CIS Service Reminders for Fall 2021

August 23, 2021

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Welcome back! We’re happy to see many of you in person again as we return to campus. We’re sure you have many questions, especially about technology in the classrooms and audio amplification so please read below and feel free to send us an email at the Help Desk if you have more questions or concerns. 

Read below for more information about:

  • Classroom technology
  • Fall 2021 course sites in Sakai
  • Course Mudd Shots
  • Course mailing lists in Google Groups
  • Gradescope, Piazza, and Zoom
  • Help Desk contact information

Classroom technology

You can find a full list of which rooms have what equipment in this document: AV Equipment in HMC Class/Meeting Rooms. There are 9 Shanahan classrooms with audio amplification and wireless microphones. The Galileo Auditoria also have audio amplification and wireless mics. Mics should be worn outside your mask to avoid problems with noise from rubbing against the mask. We have extra mics on order in case you would like your own mic to use in these rooms.

We have also purchased some personal voice amplifier sets that can be used in classrooms and labs that don’t have built in audio amplification. Our testing, and testing at the other Colleges, indicate that audio amplification is not necessary in the smaller 24-person classrooms, but may be useful in the larger 40- and 50-person classrooms. 

Please email the Help Desk at helpdesk@hmc.edu if you’d like to try out or check out one of the personal voice amplifier sets or if you would like a personal wireless mic. 

Other technology available for use in the Shanahan Center includes:

  1. Laptop carts
  2. Lecture capture
  3. Video cameras for displaying experiments

More details on these other technologies can be found below:

  1. We have several laptop carts, 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 and microphones available. You can visit the CIS web site for more information at the Lecture Capture Service Catalog Page.
  3. 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 are planning to use technology such as laptop carts, clickers, lecture capture, document camera, DVD player, or laptops in your class this semester, please don’t wait until the last minute to submit requests. To request the use of any of the technologies described below please send an email to the CIS Help Desk at helpdesk@hmc.edu or use the CIS AV Request form. We need at least 48 hours notice to serve you well.  

Sakai

Fall 2021 Sakai course sites were created and have been populated with faculty and students. Sakai has also been upgraded to version 19. Sakai will synchronize with the portal three times per day at 12:30 pm, 5:30 pm and 2:30 am. 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. 

If you’re still working on your course site and don’t want students to be able to see it yet, you can temporarily unpublish your site by going to Site Info/Manage Tools.

As part of the College’s website accessibility initiative, we have added a link to the HMC Accessibility web page on all HMC Fall 2021 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.

Course 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.

Course Mailing Lists

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 2021 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, Piazza, and Zoom

We currently have institutional licenses for both Gradescope and Zoom. We are also in the process of purchasing an institutional license for Piazza. The licenses cover all faculty, staff, and students at HMC. All three tools are integrated with Sakai. Please be sure to read the documentation on how to integrate these tools with Sakai since there are a few gotchas! More documentation is also available on the CIS Gradescope service catalog page and the CIS Zoom service catalog page. PIazza documentation is coming soon!

CIS Help Desk

This semester, our Help Desk will be back in person although we will continue to offer remote support via online chat. We can be reached via the following methods:

Have a great Fall semester!