The FY24 budget for the state of Illinois appropriated $3 million in funding that the Illinois State Library has made for authoring, revising/remixing, updating, or creating ancillary materials for OER textbooks. The Open Educational Resource grant has a close turnaround time, with a maximum award of $150,000. Multiple grants can be submitted from the same institution. Applications are due to the Illinois State Library by April 1, 2024.
The UIS Syllabus and Assignment Icons, adapted from the Oregon State project, represent some approaches to generative AI use for course policies and assignments. Syllabus statements are also a great way to frame the conversation about generative AI with your students. As instructors, it is important to provide guidance on acceptable generative AI usage from the start of a course. Instructors are encourages to modify and adapt the descriptions to fit courses and assignments.
Whether you want to encourage or discourage students' use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in your course, syllabus statements are a great way to frame the conversation about generative AI with your students. COLRS has created a common document for UIS instructors to share the generative AI syllabus statements. Please email your AI syllabus language to COLRS for it to be added on your behalf.
Join Emily Boles and Pattie Piotrowski, Dean of the Library, to learn about Open Educational Resource grant opportunity through the Illinois State Library and brainstorm proposal ideas.
OER are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. They enable faculty to customize course materials and reduce student costs.
Learn more about the State Library OER grant.
Join COLRS staff to discuss Canvas tools to enhance assessment. We will discuss Canvas Outcomes, Rubrics, and the Learning Mastery view of the gradebook.
If you attended the assessment series presented by Carrie Allen, the UIS Director of Institutional Effectiveness, these tools can help you to collect data on your course or program. Carrie Allen will join us to answer questions and share how her office can assist you in this process.
For students in online courses, Canvas course sites are their experience of our university. An organized and consistent layout that specifically directs student attention scaffolds success. A carefully designed course homepage is a great first step in guiding your students through the materials and experiences you've designed in your course.
Just before our winter break, we shared with you some information about adding a homepage to your Canvas courses. However, if that information got lost in the commotion of finals week and the winter break, or if you’re thinking of ways to employ “plus-one” thinking into your courses this term, then utilizing DesignPLUS for your course homepage is a great place to start!
Synchronous eLearning is learning that takes place online in real-time and enables students and instructors to ask and answer questions immediately. Tools like online text chat or videoconferencing are considered synchronous learning.
Zoom is a robust web conferencing platform integrated with Canvas at UIS. Faculty can schedule and start Zoom meetings from within Canvas. Students can easily join Zoom meetings and access cloud recordings through the Zoom menu in Canvas courses.
