Service Reminders for Fall 2019 Courses

August 28, 2019

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Sakai

Fall 2019 Sakai course sites were created and have been populated with faculty and students. If you have not yet requested your ubercourses, this would be a good time to do so. If you’re having trouble finding and organizing your sites in the Home site, please read our Tips and Tricks for Organizing Your Sakai Sites. There are several new tools in Sakai 12, including the Attendance tool, a quick and easy way to take attendance during class. It even integrates with the Gradebook!

As part of the College’s website accessibility initiative, we have added a link to the HMC Accessibility web page on all HMC Fall 2019 Sakai course sites. This is one of the requirements for compliance with accessibility requirements. If you’re using a web site other than Sakai to host course materials, we’d appreciate it if you would add a link to https://www.hmc.edu/website-accessibility/ to your site as well. If you’d like to learn more about how to make your course materials more accessible, please contact us at the  CIS Help Desk helpdesk@hmc.edu or 909 607 7777. We also now have an accessible syllabus Word template that faculty can use. You can find it linked from our Web and Document Accessibility Consulting service catalog page.

Mudd Shots

Course Mudd Shots have been updated and are available in the HMC Portal. Course Mudd Shots are now available only on the HMC Portal. The HMC Portal version includes photos of non-HMC students. The HMC web site version has been retired and is no longer available.  More information and links are available on the Mudd Shots Service Catalog page.

Google Groups

Course mailing lists have been created in Google Groups. You can see your course mailing lists in your My Groups list or get a full list of all course mailing lists at: Fall 2019 Course Mailing Lists on Google Groups. With additional feedback from the HMC Computing Committee we have created a “master” Google Group for all courses that have multiple sections. For example, bio-23@g.hmc.edu contains all faculty and students associated with all 5 sections of Bio 23. Master lists will be automatically maintained just like the other Google Groups for courses.

Gradescope

You’ll be happy to know that we now have an institutional license for Gradescope, the online grading platform. It’s been integrated with Sakai, which allows you to easily synchronize your Gradescope roster with Sakai, as well as the Gradescope gradebook with the gradebook in Sakai. If you are new to Gradescope and would like to try it out this semester please send an email to the CIS Help Desk and one of the ARCS team can help you set it up. If you want to use the integration with Sakai please be sure to read the instructions for Integrating Gradescope with Sakai for Faculty since there are already a couple of gotchas that we’ve discovered. You can also point your students to Gradescope Instructions for Students for some useful instructions on scanning to PDF using the CIS student printers or the smartphone app called CamScanner. Both of these documents are available on the CIS Gradescope service catalog page.

Classroom technology

In addition to the video projectors, LCD TVs (in the 12-person classrooms), speakers and screens, many classrooms have resident document cameras, Blu-Ray/DVD or DVD/VHS players. You can find a full list of which rooms have what equipment in this document: AV Equipment in HMC Class/Meeting Rooms.

Other technology available for use in the Shanahan Center and other classroom includes:

  1. Laptop carts
  2. Lecture capture
  3. iClickers
  4. Smartboard
  5. Video cameras for displaying experiments

More details on these other technologies can be found below:

  1. We have three carts with 15 laptops each, which are stored on the second floor of the Shanahan Center for use throughout the building. Laptops are made available on a first come, first served basis so please let us know as soon as you can if you need laptops for your class. Also, consider carefully how many laptops you need or if at some point you realize that your class is using fewer laptops than you requested, please update your requests so that the systems can be made available for other classes. If you’d like more information about the laptops and how to reserve them, please visit  the Laptop Cart Reservation Service Catalog Page. You can find a full list of the software that is included on the laptops and the CIS lab computers in this document: Lab Software in CIS Managed Labs and Carts.
  2. There are six rooms in the Shanahan Center that are lecture capture-ready, including the Lecture Hall (1430), the Recital Hall (B480), the 85 person classroom (B460) and three rooms on the 2nd floor (2450, 2454 and 2460). All of those rooms have a video camera and microphone. Each of the Galileo Auditoria also now have lecture capture available. You can visit the CIS web site for more information at the Lecture Capture Service Catalog Page.
  3. Clickers (personal response systems) are also available for loan. Faculty can borrow sets of 50 iClickers and a wireless receiver from CIS. We can also help install the iClicker software on your computer and provide training on how to use the system. More information about the iClickers can be found at the iClicker Service Catalog Page.
  4. We have one Smartboard (interactive whiteboard) for faculty to try out. While the Smartboard is on a mobile stand, it is too big and heavy to move between classrooms, so we are currently keeping it in one of the technology-rich classrooms (Shanahan 2460). Use of the Smartboard is on a first come, first served basis so please let us know right away if you would like to try it out in your class, as we may need time to work with the Registrar to reschedule classrooms.
  5. Many faculty also like to be able to project a demonstration or experiment from the front of the room to one of the big screens. The document camera is capable of doing this or you can use a video camera, either one of the built-in video cameras available in the lecture capture rooms listed above, or CIS can set up one for you.

If you’re interested in using one of these technology services in a class, please submit a request to the CIS Help Desk. You can use the CIS AV Request Form or send us an email at helpdesk@hmc.edu.

We ask that you give us at least 48 hours notice when submitting a request. If possible, please do not wait until the last minute to submit your requests.

Have a great Fall semester!