C E N T E R F O R I N S T R U C T I O N A N D R E S E A R C H T E C H N O L O G Y
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www.unf.edu/cirt
www.facebook.com/cirtunf
(904) 620-3927
ContentsDirector’s Message 3CIRT Services 5Faculty Spotlights 6Team Reports 8CIRT by the Numbers 2017 – 2018 15Publications and Recognition 162018 Strategic Update 18
An Academic Affairs support unit, the
mission of the Center for Instruction
and Research Technology (CIRT) is
to offer expertise, resources, and
training to assist faculty in ways
that enable them to develop greater
capacities for using technology for
teaching and research. CIRT also
disseminates ideas, frameworks,
and materials that apply pedagogical
knowledge to the teaching and
learning process.
Table of Contents
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As a department, CIRT is committed to providing
faculty with the highest quality services and to our
mission of supporting faculty in their important
work through training, resources, and consultation.
During the past year, we’ve completed several
important initiatives which you’ll read about in
greater detail in the team reports. These include:
• Deployment of Faculty Domains, a modern web
publishing platform
• Launch of an OER initiative in partnership with
the Thomas G. Carpenter library
• Redevelopment of UNF’s Distance Learning
Dashboards
We also completed a web redesign, with the goal
of making our site not only accessible to WCAG
2.0 standards, but also to make the content it
contains more useful and useable for faculty. We’d
love to know what you think!
With an emphasis on putting Canvas to work for
UNF, we continue to focus on supporting deeper
adoption of Canvas Tools and on identifying the
opportunities Canvas affords to support campus
initiatives and priorities.
Last year CIRT hosted 89 faculty workshops, most
of which were Canvas-focused. Follow up surveys
indicate that faculty overwhelmingly agree that
session objectives are clear and provide practical
information for use in teaching and/or research.
CIRT continues to be excited about the work we
are doing in collaboration with other campus units.
We have partnered with the Digital Humanities
Initiative since its inception and are pleased to
continue to work with that group which has now
become the Digital Humanities Institute.
Director’s Message
Dr. Deb Miller
Senior Director
C E N T E R F O R I N S T R U C T I O N A N D R E S E A R C H T E C H N O L O G Y
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CIRT staff continue to be active in their
professional communities with three national and
two regional conference presentations last year.
We also did some internal reorganizing, moving
the Video Studio to a larger space in Building 1,
and moving the Online Learning Support team to
Building 10, concentrating all instructional design
and Canvas services in one space.
In the coming year, CIRT will launch an ADA
compliance initiative in Canvas, identify
opportunities for Canvas to support institutional
goals, and improve our video production services.
We will also work to increase the number of
online courses that complete a QM review and
develop an award structure for excellence in online
teaching, in support of the Board of Governors
2025 SUS Strategic Plan for Online Education.
Director’s Message
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CIRT Services
Instruction and Research • Canvas support • Online learning tools • Instructional design • Scantron test reporting and analysis • Classroom clickers • Project consultation • Web-delivered forms and surveys • Data analysis software support • Faculty web hosting
Media • Slide and transparency scanning • Digital audio and video production • Graphic design • Online Learning Lab • Customized Google maps and tours • 3D Printing and Scanning • Preparation of images and figures for publication • Research poster development and printing
Equipment • Laptops • Tablets • Cameras, camcorders, and tripods • Projectors • Digital voice recorders • GoPro • Swivl
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STREAMLINING COURSE AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT WITH COURSE TEMPLATESDr. Lauri Wright, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics
As the founding director of the Doctorate of
Clinical Nutrition (DCN) program, Dr. Lauri
Wright developed seven distance learning
courses for the program within a year of her
start date. UNF’s online DCN program is only
the second of its kind to be offered in the
country, and began course delivery in the fall
of 2016. To create so many courses in this
time frame while maintaining the integrity and
quality of the program, Wright worked one-
on-one with an instructional designer who supports the development of the DCN program. More…
USING 3D PRINTED MODELS IN CLASSES Professor Jason John, Department of Art and Design
Professor Jason John was interested in
creating an assignment for his Summer
Painting I class that would allow students
to explore painting on three-dimensional
models. In this class, students recreate
portraits from art history. The portraits on the
3D printed heads will be put into cardboard
backdrops to provide an environment.
Students will replicate the form on the figure,
while replicating the environment in the
backdrop from the original painting. Once
both substrates are painted on, the entire system will replicate the painting the students will be attempting
to copy. John consulted with CIRT and developed paintable models for the assignment. More …
Faculty Spotlights
A faculty project is featured in each
edition of CIRT News.
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USING QUALTRICS TO CREATE INTERACTIVE SCENARIO ASSIGNMENTSDr. Andrew Thoeni, Instructor, Department of Marketing and Logistics
For his Principles of Marketing (MAR
3023) class, Dr. Thoeni wanted to create
a progressive assignment that simulated
the process of marketing a musical
group. Each stage is done as an in-class
exercise so students can ask questions
that are relevant to their individual
project. Students then use a link to submit their answers via Qualtrics. The choices students made at each
stage of the scenario would determine the feedback and choice they had in future scenarios. The scenarios
needed to allow for a range of possible outcomes based on each selection. Thoeni worked with CIRT to
create an implementation plan that used Qualtrics to deliver the assignments and calculate the random
numbers and any other formulas required. More…
Using Outcomes in Canvas to Report and Evaluate Student Achievement of Learning Objectives Dr. Linda Howell and Professor David MacKinnon, Department of English
The ENC1101 (Rhetoric and Writing) and ENC1143 (Rhetoric and
Narrative) courses offered through the Department of English reach
a large population of UNF students. This past fall for instance, 76
sections were offered by 36 faculty members and enrolled 2,172
students. While faculty bring their own pedagogies and practices to
their classrooms, the UNF Writing Program works to ensure these
courses offer students equal opportunity to receive quality and
practical feedback on their writing across all sections. To that end,
writing program administrators Dr. Linda Howell (Director) and David
MacKinnon (Asst. Director) of the Writing Program & Center needed
to find a practical method for pushing course rubrics and outcomes
out to each of the sections so that they could be used to assess student work and provide reporting on the
successfulness and utility of the assessment measures for future curricular improvements. More…
Faculty Spotlights
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CREATIVE TEAM
The Creative Team provides teaching and research
technology support to faculty through project
consultation, media development, and general
technology assistance. Key services include
equipment lending, video production, 3D scanning
and printing, graphic design,
online survey tool, and faculty web
publishing support.
New Video Studio
CIRT expanded its video production
space during the past year with
a new studio and sound booth in
Building 1. The studio is outfitted
with new equipment and lights that
allow for better flexibility in filming.
We can now accommodate multiple
angle shots, and the larger space allows the
studio to be configured for filming small groups
(interviews, focus groups, panels, etc.), equipment
demonstrations, and other activities that were not
feasible in the old studio. The quality of the green
screen is better in the new space, which allows us
to produce videos more quickly and efficiently. A
new 6’ x 8’ WhisperRoom sound booth is available
in the new production space and provides an
excellent environment for recording audio to use
in podcasts, narrated course materials, and video
voice overs. It can be used for internet-based
conferencing including interviews, webinars, and
is also available for musical recordings of small to
medium sized instruments.
Faculty Domains Project
The Faculty Domains Project launched in
September 2017 and is a full-featured web
hosting solution that allows faculty to create
academic publishing spaces using modern web
applications such as WordPress, Omeka, and
Scalar. Sites can be created and edited without
any special desktop software, and are easily
updated from any computer or mobile device.
During the past year, faculty have used the
platform to publish portfolio sites, blogs, podcasts,
class projects, and research projects. Examples
include Professor Nofa Farha Dixion’s portfolio site,
Professor Mary Treyz’s religious studies podcast,
and Professor Quincy Gibson’s dolphin research
site.
Team Reports
Dave Wilson
Assistant Director
Creative Team
New Equipment
This year, CIRT upgraded several pieces of
equipment including our checkout laptops and an
iPad kit. Eleven 12” Dell Latitude 7280s and five
new 13” MacBook Airs replaced the old checkout
laptops. These laptops are easy to carry and
perform well. Our iPad kit is a good solution for
data collection in the field. The iPads can be used
to collect survey information, record audio and
video in interviews or focus groups, and to take
notes.
Additionally, we have two new Blue Snowball
USB microphones available for checkout to meet
demand for easy-to-use, quality microphones
for recording narrated presentations and for web
conferences.
Faculty Consultations
The Creative Team provided a variety of services
to faculty during the past year, ranging from
creation of images and figures for publication to
clicker integration consultations. Figure 1 depicts
interactions by major service type. The distribution
of consultations by college was COAS, 50%; BCH
21%; COEHS 10%; CCB 10%, and CCEC 3%.
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Team Reports
261
247
190
139
123
92
90
57
37
20
15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Graphic Design
Audio/Video
All Other
Clickers
Equipment Services
Qualtrics
Poster Printing
Website Development
Project Consultation
3D Services
Mapping
Figure 1. Creative Team Consultations by Major Service Type
Consultations by Major Service Type
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INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN TEAMCIRT’s Instructional Design team supports UNF
faculty with the systematic process of designing,
developing, and delivering instructional materials.
The ID Team is available to consult on instructional
design best practices, to assist in the conversion of
traditional course materials to the online learning
format, to provide training and development
related to the practical and pedagogical skills
necessary for developing and delivering interactive
and engaging instructional materials, and to
promote dialog between instructional design
professionals and the academic communities they
serve.
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Initiative
The OER initiative is a joint project by the Center
for Instruction and Research Technology (CIRT)
and the Thomas G. Carpenter Library that seeks to
lower college costs for UNF students by supporting
UNF faculty in the adoption of quality open
resources in their courses.
In the initial call, we sought proposals focused on
adoption of existing OER materials, such as peer-
reviewed open texts and licensed content from
the Library in a designated course. 16 UNF faculty
members submitted proposals. Three delivered
a course in Summer 2018 using OER materials
and the reminder plan to deliver their redesigned
course in Fall 2018 or Spring 2019.
Consultations
CIRT consults regularly with faculty members
on the design, development, and delivery of
online and blended courses. During the 2017-
2017 academic year the ID Team logged 303
individual consultations with 142 unique faculty
members. The departments with the highest
number of consultations last year were Nursing
(37), Accounting and Finance (29), and
Marketing and Logistics (27).
During the past four years the ID team
has recorded 971 consultations with
faculty members, most of whom return
for additional consultations (Table 1).
Faculty Development
The ID Team provides comprehensive faculty
development through several Teaching Online
(TOL) seminars and professional development
workshops focused on the effective use of
instructional technologies. During the 2017-2018
academic year, 104 faculty members completed
TOL and developed 21 new DL courses via the
TOL-DCD module (Figure 2).
Kevin Hulen
Assistant Director
Online Course Development
Team Reports
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During the 2017-2018 academic year, members
of the instructional design team also facilitated or
co-facilitated 24 non-TOL faculty workshops, a
33% increase from the previous year.
Quality Course Design
UNF faculty can submit their courses for a quality
course design review using the Quality Matters
(QM) rubric. During the 2017-2018 academic
year, 39 online courses successfully completed a
quality review, including 32 internal QM reviews
and seven Official QM reviews.
Table 1. Instructional Design Consultations
Total Consultations
% Consultations With Unique Faculty Members
% Faculty Members With Multiple Consultations (>= 2)
2014-2015 223 36% (80 of 223) 55% (44 of 80)
2015-2016 200 43% (85 of 200) 49% (42 of 85)
2016-2017 245 44% (109 of 245) 50% (54 of 109)
2017 -2018 303 47% (142 of 303) 39% (55 of 142)
Table 1. Instructional Design Consultations
46 46 47 46
3538
29
37
0
7
15
21
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
FY 14-15' FY 15-16' FY 16-17' FY 17-18'
# of F
acult
y mem
bers
Teaching Online (TOL) Seminar Completion
TOL-TRACK A TOL-TRACK B TOL-DCD
Figure 2. TOL Completion
Teaching Online (TOL) Seminar Completion
Team Reports
Interesting Fact: On average, it took
225 days to develop an online course
and complete a QM review. The shortest
timespan was 7 days and the longest
timespan was 510 days.
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230
569
261
269
223
149
302
230
177
275
247
131
135
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
17-JUL
17-AUG
17-SEP
17-OCT
17-NOV
17-DEC
18-JAN
18-FEB
18-MAR
18-APR
18-MAY
18-JUN
18-JUL
Faculty Support by Month
ONLINE LEARNING SUPPORT TEAM
The Online Learning Support Team (OLS) provides
a high level of care and support to UNF’s faculty
so that they can focus on teaching and learning,
rather than on technical issues. The OLS team
assists faculty with LMS needs including technical
support, training, and course building assistance.
We are available to help seven days a week with
email support on weekends.
LMS Support
Last year, we logged 3,198 interactions with
528 unique instructors, as shown in Figure 3.
These interactions include course set up, tool
deployment, test publishing, conversion and
upload of course content, and general technical
support.
Online Learning Lab (OLL)
The OLL provides a state-of-the-art facility to
support online learning and faculty development.
In addition to its use as a training facility, the room
allows for easy creation of high-quality online
materials that combine audio or video elements
with content. The OLL has the capability to record
video lectures and even annotations made to
content via a touchscreen TV. An interactive
projector and whiteboard with audio only, is also
available in this space. During the past year the
OLL saw 374 hours of booked usage from more
than 96 unique users.
Team Reports
Figure 3. OLS Support Interactions
Faculty Support by Month
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DISTANCE LEARNING ADMINISTRATION
The Distance Learning Administration Team in
CIRT provides leadership, program development,
student support, and budget services to promote,
facilitate, and assess the university’s distance
learning courses and programs. It manages the
operating minutiae required at the university,
state, and federal level and provides administrative
support to all CIRT teams.
Online Student Support Services Scorecard
UNF participated in Florida’s inaugural Distance
Learning Student Support Scorecard data
collection in the 2018 academic year. The purpose
of the scorecard is to evaluate the level of student
support services for online students. This data
collection provides UNF with an opportunity to
benchmark our services against the state average
and to gain insight into areas for improvement.
UNF scored above the SUS average (83%) in
more than half of the categories. Areas of strength
include pre-enrollment advising, career counseling,
and technology support for online students.
State Authorization
The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement
(SARA) allows institutions to provide online courses
outside of their own state borders by seeking and
maintaining state approvals via a streamlined
process. The State of Florida joined the national
State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement
(NC-SARA) in 2017 and UNF was approved to
participate as a SARA institution. Currently, 49
states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico
are members of NC-SARA.
Student Online Learning Orientation (SOLO)
The Student Online Learning Orientation (SOLO)
is designed to prepare students for some of the
challenges associated with distance learning.
The orientation contains two main areas of focus:
effective strategies for online learning, and a basic
overview of Canvas. All students taking one or
more online course(s) are invited to take SOLO,
and completion is required by some instructors
and programs. Since the implementation of SOLO
in the summer of 2014, a total of 11,991 students
have completed the orientation. This year, 1,989
students completed SOLO.
Team Reports
Katharine Brown
Assistant Director
DL Student Services
Patrice Kapcio
Assistant Director
Online Programs
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DL Dashboards
UNF’s Distance Learning Dashboards were
updated during the past academic year to provide
better information to stakeholders and a better
experience for users. The dashboards provide
real-time statistics about the DL effort at UNF, as
related to courses, student credit hours (SCH), full-
time equivalent (FTE) and student headcounts, and
can be filtered by college and course level.
Smarthinking Usage
Smarthinking is an online tutoring service provided
as an additional resource for students in fully
online programs. This service provides online
students with services similar to those provided
to traditional students through the ACE Tutoring
Center and the UNF Writing Center. Subjects
reflecting the needs of students in these programs
are available in the areas of Writing, Computer
Skills (MS Office), Mathematics & Statistics, and
Nursing & Applied Health. First introduced to
students in Spring 2015, usage has increased
each year from 217 hours in academic year 2016
to 413 hours in academic year 2018.
Increasing Communication with Colleges
and Departments
During the previous academic year, CIRT staff
attended Dean leadership meetings in each
college to learn about college needs and to report
on the status of distance learning initiatives at
UNF and in Florida. Updates were provided in the
following areas:
• Continued growth of UNF’s DL course offerings
• UNF efforts to align with the BOG 2025
Strategic Plan for Online Education
• Gaps in SUS DL programming identified by the
BOG and areas of strategic emphasis
• UNF’s DL Dashboards
• DL Course success rates and ISQ results
• DL Fee support to colleges
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Team Reports
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5 Staff conference presentations/publications
37 3D printing projects
39 Quality Matters reviewed courses
74 Faculty Domain accounts
83 TOL completions
89 Workshops
97 Banners developed
253 Laptop checkouts
280 Produced videos
374 OLL bookings
446 Poster prints
683 Scantron bookings
1,989 SOLO completions
4,474 Faculty support interactions
CIRT by the Numbers 2017 – 2018
CIRT provides a variety of services
from equipment checkout to high-level
project consultation. Here’s a look at
some fast facts from the past year. }
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RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
Bell, R. & Miller, D. (2018). Communicating Canvas to the Campus. Presented at Florida CanvasCon 2018:
Florida International University. North Miami, FL.
Harden, J. (2018). Video in the Classroom: A Support Perspective. Presented at Sunshine State Teaching
and Learning Conference. St. Petersburg, FL.
Hulen, K. (2017). Refining A Faculty Development Model To Provide A More Personalized Curriculum:
Design Thinking In Action. Presented at the OLC Accelerate 2017 Conference. Orlando, FL.
Parlette, R., Archer, A., Lerman, J., & Bracewell, M. (2017). Top-Notch templates: Your secret weapon in
successfully meeting QM standards. Presented at InstructureCon 2017. Keystone, CO.
Parlette, R., Archer, A., Lerman, J., & Bracewell, M. (2017). Building an instructional design sandbox and
faculty development portal in Canvas. Presented at InstructureCon 2017. Keystone, CO.
Publications and Recognition
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UNF IN THE NEWS
UNF earned a four-star rating or above from
the Campus Pride Index, an organization that
generates national standards and assessment
tools for LGBTQ-friendly institutions of higher
education.
UNF’s online nutrition degree programs ranked
among the Top 20 Online Nutritionist Degree
Programs.
UNF is ranked among the Top 40 colleges
and universities in the country for Best Online
Bachelor’s Programs 2018 by U.S. News & World
Reports. The RN-BSN also ranked No. 1 in the
country as a “10 Best Online RN to BSN Degree
Program” by Online Course Report.
Publications and Recognition
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2018-2019 Strategic Action Items
1. Expand processes and support structures to facilitate content accessibility in the LMS.
2. Identify opportunities for Canvas to support institutional goals.
3. Develop a faculty recognition structure for excellence in online teaching.
4. Increase the number of online courses that complete a course design quality review.
5. Create a repository of cover (b-roll) video for use by CIRT and the University.
6. Increase the efficiency and effectiveness of video production services
7. Establish a distinctive unit to manage distance learning administration.
8. Develop student success coach model for fully online programs.
Strategic Action Items Completed in 2017-2018
1. Deploy Faculty Web Domains service.
2. Partner with other campus units to promote and support the adoption of low cost textbooks and
instructional materials.
3. Promote deep adoption of Canvas tools.
4. Provide support to facilitate the university’s participation in national reciprocity for distance education
through SARA.
5. Establish communication with academic departments to increase awareness of gaps in state online
programming and BOG areas of strategic emphasis.
2018 Strategic Update