In April 2024, Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) conducted focus group sessions with UMN instructors. The sessions’ goals were to: understand instructors’ level of awareness about generative AI.  understand how instructors perceive acceptable use of generative AI for their academic courses. learn how instructors would like to be involved with shaping how generative AI is used in education and what support, if any, instructors desired around the use of generative AI. 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 partners with Usability Services to establish the session goals, determine participant recruiting criteria, craft the interview protocol, and set the ground rules for the focus group sessions. During the sessions, the project team takes notes and documents their observations, including di...

If you have not logged into Canvas since May 2024, you will notice much has changed. Let's catch you up: some things are gone (Flip), some things are improved (Discussions), and others moved to a different location (Turnitin). This post is excerpted from  a group presentation  (Video 1:06:57) at the August 7th Canvas Investigations . Timestamps next to headings will link you directly to that topic in the recording. The most important take-aways are highlighted in yellow . DoJ Ruling on Accessibility 2:29 In April, the clock started to count down two years for us to ensure all web content is accessible. The newly formed  Office of Digital Accessibility  (ODA) will guide us. Watch for messaging on the  3 Rs—Remove, Revise, Right First . The easiest and most impactful thing instructors can do now aligns with Remove — be selective when importing content from old courses . Discussions/Announcements Redesign 4:09 Canvas Discussions  have changed in appear...

This fall Extra Points will feature a series of conversations focused on how faculty and staff around the University of Minnesota are using Generative AI to do University work.  Lauren Marsh and Sara Schoen are kicking off our new series interviewing Cody Hennesy. Hennesy is a computational research librarian for the Twin Cities campus and a facilitator for the system-wide  Emerging Technologies Faculty Fellows Program . In these roles he explores and supports work in Generative AI (GenAI). He is also a lover of nerdy board games.  As a librarian at the University of Minnesota, how do you use Generative AI?  Cody Hennesy: I use Generative AI in some specific ways. I use it to help with computer programming  - it’s really helpful for suggesting Python code snippets, for troubleshooting code that doesn’t work, and suggesting more efficient ways to solve specific problems. Code either works or it doesn’t, so it can be easy to notice when ChatGPT is wrong in this ...