COLRS Catch Up - September 2026

Publish Date

2026-10-09

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In case you missed it

September Workshops

In September, the COLRS staff hosted two workshops.

On September 3, we offered an overview of Turnitin Clarity, an educational writing and analytics platform designed to provide greater transparency into the student writing process while supporting academic integrity in the age of generative AI. In addition to the website recording, you can review the Google Slides about this product.

Our second workshop launched a new series exploring the UIS Online Course Quality Rubric. This series will highlight what’s covered in each domain, introduce small practices to help you get started, and explore ways to make your online teaching more joyful and rewarding. This month, we focused on Domain 2: Technologies and Tools. In addition to the recording, you can review the slides for Domain 2.

We hope you’ll take a few minutes to explore the workshop recordings and catch up on anything you may have missed!

Portrait of Taylor Lester, Associate Director of COLRS.

Taylor Lester Promoted to Associate Director!

The staff of COLRS is delighted to share that Taylor Lester has been promoted to Associate Director of COLRS, effective September 28th.

Taylor joined COLRS in July 2023 after working as a high school English teacher for eight years. Since joining COLRS Taylor has led several instructional design projects, has been a project manager for our accessibility initiatives, and represents the campus community as part of CSAC and Campus Senate

Taylor’s collaborative approach and commitment to excellence makes a difference for UIS faculty and students each day. We are grateful for her contributions to our team at COLRS and excited to see the impact she will have in this new role. Please join us in offering Taylor our congratulations!

Instructor spotlight

In this video, Dr. Kyle Blount, Assistant Professor in the School of Integrated Sciences, Sustainability, and Public Health, discusses their approach to integrating technology into their courses. Dr. Blount also shares how they structure their courses to provide students with the time and support they need to learn and become comfortable with the technologies required for success.

Black megaphone icon representing the Teaching Conversations announcement.

Teaching Conversations - November 18th from Noon - 1:30 in the Student Union South Ballroom

COLRS would love to have instructors share at our Teaching Conversations event in November! This is an opportunity for UIS instructors to come together, share something they've implemented in their courses, and collaborate with others on improving teaching practices. If you'd like to participate in this semester's Teaching Conversations, please send COLRS an email by Thursday, October 22 with your presentation idea.

Canvas catch up

Turnitin EULA Issue

Beginning in the fall semester, we officially moved to Turnitin as our plagiarism and AI detection software. Since making the move, we have received several calls from instructors notifying us that students are not accepting the End User License Agreement (EULA) for Turnitin, which prevents their submissions from being evaluated.

In exploring this issue, COLRS has discovered that when students use the Canvas mobile app, the EULA does not appear for them. We think this may be a significant part of the issue for students.

If students could access the assignment through a web browser by logging in to the UIS Canvas URL on a laptop or desktop, the EULA should appear. If devices are limited, accessing Canvas through a web browser on a mobile phone rather than using the app may work as well.

If the EULA does not appear, Turnitin also has a guide about what to try for students. The relevant information to share with students:

Clear your browser’s history, cache, and cookies.
Make sure pop-ups are enabled so the EULA request can appear.
Restart your computer and log back in before resubmitting your paper.

Harmonize Chat

Harmonize Chat is a tool that allows any user to create a chat with any other user for the purpose of more informal, real-time conversation. These chats are not tied to specific courses and can be initiated by any person with access to Harmonize. Rather, they are tied to user accounts and cannot be deleted by any member of the chat. Only people added to the chat can see it; it cannot be monitored by instructors.

Due to these factors and the way Harmonize has modified this tool recently, we do not recommend the use of Harmonize chat at this time. Learn how to disable chat for your account so that other users cannot add you to a chat.

Looking ahead

Multimedia Workshop

As part of our launch of our new UIS Online Course Quality Rubric, COLRS staff is focusing our teaching tip and workshop series this academic year on the six domains of the rubric, offering ideas and strategies to help instructors meet the essential standards.

The second workshop will focus on a variety of standards throughout the six domains, shining a spotlight on how multimedia elements can enhance your course while still helping you meet the standards.

We hope to see you there!