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.

Friday, June 14 – Blackboard Learn Service Interruption

On Friday, June 14, 2019, between the hours of 1:00 a.m. – 5:00 a.m. CDT, Blackboard, Inc. will be performing service impacting maintenance at the data center that hosts UA’s Blackboard Learn instance. Blackboard Learn will be unavailable during this maintenance window. Blackboard Collaborate users may experience periods of intermittent inactivity during this maintenance window.

Blackboard Learn Privacy Notice

Users logging in to the upgraded Blackboard Learn system for the first time may be asked to agree to Privacy Terms and Conditions via a click-through announcement. This announcement is part of Blackboard’s efforts to meet newly required international data privacy regulations, including the European General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR. The GDPR and other data privacy regulations require that users be asked to newly agree to existing privacy notices.