All posts by Carla Herling

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Zoom Integration with Blackboard is complete 

ITS has completed the work to integrate Zoom with Blackboard and Zoom is now ready for academic use across campus. Zoom uses single sign-on (SSO), so once you’ve logged into Blackboard, you won’t also need to log into Zoom.    

There are instructions and links to Zoom training in the knowledge base area of the IT service portal at https://drake.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/2025/Portal/KB/?CategoryID=18578 

Getting Started with Zoom (FAQ) is full of helpful links for both you and your students including links to videos tutorials, longer recorded presentations, and webinars hosted by Zoom.   

If you encounter issues with accessing or using Zoom, please submit a Zoom Issue online or contact the support center at 515–271–3001.  

–Jerome Hilscher, Information Technology Services 

For Students Archive

Now hiring: Residence hall front desk assistant

The Office of Residence Life is now accepting applications for Desk Assistant positions in the residence halls.

A Desk Assistant is a student who serves as the primary resource and customer service representative for a particular residence hall. Desk Assistants will assist residential students and guests at Drake University through carrying out the daily operations of the residence hall community desk, maintaining safety and security through guest procedures, aiding in the fostering of community among the residential students, and responding to requests by guests, residents, and hall staff.

Apply and find more information

For questions, contact Sara Schilling, area coordinator, at sara.schilling@drake.edu.

— Randy McMullin, Office of Residence Life

Campus Announcements Archive

Fall parking permit sales

Fall parking permit sales will open online for students, faculty, and staff through the Parking Registration link in myDrake starting Monday, Aug. 3. This is the first year that we will require ALL permit registrations be completed online, including payroll deduct payment methods. Please email studentservices@drake.edu if you have questions or need assistance with this process.

Permit pricing will not change for the 2020–2021 school year, and permits are sold on a first come, first serve basis.

Blue lots (resident passes) — $375

Yellow, Red, and Green lots (commuter passes) — $250

Orange and Purple lots (commuter passes) — $125

Evening/weekend passes (any commuter lot after 4:30 p.m. and on weekends) — $100

If you are unsure of which permit you need to buy, please review the parking lot colors on the campus map. If the pass type you prefer is sold out, please purchase your second choice and email studentservices@drake.edu to be put onto a wait list for your first choice.

Permits will be distributed in a variety of methods to assist with social distancing. Your confirmation email will give you further instruction on how your permit should be acquired.

— Sara Heijerman, Student Services Center

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Fall adoptions needed

As we all navigate through a new academic calendar and course offerings/formats together, it is more critical than ever to drive student success, preparedness, retention, and savings through timely course material decisions.  We are one month from classes starting and we are at about 87% of adoptions compared to last fall. If you have not provided information, please do so this week, if possible.

For specific methods on how to submit your Fall 2020 book order, email/phone/online order submission are all acceptable. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out myself or Donna Hallstrom by phone or email.

Three easy steps to access Follett Discover via Blackboard

  1. Log into myDrake.
  2. Click on the Bb icon on the main ‘mydrake’ screen.
  3. Find the Tools channel, scroll down and click the Follett Discover link OR find the Follett Discover channel and click the Launch Discover link.

— Katie Wilz, University Bookstore

HR Information Archive

Employee and Family Resources July webinars

To help us navigate these stressful times, Employee & Family Resources is offering a weekly webinar series. Join EFR for the following webinars:

July 22 at 2 p.m. — Connecting the Dots: The Mind-Body Experience
July 29 at 10 a.m. — Stress and Burnout    

Register here.  All webinars are live, but will be recorded and available for later viewing if these dates and times do not work with your schedule. 

If life is weighing you down, EFR offers a variety of Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) resources to help you now, or anytime.  You can reach EAP by phone (800-327-4692) or visit their website at https://www.efr.org/login/.  All EAP benefits are confidential and available 24/7/365.   

— Linda Feiden, Human Resources

Campus Announcements Archive

Racial Justice in the U.S. resources

The Drake Law Library research guide Racial Justice in the U.S. provides resources for learning about institutional racial injustice, racial identity, bias and prejudices, and protests and proposed policy changes. It also includes tools for engaging in meaningful dialogue about race and anti-racism resources for use both in and out of the classroom. The guide, created and maintained by Professor of Law Librarianship Karen Wallace, was featured in the June 2020 eNewsletter of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and recognized as the website of the month for July 2020 by the Online Bibliographic Services special interest group of AALL.

— Karen Wallace, Law Library

Campus Announcements Archive

General Catalog website migration

University Communications and Marketing and the Office of the Registrar have partnered to migrate the General Catalog for Undergraduates and Graduates to a new website.

There were several goals for this project that may not be entirely visible to users, but will significantly improve search and website optimization.

  • By moving to a new URL the search data can be separated between the two websites. Users in the catalog site will only see the catalog page in the search and users on the public-facing website will only see admission and department content.
  • Improvements to archiving and historical snapshots of catalogs will additionally improve external search helping users more quickly get to the content they are looking for.

Put simply, searching for department content and searching the catalog will be easier.

All previous links to the catalog are being directed to the top General Catalog page. Department pages that want to link directly to their catalog pages will need to manually update those links on their web pages.

— Jeremy Sievers, University Communications & Marketing

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

New Shop by Author program at University Bookstore

The University Bookstore has made an important change to its text department. As part of the Bookstore’s new Shop by Author program, course materials are now arranged on shelves alphabetically by author instead of by course.

Whether it is a student shopping or a team member picking online orders, a person now starts at “A” and walks through the department one time, collecting course materials based on authors’ last names.

Before Shop by Author, students may have had to jump around to different areas of the text department to find their books, especially when a title was used in multiple courses. This new alphabetical arrangement will save students time and ultimately deliver a better shopping experience.

In future semesters, the Bookstore will introduce students to technology that will allow them to scan a QR code as they enter the text department to see a shopping list by author, specific to their class schedule.

However, this fall, in light of COVID-19, the Bookstore will be promoting its website as the best way for students to shop for their textbooks. This change to its layout will allow the store team to be more efficient fulfilling these online orders and give the Bookstore more space to store the packages that student’s have selected to pick-up in-store. In addition to the website, the University Bookstore will have clerk service to assist the student’s who come to the store to shop, rather than using the website.

As your classes get underway, ensure students are prepared by letting them know they can find their materials at the University Bookstore.  Don’t forget to share that the Bookstore price matches against eligible competitors, so students can shop with confidence knowing they’re getting their materials at the lowest cost possible.

If you have any questions about the Bookstore’s new Shop by Author program, or any of its course materials affordability programs, please feel free to email Katie Wilz at kwilz@follett.com or call 515-274-3401.

— Katie Wilz, University Bookstore

HR Information Archive

New flexible spending account plan change

Due to COVID-19, the IRS has permitted employers to provide employees an opportunity to change flexible spending account (FSA) elections made for the current plan year.

Drake University has chosen to amend its FSA plans to allow full-time employees to make prospective mid-year Health Care and/or Dependent Care election changes, effective immediately.  All election changes must be made during the 2020 calendar year.

Adoption of the Temporary FSA Plan Amendment permits you to:

  • Elect to participate in Drake’s Health Care and/or Dependent Care FSA plans—even if you have previously waived the benefit.
  • Terminate your current participation in Drake’s Health Care and/or Dependent Care FSA plans.
  • Increase or decrease your current Health Care and/or Dependent Care elections.

It is important to note elections can only be changed going forward.  Election changes cannot be made retroactively.  In other words, you cannot get a refund for benefits you have already received or amounts you have already contributed.

To make changes to your current FSA participation, please complete and return the Mid-year FSA Change Form to drakehr@drake.edu

The Temporary FSA Plan Amendment and  Mid-year FSA Change Form are posted in the Human Resources app on myDrake.  Should you have questions regarding your benefits, please contact Marlene Heuertz at 515-271-1901 or marlene.heuertz@drake.edu.

— Marlene Heuertz, Human Resources

Campus Announcements Archive

Blackboard Learn changes coming this August

Over the coming year, Drake will be transitioning from the current LMS, Blackboard Learn, to Blackboard Learn Ultra, a more advanced and user-friendly version.

The August changes will have minimal effect on the functionality of courses or the availability of features within courses. Instead, they will focus primarily on the look and feel of the LMS landing page and its navigation.

Starting Aug. 9, when you log into Blackboard, your landing page will look different. Learn more about the updated navigation at Getting Started with Ultra Base Navigation in Learn Ultra (How-to). The basic background and colors will all be a standard Drake color scheme.

Faculty can, however, customize a course by uploading a banner image. Learn more about customizing course images including guidance around image quality, size, and fair use at Creating Course Card Images/Course Banners in Learn Ultra (Best Practices). 

Learn more about the project, who to contact, and the proposed timeline at our FAQ page at drake.edu/its/learnultra/ and we will be adding additional help documentation to the Learn Ultra category in the Knowledge Base of our IT service portal.

— Karly Good, ITS