Thursday, November 17, 2016

Tips for Managing Large Enrollment Classes

Syllabus Quiz
Write an FAQ into your syllabus with answers to commonly asked questions. Then create a syllabus quiz to reduce beginning of semester emails. You can also create an “Ask the Instructor” discussion board where students can post course-related questions. You can then encourage students to answer each other’s questions. These efforts should reduce the number of emails you receive.

Flipped Classroom Model
The Flipped Model can be used in two ways: to add more active learning time to a large enrollment class; and/or to increase student enrollment without increasing time spent in class. A flipped model class moves the traditional lecture to an online format (readings, videos, auto-graded quizzes) and then uses class time for more active learning, such as group work, problem solving, and additional practice. The flipped model used in a large enrollment course helps keep students active and engaged and provides more time for individual students to receive help (by team members and the instructor).

The flipped model can also be used if you are looking for a way to increase enrollments in a course. For example, maybe you normally offer a class that meets three times a week for 50 mins each time. You can use the flipped model to offer three different sections of a course, but only meet with each section once a week and have them do work online the rest of the week. This way, you are still only holding three face to face sessions, but you are offering three separate sections (and enrollments can increase from 25 in one section to 75 in three). Realistically, offering three separate sections is still going to increase your workload compared to only offering one, but the flipped model can drastically reduce the amount of additional work compared to if you offered three sections in traditional format.

Two final important points to consider on the flipped model: one is that this model does require more active learning on behalf of the students, so students need to be prepared to do work on their own and come to class prepared for more interactive activities; the other is that some instructors rely very heavily on video for the online portion of the class. If you do this, please remember that all videos need to be captioned to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Groups/Discussions
Managing discussion boards can be one of the most time consuming tasks in any online course, but especially in a large enrollment class. One solution is to create group discussions where each group assigns one person to post on behalf of the whole group. The group members have a full discussion within their individual groups, and then one person from each group posts a summary to the whole class discussion. This way, you can look in on the groups to make sure the students are talking, but you don’t have to read every post by every student. You concentrate on the summary posts made to the whole class discussion boards. This method works best when you set up Canvas to give all group members the same grade, since you’ll be primarily grading on summary posts instead of all the individual posts.

For more information see:

Quizzes
Quizzes, especially ones that auto-grade, are a great way to test students on fundamentals without adding extra work time for instructors. However, there are some steps you should consider taking to reduce the risk of students cheating on these kinds of quizzes. Here are a few recommendations:
  1. Put timers on your quizzes. For questions that can be auto-graded by the Canvas system (multiple choice, true/false, matching, etc), in most cases students should not need more than a minute per question; more than this and they are likely to have time to look for the answers online and in their textbooks.
  2. Release feedback after all students have completed the quiz. Canvas allows you to control when students receive feedback on quiz submissions (which questions they got right/wrong, correct answers). In Canvas, select the check boxes to let students see their quiz responses and to let students see correct answers, but then where it asks for you to enter a date for when students can view this feedback, make sure to select a date after when the quiz is due.
  3. Create your quizzes using question banks.  Question banks are larger pools of questions you create, and then you tell the quiz to pull a certain number of random questions from the question bank. Because it is far less likely that two students will receive the same set of questions, it reduces the benefit of students working together and/or sharing answers for the quiz. Question banks do take more time upfront to set up, but they usually don’t require any additional work once created (unless your quiz material changes very frequently).

Additionally, you can use practice quizzes in Canvas to give students practice and individual feedback before the graded quiz. Canvas also has adaptive release rules you can apply where students have to make a minimum grade before moving on, or students who make below a minimum grade can have additional study material released. For more information on this, see the Canvas guides on prerequisites and requirements:



Rubrics
You can create rubrics in Canvas and apply those rubrics for grading on assignments. Rubrics may seem like extra work at first, because you have to take the time to create the rubrics and then fill out the grades on the rubric for each student. However, in the long term rubrics can help with efficiency in the class, because rubrics:
  1. ensure that students are graded consistently and on the same criteria, and
  2. make clear exactly what criteria you grade for and how the student performed on each criterion.
This reduces the amount of individualized feedback you need to leave for each student (though it should not completely replace individual feedback), and reduces the follow-up emails you get from students questioning why they received a certain grade on an assignment. For more information on setting up rubrics:



A Few Final Options for Managing Large Enrollment Classes

  • Attendance Tool: each Canvas course has the Roll-Call Attendance tool. Students are marked present or absent by clicking on their name in the tool. It may be unrealistic for the instructor to mark students present, one option is you can load the attendance tool on a tablet before class and then have students check themselves in as they walk into the classroom. The key to this is the instructor needs to be standing by the tablet to make sure each student only clicks themselves present and not a friend as well. You will need to go through after class and mark the absences yourself. For more information:
    http://guides.instructure.com/m/4152/c/45706
  • Clickers: you can use a tool like iClickers for graded or Canvas polls for non-graded immediate student feedback- this encourages student engagement without giving you something else to grade. For more information:
    iClickers:
    https://www1.iclicker.com/
    Canvas polls: http://guides.instructure.com/m/22678/l/237896-what-is-the-polls-for-canvas-app
    and:
    https://aas.uncg.edu/itc/help/lms/polling.html
  • Stock Responses: As you work your way through teaching a course that you offer frequently, you might want to maintain a bank of stock answers that you find yourself frequently using in emails/discussions/paper feedback. Then you can copy and paste common answers/feedback, so you don’t find yourself typing the same information from scratch over and over. The important thing here is that stock feedback should never completely replace individualized feedback to students. For example, when grading papers you can use the stock feedback, but then provide individualized summary feedback at the end.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Changes Coming to Turnitin

As you may know, Turnitin is the plagiarism detection tool integrated within Canvas. The new integration provides greater control over assignment settings and allows access to Feedback Studio. The old Turnitin integration will be disabled on August 10, 2016. At this point, your Turnitin assignments should continue to accept student submissions, but the actual Turnitin tool itself will no longer work. To continue using Turnitin, you will need to re-create your assignments using the new integration process.

Please see the Canvas Guides below for step-by-step instructions for creating a Turnitin Assignment:
How do I create a Turnitin assignment?
Advanced Turnitin Settings
How to Manage Your Turnitin Assignments
Feedback Studio
 Some important points to keep in mind when creating assignments with the new Turnitin tool:
  • Turnitin by default does not allow resubmissions.  If you want students to be able to resubmit the assignment, you must set "Originality Report generation and resubmissions" in the Turnitin Optional Settings to either "Generate reports immediately (resubmissions are allowed until due date)" or "Generate reports on due date (resubmissions are allowed until due date)."
     
  • If you use a Canvas rubric for an assignment you will have to grade the assignment using SpeedGrader.  If you want to use the Turnitin grading features (Turnitin now includes its own rubrics manager), you will have to create the rubric in Turnitin.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Cloud File Storage Options at UNCG

UNCG offers three different cloud storage options for your files: Google Drive, Box, and Microsoft OneDrive. It can be confusing trying to decide which service to use, so here are brief descriptions of each service.

Google Drive


Google Drive is the file storage solution that comes with the Google suite of products. You can access Google Drive on your laptop at http://drive.uncg.edu. You can also download an app for your smart devices that will let you view your Google Drive. Features of Google Drive:
  • unlimited storage space
  • integrates with other Google products such as Google Docs and Google Sheets
  • You can store your Office files in Google Drive, but to edit them the system will convert them to Google format
  • Advanced file sharing features
  • Collaborate with others and track changes on documents
  • Ability to selectively “sync” files and folders to your computer

Box

Everyone with a UNCG account also has a Box account. The Library currently loads eReserves into Canvas courses through Box. You can access Box at http://box.uncg.edu.

  • unlimited for every user
  • Configured to meet the “2-Lock rating” requirements for storage of “Moderate risk data” according to the new Data Classification Policy for UNCG
  • Web and mobile access to your files anywhere you have an internet connection
  • Ability to selectively “sync” files and folders to your computer
  • Ability to share files with other users inside and outside UNCG
  • Keeps track of multiple versions of your files automatically
  • Ability to “lock” documents while editing them, so others cannot accidentally overwrite your work
  • Ability to see who has edited and viewed documents you share
  • Integration with Microsoft Office to download, edit and upload new versions 

Microsoft OneDrive


Everyone at UNCG can access Microsoft Office 365 online at https://portal.office.com/Home. OneDrive is the file storage solution that comes with Office 365. For more information on Office 365: https://its.uncg.edu/office365/faq/how_to/
  • 1 TB of quota
  • Your Office 365 files automatically save to OneDrive, and you can share the files with people inside and outside of UNCG
  • Configured as a 1-Lock storage service (see Data Classification Policy for UNCG)

Monday, May 23, 2016

Tips for Making Your Canvas Course Accessibility Compliant


What is ADA?

 

Under federal law, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Titles I and II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are the applicable mandates for the university's efforts to provide electronic accessibility to persons with disabilities.

From Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973:
no otherwise qualified handicapped* individual in the United States. . . shall, solely by reason of. . . handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under, any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

According to UNCG's OARS office, there are seven general categories for disability related services:
  • Blind/Visually Impaired
  • Deaf/Hard of Hearing
  • Learning Disability/Attention Deficit Disorder
  • Medical Impairment
  • Mobility Impairment
  • Psychiatric Disability
  • Speech Impairment

Why Do We Care? 

 

  • 5% of UNCG students have some form of learning disability and/or 29% have an attention deficit disorder; hearing impairments comprise 5% of our population, while 2% are visually impaired, 4% are mobility impaired, 14% have medical impairments, and 11% other health impaired. (According to OARS office)
  • This is a large potential population to tap into for online courses
  • It’s the LAW

 

Place a Statement on Your Syllabus

 

The following is an example statement faculty should include on syllabi:
UNCG seeks to comply fully with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodations based on a disability must be registered with the Office of Accessibility Resources and Services (OARS) in 215 Elliott University Center, 334-5440, oars.uncg.edu.

Text

 

  •  Use built-in paragraph formatting- heading styles
  • Use real bullet/number lists instead of typing your own
  • Avoid abbreviations, acronyms
  • Sans-serif fonts are generally easier to read on a screen
  • Do not rely on color to convey meaning; colors should have enough contrast to account for color blindness
  • Avoid flashing text (People with photosensitive epilepsy can have seizures triggered by flickering)
  • Try to avoid using tables for layout purposes- the cells are read in the order in which they appear in the HTML source code. This is not necessarily the order in which the text is laid out on the screen.
Make sure you do not rely on color alone to convey meaning in your text.


Resource: Juicy Studio Colour Contrast Analyser
(Allows you to check the contrast of two colors using the W3C's color contrast algorithm by specifying the colors directly.)

 

Adding Links in a Canvas Content Page

 

To make a link to a file in Canvas:
  1. Edit a Content Page.
  2. Type some descriptive text for your link.
  3. Highlight the text you typed.
  4. Go to the Files tab at right and click on the name of your file to create a link.
  5. See video below:


OR, for a weblink:
  1. Highlight the descriptive text, then click on the link icon box in the text editor
  2. Paste the actual link in the URL field
  3. Click the “insert link”button and save and publish your page.

PDF Files


Try to avoid scanning documents- this often results in the pages being seen as images instead of text. Acrobat Pro DC has an accessibility tool that will generate an accessibility report, set alternate text, and determine reading order. You can access Adobe Acrobat's accessibility tools either by clicking on the EDIT menu and choosing Accessibility Setup Wizard, or going to Tools > Action Wizard. From the Action List, choose Make Accessible.

Adobe Acrobat Pro has built-in tools to assist with accessibility.

Images will need ALT text. This is best if done in the document's native format, such as Word. Information on ALT text is described next.

Resource: Accessibility in Adobe Acrobat

 

Images in Canvas


Images must contain ALT text, which is text that meaningfully describes the image. The ALT text is read by screen readers in place of the image.

To insert ALT text on an image in Canvas, insert the image as usual on a Canvas Content Page. Then, select the image and click the image icon in the formatting tools; type your ALT text in the box. Text must describe the image content in enough detail that a blind person can understand whatever concept the image presents.
You can add ALT text to an image in Canvas by clicking on the image and then clicking on the insert image icon in the text box editor.


Additionally, some people use images of equations in their learning materials. However, when an appropriate markup language exists (such as MathML) use markup rather than images to convey information. Canvas has the option to insert an equation. The image below shows Canvas' equation editor:
Canvas Equation Editor



Quizzes in Canvas


One of the most frequent disability accommodation requests from students is to have additional time on timed quizzes. To grant additional time on a quiz in Canvas: click on the quiz name, then click the “Moderate this Quiz” link at right. Click the edit icon to the right of a student’s name. You can grant additional attempts as well as extra time for the quiz.




Clicking on Moderate this Quiz link allows you to grant additional time for students on quizzes.

 Moderate this Quiz link allows you to grant additional time for students on quizzes.


Video in Canvas

 

Video has become a popular way to add content to online courses, and Canvas makes it very easy to record and upload video. However, it is important to realize that all video must have closed-captioning. There are a few options for addressing this for your course:

 

YouTube:


Everyone at UNCG has a YouTube channel. Even if you don't plan to leave your video on YouTube, you can upload it temporarily because YouTube will automatically generate captions for most videos. However, keep in mind:
  • Use for your own videos, not copyrighted clips
  • Video must be good quality audio and set to public or unlisted
  • Quality of captions varies, and will likely need to be edited
Once your captions have been generated, you can leave it the video on YouTube and link or embed the video in Canvas. OR, you can download your video and captions files and upload them directly into Canvas.

Resource: YouTube via Your iSpartan Account


To Edit your YouTube Captions:

  1. Go to Video Manager. Click the drop-down arrow beside the video and choose “Subtitles and CC.”
  2. When the page loads, under “Published” you should see “English (Automatic).” Click that.
  3. The captions will load. Click “Edit” at the bottom and make adjustments to the captions and save.



Library Streaming Video Services:


Jackson Library offers approximately 10 extensive video catalogs to search. These videos can be either linked or embedded within Canvas. The streaming catalogues allow you to use commercial videos without worrying about copyright violations. One important note is that for some videos you have to specifically request closed captioning, which could take awhile to process, so plan early.


Resource: Jackson Library’s Streaming Media Guide



In Summary

  • Syllabus: provide a statement for students on how to register with the OARS office
  • Text: use built-in formatting tools; don’t rely on colors and tables to convey information
  • PDFs: create from original docs instead of scanning; use Acrobat Pro accessibility tools
  • Images: add “alt” text
  • Quizzes: use “Moderate this Quiz” to grant additional time for students
  • Video: video must be captioned


Additional Resources




Thursday, March 24, 2016

Digital ACT Studio and Digital Media Commons

Today's post is about two technology-related resources located in the Library- the Digital Act Studio and the Digital Media Commons (DMC). They are sister centers to the Speaking and Writing Centers, and both are located in the lower level of Jackson Library.

The Digital ACT Studio assists faculty, staff, and students with aesthetic design and storyboarding of projects that incorporate digital media. The staff helps clients think critically about design choices for projects involving digital media such as posters, brochures, ePortfolios, web pages and blogs. Digital media can include but is not limited to PowerPoint, videos, digital photography, animation, audio/podcasts, and infographics. The Studio's work space is flexible- everything is on wheels so the work space can easily be reconfigured to suit the needs of a class, and in addition to the main open space, there are also smaller rooms that can be used for small group work and breakout sessions.

The Digital ACT Studio staff, or "Digiteers," say that they:
Practice a collaborative approach to sessions, where designers and consultants engage in one-on-one conversations about projects.. Our goal is to help people become better designers and to that end, we encourage them to be in control of their projects and to participate actively in their DACTS sessions.
Some of the workshops the Studio can offer individuals or groups include: Storyboarding & Planning, ePortfolio Design, Best Practices for PowerPoint, and Poster Design Through PowerPoint.

Walk-ins are welcome, but the Studio also takes appointments, and especially during busier times like finals, appointments are recommended. The Studio also offers online consulting for distance students, and instructors can schedule a visit for an entire small class. You can find more information about the Digital ACT Studio, view the workshop listings, and request appointments through their website at:
Whereas the Digital ACT Studio assists with design concepts and best practices, the Digital Media Commons (DMC) can help with the actual training and use of software and equipment. The DMC is focused primarily on student support. For example, the DMC can help students learn MovieMaker and lighting techniques to create and edit video, and train students on using Adobe Creative Suite to create projects such as digital brochures, newsletters, videos, and ePortfolio material.

The DMC has a large group study area as well as small group work areas, and a 3D lab. There is a small charge (currently 10 cents per gram) for printing items on the 3D printer. The DMC also has media rooms used for individual study or audio/video recording, and computer stations that can be used on a first come/first serve basis. There is a room with a camera and projector where students can practice making a presentation, and also a gaming lab with 4 Xbox 360s and 1 Kinect.


The DMC also has what they call the VIA space- the video, imaging, and audio space. This room contains a green screen for recording video, studio photography equipment, fabric backdrops for headshots, and the DMC offers workshops on how to use the equipment correctly.

Finally, the DMC also will check-out equipment for students. Some of the items they offer for check-out include web cams, headsets, camcorders, and tripods.

You can find more information on the DMC at their website:


I encourage you to visit the website for more information, and even arrange a tour for yourself. Please also share these resources with your students.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Campus Pack for Canvas

Campus Pack is a suite of tools that integrates with Canvas. Campus Pack provides blogs, wikis, journals, and a robust ePortfolio tool. We only have access to test Campus Pack through March 25, so there isn't time to incorporate the tools into a live course, but if you would like to meet to take a closer look in the test environment, just let me know. If you are at all interested in any of these tools, please send feedback ASAP so that we can encourage ITS to adopt the product.

What Are the Campus Pack Tools? 

  

The Journal is a self-reflective tool in which the default permissions are configured so that the journal is private between the student and the instructor. 


The Blog is a space for students to collaborate on projects and comment on each other’s work.  While posts contain individual entries, the collaboration is centered around instructor feedback, commenting, rating, or voter widgets.  Blogs can be deployed in a course, group, or individual manner.  

The Wiki is a collaborative tool that allows students and instructors to build one or more pages of a course website.  All students or groups can create a collection of pages and share with the course, a group or the entire world. 

If you are not grading the Campus Pack tool, you can add it directly to a Module by clicking the "+" beside the module and choosing to Add External Tool. 
 
CampusPack2.png

If you want to grade the tool, you must add it as an ASSIGNMENT. Under Submission Type, choose External Tool, for the External URL field, browse to find and select Campus Pack from the options that come up. 

 CampusPack3.pngCampusPack4.png

If you have already made a Blog, Journal, etc in your CP account, you can import an existing Blog, Wiki, or Journal that you have made by selecting the “Copy From Existing” option.

"Add a Shortcut" will create a link to an existing blog, wiki, or journal in your course. Note that this does not copy the tool, it just creates a shortcut link to the existing tool. 

Remember to publish your assignment when you are ready for your students to interact with the assignment.  Publishing your assignment also allows for it to show up in SpeedGrader, making it easier for you to grade the CP assignments. You can see the results in a new browser or click on the URL at the top to see the results within SpeedGrader:

CampusPack1.jpg

Campus Pack ePortfolio:

Your portfolio will open with some default content areas, or portlets, on the page, such as Latest Activity, Course Membership, and Content Shared with Me. 

Portfolios4.png

To begin adding your own content, click the “Add Portlet” button toward the bottom of the page. When you click this button, you will have several types of possible content options to choose from:

Portfolios5.png

You will likely spend most of your time adding folders and/or Rich Text/HTML Widgets. A folder gives you a block on the page where you can add links to blogs, wikis, and journals. You can add brand new blogs, wikis, and journals, or you can copy blogs, wikis, and journals you have created in classes into your folder. Below are the content options available to you to add to a Folder. Note that you can choose to add blank blogs, journals, etc… from the main list, or you can click the smaller button at the top right to copy (a blog, wiki, etc) from an existing course.

Portfolios11.png

The Rich Content Widget presents you with a text editor that allows you to place a formatted block of text directly on the page. Below is an example of what the Rich Content Widget looks like, shown in the process of my creating two links to place on my page:

Portfolios6.png

In the example below I have added three new portlets: one folder called Resume, in which I created a new wiki for my resume; one Rich Content Widget called “My Websites” that contains two web links; and one Rich Content Widget called “What is Instructional Technology?” that contains formatted text. Note that because the “Resume” portlet is a folder, there is an option to add more content to it (in addition to the one “Anita’s Resume” wiki already linked).

Portfolios7.png


You can delete certain default portlets, such as Course Membership, and you can edit and/or delete the other portlets that you add to the portfolio.You can drag and drop the portlets to rearrange the way they appear on the page.

When you are ready, you need to set your portfolio permissions so that others in your class can view the portfolio. To do this, click on the edit wheel icon below your profile image and choose Permissions:

Portfolios8.png

There are three areas of permissions: Owners, Authors, and Viewers. Owners have complete control over your portfolio, so generally you do not want to grant anyone else owner access. Authors can contribute content, which might be useful if the portfolio is being used for a group project. Generally, however, you just want to set permissions for viewers, so that others in the system can view your portfolio. Click on “My Courses” in the first column, then choose the course you want to share with in the second column, and then select the appropriate option from the third column. Click the Add button. Then, select a start and end date for how long your portfolio should be visible. Finally, click the Save & Exit button.

Portfolios9.png

Finally, note that if you click on the edit wheel below your profile image, if you choose “Export,” you will see that you have the option to export your portfolio as a website (in .zip format) so that you can take it with you when you leave UNCG:

Portfolios10.png

Again, if you are interested in using these tools in Canvas, please contact me as soon as possible so that I can pass along the interest to ITS.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Spring Workshops Scheduled

I've scheduled a selection of workshops for the Spring semester. As we come to the end of the main push to migrate to Canvas, I hope to add more variety of topics, so please email me if you have requests.

Campus Pack

ITS is considering adopting Campus Pack, which is a suite of tools that integrates with Canvas. Campus Pack provides blogs, wikis, journals, and a robust ePortfolio tool. If you are at all interested in any of these tools, please come to a session and/or send feedback so that we can encourage ITS to adopt the product. This session will not be hands on because we do not have licenses for multiple users during the trial period for the software. 
Feb. 18th, 9-11am: McIver 140
Feb. 23rd, 10am-12pm: School of Education 221
March 7th, 1-3pm: McIver 140

Introduction to Canvas

This workshop will give participants an overview of some of the basic features and functionality of Canvas. The following topics will be covered: navigation and settings; email and notifications; using modules/pages/files to deliver content; and a brief overview of assignments.
March 10th, 10am-12pm: McIver 140

Canvas Scheduler

This brief session will demonstrate how to use the Canvas Scheduler. Scheduler is a tool for creating student sign-up sheets that can be used for advising, one-on-one appointments, group meetings, TA sessions, and presentation times.
March 17th, 9-10am: McIver 140

Assessment in Canvas

During this workshop we'll take a closer look at some of the details of assessment in Canvas, including: tips for students, quiz and assignment settings, availability settings, weighting grades, rubrics, and SpeedGrader. You will need to have a basic understanding of Canvas before signing up for this workshop. 
April 5th, 1-3pm: McIver 140

Sign UP:
Detailed workshop descriptions, schedule of dates, as well as the link to sign up can be found here:
https://workshops.uncg.edu/workshops-by-category.jsp?cat_id=77003015

  

Thursday, January 14, 2016

ArtStor Digital Library: A Brief Overview

UNCG faculty, staff, and students have access to ArtStor, a nonprofit digital library with database of "over 1.6 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research." Images are collected from a variety of resources, such as  museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, photo archives, and artists and artists' estates. If you are interested in using ArtStor, you need to create an account, and you must register for your account while on campus. Note that ArtStor is NOT a part of UNCG's single sign on, so you will create your account with your UNCG email and a password of your choosing.

You can login to ArtStor at this link: http://library.artstor.org/library/#1

For this blog, I'll try to provide an overview of the most common tools in ArtStor. However, you can always access the full list of support documents and videos here: http://www.artstor.org/support


Overview of the Digital Library

ArtStor contains a variety of resource types, including special collections, manuscripts, and 360-degree panoramas of historical sites. Additionally, UNCG can upload, catalog, and share its own collections. Once you have logged into your ArtStor account, you will be on the digital library page, which looks like this:

 The home page of the digital library allows you to search the collections, as well as create your own collections.


From this page, you can browse the collections, or type in specific keywords to search. If you click on Advanced Search, you can filter your search by geography, classification, and specific collection. Double-click on an image or item to open it in a larger viewer. You will see several options along the bottom of this image view, including zooming and rotating the image, a print option, a download option, and an option to save the image to an image group within your ArtStor:

 

You can also click on the "i" icon to view all data that has been entered into the system for the item. Once you have created an image group in the system, you can download up to 150 images at once as a .zip file and then import them into PowerPoint. The icons at the top right of the Image Group screen allow you to 1) download images in the group; 2) export images directly to PowerPoint; 3) open a different image group; and 4) view larger thumbnails.

   
Clicking the "Share" tab at the top of the page and choosing "Generate Image Group URL" will give you several different options for sharing your image group with members of your institution (UNCG):
 

I recommend clicking the option for "Full screen viewer (no pop-up window)" instead of "Half screen viewer" because the half screen viewer loads in a pop-up window, which may not work for all users.

Shared Shelf

Shared Shelf is the media management tool inside ArtStor that allows you to upload your own items into the system. Shared Shelf allows you to:
  •  Upload your own images, PDFs, audio, and video
  • Assign permissions based on role
  • Allow multiple users to simultaneously work on projects
  • Easily share your collections
In order to gain access to Shared Shelf, you must contact UNCG's designated ArtStor administrator. The contact information for UNCG's administrator is listed on the right-hand side of the main page that appears after you login to the system.
    
Note: I have noticed that ArtStor times you out of the system after a fairly brief time period, so if you are working back and forth between multiple programs, you may find yourself having to login to ArtStor multiple times. Also, sometimes the system seems to operate quite slowly, so be prepared for that as well.

Sharing with Students

 

Add to Canvas:

After some testing, it appears that the best way to add your ArtStor images to Canvas is to:
  1. Do the export to PowerPoint and then add the PowerPoint file directly to Canvas, or 
  2. Copy the share link from the "Share" tab (mentioned above) and make sure to check the option for "Full Screen Viewer (no popup window)." Then, add a Content Page to a Canvas Module. Edit the page and insert the link you copied onto the page by clicking the "insert link" icon for the text editor box and pasting the link into the web address field. 
     

Direct Login to ArtStor:


Alternatively, you can have your students go directly to the ArtStor website and login there to view your materials. here are the instructions:

  1. To access the ARTstor Digital Library: go to artstor.org and click on the “Enter Here” link on the upper-right corner. You will need to register with your UNCG email as your login ID. Choose a unique password, and fill in the required information. To access ARTstor for the first time, you MUST be using a computer connected to the network at UNCG (Jackson Library, labs on campus, etc). You can log in remotely to ARTstor from anywhere for up to 120 days after verifying through UNCG servers. After that period, you must log in to the account on campus to renew the account for another 120 days.
  2. To find your Instructor’s Class Folder: Instructors may save image groups into password-protected folders and make these available those enrolled in their courses. To access folders click the red "Open" button in the middle of the front page of the Digital Library. Your instructor will have a folder under Institutional Folders. Under the instructor folder are the Courses. Within the Course Folder will be the lectures, study images, etc. 
  3. To access password-protected folders (passwords will be provided by your instructor): In the ARTstor navigation bar, click Access > Unlock Password Protected Folder, and enter the password. After unlocking the folder, it will be available to view for your use. 
  4. Viewing and Studying with Images: Images in the Digital Library can be used in a variety of ways within the Image Viewer window. You can pan and zoom in the Image Viewer window, which is accessed when double clicking on a thumbnail in the image group you are viewing. 
  5. To download a single image: 1) Open the desired image in the Image Viewer window, whether the full view of the work or a detail. When the desired view is displayed, click the “save” button in the lower, right corner. 2) You will be prompted to read ARTstor’s Terms & Conditions of Use. Click Accept and choose a location to save the image in your computer’s directory. 3) Two files will be saved. One is a .jpg of the image; the other is an .html document with the image information. 
  6. Printing a single image: 1) Open the desired image in the Image Viewer, whether the full view of the work or a detail. When the desired view is displayed, click the “Print” button in the lower, right corner. 2) Two pages will print. One page shows the image, the other page shows the image information. 
  7. Printing an image group: While viewing an image group, click on Share, which is a drop-down menu at top of the page. By clicking the option "Print Image Group," you can view a separate printable window with thumbnails and detailed information. You can view the full record, or the thumbnails with or without notes. This option is useful for study purposes or as a flash-card function.
  8. Mobile access: You can also view Artstor on your mobile device. For more information: http://help.artstor.org/wiki/index.php/ARTstor_Mobile