Quarterly Newsletter - November 2023

As the cooler weather sets in, we hope to keep you warm and cozy with your favorite nerdy comfort food…data! In this newsletter, we have our usual events and product updates, as well as new resources seasoned with some research about design and how it impacts students. Happy noshing!

🤓 Research Data Spotlight with DesignPLUS (Design Tools)

  • Use of DesignPLUS was associated with higher grades overall
  • First-generation students outperformed continuing-generation students who didn’t have courses with DesignPLUS
Utah State University, Student Insights Report (p.15), Fall 2019
Chart titled Design Tools and Student Grades by first-generation students- a comparison of with and without DesignPLUS

Events

Did you miss our webinar this week?
Access the recording of our presentation with the Online Learning Consortium: Designing an Exemplary Learning Experience

In this webinar, OLC’s Center for Professional Learning instructional designers shared how they are using DesignPLUS and UDOIT to enhance the exemplary courses they offer. You’ll learn more about OLC’s process for designing these exemplary online learning experiences and catch a glimpse of the course template they have designed to maximize engagement in their workshops.

Here are the events we’ll be participating in over the coming months, we hope to see you there!

December 2023
ASCILITE: 3-6 at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand
DET/CHE: 6-8 in Anaheim, California

January 2024
FETC: 23-26 in Orlando, Florida

February 2024
TCEA: 3-7 in Austin, TX

New Resources

Coming Soon! 📚 The DesignPLUS Library 📚

Cidi Labs is in the process of building a cooperative center where you can find and share custom-created DesignPLUS resources, such as Themes, Banner Images, Page Templates, Styles, and much more! The Library will consist of two main components:

  1. A Canvas course where you can find resources within the library of DesignPLUS goodies that have been created by other institutions and Cidi Labs. Here you will also be able to contribute to these resources.
  2. A new tool in the Sidebar that will enable you to easily import the code for these resources into your DesignPLUS Customizations pages to add to the content and style options that are available in your Sidebar!

To make this exciting new offering as valuable as possible, we need your contributions! Please consider submitting a Theme, Style, Template, or other custom asset that you’ve created using DesignPLUS. Need more motivation? We’re going to be rewarding those who contribute to the Library – stay tuned for details and don’t miss out!

NEW DesignPLUS Video Tutorials!

In addition to the on-demand training video series that are available in our video hub, we’re excited to offer a growing collection of 3-5 minute video tutorials that each focus on a tool in the DesignPLUS Sidebar! These videos are great resources for empowering faculty to quickly learn how to add new elements such as Callouts, Tabs, Accordions, Progress Indicators, and Quick Checks to their Canvas courses. You can find all of the tutorials here, as well as in our new DesignPLUS User Guide. Stay tuned as we continue to add to this video tutorial collection!

Guidance for moving your DesignPLUS Customizations from the Legacy to New Sidebar

We’re pleased to share a new video series that provides guidance for moving your DesignPLUS Customizations from the Legacy Sidebar to the New Sidebar.

Product Updates

November Product Releases

We’re pleased to share a new video series that provides guidance for moving your DesignPLUS Customizations from the Legacy Sidebar to the New Sidebar.

Earlier this month, we released minor updates to DesignPLUS, Cidiscape and UDOIT. For more details, check out the Release Notes:

DesignPLUS Release Notes (🌟 Pro tip: you can also view the release notes within the new Sidebar in the Help / Tutorials area!)

Cidiscape Release Notes

UDOIT Release Notes

⚠️ Reminder: Some settings will be deprecated from the NEW DesignPLUS Sidebar Account Settings tool

As previously communicated in an email, on December 7, 2023, the limit access by User ID, course ID, course format, and user role settings will be deprecated from the Account Settings tool in the NEW DesignPLUS Sidebar. Please visit our Admin Guide to learn more.

Connect With Us Online

Don’t forget to connect with Cidi Labs through one of our many social channels to stay up to date with events, news, and our community.
Follow us online!
With tremendous gratitude for our amazing community, – The Team at Cidi Labs
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