Service Reminders for Spring 2019 Courses

Sakai

Spring 2019 Sakai course sites were created on January 10th 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 new Home site, please read our Tips and Tricks for Organizing Your Sakai Sites.

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

Mudd Shots

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 in the Mudd Shots Service Catalog Page.

Google Groups

Course mailing lists have been created in Google Groups. You can see them in your My Groups list or get a full list of all course mailing lists at: Spring 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, phys-51@g.hmc.edu contains all faculty and students associated with all 11 sections of Physics 51. Master lists will be automatically maintained just like the other Google Groups for courses. You may need to manually remove previous instructors from the course since our automatic removal scripts don’t yet have that functionality.

Gradescope

The use of Gradescope, the online grading platform, has become more popular over the past couple of years. If you are interested in trying 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. We recommend using students’ username@hmc.edu addresses when adding them to Gradescope rather than giving them a code to self-enroll. This helps avoid students’ having multiple Gradescope accounts. We can also help by sending you a spreadsheet that you can import into Gradescope that includes students’ Sakai usernames and section numbers.

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 Spring semester!