Digital Support Update, August 31, 2020

Digital Support Update, August 31, 2020

Dear faculty and staff,

Greetings again from the IT Digital Support team. We have a few timely updates as we approach the first day of classes tomorrow:

  1. Login info for Five Colleges students
  2. Same-day consultations
  3. Live transcripts in Zoom
  4. Check these 4 things
    1. Unhiding Moodle
    2. Post your Zoom link in your course home base
    3. Post your Slack link in your course home base
    4. Student page to link from the syllabus

Details are in the corresponding numbered sections below.

As always, please submit help questions via the Help link on the digital support site: https://sites.google.com/smith.edu/digital (if you visit the old site, you will be redirected to the new one). Requests that go to individual staff members may take longer to get an initial response and may introduce delays in getting you connected to a person who can help with your specific question.

1. Five Colleges login info

We’ve created a new help page that explains how the logins work for several of our most frequently used class tools work for Five Colleges students. Read more at https://sites.google.com/smith.edu/digital/students/five-college-students.

2. Same day consultations (for emergency course situations)

Through the second week of classes, we are holding a handful of 20-30 minute consultation slots each afternoon from 3-5 p.m., for urgent situations instructors want to address around remote courses. These are for questions that are truly urgent and that can’t be easily addressed through a simple information exchange. If you find yourself in this situation, put in a help request on the digital support site and we’ll try to slot you in for same day assistance. We’ll use our best judgment on assessing the urgency as we schedule appointments.

3. Live transcripts in Zoom

We encourage all Zoom meeting hosts to turn on the live transcript feature at the beginning of the live Zoom session, whether the session is a course or a meeting. This allows each participant to turn on live captions if they wish.

4. Four things to check before your first day of class

Here’s a brief checklist for those of you who start teaching classes this week:

  • If you’re using Moodle, make sure you unhide your Moodle course so your students can see it when they log in.
  • Make sure you post your Zoom course link(s) in your course home base. (PDF instructions, also linked off the Zoom tools page.)
  • Make sure you post your Slack workspace link (if you have one) in your course home base. For instructions on how to find the URL for your Slack workspace, see Locate Your Slack URL. For instructions on how to post the URL in Moodle, look here.
  • Provide a link in your course home base to the student technology support page on the digital support site (https://sites.google.com/smith.edu/digital/students/technology-support-for-students).

Thanks for reading this far, and happy first week of classes to all! Get in touch if we can help.

Best,
Samantha