Hello readers, On behalf of the teams that contribute to the Extra Points blog, we want to extend a sincere thank you for being such an engaged community of readers. We directly support the University of Minnesota’s teaching mission, and this blog has been a terrific space to share information and highlight current topics. Our goal is to ensure the content we create is timely, relevant, and useful for your work. To do that effectively, we believe the most important voice in the room is yours. In this post, we are asking for your guidance: What do you want to learn about or discuss next? Your challenges, curiosities, and innovative ideas are the best source of inspiration for our future posts. Your feedback will directly help our teams plan and write articles that address the real-world needs of instructors and staff. What topics or formats would be most valuable to you? To get the conversation started, here are some of the types of articles we often write. Are there specific topic...

Extra Points contributors are interviewing University of Minnesota instructors working to comply with the updated digital accessibility policy effective April 2026. These blog posts highlight the approach they take as they lean into the challenge of revising their course content to be digitally accessible. This post highlights Deanna Koepp , Associate Professor of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development in the College of Biological Sciences , Twin Cities.  Interviewer: When did you first start hearing about digital accessibility?  Deanna Koepp (DK) : I sort of knew in the background that digital accessibility was a thing, but I didn't truly focus on it until last summer. That's when I received a notification from CBS (College of Biological Sciences) about an approaching compliance deadline in April. I went to a workshop by the IT people in CBS where digital accessibility suddenly moved from a vague awareness to an urgent, concrete task. Interviewer: What were your initial...

In April 2025, Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS), in collaboration with academic technology professionals across the University of Minnesota system, conducted a series of focus groups to understand instructor sentiments and address the complexities of integrating generative AI into higher education. Focus group participants included instructors from multiple University of Minnesota campuses. The goals were to gauge instructors' feelings about the value and applicability of these tools in and beyond the classroom, and to identify where common assumptions about generative AI break down across different disciplines. Note: throughout this post, “generative AI” and “AI” are both used to refer to the broad category of artificial intelligence that can produce content such as text, images, video, audio, and/or code. Focus group process ATSS partnered with Usability Services to establish the session goals, determine participant recruiting criteria, craft the interview protoco...

When creating instructional videos for your courses, accessibility should be a central consideration. This includes ensuring that videos meet visual contrast standards, that captions are accurate and properly synchronized, and — critically — that key visual content is accessible to learners with low vision through audio description. What is Audio Description? Audio description is the practice of narrating key visual elements to ensure that learners who are blind or have low vision can fully engage with educational content. However, its value extends far beyond accessibility for students with disabilities . Consider, for example, a student listening to a video lecture while commuting—without visual access to the screen, they miss important contextual cues. Similarly, a student watching a lecture on a small phone screen may struggle to discern critical visual details. In both cases, audio description can bridge the gap, providing access to integral information that might otherwise be ...

Designing a Canvas course requires careful consideration of how to make video content engaging, accessible, and sustainable over time. One highly effective strategy is content chunking , which not only enhances student learning but also streamlines the process of creating, editing, and reusing instructional materials. What Is Content Chunking? Content chunking involves dividing instructional material into shorter, more manageable segments that are easier for students to process and retain. This method has proven particularly effective in online and hybrid learning environments when it comes to video. Research shows that student engagement is highest when videos range between 6 and 15 minutes. In contrast, a 45‑minute video lecture can feel overwhelming and discourage active participation. While most lessons require more than six minutes to cover essential concepts, chunking allows instructors to distribute content across multiple concise videos. These can either be built sequentiall...

If you have not logged into Canvas since May 2025, let's catch you up so you can hit the ground running this fall. This post is excerpted from a group presentation (Video 47:24) at the August 13th Canvas Investigations . Timestamps next to headings will link you directly to that topic in the recording.  Enhanced SpeedGrader 3:33 Instructors can enable "Performance and Usability Upgrades for SpeedGrader" . It's great for large enrollment courses because it loads fast and offers better section and student navigation.  CAUTION: The font looks retrograde and the mini RCE lacks buttons for Image upload, Math editor, the option 'course link' under the link button. If those issues are critical, deselect "Performance and Usability Upgrades for Speedgrader" in the course (provided it is not forced on at the sub-account level) to roll back to the legacy SpeedGrader. Discussion Checkpoints 5:29 Discussion Checkpoints are now available. If you wish to use...