Monthly Archives: November 2013

Camtasia Studio 7 Video Help Guides

For those of you who use Camtasia Studio to make and edit recordings (which you may then add to a Listen Again page), you may be interested to know that there is a range of video help tutorials on the TechSmith web site. These explain how to perform a whole series of tasks in Camtasia Studio; including editing the unwanted video and audio from your clip, adding Title Clips at various points in the recording and zooming and panning between areas of the recording. All these features will help enhance your presentations when users view your recordings later. The help videos for Camtasia Studio version 7 (the version available on campus) are here:
http://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-7.html

For those of you who are interested the next version, Camtasia Studio 8, is available for a free trial download from the TechSmith web site. It includes a few new, enhanced features which you may make use of in the the trial period. Version 7 is the licensed version on campus, however, so when your free trial with version 8 runs out you’ll be back to using version 7 for now.

MEQ Panel

Staff will have spotted the new ‘Module Evaluation Questionnaire’ (MEQ) panel in Succeed:

MEQ Panel for Staff

The main purpose of adding this to Succeed is to try and increase the response from the students for MEQs. For students, the panel lists for each individual their open, unanswered MEQs:

MEQ Panel for Students

One link for each unanswered MEQ. Clicking on the link takes the student directly to the MEQ for the module from where it is easily submitted.

This panel also illustrates a feature that we will get with the community system we have purchased to enhance Succeed (when the system is upgraded with the new features). The feature is the ability to show a panel to only those individuals that need to see it. With the community system this panel would not appear for staff at all. Presently it has to be specially programmed to do nothing, bar display a message, when present for staff — far more sensible not to display at all. The community system should be available next semester.

Add Video to your Discussions

Succeed’s Discussions Tool supports the addition of video messages. All you need is a YouTube (Google) account and some means of recording yourself (such as a webcam) and you can add video messages to the Discussions Tool. Click the Record from Webcam button in the formatting toolbar whilst creating you message:

record_from_webcam

This opens up a recording window. Log into your YouTube (Google) account. You may be asked to grant permission for Succeed to use your YouTube (Google) account. Agree to this and then you will be to make the recording of your message through your webcam. Click Upload and the file is uploaded to your YouTube (Google) account and then either embedded or a thumbnail link to it is placed in your Discussions Posting, whichever you choose.

Although this is a great way to add a human element to the Discussions Tool in Succeed, it is worth bearing in mind that all the videos you record are potentially viewable through YouTube and so it is not a suitable medium for discussing all topics, and neither is it a suitable medium to provide students with feedback on their work. It can, however, brighten up your online discussions. It may also be a way to bring short recordings from specialists or experts in the field into the discussions forum.

Plagiarism Quiz

A plagiarism quiz has been developed with the Stirling Management School. This includes seven questions covering topics presented in The Little Book of Plagiarism and The Little Book of Academic Misconduct. Students are allowed to view the books whilst answering the questions and the quiz can be set to allow multiple attempts with no time limit. If a student answers incorrectly they are given feedback that directs them to where in the little book they will find the answer.

The trial in the Stirling Management School involved advising students that they would not be able to submit their assignment in Turnitin unless they achieved at least 80% in the quiz. This served two purposes, ensuring students were aware of the guidelines regarding plagiarism and academic misconduct and also keeping a record of students who had been informed about these topics.

Student representative:

“I think it was a good idea, far better than just a list of the university’s policy on plagiarism with a tick box to accept the conditions.

It actually got students thinking about what plagiarism really is. There were a few students that were stressing out about it, but again, these were the people who left it till 10 minutes before the deadline to submit it.

Some of the questions were a bit vague, but then again it’s an important issue that students need to be aware of.”

The questions are now being reviewed to make them a little clearer and improve the feedback given for each response.

If you are interested in :

  • Using the quiz
  • Adapting the quiz for your own needs
  • Creating something similar
  • Releasing content to students based on test results

…then speak to your e-learning representative: http://www.stir.ac.uk/is/staff/about/teams/aldt.

Coming Soon to Turnitin: Submit and Evaluate PowerPoint

We want to tell you about some improvements that will be coming very soon to Turnitin. Students and instructors will be able to submit PowerPoint files (.pptx, .ppt, .ppsx, and .pps) via their normal submission process. The PowerPoint file will be converted to a static PDF and the text and images on the slides will be visible and available for feedback in the Document Viewer and Turnitin for iPad® app; however any dynamic elements such as slide animations, transitions, presenter notes, and audio/video will not be available.

When this feature is fully implemented in coming weeks, we will post an announcement to let you know about the new ability to submit and evaluate PowerPoint.

Adding other staff to your Succeed modules

With requests starting to come in to set up Succeed modules for the Spring 2014 semester, now might be a good time for a reminder that if you need your academic colleagues to be able to access your Succeed modules you can add them yourself (assuming you have the role of Instructor in your module, which is likely if you are running it!). This guide on the IS web site details how to add other staff to your Succeed module as Instructors:
http://www.stir.ac.uk/media/schools/is/documents/succeeddocuments/adding_instructors.pdf

Please do not add students to your Succeed modules in this way. They need to go through the proper administrative enrolment and module registration procedures.

Making Off Campus Lecture Recordings

As well as being used for general lecture capture in the teaching spaces on campus, Camtasia Relay may also be used to capture recordings made off campus. This can be done via something called the Camtasia Relay Portable Recorder. This application can be downloaded to a USB stick and allows recordings to be made on computers not connected to the University network (at home, for example). Then the USB can be brought onto campus and the presentation can be uploaded to the Camtasia Relay server and added to the relevant Listen Again page in the usual way. Full details of this service are available in this guide on the IS web site:
http://www.stir.ac.uk/media/schools/is/documents/succeeddocuments/relay_portable_recorder.pdf

Mac users – Grade Centre disappearing scroll bars

The scrollbars in OS X Mountain Lion and Lion are hidden until activated by use, this is the new default behaviour that works very well if you primarily use a trackpad with your Mac.

Set Scroll Bars to Display All the Time in Mac OS X

This will return scroll bar behaviour to that which existed in Mac OS 10.6 and prior, that is, being always visible:

  • Launch System Preferences from the Apple menu
  • Click on General
  • Look for ‘Show scroll bars’ and select the radio button next to ‘Always’

Scrollbars are instantly visible with this change.

macpic

These settings work in OS X 10.7, 10.8, and beyond. Expect this to be the new standard as iOS and OS X continue to share more features.

Using Doodle for Arranging Meetings

Doodle is a web-based scheduling service. It allows you easily to set up a web page where potential attendees of a meeting can go and declare their availability (or not) at a series of proposed times and dates by filling in a simple online form. You can then revisit the web site and easily see which is the most convenient time to schedule the meeting based on people’s responses. This service is especially useful for helping to timetable meetings with people who are not members of the University of Stirling community and who thus will not have access to the Microsoft Outlook Calendar Tool. For further details on using Doodle, view this guide on the Information Services web site:
http://www.stir.ac.uk/media/schools/is/documents/Doodle.pdf

Doodle may not always display correctly in Internet Explorer 9 if Compatibility View is turned on. Do > Tools > Compatibility View Settings > and then uncheck the Display all websites in Compatibility View option. Restarting IE9 after this should display Doodle okay.