The University Curriculum Committee meets one last time this year, to review proposed courses that cover our Areas of Inquiry and serve as First Year Seminars.  If you plan to submit a course, please do so by April 6 so that committee members have time to read and review.  You can find details about all the AOIs and their learning outcomes here; you can find the submission forms for each AOI and FYS, here.  Professor Mary McCarthy is chair of UCC this year, feel free to let her know if you have questions.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

You’re invited to join a group of dedicated faculty and staff to talk about teaching and artificial intelligence like chatbots and text-to-image generators. At each of the sessions, listed below, we’ll have a brief opening presentation, then a chance to mingle—café style—to get feedback on and brainstorm about your particular instructional concerns related to the technology, including a table to conversation about the question of our value in light of the technology, and a table where you can get ideas for incorporating AI into your class’ work. We’ll have two sessions via Zoom, and two in person—if you come in person, we’ll provide light refreshments.  The sessions will be:

Thursday, March 23, 12:00 – 1:00 via Zoom
Tuesday, March 28, 11:00 – 12:00 in person
Monday, April 3, 12:00 – 1:00 via Zoom
Friday, April 7, 11:30 – 12:30 in person

Please register here. You’ll be able to pick your session and modality on the Eventbrite link.  We will email you the zoom link the morning of, if you attend on the 23rd or 3rd.

And, please sign up now for Books for Breakfast on April 7 and April 21 from 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. We will meet to eat good food and talk about a lovely book: Helen Sword’s Air and Light and Time and Space: How Successful Academics Write.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

Drake faculty and staff who exemplify the Core Value Commitment to Mission will be recognized at the next Provost’s Drake Social on Monday, March 20, in the Cowles Library Reading Room, beginning at 4 p.m.

To nominate a colleague, please use this Qualtrics form. Feel free to fill out multiple forms. All those nominated will be recognized on a rolling display at the event.

What do we mean when we talk about Commitment to Mission at Drake? We look for colleagues who act with integrity, purpose, and optimism in service to both our students and our community.

When you nominate colleagues, be prepared to describe how each colleague meets this description. Several nominees will be chosen at random for prizes!

Refreshments will include wine, beer, soft drinks, and an assortment of light snacks. Keep in mind that this is a family friendly event—bring your children and partner!

—Madison Bemus, Office of the Provost

Think twice before you rush to enter an old friend’s March Madness pool this week. There’s nothing wrong with a little camaraderie, but the email invite might be coming from a cybercriminal looking to steal your personal information or money.

Cybersecurity researchers say the annual NCAA basketball tournament brings a slew of phishing emails from scammers looking to capitalize on the public’s eagerness to join the fun. March Madness captures widespread attention, and the yearly rush to get brackets filled out before the first game tips off adds a sense of urgency. That combination makes March Madness a slam dunk for cybercriminals. Emails mentioning the tournament have a better chance of drawing clicks from unsuspecting victims.

Online NCAA pools have been around for years, but March Madness-related phishing has become a growing problem due to the proliferation of social media and artificial intelligence. These technologies have made it much easier for criminals to write and send custom scam emails known as spear phishing. In the past, cybercriminals had to craft spear-phishing emails one by one, doing painstaking research to find the personal details needed to make emails look real. Now social media platforms provide all the personal data needed for potential victims. Artificial intelligence then automates the composition process, allowing scammers to send out millions of highly customized emails that boost their chances of a payoff.

Here are some reminders to avoid getting scammed:

Think before you click. If something doesn’t seem right about an email, just delete it—ideally before you open it. You’re better off not taking the risk.

Examine the link. Before you click on a link, try hovering your mouse over it. This will reveal the full address, which can expose signs of fraud. A “.ru” on the end, for example, means the site was created in Russia. Misspellings are another good tipoff to a fake website. If the URL says marchmadnness.com, avoid it.

Don’t open attachments. They may contain malware. Never type confidential information into a form attached to an email.

Guard your financial information. Be wary of emails asking for account numbers, credit card numbers, wire transfers, or failed transactions. There’s no reason to share such info via message or an unsecure site.

ITS will continue to simulate phishing and assign training to those most susceptible. If you believe you’ve been targeted by phishing, see Reporting a Phishing Message (How-to).

— Chris Mielke, ITS

This article is part of a series of OnCampus articles  called “About … Blackboard Learn Ultra.”  The series is designed to provide information on Blackboard Learn Ultra in small soundbites.

Blocks are the content elements that you add to organize and segment content. You can add blocks for paragraphs, images, headings, lists, videos, and more.  With blocks, you can easily edit the order of the content by reordering the blocks within a Blackboard document.

Example of Block Editing

Block editing in a syllabus would allow you to separate each of the typical sections. Using the example layout below, you could build it into 5 blocks or 13 depending on the depth of flexibility required:

1. About the course: 1) course title, 2) course description, and 3) learning objectives
2. Course environment: 4) instructor contact information, 5) meeting schedule, 6) open education resources and textbook requirements, and 7) technology requirements to be successful
3. Standard syllabus statements: 8) policies, 9) academic success resources, 10) academic honesty, etc.
4. Assessments: 11) assessment descriptions and 12) grading schemas
5. 13) Course schedule

To reorder the syllabus, click the two-direction arrow under the (…) menu of any given block and drag the block of content to drop it in the preferred order.

Block Editing Benefits

Using block editing also makes it easy to:

• Add different types of content (typed/copied-pasted content, uploaded files, HTML, and cloud documents) inline in a specified order.
• Keep your content evenly spaced and yet separated slightly to add white space without managing the formatting between sections.
• Remove blocks without editing other content on the page.
• Only editing the section of the content you want to change without disturbing the other content on the page.

How-to Build Blocks

In the Blackboard content area select the add tool (+) and Create a Document. Choose a type of content to add to the document and keep it brief (a course description or learning objectives, for example). Save that block and hover below it to add (+) another block of the same or different type. Remember to practice editing with blocks in mind by practicing simple acts like reordering the content as you see fit or removing unnecessary blocks. Learn more about creating content in Blackboard documents.

— Karly Good, ITS

This semester we are starting a series of OnCampus articles  called “About … Blackboard Learn Ultra.”  The goal of these articles is to provide some development opportunities in small soundbites that provide the information needed to work efficiently in Blackboard Learn Ultra.

Calendars in Blackboard Learn Ultra

This month we are sharing features of the calendar tool at all levels and roles in Blackboard.  You can use the calendar tool to help you stay on top of course schedules and due dates. Watch the video below to learn more about how to integrate your calendar into your workflow. In addition, once you start using the calendar in your workflow, it also supports the students using the calendar in their workflow. Once you begin adopt in the calendar, share resources with your students to join in!

Instructors

The information provided in the video is also available in a detailed written document about using calendars from the instructor perspective.

Help Your Students

Share this resource to help Students with their workflow of using the calendar in Blackboard Learn Ultra. If you like, you can post the embedded video from within this document into your course content or send it as an announcement to encourage students to use calendars to improve student success.

— Karly Good, ITS

We have had terrific attendance at faculty development centering on artificial intelligence, and a great set of conversations. Nicki and I are working to continually update the CTE website. We’re trying to make a weekly practice of those updates, starting later this week, to include resources as they become available from a host of global institutions.

I also invite you to join a group of dedicated faculty and staff to talk about teaching and artificial intelligence like Chatbots and text-to-image generators. We’ll have a brief opening presentation, then you’ll have a chance to mingle—café style—to get feedback on and brainstorm about your particular instructional concerns related to the technology, including a table to conversation about the question of our value in light of the technology, and a table where you can get ideas for incorporating AI into your class’ work. We’ll have two sessions via Zoom, and two in person—if you come in person, we’ll provide light refreshments.  The sessions will be:

Thursday, March 23, 12:00 – 1:00 via Zoom
Tuesday, March 28, 11:00 – 12:00 in person
Monday, April 3, 12:00 – 1:00 via Zoom
Friday, April 7, 11:30 – 12:30 in person

Please register here. You’ll be able to pick your session and modality on the Eventbrite link.

And, please sign up now for Books for Breakfast on April 7 and April 21 from 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. We will meet to eat good food and talk about a lovely book: Helen Sword’s Air and Light and Time and Space: How Successful Academics Write.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

Join All Staff Council Tuesday, March 14, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Parents Hall South, Olmsted Center, to celebrate National Pi Day with free pizza pies and bingo. This is a family-friendly event and winners will receive baked pie goods.

— Sydni Jennings, College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences

Drake faculty and staff who exemplify the Core Value “All in This Together” will be recognized at the Provost’s Drake Social Wednesday, Feb. 22, in the Cline Hall Atrium beginning at 4 p.m.

All those nominated will be recognized on a rolling display at the event. Several nominees will be chosen at random for prizes.

Refreshments will include wine, beer, soft drinks, and an assortment of light snacks. This is a family friendly event. Please feel free to bring your children and partner.

— Madison Bemus, Provost’s Office

We talk a lot, in higher education, about the massive changes we are currently undergoing.  But what does it mean for us when we say that enrollments are shifting, that knowledge production is being radically altered, that the classrooms we teach in are quite different from the ones we were learners in?  CPHS faculty member Shankar Munusamy will be leading us in a four-part conversation on the book The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future. We’ll meet to discuss on Thursdays ,March 2, 9, 23, and 30, from 3:30–4:30 p.m. in Howard Hall, Room 210.  Please register so we can plan to see you and get you a copy of the book.

Of course, one of the upheavals we’ve been talking most about, lately, comes from the disruptive technologies related to Artificial Intelligence. A good group of faculty and staff are working to develop some April and May opportunities—workshops on AI in the classroom and in assessment practices, as well as conversations about more existential aspects of the technology and what it’s proliferation means for our students and ourselves. On the way to those workshops, there are some terrific opportunities to engage.  

Drake’s Comparison Project is hosting Luther College Professor of Religion Gereon Kopf, who will be presenting a talk titled “Trans-humanism, AI, and Memory: Zen Buddhist Ruminations on Digital Immortalities.” You needn’t register; the event is free and open to the public, Thursday, Feb. 23, 7–8:30 p.m., Cowles Library Reading Room.  The next week, at The Varsity Cinema, Drake faculty member Chris Porter (associate professor of mathematics and director of our Artificial Intelligence program) will be presenting a pre-film talk “The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Our Lives,” just prior to a viewing of After Yang.  You can purchase tickets for this event on the cinema’s website, the talk and film will be Feb. 28, starting at 6:30 p.m.  It is exciting to share that this talk part of a series supported by an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant for “Science on Screen,” which was awarded as a result of work done by Cowles library faculty member Dan Chibnall, and community member Bed Godar. The program, according to Dan, pairs science and sci-fi films with notable local experts—and I’m excited that later this spring Professor Jerrid Kruse (SOE) will present a talk prior to a screening of the classic movie Wall-E.

Drake faculty members Chris Porter and Martin Roth (Philosophy) have been collaborating to bring two exciting panel discussions on AI to campus. Save the dates now for March 7, 4–5:30 p.m. and April 20, 4–5:30.  These will be held in Sussman Theater; the first will examine the impact of AI large language models; the second will consider text to image generation.

Finally, if you’ve read this far, you deserve some music. I was listening to Sleigh Bells the other day, heard Riot Rhythm and had the impulse to check out the video—it’s an oldie—and it has fears of AI woven through it.  We might all have differing views on the impact of AI on our lives and careers—but tell me, who doesn’t love mid-2000s noise pop?

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

Deputy Provost 2:10 (two articles with a read time of 10 minutes) is a communication series by Deputy Provost Renée Cramer sharing important scholarship, teaching, and development opportunities.