Zoom chats to be removed after 90 days starting March 31, 2024

Zoom chats to be removed after 90 days starting March 31, 2024

November 14, 2023 at 10:30 am

Starting March 31, 2024, UBC will begin removing chat messages in Zoom after 90 days. This chat retention policy impacts chats exchanged between individuals, in groups, and in channels using the Zoom “Team Chat” feature.

Why are chat messages being removed?

The use of UBC Retention and Disposition Schedules for data in tools like Zoom is required to comply with UBC Records Management Office policies. By regularly removing records that do not need to be stored, UBC reduces the risk of data breaches and maximizes the digital storage space available.

What can I do to prepare for the change?

  • Review your Zoom chat history by opening the Zoom application and clicking “Team Chat” in the top navigation. Copy any information that you want to keep into a more permanent place.
  • To use chats that will be retained beyond 90 days, consider requesting a team in Microsoft Teams. A team allows a group of people to collaborate in a private space that is not impacted by a retention policy schedule.
  • Going forward, treat the “Team Chat” area of Zoom as a place for casual conversation. Use another way of sharing any information that requires an ongoing reference point or paper trail.

If you have any questions, please contact us in the LT Hub.

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Posted in Zoom News

Zoom and Microsoft Teams video retention policy going into effect soon

October 18, 2023 at 2:15 pm

As of March 28, 2024, the information in this post about the Zoom video retention policy no longer applies. The Zoom video retention policy at UBC has been postponed, and more details about its rollout will be shared as soon as they are available.

Starting October 31, 2023 and March 31, 2024 respectively, UBC will begin removing video recordings from Microsoft Teams and Zoom automatically, one year after each video is recorded. This new video retention policy affects all faculty, staff, and student employees who use UBC accounts to record with these tools.

What you need to know to prepare

If you want to keep Zoom and Microsoft Teams video recordings for the long term, you will need to change how they are stored. Instructions for keeping your Zoom and Microsoft Teams videos are provided in our original news post.

Please note that changes for existing Microsoft Teams videos must be completed before October 31, 2023 for

  • any Microsoft Teams videos that will be a year old at the time.

Changes for existing Zoom videos must be completed before March 31, 2024 for

  • any Zoom videos that will be a year or more old at the time.

Older Zoom video backups will be available

We have downloaded and will temporarily store backups of all Zoom videos recorded before May 1, 2023. These backups will be available by request starting in November 2023.

Additional information on the request process will be coming soon. In the meantime, please contact us in the LT Hub if you have questions about the policy.

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Posted in Microsoft Teams News, Zoom News

Winter 2023 Update: UBC affirms decision to not enable Turnitin’s AI-detection feature

August 28, 2023 at 11:45 am

Plagiarism-prevention tool Turnitin released an AI-detection feature in April that attempts to check for text generated by AI-writing tools, such as ChatGPT. For a number of reasons, UBC will be maintaining its April decision not to enable the Turnitin AI-detection feature, and the university will not centrally install any AI-detection tool at this time.

Why is UBC not enabling Turnitin’s AI-detection feature?

The LT Hub Leadership group—with the support of the Provosts at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan—has affirmed the decision based on several factors.

Effectiveness of the feature is still unclear

  • Testing for accuracy in the AI-detection feature remains in early stages: Turnitin claims that the feature is highly reliable, but this claim has not been independently evaluated. Additionally, Turnitin’s claim of accuracy that the feature can “detect the presence of AI writing with 98% confidence” was arrived at by checking their own training set of AI-written text against human-written text, and they have provided few details about that training set. Turnitin has indicated that their initial lab tests yielded different results than what is being seen in real-world settings. Even a small percentage of error can translate into significant numbers of false positives or negatives across a large sample of student work at an institution.
  • Testing for potential bias in the feature also continues to be in early stages: Turnitin has stated that they have worked to address the concern of bias by including works in their training set from diverse contexts and authors. But without further information about Turnitin’s training set, process, or whether there has been any testing for bias, we cannot know the degree to which the feature may flag certain kinds of writing as AI-written more often than others.
  • Ability of the feature to keep up with rapidly evolving AI is unknown: Turnitin’s feature has been trained to detect AI-written work from the GPT-3 and -3.5 language models. While Turnitin suggests that their detector will detect writing from GPT-4 “most of the time”, the development of new language models will likely outpace the ability for the detector to recognize them. Analogous to the race between anti-virus companies and hackers, there will be a race between AI writers and detectors. It is not yet clear the degree to which AI-detection tools such as Turnitin’s will be able to keep up.

It is not possible to double-check or review the results

  • Instructors cannot double-check the feature results: Most plagiarism-prevention tools give instructors both the flagged passages of the student’s suspicious submission and the matching source material(s), to allow for intuitive comparison and help assess whether plagiarism occurred. However, in the case of AI-detection, the source material simply does not exist. Instructors are instead shown passages that are suspected of being AI-written, with nothing to check against. This limitation means over-reliance on such tools for academic integrity can be problematic.
  • Results from the feature are not available for students to review: The report provided by the AI-detection feature in Turnitin is only accessible to instructors; students will not be able view the results. For other existing functionality in Turnitin, students may be able to see the outcomes, unless their instructor disables it. But with this new feature, there is no way for instructors to enable students to access results. That lack of functionality makes it more difficult for students to review information about suspected misconduct and to respond to any errors in flagged content.

What will happen next?

UBC is continuing to wait before deploying any AI-detection features, including the one by Turnitin. We will remain cautious until we can be confident about both a feature’s effectiveness, accuracy, and bias-mitigation, and its ability to employ an AI-detector as a robust component of talking to students about suspected academic misconduct. The use of other AI-detection tools is also not recommended, due to similar issues as those noted above, as well as privacy and security concerns; no AI-detection tool has undergone a UBC Privacy Impact Assessment yet.

The UBC Academic Integrity website has related information for faculty and students on how to teach and learn about academic integrity, including tips for assessment design and illustrative syllabus language that can be adapted for specific courses. On the website, there are also FAQs related to the use of generative AI in courses in the context of academic integrity.

If you have questions regarding the rationale for this decision, you can reach out to us in the LT Hub at LT.hub@ubc.ca.

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Posted in Turnitin News

New support is available for developing learning technologies at UBC

July 20, 2023 at 4:05 pm

The LT Hub is launching a new initiative to support UBC instructors who develop learning technologies. The Learning Technology (LT) Incubator is a way for instructors with funded learning technology projects to collaborate with us and receive dedicated technical and project management support. This additional support can help you focus on bringing your project to life, rather than getting bogged down in administrative details.

How the LT Incubator works

Once your learning technology’s project funding is secured, you can reach out to us in the LT Hub. We will discuss your idea to determine if it is a good applicant for the LT Incubator. Projects can then be submitted using the LT Incubator expression of interest form.

If your project is accepted into the LT Incubator, you will become the product owner. Product owners are the strategic thinkers for a project, setting the direction for the learning technology and its technical priorities. Meanwhile, the team on the LT Incubator side will focus on executing the project. They will provide technical expertise, hire and manage the project team, and handle any privacy or security requirements for the technology.

Note that projects accepted into the LT Incubator will not necessarily be adopted, supported, or funded as central learning technologies at UBC. However, by working with the experts in the LT Hub, these projects will be well set up for broader piloting, evaluation, and possible adoption.

Where to find out more about the LT Incubator

You can read more on our new LT Incubator information page. This page gives further details on the collaboration roles, collaboration benefits, and funding approaches for the LT Incubator. You can also always reach out to us in the LT Hub with questions.

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Posted in Other Tool News

Central support for Crowdmark ending in April 2024

June 21, 2023 at 3:15 pm

The LT Hub’s support for the collaborative grading tool Crowdmark will end on April 30, 2024. Starting in May 2024, Crowdmark will no longer be centrally licensed. This change means that teaching teams will not be able to use Crowdmark as part of Canvas and will not be able to receive LT Hub support.

The LT Hub recommends that teaching teams instead use Gradescope, a different collaborative grading tool that we perceive offers more robust functionality. Gradescope can be used as part of Canvas and will continue to receive LT Hub support.

Why central support for Crowdmark is changing

We have been reviewing the LT Hub’s supported services to ensure that we are supporting tools and initiatives that provide the greatest pedagogical value to UBC. As part of this review, we have identified Crowdmark and Gradescope as two tools with largely overlapping functionality.

In comparing the tools, we have also decided that Gradescope offers better features for our context, including easier grading rubrics, a unique programming-based assignment type, and a more full-featured Canvas integration.

Streamlining our tools in this space will help the LT Hub provide more focused support and help UBC students have a more consistent experience.

How to prepare for the transition

We know changing the technology that you use can be stressful. Please contact us at the LT Hub for help with moving from Crowdmark to Gradescope. Please note that, as with Crowdmark, Gradescope requires Faculties/Departments to provide funding per student per course.

Any teaching teams who decide to continue using Crowdmark after April 2024 will need to procure their own license for using the tool outside of Canvas.

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Posted in Crowdmark News

Migration of videos to the Kaltura cloud is complete

May 12, 2023 at 10:45 am

This post was updated in mid-September 2023.

UBC has successfully moved all Kaltura videos hosted at UBC into the Kaltura cloud. Thank you for your patience as the LT Hub video team migrated nearly 180,000 Kaltura videos during the month of April.

The team has also been running scripts to automatically update Kaltura videos embedded normally in Canvas courses (e.g., videos displayed in a Canvas module or page), so that they point to the videos’ new location in the cloud. This updating process will continue during the next several weeks, as we continue to identify the different ways that Kaltura videos have been embedded in courses.

What do I need to do now?

  • For any Kaltura videos that you share outside of Canvas (e.g., videos displayed on a website, direct links), you need to update each video link or embed code. This update will replace the existing link or embed code with one that correctly points to the video’s new location in the cloud.
    • Your existing links will continue to work for the time being, and you will have sufficient time to complete the manual updates. But it is best to update earlier; analytics for a given video will not be captured in the Kaltura cloud until you do.
  • For Kaltura videos shared in Canvas courses, please confirm that the videos have been correctly updated by checking if they use the Kaltura cloud video player. To identify the Kaltura cloud player, you can look for the new UBC logo in the lower right corner. The new logo will appear with a crest, as below.
    The new Kaltura cloud video player has the UBC crest in the lower right corner
    If any Kaltura video in Canvas does not appear, displays an error, or does not have the crest (i.e., only the text “UBC”), please contact us in the LT Hub for help.
  • For all Kaltura videos—regardless of how they are shared—please check what captioning is being applied. During the migration, new captioning was created for some videos inadvertently, including for videos that previously did not have captions. This captioning may have been set as the current default for your video in the Kaltura cloud. If needed, you can remove the new captioning or change it back to what you had before.
  • If you have any bookmarks to the UBC Kaltura Teaching & Learning Media Portal, update them to point to learning.media.ubc.ca. This link will replace learning.video.ubc.ca as the place where you can manage Kaltura media, if you prefer not to log in to Canvas.

Where can I get more support?

Contact us

We know that dealing with technology changes can be stressful. We are happy to answer questions and help guide you through the process.

Join a workshop

You can register for a Kaltura workshop, held at noon on variable dates each month. These one-hour introductory sessions will delve into the features available in the Kaltura cloud. You can also ask questions and get answers about the migration of your videos.

Learn more

You can also read about the Kaltura cloud migration and the broader Enterprise Video Platform project that it is part of, to learn more.

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Posted in Kaltura News

Improvement to how iClicker Cloud works with Canvas coming for July 2023

April 21, 2023 at 11:15 am

iClicker Cloud is an online student response system that allows you to pose questions during a class session that students answer using their computer or mobile device. On Wednesday, June 28, 2023, the LT Hub will improve how iClicker Cloud and Canvas work together by switching to a new integration.

Once you enable the new “Roster & Grade Sync” integration in an iClicker Cloud course, it will automatically add students enrolled in your Canvas course to your iClicker Cloud course. With this automation, you will no longer need students to manually join each iClicker Cloud course. Students will instead be ready to participate in iClicker-based course activities immediately after they log in to iClicker Cloud.

What do I need to know?

  • You will not need to do anything to prepare. The switch should happen seamlessly, and the improvement will be in effect from July onward for each new iClicker Cloud course that you connect with Canvas.
  • If you set up iClicker Cloud with Canvas ahead of time for courses happening in July, you will want to ensure that they are switched to the new integration after June 28. Ensuring the switch involves changing the integration manually in the course settings on instructor.iclicker.com:
    > How to switch the integration for an iClicker Cloud course that is already connected to Canvas

    1. After June 28, log in to the iClicker Cloud instructor web interface at instructor.iclicker.com and click your course name.
    2. Click Settings in the sidebar navigation.
    3. Click the Integrations tab, move the Grade Sync Integration toggle to "Off", and click Save.
    4. Click Settings again in the sidebar navigation, and go back to the Integrations tab. Click the Connect to Canvas button that now appears.
    5. Canvas may ask you to authorize iClicker to access your account. Click Authorize.
    6. Select the course and click Next.
    7. If needed, select the section(s) and click Next.
    8. Click Sync Roster Now, then click Close once the sync is complete.
    9. Click Save at the top right of the page, and you will be set up to use the new integration.

  • After the switch, you will no longer see an “iClicker Sync” item added to the Course Navigation in Canvas. To connect iClicker Cloud courses with Canvas, you will use the web interface at instructor.iclicker.com.
  • The new integration supports the same options for sharing grades. You can send iClicker Cloud grades for each student to the Canvas Gradebook either
    • as one aggregate iClicker Cloud score column (combining scores from all iClicker Cloud sessions) or
    • as multiple iClicker Cloud score columns (showing one score for each session).

Our iClicker Cloud instructor guide and iClicker Cloud student guide will both be updated with steps reflecting the new integration, once we switch. If you have other questions about the switch or about iClicker Cloud, feel free to contact us at the LT Hub.

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Posted in iClicker Cloud News

UBC not enabling Turnitin’s AI-detection feature

April 4, 2023 at 12:15 pm

Turnitin is a plagiarism-prevention tool that helps check the originality of student writing. Today Turnitin is releasing a new AI-detection feature that attempts to check for text generated by AI-writing tools, such as ChatGPT.

For a number of reasons, UBC has decided not to enable the new feature in Turnitin at this time.

Why is UBC not enabling Turnitin’s AI-detection feature?

The LT Hub Leadership group—with the support of the Provosts at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan—has made the decision based on several important factors.

  • UBC has not been able to review and validate the feature: Because of the speed of its release, we have not been able to go through our normal process of vetting a new feature. As such, we do not know much about this feature’s functional limitations, drawbacks, and risks of use. That lack of vetting is acutely felt in this case, since many generative AI-writing tools such as ChatGPT are relatively new, and AI-detection tools even more so.
  • Timing of the feature’s release is not ideal: Turnitin’s plan to release today came with little advance notice. We did not have a chance to prepare the UBC community, nor did we have time to prepare guidelines and support resources. Having significantly new functionality appear in a tool at the end of an academic term—and when people are not expecting it and have not prepared themselves or their students—creates extra challenges at an already stressful time.
  • Testing for accuracy in the feature is in early stages: Turnitin claims that the feature is highly reliable, with few false hits and few misses. But this claim has not been independently evaluated. Additionally, Turnitin’s claim of accuracy that the feature can “detect the presence of AI writing with 98% confidence” was arrived at by checking their own training set of AI-written text against human-written text, and they have provided few details about that training set. So far as we can tell, they have only tested in a lab setting; they have not done testing on a large set of real-world text yet.
  • Instructors cannot double-check the feature results: Most plagiarism-prevention tools give instructors both the flagged passages of the student submission and the matching source material(s), to help determine whether plagiarism occurred. However, in the case of AI-detection, the source material simply does not exist. Instructors are instead shown passages that are suspected of being AI-written, with nothing to check against. This limitation means over-reliance on such tools for academic integrity can be problematic.
  • Testing for potential bias in the feature is also in early stages: Turnitin has stated that they have worked to address the concern of bias by including works in their training set by “statistically under-represented groups like second-language learners, English users from non-majority-English countries, students at historically black colleges and universities, and less common subject areas such as anthropology, geology, sociology, and others.” But without further information about Turnitin’s training set, process, or whether there has been any testing for bias, we cannot know the degree to which the feature may flag certain kinds of writing as AI-written more often than others.
  • Results from the feature are not available to students: The report provided by the AI-detection feature in Turnitin will only be accessible to instructors; students will not be able view the results. For other existing functionality in Turnitin, students may be able to see the outcomes, unless their instructor disables it. But with this new feature, there is no way for instructors to enable students to access results.
  • Ability of the feature to keep up with rapidly evolving AI is unknown: Turnitin’s feature has been trained to detect AI-written work from the GPT-3 and -3.5 language models. But GPT-4 has already been released. Like the race between anti-virus companies and hackers, there will be a race between AI writers and detectors. It is not yet clear the degree to which AI-detection tools such as Turnitin’s will be able to keep up.

What will happen next?

UBC is taking a pause to review this new AI-detection feature from Turnitin. This pause also provides a chance for broader discussions at the institution around the capabilities, limits, and risks of AI-detection tools (this one and others), as well as their value to academic integrity. We aim to revisit our decision to enable the feature during the summer, in time for the start of fall term.

In the meantime, you can contact us at the LT Hub if you have questions.

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Posted in Turnitin News

Migration of videos to the Kaltura cloud is underway

April 3, 2023 at 9:45 am

This post was updated in late April 2023 and mid-September 2023.

UBC has begun moving Kaltura videos hosted at UBC into the Kaltura cloud, as part of Kaltura’s roadmap to improve the sustainability of the platform.

Because of the high volume of videos in Kaltura, this migration will happen gradually over the course of the month of April. Videos will be migrated chronologically, with older videos moving first and more recent videos moving later. All videos will finish migration by Monday, May 1, 2023.

What impact does this have on me?

The migration will have minimal impact on courses this term. Your students will not lose access to your Kaltura videos at any point. Students will be able to view, comment on, and take quizzes for your videos as they normally would.

However, you should be aware of these points:

  • We strongly recommend not changing your Kaltura videos or metadata during the month of April, to avoid losing work. Changes include any modifications to a video’s metadata, edits to the video, and updates to the video’s published/unpublished status. If you must change a Kaltura video before May, use the “Save a Copy” option in the Kaltura Editor to first make a copy.
  • If you want to save Kaltura video analytics or the previous answers that students gave to Kaltura video quizzes, download this data before April 30. This data will not be migrated with the videos. After April 30, you will need to contact us at the LT Hub for help with downloading this data. We will do our best to find what you need in our data backups.
  • Note down any places where you have shared Kaltura videos outside of Canvas. After the migration, the location of your videos will change to the Kaltura cloud. For Kaltura videos you share outside of Canvas, you will need to update their links after May 2023, so they are correctly linking to the video’s new location. Making a list of these places now will save you time in updating them later.
    • For Kaltura videos shared in Canvas courses, there is nothing you need to prepare. The LT Hub will run a script in May to automatically update Kaltura videos embedded normally in Canvas courses (e.g., videos displayed in a Canvas module or page), so they point to the right location.

Where can I get more support?

Contact us

We know that preparing for technology changes can be stressful. We are happy to answer questions and help guide you through the process.

Join a workshop

You can register for a Kaltura workshop, held at noon on variable dates each month. These one-hour introductory sessions will delve into the features available in the Kaltura cloud. You can also ask questions and get answers about the migration of your videos.

Learn more

You can also read about the Kaltura cloud migration and the broader Enterprise Video Platform project to learn more.

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Posted in Kaltura News

Changes coming to Kaltura starting on April 1, 2023

March 3, 2023 at 12:00 pm

This post was updated in late April 2023 and mid-September 2023.

Kaltura is UBC’s primary platform for capturing, managing, and sharing academic videos. Starting on Saturday, April 1, 2023, UBC will begin moving Kaltura videos hosted at UBC into the Kaltura cloud, to create a better video experience for you and your students.

During the current academic term, the migration will only affect when you can change your Kaltura videos. But in May, it will also change where your Kaltura videos are linked from and it will reset some data tied to Kaltura videos, including analytics, comments, and previous answers that students gave to quizzes. Rest assured that grades pushed from a Kaltura video quiz to the Canvas Gradebook will be retained; you will not lose any grades in Canvas.

What will happen in April?

Because of the high volume of videos in Kaltura, this migration will happen gradually over the course of the full month. The LT Hub video team will begin moving videos on Saturday, April 1, 2023 and finish by Monday, May 1, 2023. Videos will be migrated chronologically, with older videos moving first and more recent videos moving later.

The migration will have minimal impact on courses this term. Your students will not lose access to your Kaltura videos at any point. Students will be able to view, comment on, and take quizzes for your videos as they normally would. The only impact on your courses this term is that we strongly recommend not changing your Kaltura videos or metadata during the month of April.

How can I prepare for the migration?

  • Plan any changes to Kaltura videos before or after the month of April. Videos that have started their migration will not properly save changes until after April 30. Changes include any modifications to a video’s metadata, edits to the video, and updates to the video’s published/unpublished status. If you must change a Kaltura video in April, use the “Save a Copy” option in the Kaltura Editor to first make a copy. Once you have saved your changes to the copied video, update the link or embed code for your video in the course, so it points correctly to this copied video.
  • If you want to save Kaltura video analytics or the previous answers that students gave to Kaltura video quizzes, download this data before April 30. This data will not be migrated with the videos. After April 30, you will need to contact us at the LT Hub for help with downloading this data. We will do our best to find what you need in our data backups.

    > How to download data from a Kaltura video

    You can download this data using the Kaltura portal or using Canvas. The data will be the same either way.

    1. Log in to the Teaching & Learning Media Portal with your UBC CWL (Campus-Wide Login).
    2. Click your name in the upper right corner, and select My Media.
    3. Click the graph icon to the right of any video you wish to download data for.
    4. The first page that loads has the video analytics. Download this data, if you like:
      • Click Export, tick off the report checkboxes for what analytics data you want, and click Export Reports.
      • Click Okay. The report link(s) will be emailed to you for downloading.
    5. If the video has a quiz, you will see tabs at the top for the quiz data. Download this data, if you like:
      • Click the Quiz Questions tab (for exact student answers to the questions) or the Quiz Users tab (for overall attempts and scores by student).
      • Click Export to CSV to download the data from this tab.
    6. Repeat this process for other videos as desired.
    1. Log in to your Canvas course and click My Media in the Course Navigation.
    2. Click the graph icon to the right of any video you wish to download data for.
    3. The first page that loads has the video analytics. Download this data, if you like:
      • Click Export, tick off the report checkboxes for what analytics data you want, and click Export Reports.
      • Click Okay. The report link(s) will be emailed to you for downloading.
    4. If the video has a quiz, you will see tabs at the top for the quiz data. Download this data, if you like:
      • Click the Quiz Questions tab (for exact student answers to the questions) or the Quiz Users tab (for overall attempts and scores by student).
      • Click Export to CSV to download the data from this tab.
    5. Repeat this process for other videos as desired.
  • Note down any places where you have shared Kaltura videos outside of Canvas. After the migration, the location of your videos will change to the Kaltura cloud. For Kaltura videos you share outside of Canvas, you will need to update their links after May 2023, so they are correctly linking to the video’s new location. Making a list of these places now will save you time in updating them later.
    • For Kaltura videos shared in Canvas courses, there is nothing you need to prepare. The LT Hub will run a script in May to automatically update Kaltura videos embedded normally in Canvas courses (e.g., videos displayed in a Canvas module or page), so they point to the right location.

Where can I get more support?

Contact us

We know that preparing for technology changes can be stressful. We are happy to answer questions and help guide you through the process.

Join a workshop

You can register for a Kaltura workshop, held at noon on variable dates each month. These one-hour introductory sessions will delve into the features available in the Kaltura cloud. You can also ask questions and get answers about the migration of your videos.

Learn more

You can also read about the Kaltura cloud migration and the broader Enterprise Video Platform project that it is part of, to learn more.

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Posted in Kaltura News