31 March 2015
Lecture recording analytics
The Echo360 analytics function provides valuable information on how students in your course are engaging with lecture recordings. Statistics available include unique viewers, total views and the average percentage of the recording viewed. The usage heat map identifies "hot spots" and "warm spots" where students have paused or replayed the recording, helping you identify concepts students may be having difficulty with.
Recording analytics are only available to the staff member identified as the course coordinator in the timetable. View the Echo360 recordings analytics guide for further information.
Engaging assignment feedback
Brian McNamara shares his thoughts on marking assignments online, using UQ’s Turnitin Grademark tool. Brian is a tutor for POLS1201 which has 427 students. Brian reported how online marking not only improved his marking speed, but gave richer feedback and improved engagement. Improved student engagement resulted from use of personal voice comments, and comment banks. Watch Video (2:53)
For further information refer to the Turnitin guide.
Reflecting on Industry Placement
Students in Dr Rebecca Laws’ course reflected on their industry placements, sharing experiences with other students, using a Blackboard blog assignment. In the video below Rebecca shares her views on the benefits and considerations of blogs for student reflection, based on the experiences in her Environmental Management course. Watch Video (2:56)
For further information refer to the online Blogs guide.
Change to reading lists
There has recently been an update to reading lists within Learn.UQ courses so only lists for the current semester are displayed.
The reading list application has many useful features to help students manage their readings. Consider adding a link to the online tutorial to your course.
Tips for assessment items
Reuse assessment items
Turnitin assignments, Blackboard assignments and Tests are copied into your current course from the previous semester for reuse by default. The following guides provide step-by-step instructions on how to reuse these assignments in the current semester: Reuse Turnitin Assignments, Reused Blackboard Assignments and Reuse Tests.
Control the release of marks
To control the release of results from Turnitin, Blackboard Assignments and Tests you need to set both the individual tool settings and the Grade Centre column setting Show / Hide to users. View the relevant Turnitin, Blackboard Assignment and Tests guides for step-by-step instructions.
Mark oral assessments online
Coordinators can mark oral presentations online with Turnitin, or any other form of assessment that doesn’t require a file submission by the student. View the guides Create a Turnitin assignment (no file submission) and Mark no file submission assignments.
Update student lists in Turnitin
Turnitin assignments only contain the students who were in your course when the assignment was created. Use the Roster Sync function to update your class list before your students start submitting. View the Turnitin Roster Sync guide for step-by-step instructions.
Digital rubric design
Help with designing digital rubrics is available from ITaLI (formerly TEDI), email: itali@uq.edu.au or view the Practical guidelines for designing rubrics resource.
Tests: DO NOT use hot spot questions
Staff are reminded not to use Hot Spot questions when setting up online tests. This question type does not work if students use Internet Explorer.
Custom workshops
ITS offers custom workshops on centrally supported eLearning tools on request for faculties / schools/ courses. Workshops for tutors on online marking for example have been very popular recently.
View the Custom workshops page for details and contact Ailsa Dickie, a.dicke1@uq.edu.au to make a booking.
Recent Blackboard outage
Learn.UQ experienced reduced availablity on Sunday 19 April until Tuesday 21 April. Vendors provided a solution to the underlying database issue that resolved the problem by 8:00pm Tuesday 21 April. ITS apologises for the inconvenience to staff and students.
Next Blackboard upgrade in July 2015 Inter semester Recess
The next Blackboard upgrade will occur on the first weekend in July 2015. This will be during the Inter Semester Recess on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 July. There are no additional scheduled upgrades until November 2016. We will provide further details though emails, our upgrade webpage, and the eLearning newsletter.
Mid Semester break maintenance will occur as follows:
- Blackboard will be unavailable on the first Saturday morning (4 April) from 5:00am to 7:00am.
- Recorded lectures will be unavailable for the first Saturday morning (4 April) 6:00am to 12:00pm for major maintenance (Echo360).
- Further maintenance will occur on Blackboard on Saturday 11 April, between 5:00am and 7:00am.