Author: Jim Julius

Turnitin Canvas Plagiarism Framework

Turnitin Plagiarism Framework is available within Canvas and offers a tighter integration between a Canvas assignment and Turnitin than the Turnitin 1.3 LTI Canvas integration. No separate login or password is required for faculty or students.

The primary difference between the two tools is that the Turnitin LTI 1.3 integration is best used if faculty prefer to use Turnitin for grading and feedback; the Turnitin Plagiarism Framework is preferred by faculty who want Turnitin for plagiarism prevention but like to use the Canvas grading and feedback tools.

MiraCosta College has an unlimited license to Turnitin, GradeMark, and Peer Review.

Turnitin Canvas Plagiarism Framework

Turnitin Plagiarism Framework Resources

Testing a Turnitin Assignment with your MCC Sample Student

Turnitin is an LTI tool that is globally installed on our Canvas system. LTI tools are not native to Canvas so they will not work in the internal Canvas Student View. You must log off of Canvas, as an instructor, then log on with your MCC Sample Student account. Now you will be able to experience a Turnitin assignment within your Canvas course as a student.

Additional information

Online Ed News You Can Use – Spring 24

Happy almost May! Some quick tidbits and opportunities related to all things online …

Summer and Fall Classes are in SURF and Canvas

Professional Learning Opportunities related to online teaching

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Coordinator, Online Education

Pope Tech and Canvas Accessibility

Pope Tech And Canvas Accesibility Flex Workshop Recordings

Pope Tech is an accessibility remediation tool available to instructors in Canvas. This tool gives instructors a quick but powerful way to check for and fix common accessibility concerns in Canvas content. Ensuring your Canvas courses are free of accessibility concerns helps support inclusion and equity for all students, and also is a requirement of MiraCosta policies as well as state and federal regulations.

MiraCosta College has two Pope Tech Canvas LMS tools:

  • Accessibility Guide – a page-by-page accessibility checker and remediation assistant for Canvas
  • Accessibility Dashboard – a course-level dashboard allowing you to review and correct accessibility issues throughout an entire Canvas course
Canvas LTI Dashboard and Accessibility Guide

Pope Tech Canvas LMS Tool Resources

Instructor Accessibility Guide: Demo for Canvas LMS

Pope Tech Detailed Guidance

Click any of the items below to view more details, including video guides, for using Pope Tech.

What Canvas elements can be tested? What does Pope Tech check for?

What Canvas elements can faculty test with Pope Tech?

Most areas where faculty use the Canvas Rich Content Editor can be tested with Pope Tech:

  • Canvas pages
  • Syllabus
  • Quiz descriptions
  • Discussion Topics
  • Assignments
  • Announcements

To test a Canvas item for accessibility concerns, activate Pope Tech by selecting the Pope Tech icon button at left of the Cancel and Save buttons while editing any of the Canvas items above. Pope Tech works even when the item is not yet published.

Pope Tech button at left of Cancel and Save buttons

What does Pope Tech check for?

  • If headers are present or skipped 
  • Flags suspicious alt text for images (contains “image of”, “image”, etc.)
  • Color contrast between text and highlighted colored-background
    (Note: doesn’t check color contrast within images)
  • If font size is readable
  • Flags non-descriptive links such as “click here”, “link”, “more”, “read more” 
  • Flags redundant links 
  • Flags tables that lack at least one header and caption.
  • Flags YouTube, Canvas embedded video and Canvas embedded audio to bring awareness media will need to be manually reviewed for captions
  • Flags potential inaccessible files that need to be manually reviewed

How do I use Pope Tech?

Using Pope Tech is simple and intuitive.

Step 1: Open Pope Tech 

To access the PopeTech Course Dashboard tool, click Pope Tech Accessibility in any Canvas course menu.

To test an individual Canvas item for accessibility concerns, activate Pope Tech by selecting the icon next to the Cancel and Save buttons on a Canvas item while using the Rich Content Editor.

Pope Tech button at left of Cancel and Save buttons

Step 2: Use Pope Tech to Locate and Fix Accessibility Issues 

When Pope Tech is activated, the Pope Tech menu appears on the right-hand side of the screen. At the top of the interface,  the number of errors and alerts will need to be addressed. 

  • Errors are accessibility errors and should be looked at for remediation.
  • Alerts are suspicious areas. Alerts may or may not be an accessibility error. The user should review these and fix if necessary.
  • Rescan can be used once errors and alerts are fixed. This will allow the user to scan the page a second time and verify that all fixes were applied correctly.

Note: Files, videos, and audio will always be listed as alerts, as these require manual review with human eyes!   

In the example below, we have 11 errors and 4 alerts.

Pope Tech Accessibility checker interface

In the Pope Tech interface, results are organized by the following categories:

  • Images and Links
  • Text and Contrast
  • Headings
  • Tables and Lists
  • Documents and Videos 

Each of the categories can be expanded to show the errors or alerts. To view the content raising an error or alert:

  1. Select the arrow displayed next to any category name. Once you expand a category, Pope Tech will display fields grouping together issues within that category. 
  2. Click any field to view detailed results and how to fix them.
  3. Click a particular result to highlight the indicated content within the Canvas editor, enabling you to fix that content.

This quick (42 second) video demonstrates the process described above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0izZNAG-BMu0026feature=youtu.beu0026ab_channel=YoussefFrancis
Video Demos: Fixing Alternative Text, Color Contrast, and Table Errors

Fixing Alternative Text

Alternative Text errors are listed in the Images and Links category of the Pope Tech tool. This video demonstrates how to fix such errors:

https://youtu.be/sHs7gQLaihs

Fixing Color Contrast

Color Contrast errors are listed in the Text and Contrast category of the Pope Tech tool. Users can fix color contrast errors by one of two methods:

  • Adjust the color in the Canvas rich text editor.
  • Adjust the contrast by using the sliders in the Pope Tech interface until the interface displays a “Pass” message.

This video demonstrates how to fix such errors:

https://youtu.be/2aDRvb-VGBA

Fixing Table Captions and Headers

Table errors are listed in the Tables and Lists area of Pope Tech. Using Pope Tech, it is very simple to add a table caption and designate whether the first row or the first column must be the header. This video demonstrates how to fix such errors:

https://youtu.be/AFPkAQ4knDw
Accessibility Issues Explained, from PopeTech

Click any link below for details about common accessibility issues, why it matters, and what to do to fix/avoid the issue.

Credit

Thanks to Tracy Schaelen of Southwestern College for originally developing content represented here, and to Liesl Boswell of the CCC Accessibility Center for some modifications and suggestions.

Zoom: Getting Started, Getting Help, and Using Zoom with Canvas

Zoom Flex Workshop Recordings

Zoom Logo

Zoom provides a reliable, easy-to-use, mobile-friendly tool for live, recordable online presentations, meetings, and discussions with audio, video, chat, screen sharing, polling, and more. It can be used within Canvas or independently.

Zoom Pro is available to all MiraCosta faculty and staff at no charge. Students don’t use the Zoom Pro account but can use free Zoom basic accounts. Nobody at MiraCosta should be paying anything to use Zoom!

The version of Zoom that MiraCostans use changed after the fall 2020 semester; MiraCosta Zoom is now accessed at miracosta-edu.zoom.us rather than conferzoom.org or cccconfer.zoom.us. Faculty need to sign in to Zoom with their MiraCosta College login and password to obtain unlimited pro (“licensed”) access to all features of Zoom, including:

  • Unlimited meeting lengths and very large numbers of attendees
  • Recordings “in the cloud” so that you do not need to manage large files of your recorded meetings
  • Auto-transcription of your cloud-based Zoom recordings

This page includes basic technical how-to information and resources on using Zoom in general, and Zoom use in tandem with Canvas. Please see our separate Teaching with Zoom at MiraCosta College page for more detailed tips about teaching securely, effectively, and accessibly with Zoom.

Log On to Zoom at MiraCosta College

  1. To access your Zoom account via the web go to: https://miracosta-edu.zoom.us
    Sign in with your MiraCosta College employee account and two-factor authentication (2FA).
  2. To sign into Zoom app(s) on desktop and mobile:
    1. Open the installed Zoom app. (Download the latest Zoom apps from http://zoom.us/download )
    2. Select the ‘Sign in with SSO’ button or option at the app login screen
    3. Enter our ‘Company Domain’: miracosta-edu
    4. You will be directed to our MiraCosta login portal where you will enter your MiraCosta credentials.

MiraCosta Zoom Help and FAQS

  • Zoom help for MiraCosta staff and faculty is through the IT Help Desk:
  • Zoom help for MiraCosta students is through the IT Help Desk for Students
  • General MiraCosta Zoom account help and FAQs (You will need your MiraCosta credentials to access this).
  • How do I get a Zoom account? If you had a pro Zoom account through ConferZoom prior to 2021, it should have been automatically migrated to the MiraCosta Zoom, and there’s nothing you need to do. If you did not previously have a Pro Zoom account, and need to create a MiraCosta Zoom account, sign in to the MiraCosta Help Desk in the Portal and select the User Accounts option.
  • What if I’m having trouble with my Zoom account? Sign in to the MiraCosta Help Desk in the Portal and click the User Accounts button to request help.
  • What happened to my Zoom recordings made before 2021? They are still in your Zoom account! The old links to Zoom recordings will still work, but a message will briefly appear when people click an old link. If you update an old recording link with the new MiraCosta Zoom URL (replace cccconfer.zoom.us with miracosta-edu.zoom.us in the link) it will work seamlessly.
  • What happened to my recurring Zoom meetings I set up before 2021? Similar to your recordings, old links to recurring Zoom meetings will still work, but a message will appear when people click an old link. If you go to your Zoom account, you’ll see that your meetings have been migrated in, and you can get a new invitation. You can also simply update a meeting link created before 2021 with the new MiraCosta Zoom URL (replace cccconfer.zoom.us with miracosta-edu.zoom.us in the link).
  • What happened to Reports from Zoom meetings held before 2021? They are gone, sorry.
  • How much storage do I have for Zoom recordings? As of spring 2021, there is not a limit; however, this may change in the future if we do not manage our recordings well. Please delete recordings that you do not need.

Zoom Documentation

The following Zoom trainings, documentation, and resources can help you stay informed:

Using Zoom with Canvas

You can schedule and share Zoom meetings and recordings directly within Canvas, using the Zoom integration. To get started and learn more about the Zoom/Canvas integration, see directions below.

Note: You may also share individual Zoom meeting links and recordings in Canvas without using the integration.

Canvas Integration with Zoom

  1. Enter your Canvas course
  2. Click Settings on the course menu
  3. Click the Navigation tab
Step 2 and Step 3
  1. Click the 3 dots to the right of Zoom and select Enable.
  2. Click the Save button
Step 4 and Step 5
  1. Click the Zoom course menu item which will appear in your course menu.
Step 6

Now you can schedule and access Zoom meetings from inside of Canvas.

Viewing All My Zoom Meetings in Canvas

When you first enter Zoom on Canvas you will see only the Zoom meetings associated with the Canvas course you entered from. To see and access all Zoom meetings within your account, click the link ‘All My Zoom Meetings‘.

All My Zoom Meetings link in Canvas

Adding NetTutor to Your Canvas Class

MiraCosta’s Learning Centers provide great online tutoring for all students, available in Canvas through the Student Support Hub. For subjects and times where local online tutoring may not be available, the next option is eTutoring through the Western eTutoring Consortium. A third option with even more subject and time availability is NetTutor, available through the California Virtual Campus (CVC-OEI).

Regardless of which online tutoring services may best benefit your students, these are recommended practices that faculty use to help more students benefit from tutoring:

  • Mention online tutoring sources in your syllabus
  • Embed reminders about use of tutoring within instructions for assignments
  • Provide specific references to the opportunity for tutoring in your feedback/communication with students
  • Normalize tutoring as an option that can support everyone

NetTutor provides support for just about any academic subject, up to 24×7 for the most popular subject matter, and can be made available via your Canvas course menu. The link opens an interface where students select their subject for NetTutor help, with no additional login required. Students can access both the STAR-CA tutoring consortium from California and the full complement of professional NetTutor tutors.

How can you help students take advantage of NetTutor?

First, please keep in mind that if your subject is supported by local MiraCosta Learning Center tutors, you should direct your students to that support primarily. If you do want your students to consider NetTutor support:

Also with NetTutor, each instructor may specify “Rules of Engagement” that inform tutors about the approach and resources you would like them to use when working with your students. If you would like to do this, contact Jim Julius for more information.

Adding NetTutor to your Canvas course menu

Once you add NetTutor to your course menu following the directions below, click the NetTutor link to verify that your subject is available.

1- Click Settings at the bottom of your course menu

Canvas SEttings

2- Click the Navigation tab

Navigation step 2

3- Click the gear icon to the right of NetTutor
4- Select +Enable
5- Click the Save button

Step 3-5 add NetTutor

A NetTutor link now appears in your course menu.

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