User Committee

Prior to 2021, the User Committee identified UBC faculty and student needs, required improvements in user experience, and recommended priorities for filling functional technology gaps. The committee also advised on communication with faculty and students and change management strategies. This committee was replaced by the Learning Technology Advisory Group.

Jump to a section: Past Members | Terms of Reference | Outputs | Agendas

Past Members

The Learning Technology User Committee includes students and faculty from a wide variety of UBC faculties and departments.

  • Joseph Anthony – Associate Dean, Health Professions, Faculty of Medicine
  • James Charbonneau – Instructor, Physics & Astronomy, Faculty of Science, and Assistant Director, Science One Program
  • Florian Gassner – Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies, Faculty of Arts
  • Kayli Johnson – Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science(on leave)
  • Suzie Lavallee (Chair) – Academic Director, Vantage College, and Professor of Teaching, Department of Forest Conversations Sciences, Faculty of Forestry
  • Neil Leveridge – Assistant Professor of Teaching, and Communications Strategist, Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry
  • Cyprien Lomas – Assistant Dean, Learning Technologies, and Director, Land and Food Systems Learning Centre, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
  • Aarti Paul – Director, Engagement Services, Office of the CIO
  • Tim Silk – Associate Professor of Teaching, Marketing and Behavioural Science Division, Sauder School of Business
  • Ray Taheri – Associate Professor of Teaching, School of Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
  • Qian Wang – Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Asian Studies, and Director, Chinese Language Program

Non-voting Attendee

  • Catherine Aldana – Project Manager, The Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology

Terms of Reference

Purpose

The User Committee makes recommendations on user experience improvements to the LT Hub Leadership group. The User Committee provides input to the LT Hub Leadership group on user issues related to the learning technology ecosystem, as well as receiving input/feedback from the LT Hub Leadership group.

Objectives

  • Identifies gaps in learning ecosystem functionality, and makes recommendations for improvement, including setting priorities for filling functional gaps.
  • Makes recommendations and lead execution on LT tool / service use.
  • Provides communication and change management strategies.
  • Facilitation of peer-to-peer practice sharing.
  • Serves as channel for faculty / student communication and feedback.
  • Provides discipline specific context on issues related to teaching with technology.
  • Makes recommendations related to teaching faculty professional development needs.
  • Maintains communication within the Faculty on issues related to learning technology.

Scope

  • Guidance for the learning technology ecosystem that is discipline specific.
  • Includes University-wide systems, software, services and support that are regularly used for teaching and learning (including: classroom technology, mobile technology, media, and content repositories).
  • Scope includes current established (enterprise) and emerging (pilot) LT tools and applications.

Outputs

Learning technology map

In the fall of 2018, the User Committee surveyed current tools in use at UBC to support teaching and learning and updated the Functional Map of LT Tools (image below) they first produced in 2016. There is also an updated version that only shows tools that are integrated and supported by the LT Hub.

Categorized learning tools at UBC

 

The diagram provides a view of learning technologies according to the pedagogical or learning functions that they support. The list is certainly not complete, but is drawn from various existing online resources, plus the tools used by the 13 faculty and student members of the User Committee. You can click the image for a more detailed look.

There are four main areas of categorization, which may be thought of as the design elements of teaching and learning activities: (1) creation and provision of content to support learning; (2) interactions between individual or groups of learners and between learners and faculty; (3) various flavors of assessments (formative vs summative, synchronous vs asynchronous); and (4) tools for course management, administration, and evaluation functions. Some tools or applications appear in more than one category, reflecting multiple modalities for use.

In all categories, there exists a mixture of institutionally supported (or Faculty-supported) technologies, indicated by bold type, together with other unsupported or widely available tools (free and not). In any given category, the number of these “external” tools typically exceeds those provided and supported internally.

Technology barriers & enablers

In the spring of 2018, the User Committee drafted a working paper on the barriers and enablers for faculty use of new technology to support teaching and learning [PDF]. The Chair, Suzie Lavallee, presented this information to the Learning Technology Leadership Team in April. The committee will look at ways to further this work through next steps in the fall.

Agendas

Past Agendas

June 2020:

July 2020:

  • Presentation on tools to gauge students' progress, provide feedback and measure student engagement, including OnTask and Threadz
  • Online meeting/collaboration platforms, including Collaborate Ultra, Zoom and MS Teams
  • Discussion of use of Proctorio, including current issues

January 2018:

  • Updates on Canvas implementation
  • New features on Canvas
  • Review and discuss ideas for Canvas Shorts

February 2018:

  • Discuss Canvas Shorts
  • Discussion about barriers to adoption of learning technology

March 2018:

  • Presentation: Framework on Diffusions of Innovation - Tim Silk
  • Discussion of barriers to adopting learning technology

April 2018:

  • Discuss and work on green paper: barriers and enablers to adopting learning technology

September 2018:

  • Canvas updates and experiences
  • Discussion of green paper: "Barriers and enablers for faculty use of new technology to support teaching and learning"
  • Discussion of ECAR survey data

October 2018:

  • Canvas updates
  • Input on Canvas experience Term 1
  • Discuss ways of engaging constituencies
  • Update list of LT Tools

November 2018:

  • Review updated LT Tools map
  • Engaging Constituencies and Communications Strategy

March 2017:

  • LTE Renewal Project update
  • Learning Analytics Project

April 2017:

  • LTE Renew Project update
  • Learning Analytics Project

September 2017:

  • Learning Analytics Project update
  • LTE Renewal Project update
  • Transition to Canvas

October 2017:

  • Canvas transition updates, feedback, and best practices
  • LT Showcase call for proposals

November 2017:

  • Presentation: Learning Analytics Project
  • Update on Teaching with Technology Showcase submissions
  • Updates on Canvas
  • Review and discuss ideas for Canvas Shorts
  • Next steps for Term 2

January 2016:

  • Overview of first key deliverables: summary paper and case studies on the current Learning Technology Ecosystem
  • Next Steps: determining Leads and teams to work on content areas, Functional map of Learning Ecosystem, and timeline

February 2016:

  • Presentations and workshop on key deliverable drafts: summary paper and case studies on the current Learning Technology Ecosystem

March 2016:

  • Review and finalize draft of summary paper on the current Learning Technology Ecosystem and Functional Map

April 2016:

  • Discussion of Learning Technology Ecosystem summary paper with Eric Eich, Vice-Provost and AVP Academic Affairs, and Chair of the LT Leadership Team
  • Presentation on One-Button Studio and Lightboard

May 2016:

  • Discussion about representing and engaging constituencies
  • Discussion about creating various versions of the functional map and focusing on assessment

September 2016:

  • Joint meeting with LT Innovation Committee regarding LTE Renewal Project update

October 2016:

  • LTE Renewal Project update
  • Presentation and discussion of revised Functional Maps
  • Presentation and discussion of assessment tools

November 2016:

  • LTE Renewal Project update
  • Discussion of draft use cases for LTE Renewal Project
  • Review of information collected in Faculties and mapping affordances to assessment tools