public webinar where we explore student experiences in online courses and new evidence-based strategies to address challenges students encounter in online formats.
Panelists, including researchers, students, and faculty, will share and reflect on key findings on the role that self-directed learning (SDL) can play in promoting student success in online courses.
The webinar will feature findings from interviews with students enrolled in online courses at eight colleges and universities, an introduction to a set of practical strategies that instructors can implement to enhance student support in online learning environments, and a panel discussion featuring community college students.
Registration link: https://sri.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_69RVvkolSFGfVg0GyW_3Yg#/registration
Following our Brightspace Training webinar series, all past recordings and information from the trainings are accessible via the Discover tool from the Brightspace homepage where instructors can now self-enroll in the course. This course is purely for the archival of webinar training content but it has been opened for Instructor view!
The new quiz evaluation experience, introduced in September 2024, initially supported a subset of question types, including Multiple Choice, Written Response, True or False, Short Answer, Fill in the Blank, and Multi-Select. It also allowed Question Pools containing these question types.
To fully support the new quiz evaluation experience, this release expands support to include the following additional quiz question types:
This release introduces rubric level ranges in rubric headings, improving clarity for instructors and students:
Previously, instructors had to manually explain rubric level ranges to students. This feature enhances consistency and reduces ambiguity.
If you have not done so already, please feel free to access our D2L guided instructor training course by clicking the link with the D2L moose on your homepage. At first this training looks barren with only a few items, but as you complete each module a new one will open up! This training goes through the basics of D2L all the way through more advanced tools and is available to all instructors of the college. You will also be entered to win some D2L branded prizes such as a Morris the Moose plushie, travel pillows, and tumbler cups!
This release updates the Accessibility Checker icon in Brightspace Editor to improve user recognition and understanding with a more universal icon.
Quiz statistics now include filters for Sections or Groups, allowing instructors to analyze specific sections and groups effectively.
If you have not done so already, please feel free to access our D2L guided instructor training course by clicking the link with the D2L moose on your homepage. At first this training looks barren with only a few items, but as you complete each module a new one will open up! This training goes through the basics of D2L all the way through more advanced tools and is available to all instructors of the college. You will also be entered to win some D2L branded prizes such as a Morris the Moose plushie, travel pillows, and tumbler cups!
Date: Wednesday February 26th, 2025
Time: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm ET
Location: Virtual
Hour (s): 1 hour
Title: Building a Case for Co-Requisite Courses
XPAA Course #: 246
To register for this Brightspace PD and other upcoming sessions, please click on the registration link below. Complete the Wufoo form to register for PD event: https://ptcgwd.wufoo.com/forms/z16bhm3m0x2n0g4/
A link to the PD event will appear on Outlook calendar within 1 week of the scheduled PD event.
Date: Friday Feb 28th, 2025
Time: 10:00 am – 12:00 noon ET
Location: Virtual
Hour(s): 2 hours
Title of Course: Instructor Essentials
XPDE Course#: 206
Description: This introductory session is geared towards users who will be working in the Learning Environment to develop courses, teach / facilitate, or support instructors who use Brightspace. Administrative, Help Desk, and Technical Support staff are also encouraged to attend to gain a better understanding of how different users will be utilizing the tools.
To register for this Brightspace PD and other upcoming sessions, please click on the registration link below. Complete the Wufoo form to register for PD event: https://ptcgwd.wufoo.com/forms/zu7eaz1019jz6l/
A link to the PD event will appear on Outlook calendar within 1 week of the scheduled PD event.
The individual scores and feedback from Assignment and Discussion grade items are now synchronized with the grade book using the Update button regardless of whether a change was made. The Update button in Assignments and Discussions evaluations is always available to update, even when no changes were made. This feature also enables instructors to verify that the information between the grade book and the Assignment or Discussion tool is properly synchronized.
Previously, In Brightspace, when an instructor evaluated an assignment, discussion, or quiz using a rubric and saved it as a draft, then added feedback directly in the grade book and saved, the feedback did not sync back to the evaluation page when the instructor clicked Update.
This feature updates the instructor workflow of evaluating a rubric and providing feedback to students. Now, instructors can quickly assess all ungraded Rubric criteria and then go back through to add feedback where necessary. To provide a more streamlined experience for instructors using analytical type rubrics for assessments in the Consistent Evaluation experience for assignments, discussions, and written response quiz questions, the instructor can automatically set ungraded levels to a minimum or maximum value.
From a drop-down beside the rubric name in each assessment pop-out, or from a context menu in Consistent Evaluation, there are two options:
Set Ungraded to [lowest rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the minimum value using the bottom level of the rubric.
Set Ungraded to [top rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the maximum value using the top level of the rubric.
If you have not done so already, please feel free to access our D2L guided instructor training course by clicking the link with the D2L moose on your homepage. At first this training looks barren with only a few items, but as you complete each module a new one will open up! This training goes through the basics of D2L all the way through more advanced tools and is available to all instructors of the college. You will also be entered to win some D2L branded prizes such as a Morris the Moose plushie, travel pillows, and tumbler cups!
If you have not done so already, please feel free to access our D2L guided instructor training course by clicking the link with the D2L moose on your homepage. At first this training looks barren with only a few items, but as you complete each module a new one will open up! This training goes through the basics of D2L all the way through more advanced tools and is available to all instructors of the college. You will also be entered to win some D2L branded prizes such as a Morris the Moose plushie, travel pillows, and tumbler cups!
The recycle bin feature has been added to the Groups tool, allowing for restoration of deleted groups and group categories. Previously, all group deletions were final and unrecoverable.
PTC Has two distinct online proctoring services in addition to offering in-person proctoring at any county campus testing center: Honorlock & Respondus Lockdown Browser
Each proctoring service is unique in which class modalities they should be used for and should never be used on the same exam at the same time.
Honorlock is to be used in Online-only courses for the purpose of fulfilling the federal requirements for PTC to properly identify our distance education students – the ability to help flag cheating is just a welcome bonus!
Edit, August 13th, 2025: Starting Fall 2025 it will also be a requirement that our fully online courses proctor their Syllabus quiz to identify our online students before add-drop periods end!
On the other hand, Respondus Lockdown Browser is to be used for in-person synchronous testing at a PTC computer lab, and it’s main focus is to “lockdown” the student browser to prevent cheating.
The dashboards for both programs are in a different area but both serve the same purpose – making enabling/disabling exams fast and easy. For Honorlock you will need to select “More” on your course’s navigation bar and then “Honorlock” which will pull up a dashboard of all exams in your course. From there, you may select “Enable” next to any exam you’d like to require Honorlock, or check results & settings for exams already enabled.
For Respondus Lockdown Browser you can access the “Lockdown Browser” tab on the “Quizzes” area in D2L. It will also populate with a list of tests you can freely activate/deactivate. Please note that this area contains an option for “Require Respondus Monitor” which should not be used – Respondus Monitor is a separate product that PTC does not have.
These services can be enabled at any time before the test! Best practice is to do a sweep of your courses and enable/disable the tests in your needed service at the start of the semester – you’ll never need to touch them for the rest of that course! Keep an eye out for our “Start of Semester” checklists, there will be a reminder in them to do just that!
Privacy is very important to us and we will never require a student to consent to recording if they are not comfortable with it. If a student does not want to be remotely proctored, they may be sent to the testing center at any county campus. Staff onsite will input a code for the student that will then disable Honorlock, trading the online proctoring for an in-person proctoring session there.
You can allow students to enter a respondus test without respondus using Special Access in D2L. Simply check the “Not Required to Take this Quiz” under “Lockdown Browser” in the special access menu. Remember to give the testing center your test password, they will need it!
NO! The passwords that have “HL_NO_EDIT_####” Schema are set by Honorlock automatically. Students should never be asked for a password for an exam that is set up and taken properly, changing the password or giving it out can make the test completely inaccessible to students or allow them to bypass proctoring all together! Honorlock will automatically insert the password for the student without them even knowing!
Firstly, check to ensure that Honorlock has been enabled on your exam. Honorlock uses the password it generates to associate with the quiz it is connected to, if it is not enabled then Honorlock doesn’t know which password to use!
If your quiz is enabled in Honorlock, it is very likely a student-side issue with not having the required extension installed. If a student starts an exam without Honorlock installed – it will prompt them to install it and provide them with a password box. Once installed, the student may begin the exam!
Honorlock provides 24/7/365 US-Based customer service for both students and instructors alike! Your student may click the “Chat Bubble” at the bottom of the screen during their exam at any time, enter their information, and be connected with a support agent within minutes to receive real-time support for any technical issues once an exam starts.
Honorlock supports most any modern device but older Chromebooks may restrict access to updating Google Chrome to a supported version. In that case, the student will need to take the exam at any county campus testing center. Please note that cellphones, even ones using Google Chrome, cannot be used for Honorlock exams.
You can get additional D2L training by clicking Morris the Moose on your D2L homescreen! This will take you to our guided online instructor training which includes online proctoring and many more topics regarding D2L! Complete it and submit the wufoo form at the end to be entered to win D2L-Branded prizes!
