April 2024 Newsletter

Greetings Cidi Labs Customer Community! We usually send our newsletter at the end of the month, but we couldn’t wait that long to share all the exciting things we covered at our Customer Gathering last week. Read on to find out what you missed…

We've launched a new product!
Introducing...

ObservEd - Student Performance Monitoring

ObservEd is a new LTI tool from Cidi Labs that provides a safe and easy way to monitor students’ academic performance within Canvas.

Designed for academic advisors, athletic staff, equity offices, disability resource centers and more, ObservEd offers a real-time view of the information in Canvas that empowers staff to provide optimal oversight, informed communication, and proactive support for the students they serve.

Want to learn more? View the session during which we announced ObservEd at our Customer Gathering and join our April 25th webinar to see a live demo and learn more about this exciting new offering!

DesignPLUS is really blossoming!

Game-changing new design tools are coming next week!

Attendees of our Customer Gathering last week got an in-depth tour of the truly game-changing new tools that are going to be generally available in the new Sidebar next week, as well as a glimpse of a few more that are in development now.

We’re pleased to share the recording of this session so that you can see the latest reasons to “spring forward” to the new DesignPLUS Sidebar! Additionally, here are two new video tutorials that will help you learn how to use these new tools:

The DesignPLUS Library is NOW OPEN!

We officially “cut the ribbon” and opened the doors to our NEW DesignPLUS Library, a cooperative center where you can find and share custom-created DesignPLUS resources, such as Themes, Banner Images, Page Templates, Styles, and much more!

DesignPLUS Library Card

This exciting new resource is a cooperative center where you can find (and contribute!) custom DesignPLUS resources like themes, templates, content blocks, html snippets, and much more. Here is everything you need to make use of the Library:

Important news & support for your transition to the new Sidebar

We’re thrilled that over 40% of you have begun or completed your transition to the new DesignPLUS Sidebar. We also realize that some institutions need more time, so we announced last week that we will be extending the Legacy DesignPLUS sunset date until December 31st, 2025 (a whole year!). Please take the time to review what this means by watching the announcement at the beginning of this session from the Customer Gathering.

This session also features a panel of Cidi Labs customers who shared their experiences, tips, tricks, and lessons learned in navigating the transition to the new DesignPLUS Sidebar. We are so grateful to each of the panelists for sharing such valuable information and resources that will be helpful to all.

Additional resources from our panel discussion:

DesignPLUS Office Hours: April 24th

  • Have a question about DesignPLUS?
  • Need guidance on a DesignPLUS project you’re working on?
  • Want to discuss your institution’s transition to the new Sidebar? RSVP for this 30-minute live “office hours” style session, and drop in to get your questions answered!
RSVP for this 30-minute live “office hours” style session, and drop in to get your questions answered!

Upcoming Events

Quality Matters and Cidi Labs present:
Instructional Designers and the Cloak of Invisibility! A Tale of Intention Hiding in Plain Sight

Step into the realm of course design superpowers and become a QM hero with our engaging session about Cidi Labs’ magical tools. You’ll learn to harness your invisibility superpowers to help faculty meet various QM standards using DesignPLUS. We will discuss ways we use hidden key action items to enhance the usability of template pages. We will also discuss ways to expose faculty to DesignPLUS incrementally by using resource courses.

Educause logo

EDUCAUSE Demo Day:  Digital Accessibility Tools

Join us on May 21st to see UDOIT Advantage for EDUCAUSE’s demo day.

Upcoming In-Person Events

Here are the events we’ll attend in the next few months; we hope to see you there!

April 2024
OLC Innovate:  10-13 in Denver, CO

May 2024
Lincoln Legacy Teaching and Learning Community (LLTLC):  20-21 in Champaign, IL
AISNSW ICT Management and Leadership Conference – Future Ready:  29-31 ~ Gold Coast Australia

June 2024
ISTE:  23-26 in Denver, CO
OTC:  26-28 in Long Beach, CA

July 2024
InstructureCon in Vegas!
Stay tuned for more details and a special invite coming next month!

April Product Releases

So far this month, we’ve released updates to DesignPLUS and UDOIT. Did you know that in addition to checking the Release Notes for each product, you can stay informed of new releases by joining our customer Slack Community?

Stay Connected

Wishing you gorgeous backgrounds on all your content blocks,

~ The Cidi Labs Team

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