Technology Updates for Spring 2024

The Office of Technology and Digital Innovation (OTDI) has been hard at work between autumn and spring semesters to update our tools and services. This round of continual improvement projects included added security measures for eLearning tools, improved synchronization of identity data, and a focus on accessibility awareness. You and your students should also be aware of upcoming changes to Wi-Fi at Ohio State and potential issues with email forwarding.

CarmenCanvas

Integration Updates

The Learning Systems team is working to update tools that integrate with Carmen to the latest LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) standard. Upgrading to the latest version provides more security and, in many cases, new features. So far, integrations for Top Hat, Mediasite and Zoom have all been updated to LTI 1.3:

• Top Hat users that were still utilizing the older “legacy” LTI integration have been notified.
• Mediasite users will notice that the My Mediasite button will no longer be in the Course Navigation; it is now located in the list of buttons on the right side of the screen above the To Do list.
• For those who use Zoom within Carmen, you may need to re-enable the CarmenZoom navigation link in your courses.

Pronoun Sync

Over break, OTDI made updates to CarmenCanvas and CarmenZoom that would allow centrally-designated pronouns to be pulled into those tools. If you and your students have selected pronouns at my.osu.edu, Buckeye Link, Workday, or the Ohio State app, those pronouns will now appear in Carmen and Zoom. You can learn more about this update to Carmen and Zoom as well as the larger project to improve data synchronization across university systems.  

New Quizzes Update

The New Quizzes tool is available for instructors to explore and can be enabled on a course-by-course basis. If you’d like to take a peek at upcoming quiz features, you can enable New Quizzes in one of your courses. Activating this feature for your course will allow you to choose between Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes when creating a new assessment. In the Teaching and Learning Resource Center, you can view a release timeline and review accessibility considerations. If you enable New Quizzes in one or more of your courses, you will receive a brief accessibility agreement to sign, signifying you understand those considerations.

BuckeyePass Added to eLearning Tools

In an ongoing effort to protect university data, BuckeyePass multi-factor authentication (MFA) has been added to Zoom, U.OSU, Secured Media Library and Aegis (a platform with tools for managing and supporting the eLearning toolset). Faculty, staff and students are now required to authenticate with their university password and an MFA option (such as Duo Mobile) when logging in to these services. OTDI is working on protecting the rest of the eLearning toolset, with more tools to utilize BuckeyePass later this year.

PebblePad ePortfolio Tool

PebblePad is the ePortfolio tool currently being used at Ohio State in the GE Bookends courses and the Honors and Scholars programs. Many students have already been introduced to PebblePad and are encouraged to engage with it beyond these opportunities. All Ohio State faculty, staff and students have access to PebblePad to create personal, professional and academic portfolios. You can learn more in the Teaching and Learning Resource Center.

If you would like to support your students in their use of PebblePad, you can activate a link to the tool in the sidebar navigation for your course. You can learn how to manage navigation links in the Instructure Community. Enabling the PebblePad link in your sidebar will make it easier for students to find the tool so they can complete or tag assignments in PebblePad.

Also, please review this important accessibility information and be sure to share with your students if you are using the tool in your course. As the instructor, you should be prepared with accessible backup assignments, and you should let your students know how they can get assistance if they need it.

Learn about AI in C4U

Cybersecurity for You (C4U) is Ohio State’s cybersecurity awareness platform. It offers short activities that provide actionable techniques on a variety of cybersecurity topics, including identifying phishing attempts, how to use VPNs, apps and location tracking, and what to do if you lose your phone, to name a few. OTDI recently added an entire section on artificial intelligence (AI). The achievement, Aye, Aye, A.I.!, will teach you all about how generative AI works, considerations you should take before using it for work or school, how AI detectors work, and much more.  

LabArchives Support

Last autumn, support for LabArchives (electronic lab notebooks) was transferred from OTDI to the Office of Research. Documentation for the tool will no longer be available in the Teaching and Learning Resource Center, but you can find information about LabArchives at the Office of Research site.

Retiring Soon: osuwireless  

Ohio State is transitioning to eduroam as the primary secure network for Ohio State students, faculty and staff, with osuwireless retiring in August 2024. Connect to eduroam today to avoid reconfiguring your Wi-Fi connection every time you update your Ohio State password and remain connected to eduroam when you visit participating institutions around the world. Visit wireless.osu.edu and select the Connect to eduroam button to configure your device to eduroam.

Gmail Security Update

If you forward your Ohio State or BuckeyeMail account to Gmail, security changes announced by Google could impact delivery to Gmail beginning in February 2024. Senders that exceed what Google considers to be a “spam threshold,” will be blocked by Gmail. We expect Yahoo! and other large email services to implement similar measures. How much these changes impact you depends on your role(s) with Ohio State and how you are using outside email services with your Ohio State email accounts. Learn what actions you can take at OTDI’s site.