Blackboard – IT Connect

Important Changes to Courses.SMU

UPDATE:

Due to an unprecedented chain of events yesterday, June 29th, SMU was unable to login to Canvas for several hours. The connection between SMU and Canvas has since been restored.

These events yesterday disrupted our expected timeline, and in order to recover and move forward, access to Blackboard via courses.smu.edu has been removed 24 hours earlier than scheduled. If you need your materials off of Blackboard, please contact your academic technology director in your college, or put in a ticket at the Helpdesk.

Direct Support Contacts:
James Pan	Dedman School of Law/Perkins School of Theology	pan@smu.edu	214.768.1820
Jeff Liew	Cox School of Business	jliew@smu.edu	214.768.4770
Scott Martin	Simmons School of Education	smartin@smu.edu	214.768.4864
Merlin Wilkerson	Lyle School of Engineering	merlin@smu.edu	214.768.8649
Mousumi Tanha	Meadows School of Arts	mtanha@smu.edu	214.768.2548
Michael Robertson	Dedman College	robertsonm@smu.edu	214.768.1148
Steve Snider	Guildhall	ssnider@smu.edu	214.768.1879

July 1st is going to be a big day for learning management systems at SMU. There will be some significant changes to Courses.SMU as we move away from Blackboard to Canvas. As advertised throughout the 2015-2016 academic year, the following changes will take effect on June 30th.

Continue reading Important Changes to Courses.SMU

SMU is a 100% Canvas Campus.

Canvas As graduation ceremonies reached their culmination on May 14th, Southern Methodist University officially graduated into the next era of course management. Consistent with the announcement and transition plan set forth in last August’s message to faculty from the Office of the Provost, I’m pleased to announce that Canvas has been implemented as the sole course management system for university sources of record. If you haven’t heard by now, Canvas is a cloud-based course management system which offers a modern interface designed to better support the increased teaching and learning demands of higher education in functions such as blended learning, “flipping classrooms,” and providing a more robust overall framework for online education and distance learning activities.

After 12 years of long and faithful service, Blackboard is officially retired from course management duty; no further course shells or course enrollment data will be populated into Blackboard. Starting immediately, all course shells and course enrollment data will be published exclusively to Canvas. For faculty still needing to export course materials from Blackboard for use in Canvas, Blackboard (http://courses.smu.edu) will remain openly accessible for faculty access until June 30th, 2016. If you have any remaining materials on Blackboard, please proceed to retrieve them as soon as possible. If you need assistance with this transition, please contact 214.768.HELP or email help@smu.edu as early as possible, as our time before now and the fall semester will become increasingly limited.

In conjunction with this transition to Canvas, SMU’s embedded Academic Technology Service Directors in each academic unit are in the process of contacting each and every SMU faculty member to ensure that plans are being made to accommodate the transition along existing project timelines. If you require direct consultation navigating this transition and have not yet connected with your department’s Academic Technology Service Director to make a plan, please refer below to the contact for your school or college:

Meadows School of Arts	Mousumi Tanha	mtanha@smu.edu
Cox School of Business	Jeff Liew	jliew@smu.edu
Dedman School of Law	James Pan	pan@smu.edu
Dedman College	Dr. Michael Robertson	robertsonm@smu.edu
Simmons School of Education	Scott Martin	smartin@smu.edu
Perkins School of Theology	James Pan	pan@smu.edu
Lyle School of Engineering	Merlin Wilkerson	merlin@smu.edu

Please make time between now and June 30th to export any and all course materials you’ll need in any future course. Do not delay! Being sure that you’re prepared now will save anxiety later on.

SMU faculty and students can login to Canvas using SMU campus login credentials. For SMU courses of record, course shells, instructors, TA’s and students are all automatically populated from enrollment data from my.SMU. Between now and continuing into the fall term, OIT will be offering webinars and in-class Canvas training opportunities which cover basic usage to more advanced topics such as utilization of the Gradebook and Assignments. Please find a training that meets your needs here. If you require individual training or coaching—don’t worry—your Academic Technology Services Directors will be hosting and scheduling Canvas Open Labs within each school as well to help you directly with Canvas course migrations.

SMU will retain Blackboard course archives for five years—special archive recovery services will be available after June 30th, but Blackboard archives will not be immediately accessible for use. Faculty may submit individual tickets to the SMU IT Helpdesk for recovery of past Blackboard course materials. Please contact the main SMU IT Helpdesk if you need further assistance at 214.768.HELP or by emailing help@smu.edu.

Important Upcoming Canvas Dates:

May 12, 2016	Spring 2016 Term Closes
May 13, 2016	Canvas transforms into sole course management system for courses of record at SMU (No further my.SMU enrollment data published to Blackboard)
May 13, 2016 to June 30, 2016	Blackboard (http://courses.smu.edu) still openly available to SMU faculty community for the purpose of course material recovery and for faculty to be able to export past course materials for future usage or archiving
July 1, 2016	Blackboard (http://courses.smu.edu) will no longer be available for open access to SMU community. http://courses.smu.edu will be re-directed to SMU Canvas login splash page

New In-Depth Canvas Sessions Announced

Need some more assistance with the finer points of SMU’s new Canvas LMS? OIT has scheduled additional training sessions over the summer that cover advanced topics ranging from grade books to modules. Just like the basics sessions OIT has given through the spring semester, these summer sessions are walk-in only, so stop by on any of the dates!

Below is a list of the upcoming sessions, their locations, and their dates and times. For any questions regarding these sessions, please contact your academic technology liaison in your department.

Schedule of Courses

June 3, 1PM	Intro to Canvas (Condensed)	Crow 186
June 3, 2PM	Assignments & Grade Book	Crow 186
June 6, 10AM	Quizzes	Hughes-Trigg
June 6, 11AM	Mastering Modules	Hughes-Trigg
June 13, 2PM	Intro to Canvas (Condensed)	Webinar
June 23, 10AM	Intro to Canvas (Condensed)	Webinar
July 11, 3PM	Canvas Course Set-Up Workshop	Crow 186
July 11, 2PM	Assignments & Grade Book	Crow 186
July 20, 10AM	Quizzes	Crow 186
July 20, 11AM	Mastering Modules	Crow 186
July 28, 10AM	Assignments & Grade Book	Crow 186
July 28, 11AM	Canvas Course Set-Up Workshop	Crow 186
August 5, 1PM	Intro to Canvas (Condensed)	Crow 186
August 5, 2PM	Assignments & Grade Book	Crow 186
August 8, 2PM	Quizzes	Crow 186
August 8, 3PM	Matering Modules	Crow 186
August 8, 4PM	Assignments & Grade Book	Crow 186

Canvas Readiness Update

Support for courses within Blackboard
will end in

motionmailapp.com

SMU CANVAS: Are you ready?

As the countdown quickly continues toward the imminent decommissioning of Blackboard in June, increasing numbers of faculty are taking advantage of OIT’s Canvas workshops and learning to build (and rebuild!) courses in our new system. Over 100 faculty members have attended OIT’s hands-on training to date while many others have successfully utilized online resources. OIT’s training sessions will continue every week and into the fall semester—and other “conversion camps” and Canvas learning opportunities will be scheduled soon.

Now is the time to start making plans for moving your Blackboard courses and materials into Canvas for future terms. If you have not yet become familiar with Canvas or attended a training session, if you have not yet created a plan to download or consolidate your previous Blackboard course files, if you have not yet requested a Canvas “sandbox” course shell—the time is now! Continue reading Canvas Readiness Update

Canvas is Now: Learn, Prepare & Build

SMU’s transition to Canvas is rapidly moving forward. Formal weekly Canvas training workshops began in early January and will continue through September. Roadshow sessions and “convert to Canvas labs” will be offered throughout May and June and customized departmental Canvas training sessions may be requested. OIT’s embedded academic technology team, in partnership with the Center for Teaching Excellence, is gearing up to provide expanded support and instructional design consultation to assist and to ensure SMU’s educators can capably LEARN Canvas, PREPARE course materials, and BUILD courses with this exciting new SMU cloud system. If you are an instructor who has yet to begin preparations for using Canvas, the time to begin is now.

After the current term, SMU courses will be published exclusively for use within Canvas. Blackboard will no longer be available for open use after this semester. As of June 30th, 2016, Blackboard—and all course materials and information stored therein—will no longer be openly accessible to educators or students.

How should faculty proactively prepare for changing to Canvas?

Do not wait until the last minute. Prepare now. All educators currently have unrestricted and open access to previous course materials in Blackboard. However, waiting until the last minute will result in frustrations and challenges which are entirely avoidable and will result in unfavorable teaching experiences for educators and students alike. While SMU’s academic technology team, training team, help desk and instructional designers are available to assist educators and students through the transition to Canvas, educators must begin learning Canvas in order to ensure the best and smoothest experience in building out courses in the new system.

Canvas Preparation Elements:

Learn Canvas
Prepare Course Materials for Canvas
Build Courses in Canvas

LEARN CANVAS. The more you learn about Canvas and its capabilities, the more Canvas can be used to serve you and your students in your classes. Though many faculty have already chosen to “jump in” and find Canvas to be highly accessible and intuitive, attending a training session, participating in an online Canvas class or watching self-paced online tutorials will help grow your own broad awareness of the powers (and subtle nuances) of SMU’s new LMS. Please take advantage of these resources:

Workshops	Canvas Resources	Request Departmental Training
Online Training	Canvas Community	SMU Canvas Page

We hope to see you at one of our workshops and labs soon!

Continue Reading: Preparing & Building Courses in Canvas.

02/12/2016: Post updated with reference to faculty.
03/10/2020: Updated course link(s) from Lynda.com to LinkedIn Learning