by Bethany Voorhees | Oct 2, 2023 | Faculty
Get your finances in check with the help of webinars offered by TIAA. Take a look at the list of days and times for the fourth quarter this year, and how to register to attend. You can find webinar times and register for upcoming sessions at TIAA.org/webinars.
Submitted by: Bethany Voorhees, executive associate, President’s Office
by Genevieve Fontana | Oct 2, 2023 | Faculty
Food for thought: today, we highlight eco-heroine Dr. Malini Suchak and her work as a Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) member and sustainability leader on campus. The GFPP promotes an equitable food system prioritizing health and well-being for people, animals and the environment. The organization aims to create more transparency regarding the supply chain and food moving from the farm to your plate. The campaign encourages large institutions to use their buying power to support the following values: local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition. While sustainability initiatives can sometimes come with a higher price tag, programs must be in place that align with our values and encourage individuals to make earth-friendly choices, ensuring a more sustainable and environmentally conscious future. Public schools, prisons and hospitals are examples of large public institutions that are highly encouraged to join the program.
Suchak became involved with this campaign after working for animal welfare at the federal level. Her role as a member of the organization is to spread awareness and provide outreach opportunities. She also shares her expertise on animal welfare, one of the campaign’s core values. In our conversation, we talked about the importance of eating locally: not only is local food more fresh and tastes better, but your dollars stay local as the money returns to your community. It is also better from an environmental standpoint, because less travel for the food helps to reduce carbon emissions.
Suchak has taken her passion for sustainability into our campus community by creating the Canisius Native Plant Project; you can see the fruits of her labor in this beautiful garden outside the library filled with native pollinator-friendly plants. Suchak emphasizes the importance of having these opportunities as a part of campus life, saying it is a “win, win, win! It is a win for the environment resource for pollinators, seeds birds can eat in the winter and a win aesthetically bringing people a lot of joy when walking by the garden.”
Soon, Suchak hopes to expand the project to another location on campus, and she mentioned potentially partnering with our landscapers, Elbers, to help sustain these gardens for the long term. Suchak reminds us as members of the Canisius community that it is hard to make a difference at the individual level: when many folks work together, we make the greatest impact.
Submitted by: Genevieve Fontana, USA Sustainability President
by Tyler Kron-Piatek | Oct 2, 2023 | Faculty
In D2L, there are two tools to give students more time to complete Quizzes: Special Access and Accommodations.
Special Access should be used for specific activities and one-time situations, such as personal emergencies. For example, let us say a close family member of a student became ill and went to the hospital on the same day as a D2L Quiz is due. Instead of building a new quiz for that student, you can give them special access to the original quiz. You can set it so that they have access to the quiz at a specific date or set it so that they have time from the date you set up the special access until a later date. You can also give students Special Access to a Dropbox. View this video to learn more about Special Access or take a look at the Special Access Text Tutorial.
You can potentially use Special Access to provide a group of students with an alternative quiz or Dropbox assignment as well. In the Manage Special Access pop-up, above the Add Users to Special Access, there is the option to Allow only users with special access to see this quiz/folder. This could be useful if, for example, several students are on a sports team and are going to be missing the quiz. Or maybe you want to provide several different versions of a mid-term or final exam. If you are interested in providing different materials, activities, or exams throughout the semester (maybe because you are teaching a merged course), please contact COLI to discuss this further.
On the other hand, D2L Accommodations should be used for students who consistently require extra time on Quizzes. This can be especially useful if you are contacted by the Student Accessibility Services on behalf of a student to request the student be given more time on all quizzes or exams. Instead of spending time adding Special Access permissions for each individual quiz for this student, you can give this student a D2L Accommodation. You only must give this Accommodation once. D2L will understand this to mean that, if a student does a quiz, they should get an increased amount of time specified in their D2L Accommodation. View this video for more information on Accommodations or take a look at the Accommodations Text Tutorial.
In short, Special Access should be used on a specific Quiz or Dropbox to allow a student that has missed a deadline to access it at or until a later date. The Accommodations Tool should be used to give a specific student extended time on each Quiz or Exam in D2L as dictated by Student Accessibility Services.
Submitted by: Tyler Kron-Piatek, Instructional Designer, COLI
by Tyler Kron-Piatek | Oct 2, 2023 | Faculty
With midterms coming up, it may be useful to review these features of D2L Quizzes and Dropboxes.
D2L Quizzes provides a robust tool to grade quizzes easier and quicker. Some features can help prevent cheating to a degree, like basic question randomization and advanced question randomization. If you want to use questions from a previous exam or quiz, the Question Library lets you copy questions to the mid-term. Additionally, for faster grading, you can connect the Quiz to the gradebook. You can also have your students sign an Academic Integrity Pledge before continuing to the Midterm. Customize the Quiz Result display to show students what questions they got and see where they need to brush up on their studying.
Please note that if you allow automatic grading of your exam, D2L will not automatically grade written responses. Those need to be graded manually. Inform your students that the grade they have immediately after completing the exam is not reflective of their overall grade. If you want to see all of the tutorials on the D2L Quiz tool that COLI has compiled, check the Online Quizzes and Exams in the Quizzes Tool Section.
D2L Dropboxes are a great way to receive student work in various formats but more notably PDFs, Microsoft Office files, JPGs or PNGs. You can also restrict the types of files the dropbox will accept. Attach the dropbox to the grade book or use a D2L Rubric and attach it to the dropbox for faster grading.
For more information on D2L Dropboxes, check out the Collecting Assignments in Dropboxes Section. For tutorials on D2L Rubrics, check out the Using Rubrics Section. If you would prefer, you can also sign up for COLI workshops or sign up for a Consultation with one of COLI’s staff members.
COLI has compiled other resources on the various tool sets in D2L. Check the D2L Self-paced Training for Faculty and Staff Wiki page.
Submitted by: Tyler Kron-Piatek, Instructional Designer, COLI
