by Yvonne Widenor | Oct 13, 2021 | Faculty
Please join ArtsCansius as we invite everyone to explore a collection of illustrated Bibles, devotions, journals and #tinyscripturedoodles created by Nichole Auquier currently on view in the Peter A. and Mary Lou Vogt Gallery in the Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library. The pages of each book offers us a window into Auquier’s spiritual journey. New pages will be revealed weekly during the semester.
The Art History program will host a Makerspace and offer students, faculty and staff an opportunity to illustrate their personal Bibles, books and journals. Stay tuned for the event’s announcement. Auquier will join us that afternoon and offer her insight and experiences.
Submitted by: Yvonne K. Widenor, M.A., visiting assistant professor and art history program director, Fine Arts Department
by Mary Braun | Oct 13, 2021 | Faculty
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Canisius College has created an Airborne Infectious Disease Exposure Plan, which provides the details on the health and safety protections put in place for employees.
The training event will provide Canisius employees with an overview of the HERO Act requirements, symptoms and transmission paths of the disease and the key components of Canisius’ exposure control plan. Training is strongly recommended for all Canisius College employees.
The training is scheduled for Wednesday, October 27, from 2:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. To register for the training, click here. If you have any questions, please contact Mary Braun at braun5@canisius.edu or Ext. 2247.
Submitted by: Mary Braun, generalist, Human Resources
by Michele Folsom | Oct 13, 2021 | Faculty
ITS will be applying Banner Software upgrades to our production environment, on Sunday October 17, 2021 from 6:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. During this maintenance window, the Banner Application and Self-Service Banner (Student Profile, timesheets, leave balances, etc) will be unavailable, all other systems will be accessible.
The ITS systems status page, found in the dark blue top section of the portal, will be updated accordingly.
If you encounter any issues post upgrade, please contact the help desk at helpdesk@canisius.edu or at 888-8340.
Submitted by: Michele Folsom, director, Administrative Computing, ITS
by Tyler Kron-Piatek | Oct 13, 2021 | Faculty
A fairly lightweight, manageable place to upgrade your courses in spring 2021 (or even now, in Fall) is the D2L Gradebook. You’re probably already using it, but in our D2L Grades workshop, and Self-Paced Training Video Set, we offer a bunch of tips for making it easier to use, and more effective in transmitting feedback to students.
Students appreciate having their grades reported through D2L. It may seem like they could properly track their grades on their own, but they are juggling multiple classes, together with additional responsibilities in the Covid-19 era. Properly using the D2L Gradebook can eliminate a lot of additional and exhausting work that accumulates day-to-day, such as frequent, student-prompted conversations about “how they are doing,” and repetitive procedural announcements in class or through D2L.
You can use the grades tool in various ways to build a gradebook best suited to your classes and teaching. Some faculty opt for a simple points-based addition system. For example, there are nine grade items, each of varying points value. At any time students can add together the graded materials for a quick understanding of their current situation in the course. Or a more complex gradebook can calculate a student’s average grade based on assignments, or even categories of assignments, each weighted differently. If you drop the lowest score or scores in a set of assignments, D2L can manage that for you, as well. At the end of the semester, you need only make a final letter-grade determination (consulting D2L’s calculations) to enter into the Final Grades screen outside D2L.
Recording grades in an Excel spreadsheet may seem easier, but this does not report to students their progress, nor calculate for you their cumulative or average grades. Plus, if grades are entered into D2L, they can always be exported to an Excel spreadsheet for safekeeping or other purposes.
If you build a gradebook in a course once, you need not do it again the following semester, since the gradebook structure copies along with other course content.
We cover all of this in our D2L Grades Workshop. These are great opportunities to ask questions about gradebooks you currently have, too. And as always, you can make an appointment with us if you’d like to discuss more comprehensive changes to your grading structure in D2L.
Submitted by: Tyler J. Kron-Piatek, academic technologist, COLI
