Category: Announcements

New Drop-In Sessions for Instructors and Students

Instructors and students are invited to stop by on one of two scheduled sessions at the Center for Instructional Technology in Gordon Palmer Hall for help preparing for the Fall 2019 semester.

On Tuesday, August 20th, between 9am and 2 pm, instructors can stop by A232 Gordon Palmer Hall for assistance in setting up their Blackboard course. Bring your laptop or flash drive and make sure your course is available, and upload your syllabus. Learn some basics, set up your grade center, and find out about other instructional technology tools available to UA instructors.

On Tuesday, August 27th, between 9am and 2 pm, students can stop by A232 Gordon Palmer Hall to get familiar with Blackboard, customize their notification settings, learn how to submit assignments, and register their clickers.

And, of course, walk-ins are always welcome. Come see us and chat about your instructional technology needs and wants.

Collaborate Maintenance – July 26, 2019

Blackboard will be performing scheduled infrastructure maintenance on Friday, July 26, 2019 from 1:00 AM – 5:00 AM. Collaborate users may experience brief periods of intermittent availability during this time.

Blackboard Learn downtime August 7-9

UA’s Blackboard Learn system will undergo mandatory security-related maintenance from Wednesday, August 7 at 8 p.m. until Friday August 9 at 5 p.m. Our Blackboard Learn servers will be unavailable during this maintenance period.

FRC to be renamed Center for Instructional Technology (CIT)

Dear colleagues, 

I am excited to share that, as of July 1, 2019, the Faculty Resource Center will become the Center for Instructional Technology. This Center will include the existing services and staff of the FRC, as well as UA’s technology accessibility team.  

Our efforts to rebrand won’t result in fewer or lesser services for UA faculty members; we are still here to meet your needs. However, we are happy to adopt a name that reflects our broader mission to assist all UA faculty, instructors, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students with instructional technology and technology accessibility needs. We will continue to offer opportunities for instructors to learn about instructional technology and you will soon see more information and instruction focused on the needs of our students.  

Some of the new efforts we are pursuing include instruction in podcasting, gamification, media production, accessible document creation, course templates for instructors, and more. UA faculty, staff, and students are invited to continue to bring us challenges and ideas related to instructional technology. If you have instructional technology needs that are not being met, please let us know and we will try to help.  

Our team comprises a range of backgrounds and strengths and many of us have or are pursuing terminal degrees in our academic fields. We also teach undergraduate and graduate courses in various UA colleges. The tools we support serve myriad needs for our campus and we try our best to find innovative ways to use technology to enhance teaching, learning, research, and service at The University of Alabama. 

The goal of CIT is to help you, your colleagues, and your students have a more successful UA experience through the use of instructional technology. We are here to help address instructional technology problems, share solutions, and explore new ideas and opportunities. We look forward to working with you! 

Sincerely, 

Rachel Thompson 

Dr. Rachel S. Thompson 
Director, Faculty Resource Center (soon to be The Center for Instructional Technology)
The Office of Information Technology
The University of Alabama
A202 Gordon Palmer Hall
Box 870248 
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 
Phone 205-348-0216
rsthompson2@ua.edu

 

 

 

June 13 – Blackboard Collaborate Maintenance

On Thursday, June 13 between 3 a.m. – 4 a.m. CDT, Blackboard will be performing emergency infrastructure maintenance at the data center that houses UA’s instance of Blackboard Collaborate. Blackboard Collaborate will be unavailable during this maintenance window.

June 21, 2019 – Blackboard Data Center Maintenance

On Friday, June 21, 2019, between the hours of 1:00 a.m. – 5:00 a.m. CDT, Blackboard will be performing maintenance on the data center that houses UA’s instance of Blackboard. While they anticipate no interruption in service as a result of the work, they cannot entirely rule out brief periods of intermittent connectivity. They will make all efforts to keep service disruption, if any, within the window to a minimum.