As we start a new academic year, you might want to keep in mind the many resources here at Duke to help with different aspects of your course – from training to Library resources to loaner equipment, there are many services provided by different units on campus to help with your course activities. Some, such as Sakai, WordPress blogs and the online survey tool Qualtrics, are recent service additions. If you are new to Duke, you can check out a more comprehensive list of campus services and resources at the CIT’s website.
Sakai and Blackboard
During the 2011-12 academic year, Duke will be transitioning from Blackboard to Sakai. The CIT offers office visits to faculty who wish to learn about particular features of Sakai or Blackboard or would like a general introduction or consultation on how the systems might be used in teaching. Students, faculty and staff can get help with using Sakai or Blackboard by contacting the OIT Service Desk. You can also find step by step guides and help documents at Duke’s Sakai site and Duke’s Blackboard web site.
Course Blogs
Duke offers WordPress blogs to courses and they can be configured for class-use only or for viewing by the general public. Duke’s WordPress site has help, links to sample course sites and other information to help you get started. The CIT offers office visits to faculty on how blogs can be used effectively in your courses.
Qualtrics Survey Tool
Duke recently adopted Qualtrics as an online tool that can be used for polls and surveys. Help materials on using the tool is at the online Qualtrics University. Faculty can arrange a CIT office visit to learn more about using Qualtrics for online polls, class surveys to gauge student learning, quick feedback from students during a course, or more comprehensive programmatic assessment.
Library research instruction for students
Subject specialist librarians can help your students research their papers and projects more effectively. Librarians can lead a hands on instruction session in the library classroom, and can also create course-specific online research guides that take students through the research process with links to electronic resources. A list of subject librarians is here.
E-Reserves
Duke University Libraries can scan book chapters or articles and automatically place them on e-reserves in your Blackboard course. Just fill out the e-reserves form and drop the material at one of the Library service points in Perkins or Lilly.
Student video and sound projects
Duke has a wide range of resources to help students with audio and video projects – video cameras, iPods and other equipment can be checked out from the Link and the OIT Multimedia Project Studios offer help to students working on projects and software and computers configured for video and sound editing and other multimedia work. A previous blog post from the CIT outlines many of the campus resources you can use when planning a student video or sound project.
Student technology training
The OIT Training group provides a regular schedule of technology training seminars for students, faculty and staff on many popular technologies. But, if you need to have your students trained on a particular software package for your course, they can set up a special session just for your students. See the OnDemand training site for information on available topics. OIT also has Online Training options available.
Classroom multimedia
If you need help with using the projection and sound systems in the classroom you are using or have a need during some of your class sessions for special equipment, such as a multi-region dvd player or recording of a class session, contact the Trinity IT staff or your departmental support staff.