IT Department Blog

As you begin creating your spring syllabi in our new Simple Syllabus platform, we want to ensure you have clear guidance on how to access and start working on your syllabi—both directly and through Canvas.

Mark your calendars for December 6th at 10 a.m. and join us for a live event featuring Provost Dr. John Wall, as we dive into the new Simple Syllabus platform!

Creating accessible content is an essential part of effective teaching in higher education. Canvas Studio now offers automatic captioning to make your media files more inclusive and user-friendly. This feature not only enhances accessibility for students with hearing impairments but also supports learning preferences for non-native speakers, visual learners, and others who benefit from captions.

If you are one of the users who’ve experienced an unexpected screen rotation when opening your FSCJ Windows laptop, you’re not alone! Several users have reported that when they pick up their laptops, the screen unexpectedly rotates, making it difficult to use.

As part of our course archival process in Canvas, it’s important to ensure that all course materials are securely backed up and easily accessible for future reference. This guide will walk you through the steps to export and import Canvas courses, providing a reliable way to save your course content for subsequent use. Additionally, instructions are included to help you access your files and folders through Microsoft OneDrive using your FSCJ credentials. 

We are very excited to announce the adoption of Simple Syllabus as FSCJ’s improved process for creating, submitting, and sharing course syllabi. Simple Syllabus will replace the FSCJ Online Syllabus Builder, and instructors are required to use Simple Syllabus for all syllabus creation and submission starting with the Spring 2025 term. 

A recent Canvas update caused some inconsistencies in discussion settings, where certain discussions may have had threading disabled unintentionally. If you created a discussion intending to allow threaded replies but found this option disabled, you can correct it by unchecking the "Disallow Threaded Replies" setting when editing your discussion.

Recent updates to Canvas include enhancements focused on usability and readability for FSCJ faculty. Key improvements include the option to disallow threaded replies in discussions, visual separators between discussion posts for better clarity, and a generative AI-powered discussion summarization tool. Additionally, the Smart Search feature enhances search functionality, while updates to SpeedGrader and the Gradebook improve grading efficiency with features like draft indicators for comments and streamlined messaging options.

As you embrace and begin the transition to Simple Syllabus, here is a high level view of the top 5 steps to get you started.

Here are the top questions and answers to common questions posed as we transition to Simple Syllabus at FSCJ.

Users now have two options for screen recording in Canvas, the traditional Screencast-o-matic that you may already by used to and Studio Capture. Canvas Studio Capture for Chrome and Edge browsers is a new option for integrated screen capture available in Canvas. Studio Capture integrates with your existing webcam and eliminates the need to download a separate screen capture product.

Are you confident your Canvas page, assignment, or quiz meets our accessibility standards? Do you know how to easily extend time if a student requests more attempts or additional time for a quiz? How about extending a due date for a student who needs just a few more days to submit? And, while in BigBlueButton, do you know where to customize your experience?

Join Brandi and Jeniah as we discuss simple solutions to each of these common requests.

Turnitin has just announced the upcoming launch of our AI paraphrasing detection capability. It aims to help educators identify potential AI misconduct and advance student learning by providing updated data and insights on the use of AI in student submissions. This capability is an extension of their AI writing detection feature and will become available from July 16, 2024.

The new Webex Suite meeting platform was recently enabled for all FSCJ users, bringing new features and an improved user interface. This new platform merges the Webex App with Webex Meetings into a single, unified application while introducing improvements to your experience.

This update relocates the menu options to make them more contextual, better management of panels for easier access, and choose the ability to choose what to share on your screen.

IT’s Digital Media Productions team is partnering with the AI Advisory Council to produce a new series of podcasts looking at the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on higher ed.