Three Tools for Learning Analytics

Posted on by Matthew Taylor

As teachers it would be great to be able to predict as early as possible, which students are going to require more support, to get accurate feedback on what a cohort has grasped and to adapt teaching to better meet individual students’ needs. The user information gained from systems such as Canvas and Panopto can provide an insight into answering these questions. Use of student data in education is often given the title Learning Analytics.

In this post, I’ll explore three sources of learning data available to teaching staff at the University of Sussex.

  1. Canvas Analytics Beta 
  2. Canvas Quizzes
  3. Panopto

Canvas Analytics Beta

Note: Access to Canvas Analytics Beta has been temporarily suspended prior to it’s official release on 19th October.

As is clear from its name, Canvas Analytics Beta is still relatively early in its development, however, while limited, this tool can still provide some useful information for teaching staff. 

You can add the analytics tool to your module by going to Settings > Navigation, then dragging Analytics Beta up into your module navigation (it will not be visible to students). 

The tool has two main views: Course Grade which provides data on activities such as quizzes or assignments, which are linked to the grade book and Weekly Online Activity which gives more general data on views of pages and resources. Options to filter and drill down into this data are not currently available. You can, however, download the data for analysis in software such as Excel.

A line chart showing the average page views for a Canvas module during the course of a two month period.
A graph showing weekly activity on a Canvas module

At present, most may find the latter view most useful, giving you a quick idea of how much activity there is on a module. 

Scroll down to the table below and you can quickly get an idea of who is actively viewing course information (and who is not).

The Course Grades view for most will show only one or two contributory assignments so may be of limited value. If you incorporate additional, formative online activities, spaced throughout the term which feed into the gradebook, this can become more useful.

This brings us neatly onto our next topic.

Canvas Quizzes

Quizzes can be a really useful way to check student progress throughout a module. The quiz tool in Canvas provides teaching staff with rich information on student responses. You can read more about how to use quizzes in our previous post: Canvas highlights 1: Quizzes and in the Canvas guide to quizzes

You can access response data by clicking through to a quiz. A link to Quiz Statistics can be found under ‘related items’ in the top right corner of the screen. Here Canvas provides a summary of scores for each quiz and a breakdown by question. Using this it is easy to identify areas of concern for a post-lecture revision quiz.

The discrimination index listed by each question helps to highlight questions which draw different responses from those who score highly overall to those with lower scores. A low discrimination index on a question that many students get wrong could indicate a gap in the teaching (or an error in the question).  

For individual student responses select the link to Moderate this quiz. There you can review each student’s responses, though this is listed by candidate number so you won’t be able to identify individuals by name.

Panopto

Our new media platform provides rich data on student engagement with videos. This can be either per video or aggregated for all video in a module.

Creators can access the Panopto statistics dashboard from a module by selecting Panopto Recordings from the navigation menu. Module folder statistics can be found via the bar chart icon, top right. Alternatively, hover over an individual video and select Stats to view the data for your chosen video. This will show how many views there have been by date and how much of the videos students have watched.

A neat feature of Panopto is the ability to search by keyword and skip to a specific point in a video. Usefully, the stats dashboard includes a chart which shows which parts of a video students have viewed. This may help to indicate if students have missed important information.

Bar chart showing number of views of a Panopto video by date, followed by a second line chart showing how the number of views/viewers varies during the course of the video.
Statistics in Panopto. See how often and which parts of your videos students are watching. 

Find out more

This is just a short introduction to some of the tools available. We’d be interested to hear how you are using data in Canvas and other online tools to improve your teaching. If you are interested in learning more about these tools please do get in touch with us at tel@sussex.ac.uk.

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Posted in Canvas, Learning Design

5 steps to using tech for presentations

Posted on by Anne Hole
Graphic of the 5 steps: Step 1: Get organised. Step 2: Collect resources. Step 3: Choose a tool. Step 4: Add images. Step 5: Check accessibility

Giving presentations is as much a part of academics’ lives as it is their students’. Whether presenting at a conference or in an undergraduate seminar, there are similar issues to bear in mind and digital tools to help.

Step 1. Get organised

Whether you are creating your presentation alone or as part of a group it is a good idea to have a way of keeping track of the various tasks and stages involved. There are several good task management apps that are free, easy to use, and allow you to allocate tasks to individuals.

The Technology Enhanced Learning team are great fans of Trello. You can share a board with a team, attach documents, add links and due dates. Read more about Trello in ‘The organisational tools I rely on’. Other apps worth looking at are Any.do and Meistertask. All of these work via a web browser and have iOS and Android apps so you can keep track of what’s happening with your project on mobile devices.

Step 2. Collect resources and ideas

Before you start creating your presentation you will want to gather your ideas and materials and those are likely to be a combination of digital materials and paper-based resources. There are several digital tools that will allow you to collect, sort and search your materials.

Step 3. Choose a presentation tool

When we think of a presentation we might automatically think of PowerPoint. This well-established tool has its detractors, but generally the faults lie in the way the tool has been used. As long as your presentation is well planned and clearly presented, PowerPoint remains a great option. Here are some alternatives you might want to consider:

  • Google Slides is similar to PowerPoint and has some great collaboration and editing functions.
  • SMARTboards. If you are presenting in one of the teaching rooms at the University of Sussex where a SMARTboard is installed you can use the Smart Notebook software to prepare a presentation.
  • Infographics. Sometimes data is best presented as a poster, in which case you might want to look at infographic authoring tools such as Piktochart or Canva.

Our post on 5 Top Tips for creating inclusive presentations looked at a range of presentation tools and how accessible they are.

classroom with students and presenter

Step 4: Add images

Images can add a lot to a presentation – as the adage goes: ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. There is some confusion around which online images you can use in your work, but don’t forget that images are born copyrighted just as written work is, so you cannot use all images found online. To find images that you can use in your presentation try:

  • Creative Commons. A lot of people apply Creative Commons licences to their work so that others can use them. Many of the images found via a search for reusable images will be licensed using one of the Creative Commons licences. You can learn more about the licences in our post Understanding Creative Commons Licences and  this resource on how to properly attribute images. You can search for free content in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses at search.creativecommons.org/
  • Google. Search for images using the ‘usage rights’ filter to see images that are labeled for reuse. 
  • Public domain and other licences. A number of sites bring together collections of images which can be used without attribution. These usually use the CC0 Public Domain licence or a company’s own licences. The best places to find these are:

Step 5: Check that your presentation is accessible

It has always been good practice to make your presentations accessible to all, but new accessibility requirements for public sector bodies mean that this is now essential for digital resources. Although presentations often happen first in a face-to-face setting, slides are usually shared online so it is important that they work well for everyone. The TEL team have created some great resources and guidance on the Digital Accessibility web pages which will take you through creating accessible materials, checking existing documents, finding out about assistive technologies and learning more about specific accessibility needs. In terms of presentations, it is important to:

  • Choose a presentation tool that will help you make your slides accessible, such as PowerPoint or Google Slides. Some newer tools such as Prezi, Haiku Deck and Adobe Spark offer some exciting visual features, but do not always have the accessibility options that are required. 
  • Use an accessible theme and predefined layouts. PowerPoint and Google Slides both have a range of themes that will create easy to read slides and make it easier for you to make your slides accessible.
  • Add alternative text to images. If you have images which convey meaning then it is important to provide the ‘alternative text’ that will allow people using screen readers to understand what is in the image. PowerPoint and Google Slides both allow you to add alternative text to images easily.
  • Make sure the content is in the right order. When there are several elements on a slide screen readers will usually read them in the order you added them, rather than in the order that makes sense, but you can check and reorder elements.

You can read more about this in 5 Top Tips for creating inclusive presentations which includes step-by-step guidance.

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Posted in digital skills, Learning Design

TEL:US Podcast with Keith Smyth from the University of the Highlands and Islands

Posted on by Daniel Axson

Keith Smyth is a Professor of Pedagogy and Head of the Learning and Teaching Academy at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Keith visited sunny Sussex for our Summer South Coast Meet Up event in July. In this show Kitty and Paolo caught up with Keith at the event and talked about his book, digital transformation, digital skills and much more. 

The book can be found here: Conceptualising the Digital University: The intersection of policy, pedagogy and practice.

Links:

Keith Smyth and @smythkrs on Twitter

Kitty Horne

Paolo Oprandi

Dan Axson

University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI)

The Learning and Teaching Academy at UHI

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From the ground up: Tutors improving student experience at the University of Sussex

Posted on by Paolo Oprandi

Academics at the University of Sussex have been finding innovative ways to best support student achievement through the use of technology. In the past couple of years, members of the  Technology Enhanced Learning team have been building a list of case studies of tutors who are using technology to improve the student experience. In this blog post we will be sharing a short synopsis of some of these case studies that might inspire you. Could your teaching or assessment practices be made more effective or efficient with the help of easy-to-use technology?

Sussex Innovations in teaching

Mind maps are one way of  encouraging students to organise their thinking and make coherent disciplinary arguments. Dr Karis Jade Petty (Anthropology) employs a student-led approach to her workshops using the interactive whiteboards to produce mind maps of the ideas which emerge through class discussions. The mind maps help the class collect ideas from the student-led discussions and visualise conceptual relationships. 

Other Sussex tutors are increasingly using the online board, Padlet, in order for students to post ideas and share resources. Dr Susann Wiedlitzka (Law) developed a new module that made the most of technology in her curriculum design. In one of her modules she expects students to post ideas about the topic and share related resources to Padlet before the teaching session. During the teaching sessions Susann also uses the student response system, Poll Everywhere, to gauge students’ opinions and understanding as the session goes along.

Dr Evan Hazenberg (English) is using Padlet as well. He puts students into small groups with the intention that each week, everyone in the group reads a different chapter, writes a one-page summary and posts the summary on a Padlet wall that is accessible to other members of their group. 

We think these innovations make great use of technology by facilitating peer collaboration and deeper learning. We encourage all tutors to consider whether technology could make your teaching practices easier or more effective.

Innovations in assessment

Some University of Sussex tutors have found innovative ways of improving the quality of assessments, using assessment methods that both support the students’ learning and evaluate their skills more appropriately for the subject than traditional assessments. 

For example, there are a number of lecturers who are assessing students through portfolios of work. Some expect a number of submission artefacts to be included in their portfolio, while others require students evidence weekly reflection. Prof. Robin Banerjee (Psychology) uses a portfolio assessment which expects both. He feels portfolios evidence student learning and understanding better than traditional assessments and provoke deeper learning. His assessments require students to create an online journal using Mahara, the e-portfolio system used at Sussex, into which the students incorporate multimedia artefacts such as their reflections, related images, videos and audio recordings and links to relevant materials that they have found. 

Other lecturers are using video assessments to evaluate their students’ understanding of their subject. Prof. Carol Alexander (Accounting and Finance) has introduced an innovative form of assessment to enable her students to showcase and develop a range of skills including independent research. The assessment requires students to produce and present their own research in the form of a short video. Students are introduced to three video production apps (Videoscribe, Adobe Spark and Screencastify) during teaching. She finds that the assessment method intrinsically inspired many of the students to engage deeper in the topic than they would have through traditional assessment methods. 

There are many ways in which students can be assessed other than the traditional methods of essay or examination. Many of these alternatives provoke deeper learning than traditional assessments and require students to evidence their skills in more authentic ways. We encourage all of you who are reading this to consider if the modules you teach are assessed in the most appropriate way or if other methods may be more effective.

Summary

You can find out more about these innovations from the case studies pages of the Technology Enhanced Learning web site. We know many other lecturers through the University are employing similar innovations to improve their teaching and the assessment of their students. If you’re one of them and want to share your practices, please contact the TEL team who will be happy to make a case study of your work. Or if you would like to help to improve your teaching or assessments using technology but don’t know where to begin, contact the TEL team who will help you get started.

Contact the Technology Enhanced Learning team at tel@sussex.ac.uk

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Canvas: New Commons Favourites button in Rich Content Editor

Posted on by Kitty Horne

What is Canvas Commons?

Canvas Commons is a repository or resources and activities that you can draw upon to use in your Canvas module sites. Commons contains learning objects that other Canvas users, both at the University of Sussex and other institutions, have created and shared for wider use. You can use keywords and to apply various filters when searching to help you find resources relevant to you. You can choose to filter resources by content type (Assignments, Discussions, Images, Pages, Quizzes, etc.), level of study and who the content is ‘Shared with’ enabling you to view resources created only at the University of Sussex should you want to.

Screenshot of Canvas Commons including a search bar for keywords, a filter button and links to University of Sussex School Canvas templates.
Screenshot of Canvas Commons including a search bar for keywords, a filter button and links to University of Sussex School Canvas templates.

Commons Favourites

Within Commons you can choose to ‘favourite’ individual learning objects to provide quick access to these resources later on. To add something to your favourites first go to Commons by clicking the Commons button in the Global Navigation Menu on the left of your screen (you may have to allow Commons access to your Canvas account the first time you use it). Next locate and access your chosen resource, then click the ‘Add to favourites’ button on the right hand side of the screen. You can then access all of your ‘favourited’ items at a later date by returning to Commons and clicking Favourites at the top of the page.

Screenshot of an example user's Canvas Commons Favorites page showing a search bar for keywords, a filter button and links to example favourited resources such as images, quizzes and documents.
Screenshot of an example user’s Canvas Commons Favorites page showing a search bar for keywords, a filter button and links to example favourited resources such as images, quizzes and documents.

To learn more about Canvas Commons Favourites see How do I add and manage Favourites in Commons?

Commons Favourites in the Rich Content Editor

The new Commons Favourites button in the Rich Content Editor allows you to quickly access and import your favourite resources and activities straight from Commons without having to navigate away from the module you are editing.

Screenshot of the Canvas Rich Content Editor with the Commons Favorites button highlighted.
Screenshot of the Canvas Rich Content Editor with the Commons Favorites button highlighted.

The Rich Content Editor is used almost anywhere that you can edit text in Canvas. So whether you are editing a Canvas Page or creating for example a new Discussion or Quiz, you can always access your Commons Favourites. The Commons Favourites button supports the importing of documents, videos, audio recordings, and images. Click the button and then either browse all of your saved elements or use the search function to search for keywords or filter by resource type. Then simply click on the element that you want to use and it will be imported into the content that you are currently editing. Depending on the size of the learning object, this can take a couple of minutes. For a step-by-step guide see How do I import Commons Favourites in the Rich Content Editor in Canvas?

Screenshot of a Canvas Page being edited with the Commons Favorite pop-out window highlighted.
Screenshot of a Canvas Page being edited with the Commons Favorite pop-out window highlighted.

Don’t forget that you can also share your own resources and activities to Canvas Commons if you have created any learning objects that you would like to share with your colleagues or the wider Canvas Community. If you would like more information about Canvas Commons see the Canvas Community Instructor Guides which contain FAQs and step-by-step guides. The University of Sussex is using Canvas Commons to share School modules templates, if you would like help importing and using your School’s template please contact tel@sussex.ac.uk or visit our Eventbrite to see if there is a support session for your School.

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Posted in Canvas

Making your Canvas modules accessible

Posted on by Matthew Taylor
Universal Accessibility Icon: The icon depicts a person with arms outspread
“Universal Access” by Font Awesome is licensed under CC BY 4.0

If you’ve attended any TEL training recently, you’ll have heard us mention digital accessibility. This means making sure online teaching materials are usable for students with disabilities or specific learning needs. This year sees the introduction of new legislation governing accessibility of websites and mobile applications for publicly funded institutions, including universities, so it’s important to make sure that the digital content of our modules meet the necessary requirements.

As mentioned in our previous blog post we’ve developed some guidance to help you make your module sites accessible. I’d encourage you to look at these. In this post I’ll present a suggested workflow for making sure your module is accessible.

I’ll look at a typical module, based around a number of Canvas pages, including a homepage and several topic pages, one for each week. These pages include text, pictures and one or two videos. The module also includes links to PowerPoint slides, handouts in Word and PDF format and a reading list.

Step 1. Check the checklist

Before you start, it is a good idea to get a basic idea of what to look out for. We’ve summarised this in four key design principles:

  • Structure your content
  • Provide text alternatives for video, audio and images
  • Use of colour
  • Use descriptive text in links and headings

These principles apply across all of the formats mentioned above (Canvas, Word, PDF…).  You can read more about these on our accessibility Create page. To make things easier, we’ve created a list of Do’s and Don’ts to check.

If this all sounds alien to you, the good news is that we’ve made sure these principles are baked-in to your School module templates. So as long as you use your school template you shouldn’t have to worry about the main module home page, assignment information and weekly/topic pages (if the template includes them).

Step 2. Review additional Canvas pages, Word documents and PDFs

For content beyond the core template pages the key thing to be concerned about is the structure. Alternative (alt) text for images (and for Canvas pages, colour contrast) should be picked-up using an accessibility checker which we’ll come to in a bit.

Applying a Heading 1 style to the main document heading.
Structure your content with headings in Word

Word, PowerPoint and PDF checkers won’t test for appropriate colour contrast but if you keep to the combinations used in the templates you should be fine.

If you have the choice, PDFs should be avoided. They don’t adapt well to different screen sizes and if you don’t keep the source document they can be hard to edit and to make accessible. 

Step 3. Provide text alternatives for video

If you’re using video I have some good news. Box of Broadcasts, Kanopy, YouTube, and our upcoming lecture capture system, Panopto, provide either subtitles or closed captions for most video they host.  With the latter two, these are auto-generated and can require a little tweaking to get them correct. You will not be expected to manually correct subtitles unless explicitly requested by students on a per video basis.

Step 4. Use an online reading list

Next we come to reading lists and there is more good news. Provided you follow the processes recommended by the Library, you shouldn’t need to do anything extra.

All reading for your module should be passed via the Library reading list. The Library will then ensure the readings are accessible.  

Step 5. Run an accessibility check

There are built-in accessibility checkers in Canvas, Word, PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat (for PDFs). The better the accessibility of the original document, the better these will work, so like a spell check, this is best done last.

A couple of points to bear in mind:

  1. Not all images require alternative (alt) text. If an image is purely decorative the alt text can be left blank. Canvas allows you to tick a box to declare the image is decorative.
  2. There is a degree of personal judgement required. Accessibility checkers won’t tell you something is definitely inaccessible. They will just suggest things that look problematic. 
PowerPoint, Word and Excel have inbuilt accessibility checkers

Accessible design benefits everyone

Hopefully I’ve persuaded you that this is not as onerous as it may originally have sounded. If you still find yourself asking why you need to do this now when you don’t know of any students with disabilities or specific learning needs on your module, I have a few last points to mention:

Not all students who have accessibility needs will present themselves to you and while you may not have someone this year you may well the next.

You gain too. Accessible design is just good design which benefits everyone. Have you ever been sitting in a noisy room or on a quiet train without headphones and wanted to watch a short video but it didn’t have subtitles? Have you spent time searching through a Word document trying to make all the headings look the same, or spent precious minutes picking-out headings to put together a table of contents? Have you spent ages zooming in and out of a PDF document on your phone trying to read the tiny text? Have you spent three clicks too many looking for the “click here” which takes you to the page you want to see? Have you used an app to read-out a web page to you to give tired eyes a break? I could go on.

If you have any further questions or concerns please contact tel@sussex.ac.uk and we’ll do our best to help.

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Posted in Accessibility, Canvas

Getting ready for September with TEL

Posted on by Anne Hole

Summer is here, but before we know it students will be arriving to begin the 2019-20 academic year. Before then, teaching staff will want to prepare their Canvas modules and related materials. To support staff during this process Technology Enhanced Learning have created two new sets of resources and are arranging face-to-face sessions. This post will give an idea of what is available.

Rollover – copying module content from year to year.

New, empty Canvas sites for 19-20 were created and made available to staff on 10th June. People teaching new modules can now start building their sites, but for most modules, convenors will want to copy at least some content from the 18-19 version. Most Schools now also have a module template which staff may be using for the first time. These have been introduced in response to student requests for greater consistency between modules.

On the TEL website we now have a Canvas Rollover page which provides step-by-step guidance on the process.

Screenshot of the Canvas Rollover webpage http://www.sussex.ac.uk/tel/learningtechnologies/canvas/rollover
Screenshot of the Canvas Rollover webpage

The Learning Technologists in the TEL team are also contacting the Schools they work with to offer sessions where colleagues can get together to work on their sites with help on hand. If you would like to be included in any workshops for your School please contact tel@sussex.ac.uk

Accessibility – an improved learning environment for all

Accessibility has always been an important consideration when reviewing, updating and creating online materials, but with the new accessibility requirements for public sector bodies coming into effect this is now a legal requirement.

Digital Accessibility web pages have been added to the TEL website, offering guidance on how best to provide an improved learning environment for all.

The guidance is presented in 4 sections:

  • Create – looks at structuring content, providing alternatives, using colour and descriptive text. There is also a downloadable checklist poster.
  • Check – shows how to check the accessibility of Pages in Canvas; Microsoft Word documents and PowerPoints; PDFs; Google documents and slides; Apple Keynote and Pages files.
  • Tools – looks at some tools which can be used to support students with specific learning differences.
  • Needs – provides some examples of the types of challenges that students may face depending on their individual needs, with links to find out how to improve resources accordingly.
Screenshot of the Digital Accessibility webpage http://www.sussex.ac.uk/tel/accessibility
Screenshot of the Digital Accessibility webpage

New activities

As we move into the second year of Canvas at Sussex, colleagues are starting to think about how they might use some of the additional functionality of the platform. When planning modules for the coming year don’t forget that Canvas offers:

The above blog posts introduce each of these options but as always, the TEL team are very happy to discuss how they (or other tools) might be used.

Where can I get more help?

The TEL team is here to support teaching staff as they prepare module sites and materials, so if you have a question or want to discuss options please contact tel@sussex.ac.uk

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Posted in Accessibility, Canvas

TEL:US Podcast with Dr Maren Deepwell, Mary Krell and Dr Tamsin Hinton-Smith

Posted on by Daniel Axson

Dan Axson and Kitty Horne caught up with Dr Maren Deepwell, CEO of ALT, Mary Agnes Krell, Senior Lecturer in Media and Film Studies and Dr Tamsin Hinton-Smith, Senior Lecturer in Higher Education. We talk about all things technology, learning technology, favorite shortcuts and apps we couldn’t live without. We also discuss their formative technology experiences, how technology and equality are an embedded aspect of the PGCertHE and how the learning technology landscape has changed over the last 12 years.

A note on audio (again…). I couldn’t mic everyone, so I thought I had enough coverage with the two table top mics and a Blue Snowball, however I forgot to press record on the iPad (for the Snowball) so apologies to Kitty, who has a very quiet audio as a result.

How it was made.

  1. Two standard table top mics into Zoom H4n
  2. Blue Snowball into iPad
  3. Forgot to press go on iPad for the Snowball (Sorry Kitty)
  4. Salvage audio in Adobe Audition
  5. Record Intro and Outro with Table top mics into Zoom H4n
  6. Build show in GarageBand
  7. Export to Anchor.fm
  8. Run through Otter.ai for Transcript
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We are the Educational Enhancement team at the University of Sussex. We publish posts each fortnight about the use of technology to support teaching and learning. Read more about us.

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