If you are requesting more than one course, complete a new form for each individual course. Do not combine multiple semesters’ course-requests on one form. Use separate forms for different semesters.
If the form below does not load, go to https://form.jotform.com/91685721942162.
Q. What is a Blackboard/Canvas Crash Course?
A. A Blackboard/Canvas Crash Course is one hour (1/1) of whatever you need it to be. We will meet in person OR over the phone/Zoom. If you are not familiar with Blackboard or Canvas, we will run through all the basic features to give you an overview of what it can do. If there are specific areas you would like assistance with, such as setting up the grade center, that is what we will focus on.
Q. What is a video introduction?
A. We would like instructors – especially those teaching online – to introduce themselves to their students at the beginning of the course. We have been using the CIDT studio to create video biographies (3 min or less) for instructors to use for this purpose. We would like to create as many of these as possible. It only takes about 30 minutes of your time, and we do the rest.
If you would like other types of video introductions or content, we would love to help with that as well – for example, if you would like assistance demonstrating the course navigation (recording the screen) to explain how students will move through your course during the semester, we would be happy to help. If you would like to bring in a “guest speaker” to speak to your class, we could video that as well. Use your imagination, and we will be here waiting to help!
Q. What is the section number for my course?
A. The section number is often followed by a dash after the course ID. It may be a 1, 2, 3, etc. if you are teaching a face-to-face course. It may be a W1, W2, etc. if you are teaching online. If you are teaching at an outreach site, it may be 50, 60, G1, etc. The section number must correspond to Self-Service, or your students will not load into the class.
Q. Why is “SHELL” an option under Semester of Course?
A. If you know you will be teaching a course in the future and would like to start building it, we encourage you to do so. We want our online classes to be of the highest quality possible, and we know that takes time. For students to load properly, we have to use the exact section number and semester code, but if you want a “shell,” you can start working on a course for which you do not have that information. When you have the course ready, and you know all the information, we will copy the shell into the correct course code.
Q. What does “merge courses” or “crosslist courses” mean?
A. Some instructors teach multiple sections of the same class. For example, IETV/SIDE courses have sections for Idabel, McAlester, Grayson, and others. Rather than having separate courses created for each section within Blackboard/Canvas, instructors can request that the courses be crosslisted in Colleague Self-Service (talk with Jennifer Swearengin about that) to merge the enrollments into one “parent” course. This allows the instructor to post announcements and assignments once instead of multiple times, and the students are able to participate together. CIDT can also manually merge classes in special cases – reach out to CIDT@se.edu and we’ll do what we can to help.
Q. What does it mean to have my course copied?
A. If you have taught a course in the past, you may not want to re-build it from scratch. We can copy a course from a previous semester to the new course so that you can have something to start with. Often, former instructors of a class give permission for new instructors to copy their course so that the new instructor will have something to start with. If you use a course copy, remember that there is still work to be done! The due dates and availability dates need to be corrected for the new semester (You can use the date management system to make that easier). You may need to clean up the Discussion Board. You will also want to delete old announcements that will not be relevant to the new semester.
Q. Can I copy my course myself? Or does CIDT need to do that?
A. Generally CIDT takes care of course copies for instructors to avoid potential glitches and hiccups that may be missed by those not used to copying their own courses. However, you can actually copy your course or sections of your course yourself depending on the LMS and areas/contents you are trying to copy. Generally, exporting your course as a .zip file and importing it into your upcoming course will work, but there may be other copy options available as well – just reach out to CIDT and we’ll be happy to talk with you regarding the best solution.
Q. What is the banner and theme?
A. To improve the online experience, we are making an effort to make courses more visually appealing. We are doing this by creating course banners. The banner is the image that appears at the top of the course entry point (usually the course home page). We try to get a picture that will reflect the instructor, the course content, or SE in some way. (We avoid using potentially copyrighted images from the internet.) Sometimes an instructor has a picture that he or she would like to be used for the banner. If you have a picture, you can send it to us. We will add the course name, course ID, and SE logo, and insert it into the course.
