Revised Media and Color Printing Purchase Form

A revised Media and Color Printing Purchase form is available on the Reswiki under Walk-In Administrative Procedures. This is used when a faculty or staff person needs to purchase a blank CD or DVD or wants to print on the color copier. Take a look: http://cit.jmu.edu/reswiki/index.php?title=CD_DVD_and_Color_Print_Purchases 

Use large mailer envelopes for video projects

Several months ago, Whitney suggested that we use large envelopes to organize DVDs, tapes, etc.  for the video production projects.  We instituted that procedure immediately but newer Consultants and other walk-in staff may not be aware of it. Go to http://cit.jmu.edu/reswiki/index.php?title=104A_Forms_and_Procedures for more information.

Sarah

Reswiki updated with video information

I updated the Reswiki today with information about Anne, our iMac behind the reception desk in the CIT. I also included some updates on our policy regarding faculty and staff use of video equipment that we discussed last semester. Basically we want to keep the computer Frank open as much as possible for when faculty or staff walk in to the CIT and need to edit video.

Free Tools and Resources

We have found it challenging to offer resources and support for free online tools. I am experimenting with a new way to offer help for the Google Pages workshop that I am teaching this semester. For the most part, I am planning to use resources that have already been created. To distribute these resources I have created a “citresources” account on del.icio.us.

I thought this would offer a quick and efficient way for faculty and staff to access resources that we have found valuable. I will have the ability to update the del.icio.us account as I come across appropriate and useful resources. I am hoping that this will aid in the challenge of supporting technologies that are “ever-changing”.

The address to the del.icio.us account is http://del.icio.us/citresources/ More specifically, I will paste the address that quickly references the google_pages tagged sites- http://del.icio.us/citresources/google_pages into my workshop handout.

It seems that we could offer other resources for faculty in a similar manner. My first idea is to add articles or other readings that might help faculty effectively implement technology into their instruction. However, this may not work with articles that are stored on password protected databases. (I guess the link could possibly take the faculty to a log-in page??) Obviously, there is still more experimentation to do!

I will be happy to share the password if anyone else would like to collaborate!

Andrea

Elluminate Support Opportunity

As we explore new ways to support faculty, Eric and I wanted to give a review of using desktop control in Elluminate as technical support. Last week we helped a faculty member with some technical problems that resulted from a Captivate installation. Since she had a busy schedule and was located in HHS, we used an Elluminate session. Overall, the session was very successful. It took less than 20 minutes to create the session, join and determine the problem. Below are some notes from the session.

-Verified with faculty member on phone that it would be a good time to look at her computer.

-Andrea- Created an Elluminate session on ELM. Emailed session link to faculty member and Eric.

-Andrea- Talked faculty member through the process of joining an Elluminate session.

-Creation and join time took less than 5 minutes.

-Andrea- Made Eric a moderator.

-Eric- Requested desktop control and navigated on her computer to determine problem.

Notes for future session-

-Have faculty member plug in microphone ahead of time if they have one. (We used microphones on our computers and also talked on the phone with faculty member. She did have a microphone but did not plug it in prior to joining the session.)

-Create ongoing session ahead of time. Have session URL available to quickly email to faculty.

-We were lucky that her JAVA version was current and she was easily able to join the session. The faculty member may have to install or update their version of JAVA for Elluminate to work.

-Send faculty member to the Elluminate support site for a JAVA check if they are not able to join.

Correct way to reserve Video Edit Room, Recording Studio, etc. in Oracle

Please go to http://cit.jmu.edu/reswiki –Walkin Administrative Procedures–Department Calendar and carefully read the instructions. In order for reservations to be editable by all staff, we must create reservations using the Designate role. As the directions say in Reswiki: Go to File–Open As Designate, Select the appropriate calendar, and create the reservation. This will allow anyone on walk-in duty to change a reservation if necessary.

Bug with adaptive release based on attempt of an assignment

This is from Rita:

I just wanted to let you know about a bug with Adaptive Release that has been logged with Blackboard.  It applies to Assignments and not to tests or surveys.  Blackboard admits that it is a bug and has escalated it to product development.  Probably not many instructors use Adaptive Release with Assignments in this way so it may only affect a small population of our faculty (maybe only the 1 who discovered it).

Problem Description:
An instructor tried to use the Adaptive Release to provide solutions (a document) for an assignment only after students submitted their work through Blackboard.

If a student saved their work but did not submit, they were able to see the solution set.
If a student submitted their work but it was not yet graded they do NOT see the solution set.

These two cases are opposite of what it should be. Saving the work should not count as submitting. And submitting should not take away the ability to view the document. 

Steps to Replicate:
1. Set a document to be displayed only when an Assignment has been submitted (Adaptive Release Rule, condition – item has a least 1 attempt)
2. Student Saves the Assignment, but does not Submit
3. The document is visible to the student
4. Student Submits the Assignment
5. The document is no longer visible to the student

Questions and wireless connection and VPN

Hi all– just a reminder that questions about wireless connection in the library and the VPN client need to go to Media Resources. Library staff send users to Media Resources but sometimes users end up in the CIT. Please direct them to Media Resources– take them there if necessary.

Sarah

Tegrity Still Requires Java Version 5 Update 11

Rita and I confirmed this morning that some Tegrity sessions will not play with any version of Java later than version 5 update 11. This is a giant pain, but as far as I can tell there’s not much to be done about it.

 If the user had version 5 update 11 installed at some point and upgraded to a newer version, they can just uninstall the newer version in Add/Remove Programs and version 5 update 11 will remain. If not, they’ll still need to manually uninstall the newer version and then install the old version, which you can find at this link:

http://java.sun.com/products/archive/j2se/5.0_11/index.html

Tell them to click on the second link on that page.

Blackboard Visual Text Editor Breaks Streaming Video

As you may or may not be aware, the latest version of Blackboard has created all manner of hilarity with videos from the streaming server. We’ve not been able to tie down an exact cause, but it seems that the visual text editor is eating part of the code that embeds the videos in Blackboard. What I’m recommending at this point is that if you are using streaming video in your Blackboard course, that you turn off the Visual Text Editor in Blackboard.To turn off the Visual Text Editor

1. Log into Blackboard.
2. Click the Personal Information link under Tools.
3. Click Set Visual Text Box Editor Options.
4. Set it to Unavailable.

At this point I’m recommending you just leave it off. We’ve gotten some information that indicates that the Visual Text Editor can break your videos even when you use it to edit other documents on the same page. I’m assuredly as baffled by that as you are.

EDIT: In response to a comment, here’s the location of the tools module.