August Communication - Email to Faculty

From: Paul Barron, CIO
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 3:00 PM
Subject: myTulane Faculty Update

Announcement:

This is a reminder that myTulane is ready for your use. Over 60% of courses have been associated with the appropriate faculty members, and many of you have already begun populating your courses using the myContent System. Please note the following as you continue to use this new system:

New Learning System Features
This upgrade contains a host of new features that should result in an improved experience for students and faculty. Among these features are:
• Combine Course Tool - faculty can combine different courses sections into one enrollment
• Interactive tools - new features such as blogs, wikis and podcasts
• Online portfolios - new ePortfolio creation and viewing tools
• Assessment improvements - new assessment question types including calculated formula and file response

If you have not logged in to myTulane yet, explore some of the new features at

http://mytulane.blackboard.com

Course Availability
Since courses are created on the system automatically when the department associates a course with an instructor, the default setting for all courses is “unavailable” so that faculty members who do not plan to use myTulane will not be affected. Hence, students will not see your course(s) in myTulane until you change the setting to “available.” Simply go to the settings feature in your course control panel to toggle on “availability.”

Legacy Blackboard Availability
The legacy blackboard system will remain available to you through the end of Spring 2008 so that you may access documents from previous courses.

Learn More
To learn more about myTulane and how the system can enhance the experience of everyone at the university, take a look at the information at

http://ts.tulane.edu/teaching_and_learning/current_projects/myTulane/what_is_mytulane.cfm
or see the myTulane project website at

http://ts.tulane.edu/teaching_and_learning/current_projects/mytulane
As always, I invite your comments regarding this or any other service provided by Technology Services.

Paul Barron
Vice President for Information Technology & CIO