WCU's Commons for Teaching and Learning Excellence

This New Beginning 

It has come.  The Fall semester is upon us.  We are bearing together the hope and promise that NC Promise brings in the form of record numbers of students in almost all categories.  Your expertise, your dedication, your patience, and your ability to lean into the work while sharing the challenge with those, like us, who labor to support your efforts, all will be necessary parts and pieces in this common journey.

Change is a constant in dynamic and growing systems.  I have no doubt that your lives and practice are as much a testimony to that fact as are ours.  The CFC is growing through a number of dynamic changes, but we want you to know that we are continually working to become more responsive, more efficient, and more attuned to your needs.

We have a few changes in how you can access our help.  One of the pieces of formative feedback we've received in the last few months is that it is sometimes hard to get to a person.  We've been taking time to work with the good folks at the Help Desk and the Technology Commons and are trying out a new approach that we hope will let us take care of your needs in the most rapid and efficient way and will continue to assure you that you have a team of professionals working to help you succeed.  The CFC remains open 8-5 on weekdays.  We will be working to have a staff member or student worker available to help you as they are able, to get a technician on the task, or to set up an appointment for further assistance.  You will also now be able to directly call the IT Helpdesk or to use the handy forms on our Blackboard support page to initiate the quickest resolution of our most frequently requested services for Blackboard.  We are also continuing to put more and more step sheets and other troubleshooting information into the help.wcu.edu , which is available outside the 7:30 am - 6:30 pm availability of the Help Desk.

As the year starts we celebrate the success of the collaborations and programs that we completed last year.  We urge you to take a look at our newly refreshed resource pages . We urge you to come to the events that are currently scheduled. And we urge you to reach out with suggestions and questions.

Here for You,

Jonathan D. Wade, PhD
Acting Director, Coulter Faculty Commons

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Coulter Faculty Commons at 828-227-7196.  If you have a basic Blackboard question or need, the ITHelp Desk may be able to get you started at 828-227-7487.

Check out our webpage at cfc.wcu.edu

Syllabus Help

The CFC has updated the Syllabus Course Resources for Fall 2018. 

The following sections of the syllabus have been updated (in this 5.25.18 version): 

• WALC
• Math Tutoring Center
• Institutional Policies: Course Recording and Broadcasting
• Institutional Policies: Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
• Academic Integrity Policy and Reporting Process (corrected a typo)

For further help with syllabi, including course planning and design, alignment, and assessment, consider a consultation with one of our faculty developers. For course design, start with Jeanine Irons.

For more information about the syllabus please contact Terry Pollard. 

Faculty Collaborations

Seeking a Tenure and Promotion/FAD Faculty Associate

We're still seeking a tenured faculty member to help advise faculty who are in the process of putting together their T&P portfolios.  The faculty member would also advise about and help in the continuous improvement process for the FAD (Faculty Activity Database/Digital Measures).  There is a small stipend available.  For more information contact Jonathan Wade or Brandon Schwab .

Hold the Date: Innovation Unconference (Sept. 28, 1-5 pm)

If you've ever wanted to experience an unconference where collaboration, demonstration, and conversation are spontaneously organized into a just-in-time almost magical synergy, mark your calendars to come and be a part of this event.  Conceived and hosted by the distinguished professors of WCU, this will be a fantastic opportunity to explore the possibilities of collaboration.  For more information contact Lisa Bloom .

The Challenge of Creating Meaningful Feedback

“All that hard work and all I got was a check that it was done, no feedback!”

Giving students meaningful feedback is an important aspect of effective instruction but doing so can be time-consuming especially in large classes. We are certain that there are faculty members at WCU who have found good tips, strategies or tools for efficiently giving feedback that is worth sharing.  Is there a strategy that you use that you’ve found to save you time?  Please complete this brief two-question survey to share your strategy and indicate your interest in exploring this topic further.  Results will be compiled and shared between the participants and to the faculty at large if there is interest.

We are Archiving Large Courses

As a reminder, if you have a course over a gigabyte in size, and have been notified by the CFC, the course needs to be reduced in size by mid Fall semester. Please refer to the instructions sent in a previous email on how to back up your course content and how to move videos to Panopto. Click the purple button below for resources. You may have to sign into Panopto.

Update on Blackboard/Banner Integration

We are having to go back to running Snapshot (integration between Banner and Blackboard) every two hours instead of every hour. Last fall and this past spring, it took between 45-50 minutes to run the updates. However, with the increased enrollment, courses, and instructors, we feel like we are getting too close to overlapping the Snapshot runs. The overlaps have, in the past, caused users and courses to become disabled and this causes a huge problem for our users.

We will pull the enrollment files from Banner on the even hour (2:00, 4:00, 6:00, etc.) and run Snapshot at ten past each even hour. This was implemented on July 31, 2018.

Logistically, what this means is that if a student adds or drops a course at 2:02 pm, the change in Blackboard will not become available until after 4:10 pm the same day.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask by contacting the IT Help Desk or at 828-227-7487.

NCBI Training

There are multiple NCBI training sessions (Module 1 & 2) available throughout the rest of the summer and into fall:
Module 1:

• August 17, 2018, 2pm-4pm (UC Multipurpose Room)
• August 27, 2018, 2pm-4pm (UC Multipurpose Room)
• September 18, 3pm-5pm (Blue Ridge Conference Room B)

Module 2:

• September 7, 9am-12pm (UC Multipurpose Room)

For those unfamiliar with the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), it is an international organization that provides training regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. We have our own group of trainers at WCU that are equipped to facilitate diversity and inclusion modules across campus. You can click here to learn more about NCBI modules and philosophy, or click here to register for a session.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at ncbi@wcu.edu.