Stay informed with the latest CAES news about GSU Blackboard, Collaborate Ultra, VoiceThread, Respondus, Via and other online teaching and learning software.
Summer 2022 Term - Ends
August 14, 2022 marks the last day of the Summer 2022 semester.
Final Grades are due by August 21, 2022.
Pearson MyLab and Mastering News: Threaded Discussion feature change
Your MyLab® and Mastering® courses are getting upgraded with better usability, accessibility, navigation and course management. Part of the upgrade includes retiring some of the least-used features in our courses, including Threaded Discussions. That feature will no longer be available in your course copied after July 1, 2022 . If you use this feature, please read this entire message for important information about what you need to do for this change.
To help you transition, please do the following:
If you’d like to keep your existing discussions, you can do one of the below:
1. Print and save them as Adobe PDF files.
2. Copy/paste each thread into a Word document to preserve this text data.
If you would like to use the Discussion Board during your summer classes — please make sure you make your summer course copies prior to July 1, 2022. If you don’t copy your summer courses before this time, your new course copies will not include Threaded Discussions.
Even if you use Threaded Discussions in your summer courses, please do make sure you make alternate plans for your Fall 2022 term (like using a Discussion Tool via your campus Learning Management or Student Information System to collaborate with students).
If you have any questions, please contact Pearson Support.
VoiceThread Account Clean-up
Starting on July 1, VoiceThread will be implementing a data clean-up policy that might result in some inactive accounts being deleted. The following policies will apply to users under our license:
-Account has never been accessed: Will be deleted 1 year after it was created.
-Account has been accessed but no content has been created: Will be deleted after 1 year of inactivity.
-Account owner has created content: Will be deleted after 2 years of inactivity. The owner of the account will be notified by email 30 days in advance so they can take action if they would like. If someone wants to ensure their account is not deleted automatically, all they need to do is sign in at least once per year.
Fall 2022 Course Creation and Instructor Enrollment
Fall 2022 courses are created and ready for Instructors to build their online, hybrid, or web-enhanced courses.
Students will not be enrolled into Blackboard until 8/8/22, but will not have access to Fall 2022 courses until 8/29/22.
Fall 2022 Cross-listing Deadline
The automated process that produces Blackboard shells for Fall 2022 is approaching! This means the Blackboard courses will soon be available so Instructors can begin preparing courses to teach. The cross-listing deadline is June 15, 2022. Course shells will be available June 22, 2022.
In preparation for this automated process, we ask your cooperation in completing the Colleague cross-listing process for any courses you are planning to cross-list for Fall semester. Reminder: all cross-listings must be approved by the Department chair.
**If cross-listing is not completed by the deadline, the system will create multiple Blackboard shells, which may be confusing to both students and instructors.**
If you cross-list before the deadline, however, there will be only one shell created in Blackboard. This is a better situation for both instructors and students, so that no confusion arises about what shell either instructors or students should be working in during Fall semester.
Please note: Once the cross-listing courses are entered into Colleague, please refrain from making any changes to the "primary course status" of the courses. Making changes to the cross-listed sections after the courses have been created, will also generate multiple courses in Blackboard. Doing so has major implications for Colleague, the Registrar and Blackboard.
If changes occur after June 15, please contact blackboard@govst.edu so that we can make any appropriate adjustments.
Your cooperation is highly appreciated by The Center for Active Engagement and Scholarship! We look forward to working with you for a successful Fall 2022 semester.
Summer 2022 Term - Begins
Today marks the first day of the fall semester. Students will not be able to access summer 2022 courses in their Blackboard Course List until May 16, 2022. Please note, late start courses will be available in Blackboard on the date the late start course begins.