Search Results

Presented by: Americo Stellato, Peter Atsaves, and Kimberly Pulda This session will go over the idea of faculty and staff working together, normalizing needing resources, and best practices in connecting students to the ARC. Staff and faculty collaboration with connecting students to appropriate resources is an approach that is targeted to the students needs. This integration is important to know whether to connect the students to the Writing Center, Tutoring, Coaching, Office of Disability and Access (ODA), or Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).

Presented by Greg Longo, Kirstie Richman, Jennifer Hennessy-Booth, Jamie Andrews As AI tools like ChatGPT have become widely adopted by students, many faculty and institutions initially turned to AI detectors to maintain academic integrity. However, growing concerns about reliability, false positives, and ethical issues have revealed the limitations of this approach. With Eastern’s new policy; uncoupling AI and academic integrity and the unreliable nature of detection tools, faculty may feel frustrated about addressing unauthorized AI use. This session moves beyond the problems to provide practical, pedagogically sound solutions. Part 1 : Understanding Why AI Detectors Fall Short We'll begin by examining how AI-detection tools work and why they often fail, exploring issues of reliability, false positives, and ethical concerns. This foundation helps us understand why detection-based approaches are problematic and why alternative strategies are needed for both traditional and flex education contexts. Part 2: Human-Centered Assessment Alternatives Building on this understanding, we'll shift focus to learning-centered approaches that emphasize humanness criteria in assessment. Rather than trying to catch AI use, we'll explore how to design assignments and rubrics that authentically assess student learning and encourage genuine engagement. This collaborative segment will provide concrete suggestions while promoting discussion among participants.

Presented by: Laura Thapa and Rebecca Gidjunis Eastern University is making Google Gemini and AgentSpace available for all faculty, staff and students through a FERPA-compliant AI solution. In this session, we’ll discuss the importance of this equitable access, security features, integration with Google Suite, and the future of agentic solutions campus-wide. Meet our new assistant director of applied AI and automation, and start to imagine the ways we might innovate together,

Want to learn the basics of Panopto within Brightspace? Check out this official walkthrough created by Panopto that covers everything from creating videos to adding in-video quizzes to embedding them in your course. Embedding Panopto Videos So you have a video in your Panopto folder that's ready to be added to your course, but you're not sure how to embed it into Content for students to access?  This detailed guide will walk you through the steps of embedding the video within your course. Creating and Embedding Video Quizzes For some of the videos in your course, you may want to ensure students are understanding key concepts that will be important as they progress through the course.  Panopto allows you to create in-video quizzes to assess student learning on concepts covered in your video. To learn how to create an in-video quiz, follow this step-by-step guide. ​ To learn how to embed an in-video quiz in your course, follow this step-by-step guide. Panopto and Course Copy If you've copied a course with Panopto videos, you may notice that the links to embedded videos appear broken. Never fear! There's just one small box you need to check to make those links work in your new course. Follow the steps outlined in the official guide below to complete your course copy with Panopto.

Check out our May Faculty workshop, including the presentation from Dr. C. Edward Watson from the AAC&U on AI in education. Table of Contents: 0:00: Welcome and Worship 32:02: President's Welcome 36:35: Provost's Greeting & Updates 44:26: 5 Minute Flares: Changes to Brightspace 52:33: 5 Minute Flares: Student Learning Assessment Reports 55:27: Speaker Introduction - Provost 1:00:19: Keynote: Embracing AI as Essential Learning 2:20:32: Exploring AI for Teaching and Learning 3:21:41: Anything But Artificial: Critical Thinking, Coaching, and AI

In this issue of the Flex Gazette: Mark your calendars for upcoming faculty training and development opportunities Learn about Eastern University's decision not to renew Turnitin's AI detector and what this means moving forward Get familiar with the new features in your course landing page Explore how AI performs on assignments and get insights on designing AI-resilient tasks Click the Flex Gazette image below, and make sure you are signed in as your Eastern account to see the full newsletter.

In this issue of the Flex Gazette: See what data has to say about what makes a great online lecture Learn how to stay informed about new technologies Learn from Eastern faculty member, Julie Moore, on The What and Who of EDU podcast Get familiar with the new features in Brightspace's Content Click the Flex Gazette image below, and make sure you are signed in as your Eastern account to see the full newsletter.

In this issue of the Flex Gazette: Learn about the Flex Gazette View the Flex course development timeline Implement strategies for building community in your Flex course Explore Honorlock, Eastern University's test proctoring software. Click the Flex Gazette image below, and make sure you are signed in as your Eastern account to see the full newsletter.

When you open your course, you may notice that the course landing page has a bunch of widgets. This guide will walk you through what they are and how to use them.  What is a Widget? A widget tool or object that does one special thing. Each box you see on your Course landing page is a widget. Each one serves its own special focus.  To see your homepage from a student's perspective, click your name at the top of the page, then select "View as Student." To return to your own view, click your name again and then click the "X" next to "Viewing as Student." Click on each widget's name below to learn more about it. Announcements Example announcement with image Announcements appear at the top of your course landing page and display only the first few lines, with a “Read More” button to expand the message. This tool is great for posting class updates, creating instructor presence, and inviting students to engage with other opportunities like webinars or volunteer opportunities. What you need to know Students will not get an email notification when you post an announcement unless they have turned on Brightspace notifications .  Once an announcement has been viewed, users can “dismiss” them so they no longer appear on their screen. This can be done by pressing the X button at the top right of the announcement. If you would like to see a dismissed announcement, you can click the “Show All Announcements” button at the bottom of the widget.  Basics features You can post an announcement  by clicking New Announcement on the course landing page or by going to the announcements tool in the Course Admin section of the class.  Intermediate features Announcements can be set up with start and end dates. These are good if you want to write an announcement ahead of them, you can set it to show up on a specific day. Or if an announcement has information about an event, an end date can be used to make it disappear after the event has ended so it is no longer taking up real estate on your students’ screens.  Advance features Announcements can be set up to use conditional releases  so that only certain populations can see them. For instance, you can set an announcement to be revealed only after a student completes a certain assignment or so that only one group sees them. Announcements can be set up with replace strings  to create a more personalized experience for students. Pro tip : Make your announcements eye-catching. If all you do is walls of text, students aren’t going to notice that you have posted an announcement. Try including an image  in your announcement. It will appear to the left of the text in the preview, creating something eye-catching that will get your students attention.  Introductions Introductions widget The Instructor Profile widget is designed to help students easily connect with their instructors and TAs. It displays information for anyone listed as an instructor or TA in your course's Classlist. What you need to know Students will only see the following information, which is pulled directly from your Brightspace profile .  No other fields will display from your profile. Keep in mind that these details apply across all your courses: Name Profile picture Business phone number (if you've added one and chosen to display it) Homepage (if you've linked a website, like your faculty page or a personal site) Email address If there are instructors or TAs in your Classlist whom you don't want to appear on the widget, you can manually edit which individuals are shown . This setting is course-specific, so it won't affect other courses. Add a custom course message : You can set a text-only message that will appear on the widget. Be aware that this message will not retain any special formatting or line breaks; Brightspace will display it as plain text. This message is also course-specific and won't carry over to other courses. Quick Eval Quick Eval is designed to make it easier for you to grade. Instead of navigating to the assignments or quizzes tab, you can see ungraded work directly on your course landing page. What you need to know Students cannot see this widget. Underneath their announcements widget, they see the Visual Table of Contents.  The Quick Eval widget only shows submissions in Brightspace. If you use an external learning tool such as Harmonize, student submissions will not show up here.  Course Overview Course overview widget The course overview widget is a tool that gives an overview of how the students in your class are engaging with the course. What you need to know Students cannot see this widget. Underneath their introductions widget, they see the calendar. The widget shows limited information on the landing page, but the links to additional data can be worth checking out. Class Engagement Basic Features Example Class Engagement page Get a high-level overview of how the class is doing See the last time a student logged into the class. Email students directly from this page by selecting individual students or the whole class. Intermediate Features Filtering options in Class Engagement Filter the data by clicking the bar(s) of the grade distribution chart to only show students whose current final grade is within that range. And/or click the [Number] students haven’t visited this course in the past 7 days to filter the list to just those who have not logged in in a while.  Pro tip : Use this data to follow up with students. Reach out to students who are struggling or who have not logged in for a while to offer assistance. Or reach out to the top-performing students just to let them know that they are doing a great job and that you have noticed their hard work.  Course Access Basic Features Example Course Access page View statistics about how often your course has been accessed. The Course Access page presents graphical representations of course access, allowing you to quickly grasp overall engagement. Filter the graphs by user type and date range. Customize the displayed data to focus on specific user groups (e.g., students, instructors) or time periods, providing more targeted insights. Tool Access Basic Features Example Tool Access page The Tool Access tool provides a comprehensive overview of how various Brightspace tools are being utilized within your course. This data can help you understand student engagement with different features and inform your course design decisions. The Tool Access page displays a breakdown of views for each Brightspace tool in your course, presented as a percentage of total views and the absolute number of views over the last 12 months. This gives you a quick snapshot of which tools are most and least frequently accessed. Easily see which tools are most popular, such as "Content" and "Manage Files" in the provided example, indicating where students are spending most of their time. In some Brightspace instances, you may be able to filter tool access data by user role (e.g., students, instructors). This helps differentiate how different user groups are interacting with the course tools. Visual Table of Contents The Visual Table of Contents (VTOC) is designed to help students easily track their progress through course content. While visible to both instructors and students, it's primarily intended to enhance the student learning experience. The VTOC displays how far a student has progressed in each content module and provides direct links to the course material. What you need to know Students can click the page icon at the bottom of a module card to be taken directly to their next unvisited content page within that module. This makes navigating your course content much easier. By default, all module cards display your main course banner . It's important to know that Brightspace will crop these images to fit the card size rather than resizing them, and you can't control how they're cropped. T he ideal size (so Brightspace doesn't crop your banner weird) is 1200 pixels x 360 pixels. You can set custom banners for each module. The recommended size is 1200 pixels x 360 pixels. To update your module banners, please visit the module description for each module and add an image anywhere on the module description page. Calendar The calendar helps students by providing a centralized place to view and manage upcoming course work and important dates. It automatically populates with deadlines for various activities, helping everyone stay organized and on track. What you need to know The calendar automatically displays deadlines for assignments, quizzes, and other activities once a due date is set within Brightspace. Students can download a course calendar and import it into personal calendar applications like Google Calendar or iCal. They can find directions for this on our student support site . Important Sync Note:  If you add or change assignment due dates after  a student has downloaded the course calendar to their personal calendar, those updates will reflect in Brightspace's calendar but will NOT automatically update in the student's personal calendar.  Students would need to re-download the calendar to see the new information. To make an assignment or activity appear on the calendar for students, you must assign it a due date in Brightspace. Student Support The Student Support widget is a resource designed to give students easy access to academic, personal, and technical support services. This widget is a fixed feature within your course and is not editable by instructors. Course News This widget creates a pop-up on your course landing page that appears every time a user logs in and accesses the page, unless they've dismissed it. It's an excellent tool for introducing your course, sharing important information, or providing a quick overview. Example pop-up What you need to know The pop-up will only appear for instructors until you add a course unit (formerly called a module) with the word "news" in its title. Once a "News" unit is added, the pop-up will appear for students the first time they enter the course. The pop-up will reappear each time a user accesses the course landing page until they click the Dismiss button at the bottom of the pop-up. Closing the pop-up using the "X" will not dismiss it permanently. If you've dismissed the pop-up and want to see it again, click the button in the Course News widget located on the bottom right of your course landing page. If you add a new page to your "News" unit, the pop-up will reappear for all users (even those who previously dismissed it) until they dismiss it again. All pages within the "News" unit will be displayed in the pop-up. Note:  This widget is best for orientation-style information, not regular announcements. Get a Pre-Made Welcome Page The instructional design team has created a welcome message to help students get started. You can use this message as-is or edit it to be more specific to your class. Follow these directions to use it. Updates The Updates widget provides reminders for both students and instructors, though the information displayed differs based on user role. This widget cannot be edited by instructors. What you need to know Instructors cannot edit the content or settings of this widget. Student View: Shows students when they have new responses to their discussion board posts. Shows students how many quizzes they still need to complete in the course. Instructor View: Provides a number of submitted assignments that still have to be graded Provides information on any broken links detected within the course content. Pro Tip : We recommend regularly checking this widget to ensure there are no broken links in your course. My Course Evaluations This widget provides a direct link to Watermark, our course evaluation system. For most of the term, it simply serves as a convenient access point to their site. However, when the official course evaluation period opens, it transforms into a crucial tool for encouraging student feedback. What you need to know During the term, the widget acts as a direct link to the Watermark system. During the course eval period, a pop-up will automatically appear for students each time they enter the course asking them to complete the course eval. The pop-up will continue to appear every time until they complete their course evaluations. Quiz Printer This appears at the bottom of your class homepage and can be used to create printable versions of Brightspace quizzes. Only instructors can see this widget. Students will not be able to print their own copies of quizzes. This widget is intended for instructors to better support students who have an accommodation for hard copy quizzes (such as those with a concussion).  To use the widget, select the quiz, then select what you would like to include: Answer key - shows the answers to the quiz. Do not select this if you are printing a quiz for student use. Question labels - show the type of question underneath the question text (eg. multiple choice, multi-select, matching, etc.) Quiz description - displays at the top of the quiz and shows the quiz description (if one exists in Brightspace) and any restrictions put on the quiz,  such as time limit. The quiz opens as a webpage. To print it, press CTRL + P on your keyboard (PC) or CMD + P for Mac users. Then select the printer you would like to send it to. Note: you could also choose to save it as a PDF using these keyboard shortcuts. Just select the Save as PDF option in the printer selection.

Signing In On this screen, select the Google icon at the bottom of the page. Every student and faculty member at Eastern University has their own Zoom account.  To access yours, go to eastern.zoom.us  and click Login  in the top right corner. ​ On the next screen, select the option at the bottom of the screen to sign in with Google, then enter your Eastern email address and password. The first time you log in, you will be prompted to join Eastern's account.  Please click Consolidate into Account , then click Continue . ​ After that, you should be logged in.  If you have trouble signing in after following these steps, please contact us at brightspace@eastern.edu ! Hosting a Meeting For New Meetings To host a meeting, click on Host Meeting in the upper right hand corner.  You will then be given the option to start a meeting with your webcam video on or off.  we recommend choosing With Video On, but you can always change your camera settings in the Zoom meeting.  Each time you host a meeting like this, a new Zoom link will be generated, making this method of hosting meetings ideal for non-recurring meetings. In Your Personal Meeting Room You also have the option to host a meeting in your Personal Meeting Room.  You can find your Personal Meeting Room information and host a meeting in it under the Personal Room  tab. This is recommended for hosting online office hours, as the link to your Personal Meeting Room never changes.  Once you provide others with the link, they can access your Personal Meeting Room at any time, though if you are not in the meeting as the host, they will not be allowed in until you start the meeting. ​ You can change your Personal Meeting Room settings by clicking on the Edit  button at the bottom.  Here, you can enable security settings like a waiting room which doesn't allow anyone in the meeting even after you've started it until you let them in.  This is also recommended for online office hours to ensure student confidentiality when they will be discussing their work and grades with you. For Recurring Meetings Recurring meetings are ideal for online class sessions that occur more than once a month.  To schedule a recurring meeting, find the Schedule a Meeting  button on the left side of the screen under the Upcoming  tab. Once you click on that button, you will be presented with a bunch of options for your scheduled meeting.  There are only a few you need to pay close attention to: Topic:  This is the name of your meeting.  For class meetings, we recommend making the topic the name and number of your class. ​ When:  This indicates the day and time your meeting will start.  For classes, this will be the first day your class meets and the start time marked on the syllabus. ​ Duration:  This is how long the meeting will last.  For class meetings, change the duration to match the length of your scheduled class period. ​ Recurring meeting:  For class meetings, remember to check the box next to this item.  This will keep the link active after the meeting ends.  Once you check the box, a drop-down menu will appear with the options Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and No Fixed Time.  For class meetings, select Weekly . ​ Occurs on:  Select the days of the week your class is scheduled to meet. ​ End Date:  Set this to the day after your last class meeting to ensure that the room will not close before the semester is over, but it will close after. When you are finished changing these settings to suit your class, click Save .  If you have multiple classes that will be meeting on Zoom, we recommend setting up one recurring meeting per class. ​ Once you save your meeting settings, your meeting should appear in the Upcoming  tab, ready for you to start when the time comes. Sharing a Meeting There are multiple ways to share a meeting with others.  This video goes over several ways to share a Zoom link with your desired participants. ​ For class meetings, we strongly suggest adding your class Zoom link to your Brightspace site and making it a prominent feature by linking to it in your introduction module or by making a separate module for the Zoom link and any meeting recordings.  This way, it is easy for students to find and use the link when they need it. Recording a Meeting For class sessions, you may want to consider recording your Zoom meetings for students so they can play back and review the material discussed during class.  To do this, you will need to be the host or co-host of a Zoom meeting. You should see a circle icon that says Record in the bottom panel.  It will give you two options when you click on it:  Record on this Computer  and Record to the Cloud .  Both options have pros and cons, but whatever you decide to use works perfectly fine. Record on this Computer This option will save your recording to your computer's files.  Unless you specify otherwise in Zoom's settings, recordings will download to  Documents > Zoom  after the meeting has ended.  We have found that videos recorded on the computer have a higher video quality, however they take up storage space on your device and are only accessible on the device they were recorded on, unless you upload them to a place you can access at any time.  They will remain accessible on your device until you delete them. ​ This option is best suited for those recording short lecture videos. Record to the Cloud This option will save your recording to Zoom's cloud storage, which you can access on the Recordings  page when you log in to your Zoom account.  We have found that videos recorded to the cloud have a slightly lower video quality than those recorded to the computer, however they do not take up any storage space on your device, and they are accessible to watch and download from any device that you have logged in to Zoom.  These recordings are only accessible for 30 days. ​ This option is best suited to those recording longer live class sessions. Audio and Video Speaker and Microphone On the bottom far left of the Zoom window, you will see a microphone icon.  By clicking on the microphone, you can mute and unmute yourself.  It is best practice to mute yourself when someone else is speaking. When you click on the arrow next to the microphone, a bunch of options will appear.  Here, you can make sure that your speaker and microphone are correct by selecting Test Speaker and Microphone  and following the two prompts it gives you.  You should be able to hear both the ringtone and your own voice when prompted. Camera On the right of the microphone icon is a camera icon.  By clicking on the camera, you can turn your video on and off.  It is best practice to turn your video off when you step away from your device during a meeting.  Students participating in class on Zoom must have their cameras on to count towards participation, unless they have been given prior permission to keep their camera off by the professor. When you click on the arrow next to the camera, a bunch of options will appear.  Here, you can make sure that your camera is correct if you are using an external webcam or an additional camera. You can also choose to blur your background or choose a virtual background if your current background is messy, if people may be walking in and out of frame behind you, or just because! Share Screen In the center of the options at the bottom of the Zoom window, you will see a green box and arrow icon labeled Share Screen .  By clicking on it, you will be able to choose which view from your device to share with the rest of the participants in the meeting.  This feature is most often used to show PowerPoints, play videos, and perform a live demonstration of a website or software. If you are sharing a video, remember to check the boxes at the bottom of the Share Screen window that say Share sound  and Optimize for video clip  before clicking the blue Share  button.  If you don't, participants will not be able to hear the video you are playing, and the video quality may be grainy or choppy. If you want students to be able to share their screen to present a project, you can allow them to do so by clicking the arrow next to the Share Screen  icon, clicking Advanced Sharing Options  and selecting the option for All participants  to have permission to share their screen. Zoom Features Breakout Rooms Breakout rooms allow you to divide students into small groups for discussions.  This video will walk you through the steps of creating breakout rooms and the interactions available within them.  Please note that while this video was recorded using an older version of Zoom that may look different to the current version, the Breakout Rooms icon and all of the steps mentioned remain the same. Whiteboards Zoom Whiteboards allow you and your meeting participants to collaborate in real time during and after class on diagrams, study guides, problem solving activities, and more! While this video is geared more toward businesses in its example use cases, it showcases how you and your students can collaborate using sticky notes, comments, flowcharts, and images to create a living document that everyone can refer back to for studying. Live Captioning One way to make your Zoom meetings more accessible is to enable auto live captioning. This video covers a variety of topics related to accessibility features in Zoom, including how to enable auto live captioning and how to allow participants to download the transcript of the video so they can easily refer back to the lesson material later. Polls Polls allow participants to share their thoughts with you in real time.  They can be used as a mini quiz to see where students are in terms of understanding the class period's material, an exit slip, a reading check, or an evaluation of the class or themselves. This video shows you how to create polls in Zoom and use them during meetings, as well as how to make responses to polls anonymous if you wish. Classroom Computers If you are hosting a Zoom meeting in one of Eastern University's classrooms, select Audio Settings from the microphone menu , then click Advanced .  Find the setting that says Signal processing by Windows audio device drivers  and change it from Auto  to Off (Windows - Raw) .  This allows for the best audio quality in our classrooms. Security Settings As with anything online, there are always security factors to keep in mind.  Luckily, Zoom has a plethora of security settings to ensure that anyone who is not in your class is unable to join, and that those who are in your class are appearing appropriately. ​ If you are a host in a meeting, you can change the meeting's security settings by clicking on the shield icon next to the camera in the options bar at the bottom of the Zoom window. Lock Meeting This option disallows anyone who isn't already in the meeting room.  Make sure all students who will be attending that day are in the meeting room before you select this option.  If a student leaves the classroom for whatever reason, most notably for electrical or internet-related issues and needs to rejoin, remember to unlock the meeting or they will not be allowed back in. Enable Waiting Room This option places those who are trying to enter the meeting on hold until you as the host decide whether or not to allow them in. Hide Profile Pictures When cameras are off, Zoom will display a person's profile picture.  If a student's profile picture is inappropriate, you have the option to hide all profile pictures. From this security menu, you are also able to toggle participant permissions such as screensharing, sending chat messages to one another, renaming themselves, unmuting themselves, turning their cameras on, and participating in Whiteboards.  You can also suspend all participant activities if necessary, turning off all video, audio, screensharing, recording, and breakout groups, but hopefully your students will participate in an appropriate manner and you won't ever need to use that feature. ​ When there are participants in the meeting, the security menu will also show an option to Remove Participant  so you can kick out any unwanted guests in your class session.  You can also remove participants, mute them, and turn their cameras off from the Participants  tab which is located directly to the right of the Security icon. Have a question about Zoom that wasn't answered here? Contact james.hoffmayer@eastern.edu .

April 23, 2025 Join us for an introductory session on our report-generating software, CROA. We’ll cover how to use existing reports, adjust parameters, and understand our sometimes quirky data labels in order to better analyze trends and plan ahead.

March 12, 2025 The session will focus on the changing demographics of our student population, within the context of larger higher ed trends and current projections. The presentation will particularly hone in on the relevance of these shifts to faculty, especially in relation to student retention and persistence to graduation. Our presenter(s) will demystify this information and illustrate how this knowledge can be helpful to faculty in their daily work with students.