Teaching Online at UTAS

In November 2016, Academic Senate determined that actions must be taken to monitor student engagement in all units. A student is considered actively engaged when they undertake and complete activities. Students who display minimal or no engagement with unit activities may be subject to university-initiated withdrawal.

If you are coordinating a unit, you will be expected to participate in the engagement monitoring process from Semester 2, 2017.

What you will need to do

You will need to incorporate two activities that can be used as indicators of student engagement in your unit. Both activities must occur within the first four weeks of semester. Records of student participation in these activities must be recorded in the Grades tool of your unit’s MyLO site. The data must be recorded in the Grades tool by the Friday (5pm) of Week 4.

The university will pull engagement data from your unit’s MyLO Grades tool*: you will need to ensure that your MyLO unit is set up correctly to facilitate collection of the data. This means that you will need to:

• Identify two activities that will be used to measure student engagement;
• Clearly identify the two activities to students in your Unit Outline;
• Set up two Grade Items in your  unit’s Grades tool using the correct naming conventions; and
• Record participation data in the Grade Items. This may occur automatically (e.g. when a Quiz activity is used), or manually.

*Though we were initially advised that a computer script would automatically draw student engagement data from MyLO Grades, it appears unlikely that this technology will be developed in time for Semester 2. As a result, Unit Coordinators may need to review the Student Engagement Activity data that they have recorded in their MyLO Grades tool, and report any disengaged students. We will update this page as soon as we receive further information about the reporting procedure for Semester 2, 2017.

Identify two activities

The activities need to indicate active student participation: they do not need to provide a measure of student learning. You can use activities that already occur within the first four weeks of your unit, or you may wish to add new activities. The following table provides a list of common activities. It also indicates whether reporting to the Grades tool can be automated, or whether a level of manual data input (from the teaching team) will be required. Engagement should be reflected by a simple scoring (assuming that 0 indicates a lack of engagement).

Activity	Reporting to Grade Item
Students…	Auto Input	Manual Input
Students complete a Quiz (could be non-assessable/assessable)
Students complete an assessable SCORM package (advanced)
Students view an introductory video or lecture via Echo360 ALP (MyMedia)
Students submit to an Assignment Submission Folder	(once mark is applied and published in the Assignments tool)
Students attend a class/classes face to face or online (e.g. a web conference)
Students add themselves to a MyLO Group
Students contribute to an introductory Discussion or Discussion Activity
Students participate in a Survey
Students complete a Checklist
Students mark a Content item as complete

Clearly identify the two engagement activities to students through your Unit Outline

The type of Unit Outline that you use may vary depending on your College or Discipline. The latest version of the UTAS Unit Outline Proforma (available here) includes a section called Specific attendance/performance requirements. Here you can record details of your Student Engagement Activities so that students clearly understand what is required of them.

Set up two Grade Items using the correct naming conventions

You must include two Grade Items in your unit’s Grades tool: one for each Engagement Activity. If your College or Faculty has a support team, they may set up the Grade Items for you by request.

The full name of these Grade Items must incorporate the phrase #SEA. When you create or edit a Grade Item, record the correct name into the Name field in the Properties tab.

The way you set up the Grade Items will vary according to the type of engagement activity that you have designed.  These Solutions to Common Grading Scenarios will help you determine the best way to set up your Grade Items. Some Grade Items will be standalone, that is, not connected to any MyLO tool. Others may be directly connected to a tool like a Quiz.

For further advice about setting up Grade Items, please contact your Faculty or School’s online/blended learning support team.

Record participation data in the Grade Items

By 5pm Friday of the end of Week 4, the Grade Items associated with each Engagement Activity must have a score recorded for each student (e.g. 0 for non-engagement, and 1 for engagement). The way you record this data will depend on the type of activity and the way you have set up your Grade Items. Tutors and other members of the teaching team may need some training to ensure that they know how to record these scores efficiently and correctly.

For further advice about recording data in Grade Items, please contact your Faculty or School’s online/blended learning support team.