Services for New Faculty
Welcome to Iowa! Adjusting to a new campus makes for a heavy workload and busy schedule. The SITA Program can help you connect to campus IT resources quickly and efficiently. |
Starting a new academic post brings with it lots of new experiences: settling into a new home, office or lab, learning your way around Iowa City, planning new research explorations and new courses, and the like. Combined with the normal hustle and bustle of the late days of summer, the next few weeks may be quite a trip.
As Student Instructional Technology Assistants, we're here to help. We may not be able to get you a prime parking assignment or skybox tickets to the first home football game, but we can introduce you to the many instructional technology options the University offers one on one, in plain English. We can help you decide what services may be helpful to you in your teaching and will point you in the right direction for other IT support you may need.
We've prepared list of our top ten technology recommendations for new faculty which will get you started:
- Meet Iowa Courses ONline
- Work with the Wiki
- Get some course web space
- Attend a training session
- Keep an eye on the 4CAST
- Meet our friends at the Center for Teaching
- Gather Student Feedback with Clickers
- Try out ElluminateLive!
- Visit us in person!
Of course, this is not the full list of services we can provide. You may contact us at any time to discuss other options. If we are not able to help you ourselves, we will do our best to find someone on campus who can.
1. Meet Iowa Courses ONline
SITA can help you locate training, consulting, and administrative support for ICON (Iowa Courses Online, powered by Desire2Learn software), the interactive web space for University of Iowa courses. Depending on how the instructor sets up the ICON course space, students may be able to view and download materials, engage in discussions, submit assignments, take quizzes, check grades, or engage in other online activities. ICON has many integrations with existing campus systems, such as Hawk ID login, Registrar-tied course enrollments, and UI Libraries.
ICON's content sharing and discussions tools also make it useful for University organizatons and academic units engaged in collaborative efforts.
2. Work with the Wiki
The Wiki service allows users to create their own wikis for many different uses on campus. Some of these uses include group collaboration, research notes to be shared with collegues on other campuses or teaching with a shared location to edit content. In addition to the general wiki space, the Wiki service also provides individuals with their own wiki that they can use.
Find out more about the wiki...
3. Get some course web space
Simply put, the Course Web Space service provides an account on the University's central web server, www.uiowa.edu, with approximately 5 MB of space allocated to it. This server space is meant for faculty who are interested in putting course-related materials online.
Web pages, PDF documents, movies, or anything else an instructor wishes to place online can be placed in a Course Web Space account. Developing those materials and placing them online is the responsibility of the instructor. Assistance in the form of training or consulting is available from ITS-Instructional Services and other University technology support organizations.
As indicated by its name, this service is intended for course-related materials, and is not appropriate for developing student projects (see Class Web Sites for this) or personal pages.
Find our more about course web space...
4. Attend a training session
ITS offers free training sessions on all sorts of technology concepts. You can view information about upcoming sessions and register online.
Find out more about ITS training opportunities...
5. Keep an eye on the 4CAST
The Campus Academic Strategies and Technology (4CAST) conference explores new issues in teaching and technology. Sponsored by ITS-Instructional Services, the Center for Teaching, and The University of Iowa Libraries, 4CAST is open to faculty and staff who teach. The one-day event takes place prior to the start of the Spring semester; there is no cost for registration.
6. Meet our Friends at the Center for Teaching
The mission of the Center for Teaching, as approved during the process of its creation, is to "promote and support efforts to enhance instruction at The University of Iowa." In pursuit of this mission, the Center has established four overlapping goals. The Center strives to:
- support and promotes the development of teaching skills.
- strengthen the culture of teaching
- serve as a symbol of the University's commitment to teaching.
- influence policy discussions in ways that support the development of an excellent teaching and learning environment.
Find out more about the Center for Teaching...
7. Gather student feedback with clickers
Student Response Systems are also referred to as "Clickers, "Audience Response Systems" or "Personal Response Systems". Clickers allow students to enter responses via a small wireless device that records responses through software and a radio frequency receiver to the instructor station in a classroom. Instructors build a PowerPoint presentation with built-in response indicators and ask students to respond to certain slides during the presentation. Student response systems have been around the educational world since about 1998 and their use is increasing at a rapid rate.
Find out more about clickers...
8. Try out ElluminateLive!
Elluminate Live! is a virtual meetingware product that allows moderator-led internet-based elearning and collaboration with options for full duplex audio, sharing PPT presentations, instant messaging, application sharing, breakout rooms, recording sessions for later playback and more.
Find out more about ElluminateLive!
9. ...
Coming soon!
10. Visit us in person
You are welcome to stop by our office anytime during normal working hours. We would be happy to talk about these and other support and services available to UI instructors!
