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Welcome to the Fall 2025 semester! We're excited to work with you this school year. In this article, you will find some important reminders and information to help you start the term strong. As always, if you have any questions or would like to meet with a member of the COLRS staff, please contact us. We're happy to help anytime!
-Emily, Carrie, Scott, & Taylor
Overview of Assessment
Assessment is a word that is used a lot in education. A great deal of scholarship focuses on the importance of assessment in higher education. But what do we mean by assessment? Instructors sometimes conflate grading with assessment. It is more than grading. Assessment is the strategic measurement of the extent of student learning in a course. Assessments should link student performance to specific learning objectives and provide feedback to both the instructor and the student on the performance of the student and areas for improvement.
AI Detection
Copyleaks AI Detector Update
On July 8, Copyleaks upgraded its AI detector from v8.1 to v9. Our Copyleaks representative has indicated that "you may notice some differentiation in results on scans that are completed before versus after this change." As you are navigating these changes, if you have any questions or concerns about the results, COLRS staff is happy to work with you.
Building Digital Community
Building Digital Community is a six module, self-paced course that provides an overview for faculty in the issues and trends surrounding online teaching and learning.
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
Summer 2025 Start Dates
- 8-week & first-half courses will be published and made available for students on Monday, June 2nd at 12:01 a.m.
- A resource page on copying your Canvas content is available.
ITS and COLRS have updated the Kaltura video player and functionality in Canvas. We wanted to share with you some of the changes that you can expect to see.
How to find My Media
You can still access your videos and the "Add New" button from your course navigation by clicking on "My Media" or by clicking on your profile picture in the blue, global menu and choosing "My Media."
OPEL Fellows for 2025-2027
Leah Bueso
Dr.
Online Graduate Salute 2025
Congratulations Graduates!
UIS Online grads, we are proud of you -- of your achievements, of your resilience, of your tenacity. Earning your degree online requires tremendous self-discipline and determination: juggling schedules, keeping organized, studying late into the night, and rising early to make deadlines.
Enjoy this day. Be proud. You've worked hard to earn it, and we salute you!
TidyUP Canvas Course Cleanup Tool
What is TidyUP?
TidyUP from Cidi Labs is a content cleanup tool for Canvas courses. It provides a quick way to view all your course content and clean out anything that is no longer needed. You can identify and delete extra files, folders, pages, or assignments that are no longer needed to make your course easier to manage and more usable for you and your students!
What happens when I copy from Word into Canvas?
Converting Word documents into Canvas pages, assignments, or other content can be really valuable for students navigating Canvas courses. Students using the Canvas mobile app often have trouble accessing Word files from their mobile devices; these issues are less likely to occur when the content is built in the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE). It can also make things easier on the instructor by eliminating many of the steps needed to update content or instructions.