March 18, 2021 at 11:15 am
This post has been updated to reflect that a motion has been passed by both UBC Senates.
The UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan Senates have each passed motions for UBC faculties to restrict the use of automated remote invigilation tools, like Proctorio, that use algorithmic analysis of data recorded during invigilation, except where accreditation bodies explicitly require remote proctoring software.
As these motions are effective immediately, faculty who planned to use such tools to invigilate exams for courses that do not fall under the above exemption will need to investigate alternative tools and/or methods for assessment.
Read details of the Vancouver motion to limit remote proctoring and details of the Okanagan motion on the UBC Provost & Vice-President Academic websites for each campus.
Get support
Faculty looking for support with exams and assessments can request individual consultation time with learning designers from the UBCV Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology or the UBCO Centre for Teaching and Learning. The consultations can be used to answer questions and provide customized support on technologies and strategies for assessment.
You can also learn more about centrally-supported tools and resources that can be used for exam invigilation and are not restricted under the motion:
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Posted in Proctorio News
March 12, 2021 at 12:29 pm
UBC instructors who teach large courses can now request a large meeting add-on for their Zoom account.
What does the Zoom large meeting add-on change?
Standard UBC Zoom accounts can support sessions of up to 300 participants and allow using up to 100 breakout rooms, whether these rooms are pre-assigned or assigned on the fly. With the large meeting add-on, your account can support sessions of up to 500 or 1000 participants, with the same option to use up to 100 breakout rooms.
In Zoom, breakout rooms are used to split a main session into separate, smaller sessions, allowing students to interact in groups. The large meeting add-on allows instructors of larger courses to also make use of this feature.
How do I request the Zoom large meeting add-on?
To request the large meeting add-on, contact your helpdesk as specified below:
- UBC Vancouver outside the Faculty of Medicine:
- Email the UBC IT Audio/Visual Helpdesk at av.helpdesk@ubc.ca with your UBC email and your faculty, school, or department.
- UBC Vancouver Faculty of Medicine:
- UBC Okanagan:
Keep in mind that larger meetings take up more computer resources and are best run on newer computers using hardwired Internet (rather than a Wi-Fi connection). You may also want to consider adding co-hosts, such as teaching assistants, to help manage the breakout rooms for these larger class sizes.
More information on Zoom
Learn more about using Zoom with UBC’s Zoom instructor guide.
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Posted in Zoom News
February 3, 2021 at 9:55 am
Following winter term 2, 2021, UBC will no longer be using the virtual classroom tool Collaborate Ultra.
The tool will not be available for new courses from April 2021, and all access, including to stored recordings, will be removed as of July 31, 2021, with your personal access to Collaborate Ultra recordings in Canvas removed June 30, 2021.
What does this mean for UBC faculty members?
Any course recordings stored in Collaborate Ultra must be downloaded and saved elsewhere (i.e., in the video platform Kaltura, which like Collaborate Ultra also works in Canvas). We recommend doing this as soon as possible to ensure you have adequate time to retrieve important recordings.
Starting in summer session 2021, you will need to use alternate tools for video/audio web-conferencing and collaboration, such as Zoom.
Why is Collaborate Ultra being decommissioned?
Our existing contract has come to an end, and with the numerous alternative tools available, we will not be renewing at this time.
How can I get help with downloading my recorded content?
A step-by-step transition guide for transferring your Collaborate Ultra videos to Kaltura is available.
For support with downloading your recordings and exploring the alternative tools available for online teaching, reach out to your faculty’s Instructional Support Unit or contact us in the LT Hub.
What else do I need to know?
Any lecture recordings that show students in an identifiable way require permission from the student(s) before being shown to other courses or student cohorts. Use this opportunity to check for student names and faces, and edit out or seek permission before uploading your recording to Canvas.
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Posted in Collaborate Ultra News
December 23, 2020 at 2:45 pm
Starting today, all UBC Canvas courses will have the New Rich Content Editor enabled. The New Rich Content Editor is a way to add content that can be styled and arranged to integrate text and multimedia together for display in your Canvas course.
The New Rich Content Editor is an update to the previous Canvas Rich Content Editor. Changes in the New Rich Content Editor include toolbar updates to condense and better group the options available, a resizable content editor area to make editing easier, and new media options such as drag-and-drop and auto-scaling to improve content placement. The changes also include an auto-save feature, which adds the ability to restore unsaved edits that have happened in the last hour.
The New Rich Content Editor appears anywhere the previous Rich Content Editor was used in Canvas, including in pages, assignments, and discussions.
More information on this update is available on the Canvas website:
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Posted in Canvas News
November 18, 2020 at 10:30 am
Canvas has resolved issues that were impacting grades with New Quizzes, and New Quizzes can be used again without problems.
Part of the resolution did roll back manual grades in Canvas for some courses. We are reaching out to instructors of courses that were affected with options for fixing this rollback.
If you have questions or still encounter issues, please contact us.
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Posted in Canvas News
October 30, 2020 at 3:35 pm
The LT Hub has been made aware of a bug in the chat feature of Blackboard’s Collaborate Ultra that may impact some classes.
The bug relates to the Profanity Filter functionality in chat. When this setting is enabled in a session, students are unable to type certain terms (as determined by Blackboard, not UBC) in the chat window, and those terms are replaced with asterisks.
Earlier this week, the Profanity Filter was overbroad; Blackboard has now rectified that. If you encounter a term that should not be on the list, please contact the LT Hub.
In addition, the Profanity Filter seems to operate on some occasions whether or not the setting is switched on. Blackboard currently has no estimate of when this bug will be fixed.
If you have had a course session impacted by this bug, you may want to communicate the issue with your students. A draft course announcement is included below:
Collaborate Ultra Chat Filtering Issue
In Collaborate Ultra, some terms are inadvertently filtered in the chat window. This is caused by a software bug related to a profanity filter in Collaborate Ultra that works even if your instructor turns the filter off. UBC has escalated this issue with the vendor to ensure the bug is fixed. Please rest assured that there is no intention to filter the course discussion or to censor any topics in the course. The observed behaviour is due to a technical issue.
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Posted in Collaborate Ultra News
September 11, 2020 at 9:00 am
With UBC returning to in-person classes, the Alibaba Global Accelerator service was discontinued as of April 30, 2022.
Students connecting to their UBC online courses from China now have access to the Alibaba Global Accelerator service, which may help improve their access to online learning resources.
The Alibaba Global Accelerator service works in conjunction with the UBC Virtual Private Network (VPN), an encrypted connection that protects data being transferred between computers and the network.
The Alibaba Global Accelerator is currently set up for three locations in China. Students accessing UBC online course materials from other countries can continue to use the existing UBC VPN.
You and your students in China can learn more about the Alibaba Global Accelerator and access technical support from UBC IT.
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Posted in Other Tool News
September 2, 2020 at 9:00 am
UBC has launched iClicker Cloud, an online student response system for synchronous and asynchronous gradable polling.
Unlike the previous iClicker Classic, no additional devices are required. You download a free app to your computer, and students respond from their browser window.
Most iClicker Cloud data is stored in Canada; however, registration data is stored in the U.S. Students therefore have the option to register with a pseudonym name and email address to protect their privacy. As long as students are informed of the data residency, the iClicker Cloud solution is FIPPA compliant.
iClicker Cloud is also integrated with Canvas. Once you synchronize your course, you can pass grades from the tool into the Canvas gradebook.
Learn more about iClicker Cloud in UBC’s iClicker Cloud instructor guide and iClicker Cloud student guide.
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Posted in iClicker Cloud News
August 23, 2020 at 9:00 am
UBC Zoom data has moved to Canadian data hosting, allowing us to enable cloud recording for Zoom sessions and to integrate Zoom and Canvas.
Cloud recording gives you an additional option when recording a Zoom web-conferencing session. When you start recording, you will have the option to store the recording online. After the recorded session is finished, you will receive a shareable link to the recording via email.
You can also now add Zoom to your Canvas Course Navigation. Once added, you can schedule Zoom sessions from within any Canvas course, and students can access the sessions and cloud recordings from within Canvas as well.
Learn more about Zoom cloud recording in the Zoom help centre. Additional information on cloud recording and the Canvas integration at UBC is available in UBC’s Zoom instructor guide.
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Posted in Canvas News, Zoom News
August 17, 2020 at 9:00 am
Microsoft Teams and OneDrive have now launched and are available to all UBC students, faculty, and staff.
Microsoft Teams is an all-in-one collaboration tool to create virtual meeting spaces and facilitate group work through web-conferencing, group chat, and real-time document collaboration. Microsoft OneDrive is a secure file-hosting service that allows storing, sharing, and synchronizing up to 1TB of files and folders from any connected devices.
At this time, the main focus of the launch is to facilitate student-to-student communication via chat, video conferencing, and document collaboration. In the lead-up to winter term 2, additional communication and resources will be available to support faculty who wish to incorporate the tools in their teaching.
Start exploring these new tools with UBC’s Microsoft Teams instructor guide and Microsoft OneDrive instructor guide.
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Posted in Microsoft OneDrive News, Microsoft Teams News