Staff Frequently Asked Questions - Blue Mountain Community College

General Questions

How do I get help with the BMCC Website?

What is OneDrive and how do I use it?

OneDrive is an online file storage system connected to your BMCC Mircosoft account. It is part of the Microsoft 365 suite of online software. Like you can access your email online through the Outlook Web App, you can use the OneDrive file storage through your web browser.

From the Outlook Web App, select the menu in the upper left.

If you prefer to use the desktop versions Word and Excel, then you can sync your OneDrive files to your computer for use with these desktop application. To do so, use the OneDrive App from your computer. If you have not used this before, then you will be asked to log in to your BMCC account. This will create a new folder in your File Explorer.

Tutorial Video

Syncing files with OneDrive Tutorial

OneDrive and SharePoint actually work very similarly to the I Drive and F Drive you are used to, but they are accessible from anywhere, not just on campus.

Benefits of using OneDrive file storage are:

Your files will be available from any computer with Internet access.
You can easily share files without attaching them in an email.
No more sending out attachments and worrying about who has the current version.
You have control of file access: who can view or edit.

For help using OneDrive contact:

What is SharePoint and how do I use it?

Link to Your SharePoint

SharePoint is a tool for group sharing online. Whereas OneDrive is “personal” storage, SharePoint is a group storage account. This should be used for departments and committees. Like OneDrive, SharePoint has document storage. SharePoint accounts are accessible by select BMCC employees, all BMCC employees, or to the general public.

Tutorial Video

Syncing files with SharePoint Tutorial

Contact the IT Department if you need a SharePoint account for your department or committee.

For help using your SharePoint or OneDrive contact:

How do I share a file with OneDrive or SharePoint?

Share OneDrive Files and Folders Tutorial

Share SharePoint Files and Folders Tutorial

From a OneDrive or SharePoint Document directory, we recommend using the “Manage Access” screen to set and get the appropriate share link.

From the … menu button for a file or folder,

then select Manage Access to copy the appropriate link.

Beware the link that states “Anyone with the link can edit”.

What do I need to know about Web Accessibility?

Web Accessibility is about getting the greatest possible access to web content for all people.

For us the main ideas are:

Content should be easy to navigate.
Keep it simple.
Adequate contrast between text and backgrounds. Contrast checker.
Text alternatives to visual content like images and videos, that is, alternative text and/or tiles for images, and captioning for videos.

Teachers - Administrative Stuff

Do I have to take class attendance?

Yes. At a minimum, you must take attendance for the first week. It is helpful to Financial Aid and Student Records if you record attendance periodically throughout the term.

How to record attendance using the BMCC Canvas Attendance Tool

Why do instructors need to record attendance?

To receive financial aid or a grade in the class, students must be active in the class during the first week. For other federal and state compliance reasons, instructors must mark all students ‘present’ or ‘absent’ for at least one day before the end of the first week of class. The deadline for submitting attendance each term is the “Last Day to Post 1st Week Attendance” line in the Academic Calendar.

Important Note about administrative drops: BMCC does not have an automatic process for administratively dropping students from courses in the first week, using attendance or otherwise. If you need to admin drop a student from a course in the first week for lack of attendance, do the following:

Record at least one ‘absent’ record for the student in the first week (see below for how to record attendance)
Send an email to student records (from outlook send to #StudentRecords or StudentRecords@bluecc.edu) with the name of the course, and the name and student ID of the student to drop.

I’m teaching an online-only class which has no meeting times. Do I need to record attendance?

Yes! All instructors must record attendance for all students in all courses before the deadline each term. How to determine attendance in online courses is up to each individual instructor. The recommended way is to require an assignment (regular assignment, quiz, discussion post, etc.) in Canvas during the first week of the term and consider an assignment submission by a student to be a ‘present’ attendance record. When using the BMCC Canvas Attendance Tool (details below), activity in your online courses will automatically be marked as present.

How do I record attendance for students?

Video Guide (video part 2, includes rosters and attendance)

The recommended way to record attendance for all classes is to use the BMCC Canvas Attendance Tool. This tool was built by BMCC computer science faculty and is not part of the normal Canvas installation – right now it only exists at BMCC. If you have any questions about how to use the tool, please do not contact Instructure or post on Canvas forums as they won’t know anything about it. See the If you need help section at the bottom of this page if you have questions or encounter any errors using the tool.

The rest of this page includes detailed instructions for how to use the BMCC Canvas Attendance Tool.

Load the tool for your course. Each course contains a green “Attendance” button just to the left of the course name. Click this button in your course to open the tool:
While the tool is loading it will also automatically refresh all Canvas course activity and page views (more on this later). You should see a short message after each step completes, before the tool fully loads:
Once the tool loads, you’ll see a full list of your course roster (for all sections) and attendance for the current week. Note that you can change the week view using the “Week” dropdown on the top left:

At this point you can record “present” or “absent” records for each student by clicking the cell for their name and corresponding day. Multiple clicks will cycle through present/absent/none. You can also use the shortcut buttons at the top to record present/absent/none for all students on a given day. Note: all changes are saved automatically as you mark days.

You will also likely see page views and “activity” icons scattered throughout the days. Page views are indicated by an “eye” icon and activities (e.g. assignment submissions, discussion posts, etc.) are in a clickable box with an assignment icon. Click an assignment icon to show details about the items completed by the student that day.
For online-only courses with no standing meeting times, course activity will automatically be marked present (note: only activity will be marked present, not page views):
If your course has regular meeting times, course activity in Canvas will not automatically be marked present. However, you can still use this feature manually by clicking the “Mark Activity Present” button at the top of the tool. The tool will ask for confirmation before marking all activities as ‘present’.

This final step is the most important! While recording attendance in step 4, the data is saved within Canvas only. The BMCC tools have an integration with Anthology Student but that step must be initiated separately. To “push” your recorded attendance to Anthology Student (was CNS), click the “Send to CNS” button
The confirmation box will indicate how many records will be sent (records already sent will not be resent)
If you click “Go!” the records will be sent in a batch. At this point It will take up to 3 minutes for the Anthology Student integration tool to receive and confirm the data. The records you just sent will be “dimmed” in the interface and a 3 minute timer will begin at the top, next to the “Send to CNS” button
After 3 minutes, the tool will automatically retrieve the attendance data from CNS to confirm it was received. Records that are verified will be marked with a light/dark diagonal pattern:
Don’t worry if you accidentally close the page before the timer runs out! The data has still been sent and will be automatically retrieved for verification the next time you load the page.
You can also verify attendance by viewing your course rosters.
Any students highlighted in red either have no attendance record or only absent records. If the attendance information on the roster does not match the attendance information on the Canvas Attendance page, then there must be a change in the student’s degree intent. Attendance should be resubmitted for these students.

Do not confuse the BMCC Canvas Attendance Tool with “Attendance Roll Call”

Canvas does include another Attendance tool called “Attendance Roll Call”, available as a Navigation item — that tool will NOT work for sending attendance to CNS. That tool was not built by BMCC and has no connection to Anthology Student (CNS). There’s nothing wrong with using that tool for your own use, but none of that data can be sent to CNS and you would need to ALSO either enter attendance directly in the faculty portal, or use the BMCC Attendance Tool as described above.

Important Notes

The tool is meant to be used often! You can “Send to CNS” as often as you like – only unsent records will be sent.
While it’s required for instructors to record attendance for the first week of class, it is recommended that you continue marking attendance throughout the term. This will ensure that you are tracking each student’s “last day of attendance”. Using course activity and marking active records as present is a simple way to update attendance in just a few seconds.
Only records with the light/dark diagonal pattern have been verified in CNS. If you see just red or green records it means you’ve recorded the attendance in Canvas but haven’t sent to CNS. Click the “Send to CNS” button!
Once a record as been marked and sent for a student on a given day, it cannot be removed. You can change it from present to absent, but not “none”. For example, if you change an already verified “absent” record to “present”, the verified stripes will go away, the record will turn green and must be “sent to CNS” again.
If, for some reason, a record fails when sending to CNS it should appear in flashing yellow in the Attendance tool. If you see flashing yellow squares after sending to CNS, please see the If you need help section below.

If you need help

If you have questions about how to use the tool or encounter any errors while loading or using the tool, please email Greg Schulberg (gschulberg@bluecc.edu) and copy Gary Parker (gparker@bluecc.edu). Please include the name of the course you were working on when you had the question or error, a URL to the course in Canvas (copy/paste the URL from the address bar on the course home page), details about the issue and screen shots if possible.

How do I submit grades?

What about F grades?

When you choose a failing grade for a student, you will be required to enter a Last Day of Attendance (LDA). By default, the LDA will be set to the last day you recorded a “present” attendance record for that student. Please review this date carefully and ensure it accurately represents the last day the student participated in the class. Note: inaccurate LDAs for non-passing grades can impact students Financial Aid.

How do I record an Incomplete?

An “Incomplete” for a student is not a grade, but a status. To assign an incomplete to a student, choose the vertical “…” from the Action column in the Grading widget:

Select “Set Incomplete”

This will pop up a new window where you’ll be required to provide 3 things:

The Last Day of Attendance (LDA). By default, this will be set to the last day you recorded a “present” attendance record for this student. Please review the LDA for accuracy and change it if needed.
The expiration date of the Incomplete. This is the date on which the student’s grade will automatically be changed to the default grade below if the Incomplete hasn’t been resolved.
The default grade (see above).

Note: once you set an incomplete for a student, the normal “Grade” dropdown will be inactive:

To change it back to a regular grade, see “Resolving an Incomplete” below.

Resolving an Incomplete

Choose the “…” next to the student, then choose “Resolve Incomplete”

Enter the final grade

Where can I get my class rosters?

Select the My Classes tab in your Focal dashboard.

Where can I get a list of my advisees?

Select the Advising tab in your Focal dashboard.

Where did these BMCC Online Tools come from?

The BMCC Online Tools were developed by the BMCC Computer Science Department. Email Greg Schulberg (gschulberg@bluecc.edu) and copy Gary Parker (gparker@bluecc.edu) if you have question.

How do I use Dropout Detective?

Dropout Detective is a tool embedded in your Canvas courses to help identify struggling students and to get them help.

Overview Information

Dropout Detective for Higher Ed from AspirEDU Inc. on Vimeo.

How do I use YouCanBook.me for scheduling advising appointments?

Tutorial Video

You should see a booking page in your dashboard.

Select the pencil icon to the right of your booking page to edit the settings.

The first page of settings, What, allows you to set the page title, default meeting method, booking page link, and introductory information about you and advising.

The Who settings tab shows connected calendars, like your Outlook calendar. This should already be connected.

The When settings tab controls how YouCanBookMe interacts with your calendar.

The Repeating option below pulls open spots or free events within the set availability for students to schedule appointments.

The Calendar Managed options pulls only events with the designated title that are set as free for students to schedule appointments.

Additional Options:

Check out Appointment Types and Booking Form.

You will have the default appointment that comes with the booking page. You can customize it and add other options. For example:

The Booking Form comes with fields for First name, Last Name, and Email. You can add other fields like phone or a multiple choice question asking how the student wants to meet.

Here is what the students would see.

Once your booking page is configured you should add the calendar link to your User Profile in Focal.

Contact IT or Gary Parker if you have any questions.

How will students access my YouCanBook.me calendar?

Edit your User Profile in Focal.

Scroll to the bottom to add your calendar link.

This will appear for students in the Focal home page.

How do I add advising notes for students?

After selecting a student in Focal, select the Notes tab, then the ADD button in the upper right of the notes listing.

In the Add Note window enter a title, select a note Type from the type dropdown menu, enter your notes, and then save.

Teachers - Canvas Stuff

How can I get help with using Canvas?

These Tech Hub members are available to help you with Canvas.

Ashlei Emmons, Learning Management System Technologist
Stan Beach, Math & CS Teacher
Allan Holden, Computer Technology Specialist
Michelle Miller, Biology Teacher
Nick Nash, Philosophy Teacher
Gary Parker, Math & CS Teacher
Karl Schrader, Bookstore Manager
Greg Schulberg, Math & CS Teacher

And the Canvas Guides:

The Basic Guide Book to Canvas

The Instructor Guide Book to Canvas

Set up your Canvas course in 30 minutes or less

How do I access Canvas?

Try here.
If you have any trouble accessing Canvas there with your Microsoft login, then try here with your Canvas login information.

Contact Ashlei Emmons, (541) 278-5763, Learning Management System Technologist, if you have questions.

How do I copy materials from a previous Canvas course?

Need to copy content from one course to another? Check out this Canvas guide for assistance. If you need help, please contact eLearning@bluecc.edu. Note: Copying course content only works if you are a Teacher in the Canvas course you are copying from. If you have permission to copy content but do not have the Teacher role, reach out to eLearning@bluecc.edu for help.

What are New Quizzes?

Canvas now has two quiz engines. When you create a quiz you will get to choose which you’d like to use.

Classic QuizzesFor the time being, if you need security from 3rd-party tools, Speedgrader, or CSVs for student response analysis, this is the better choice.
New QuizzesThis has more question types like hotspot, categorization, matching, and ordering. It also has more moderation and accommodation features.

Learn more about the differences.

323 – New Quizzes Overview (Instructors) from Instructure Canvas Community on Vimeo.

How to convert a Classic Quiz to a New Quiz?

From the Quizzes page, select the 3-dot button to the right of the Classic quiz that you want migrate to a New quiz.

A copy of the quiz will be made with the same name but with the New Quizzes icon.

Caution: this only works for questions that exist in the quiz, but not for quiz questions that are randomly selected from a bank.

More details.

How to migrate a Classic Quiz Bank to a New Quiz Item Bank?

To migrate a Classic Canvas Quiz Bank to a New Quiz Item Bank

Create a Classic Quiz and add all of the questions from the Question Bank you wish to convert.
From the course Settings, Export the quiz that you created, and download the export file.
From the course Item Banks, add a new Item Bank, and then open that new Item Bank.
In the upper right corner of the New empty Item Bank, select the 3-dot button, then Import Content, and upload your export file.
You should now see your new Item Bank populated with the questions from your old Question Bank.

Detailed instructions with screenshots and video

How do I embed videos in Canvas?

There are many ways to link to and embed videos in a Canvas page, discussion, quiz, or assignment.

YouTube and other online video services

If you have a shareable link to an online video, then you can simply link it on a canvas page.

Type some link text, then select the text, then select the links button , and past the URL into the link field.

Screenshot of Insert Image dialog box

You can embed videos so that the video can be watched in Canvas using the Apps button. From the place on the page that you want your video to appear, select the Apps button , then select the app that you wish to use or View All to search for an app like YouTube, TedEd, Kaltura, etc. Once you have selected the App search for the media that you wish to embed. Select the embed style, link, small, medium, or large.

Screenshot of YouTube App embed dialog box

Linking and embedding videos Tutorial Video.

Canvas guide to YouTube videos.

My Media in Canvas

My Media is an application from Kaltura to store media files. Media files can be added directly in My Media or using the Zoom integration in Canvas. If you scheduled Zoom meetings from within Canvas, then Kaltura retrieves the files from the Zoom cloud to appear in My Media. Videos are stored in Kaltura’s online storage. You then choose to publish which videos appear to students in the Media Gallery.

Kaltura Guides for Canvas

Media Gallery in Canvas

The Media Gallery is where students can view the videos you published for them from My Media or other places.

EdPuzzle

EdPuzzle is an online app that allows you to embed questions in videos. The videos can be yours or from YouTube. You can add open-ended or multiple choice questions, along with typed notes and audio notes. You have the option to not let students scroll forward through the video.

EdPuzzle in Canvas Tutorial Video.

How do I use EdPuzzle videos?

EdPuzzle in Canvas Tutorial Video.

BMCC has an institutional account with EdPuzzle for the 2022-2023 academic year.

How do I use the Canvas Gradebook?

Here are some tutorial guides.

Canvas Gradebook

Assignment Groups and Grades

Module Options

How do I split a single Canvas shell with 2 or more sections into individual shells?

Contact Ashlei Emmons (aemmons@bluecc.edu).

How do I extend a course for a student getting an incomplete grade?

You can add a section to your course with a different end date so that only students in this new “incomplete” section will still see the class as live in the Canvas Dashboard.

Go to the Settings page for your course and then select the Sections tab at the top. There you should see the current section(s) and have the option to add a new section.
Enter a name for the section, then select the + Section button.
The section should then appear in the list below.
Select the name of the section to get to its edit screen.
Select the Edit Section button to the right.
Add the dates for this section here. We recommend that you use the original course start date, then set the end date to your desired end date. Be sure to check the box for Students can only participate in the course between these dates.
Select Update Section.

Next you will go to the People page to add people to this new section.

Select the 3-dot menu button to the right of the student to add to the incomplete section.
Then Edit Sections.
Start typing the name of the new section, wait a moment, then select the section when it appears.
Then Update and the student will now be in this section also.
Add yourself to this same section.
Boom. Done!