As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Friday, November 20th, Saturday, November 21st and Friday, December 4th. While many of the systems will be patched without any service disruption, there are some systems which require the downtime of key services. The schedule below outlines which key services will be offline and for how long.
Friday, 11/20/2020 between 5pm and 10pm (most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):
Saturday, 11/21/2020 between 9am and 11am(most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):
Please let us know if you have any concerns or questions.
Thanks!
Tim Champ
Manager of Unix Infrastructure
UMBC DoIT
In the coming weeks all UMBC faculty, staff and students will have Webex Assistant enabled by default for all Webex Meetings. Webex Assistant is a suite of features that improves meeting management as well as providing auto-captioning and meeting transcription highlights, which provides an important step towards meeting the needs of everyone in the UMBC community. We will send a follow up message once this suite of features is enabled. In the meantime, for more information on Webex Assistant and its capabilities, please visit this site.
Ray Soellner
Assoc. Director - DoIT
]]>In the inaugural episode of the Educause Exchange Podcast, Associate Provost and Deputy CIO Bob Carpenter contributes his views on how UMBC should use analytics and predictive models to support students. In this episode, entitled The Ethical Issues Around Learning Analytics(10 minutes long), he argues that we must not use learning analytics to foreclose opportunities to students. We must act as an agent for the student, supporting them in the pursuit of their educational goals. A student’s “grit” matters for their success; our models won’t always capture it.
Over the last week we received reports that some users were not receiving all email delivered voicemail messages. Yesterday, while investigating these reports it was discovered that some voicemail servers were operational but in a degraded state.
Around 10pm last night adjustments were made that are believed to have fully restored voicemail services. Some users may receive delayed voicemails but we don’t believe that any voicemails were lost.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused. If you have additional questions or concerns about this work please feel free to contact me.
Ray Soellner
Assoc. Director - DoIT
Shared drives allow a group of people to maintain a set of files and folders inside Google without having them owned by an individual. This means no more worrying about a person leaving and losing access to that critical document since everything is stored and owned by the group. You can easily add/remove people within a shared drive, and you can create them for a department, organization, workgroup, committee or any other type of collaboration. If you have a Google group you can even add the entire group to a shared drive, and manage permissions through the Google group.
To create a Google Shared Drive, please review our documentation here - https://wiki.umbc.edu/display/faq/Google+Shared+Drive
If you would like to setup a Google group for your team/organization to manage calendar meetings/shared drive access, please fill out the form here - http://doit.umbc.edu/request-tracker-rt/listgroup/
If you have any questions about google shared drives, please feel free to email me directly or call or contact our Technology Support Center at rt.umbc.edu or at x53838.
Thank you,
Damian Doyle
Associate Vice President
DoIT - UMBC
]]>Blackboard Predict (BB Predict) is a subscription-based predictive model designed to identify students at risk of receiving a grade of D or F in a course. UMBC has a long partnership with Blackboard and had an active advisory role in the development of this tool. While the product produced was high quality, it has been lightly used (although more recently DoIT has partnered with individual faculty and staff to explore ways to use it as part of our student success efforts and as a complement to our First Year Intervention Alert Program).
Given current usage and financial constraints, we have made the decision to sunset BB Predict and will not renew our subscription.
One factor that limited the usefulness of BB Predict to improve student success through better early alerts is simple. The model’s predictions only become precise enough to use with confidence at the semester's midpoint and are not “early enough.” Recognizing that the earlier at-risk students can be identified with precision, the more time we have to help them and the greater the likelihood of their success, the Data Science Team within DoIT and supported by the Provost’s office constructed our own model, now called UMBC Predict. The team’s goal was to increase the precision of the model’s estimates earlier in the semester, in this case, four weeks from the first day of classes, to allow for greater opportunities for students to seek assistance or change their approach to the class, and for these changes or assistance to have an impact.
UMBC Predict does not attempt to replicate the model and platform of our vendor partner. The strategy employed by the Data Science Team was to focus on fewer courses in the initial stages of the work. In particular, the team focused on courses with elevated DFW rates, large numbers of students, and importantly, courses where instructors make relatively heavy use of our learning management system (Blackboard) to engage students and to record assignments and grades throughout the semester. It has always been true that instructors’ use of the learning management system provides valuable information to students about their progress in the course, but it is also the case that these interactions provide important information that the predictive model can use to sharpen predictions at an earlier point in the semester.
A second important factor underlying our decision to sunset BB Predict is pragmatic and necessary. With the current pandemic and its associated negative effects upon the state budget, reducing our expenditure on a subscription-based model in favor of an internal model with equivalent or better performance for certain courses allows us to maintain our support for students while freeing up resources to support people and programs.
UMBC Predict is already being integrated into department-level enhanced early alert programs on a pilot basis. This term, faculty in the Mathematics and Statistics Department and the Dean’s Office in the College of Mathematical and Natural Sciences plan to partner with DoIT and the Analytics and Business Intelligence Group to use targeted communications to students who may be at risk after four weeks. The communication, delivered over the course instructor’s signature, encourages students to take advantage of their office hours along with other tips developed by the Academic Success Center to improve students’ chances of success both in the course and at UMBC.
The UMBC Instructional Technology Update is provided by the Division of Information Technology for students, faculty and staff. If you have questions or need help, please consult the Blackboard Help FAQs or directly at www.umbc.edu/blackboard/help. You can also contact the Technology Support Center at 410.455.3838 or submit an RT (Request Tracker) ticket via the myUMBC Help Menu or directly at my.umbc.edu/help.
HEADLINES
What’s New
UMBC faculty on a mission to prepare robust, high-quality online classes for fall
New PIVOT Site Launched for Faculty Professional Development
Recommended Template Language for Inclusion in Syllabi on Blackboard for Fall 2020
Academic Continuity
May 4-8 & August 10-14 PIVOT Live webinar recordings available [myUMBC login req’d]
Training & Professional Development (view all events)
Start of Semester Faculty Sprint: August 21
Essentials Series: VoiceThread, Panopto, Bb Original
Skill Builder Series: Collaborate, Ultra
Webex (Basics, Advanced, Teams, Events) & Virtual Desktop Environment
Other DoIT News
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources
Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
Request a consult with instructional technology staff