FAQs for Instructors

For student assignments that are submitted to the Dropbox tool on CourseLink, enabling the Turnitin integration is a good option for checking the originality of the submission and for discouraging plagiarism. 

For quizzes and tests, consider taking advantage of options in the Quizzes tool, such as question pools and random ordering of questions.

For support in determining the best methods for your course, please complete our Consultation Request Form to set up a meeting with one of our instructional technology specialists.

Captions or transcriptions are only required if a student has a registered accommodation (i.e., student request through Student Accessibility Services SAS)); however, the majority of video services do offer automatic captioning.

Live captions are not required; however, alternative formats may be requested by students as needed. Students can use tools such as Otter.AI to transcribe live lectures.

Although both tools offer automated captioning, if recording your lecture for asynchronous access, the captions will be captured as part of the screen recording. These captions cannot be modified and may interfere with or even contradict the captioning of the hosting service. Students should consider using Otter.AI to transcribe live lectures or you can make the video recording available through a video service—like Microsoft Stream, Zoom Cloud recordings, or YouTube—which automatically caption.

Make sure that students have disabled their video/audio. Also keep in mind that some web conferencing platforms behave differently in low bandwidth environments. Zoom is considered the best for these environments, while WebEx behaves poorly, and Microsoft Teams is intermediate to these two options.

Leaving video messages via the CourseLink Announcements tool is a great way to stay connected with your students. You can also participate in discussion boards, or include a sort of "coffee shop" forum—a place for informal conversation.

It is also important to make real world connections during lecture, and to appear as genuine as possible.

Yes, a number of options exist for allowing different weighting options within the Grades tool in CourseLink. These can include a formula grading system or grade item. Alternatively, you can take advantage of the options to drop grade items from a category in the weighted grading system.

Visit the Brightspace grading system page to learn more about these options. Please note that formula grading systems and grade items require testing to ensure they work as planned.

You can also use CourseLink's Rubrics tool to create a custom points rubric or a rubric with separate criteria groups to score different aspects of assignments with more or less weight than others, and then export that overall rubric score to a corresponding grade item. Visit the Brightspace Rubrics page for more information.

Instructors have the discretion to approve revised quiz access dates and times for students who are in alternate time zones. You can add students to the Special Access section of the exam with the revised exam date and time. Please review the following resources on providing special access in CourseLink quizzes:

• Provide Special Access to CourseLink Quizzes (instructional video)
• Provide special access to CourseLink quizzes that require Respondus LockDown Browser

Alternatively, you may contact the academic assistant to the executive director from OpenEd and have this set up for you. You must provide the following information:

• Course Code and Section (i.e. ABCD*1000 (01) F20)
• Student name
• Revised exam start and end dates and times
• What version of the exam should be used (if you have multiple exam versions in your course)

If you do not approve a date/time change, students should be directed to contact their program counsellor.

If you are planning to record a live synchronous lecture, you will need to provide your students with notice of the recording so they can consent to being recorded. Students can turn off their microphones and cameras as a step to maintain their own privacy. Videos should also only be shared within secured environments, including CourseLink and Microsoft Stream.

For more information see Privacy & Recording Virtual Lectures.

If you have used the CourseLink Groups tools for group formation, students will still be able to connect with group members via email.

The CourseLink Discussions tool is another great area for organizing student discussions and work spaces.

When you are sharing your screen, there is a 'pause sharing' option. You should pause whenever you are entering user names or passwords, or switching between sensitive tabs/windows. Then, unpause when you have the appropriate page/screen displayed for students to view.

In preparation for your course’s final exam, we suggest reviewing our CourseLink Quizzes for Final Exams: The Do’s and Don'ts page for tips to help your exam run smoothly.

Contact CourseLink Support if you have any questions or need any settings adjusted.

In some cases, you may allow students to have a blank piece of paper with them for rough work during an online examination. This page could have the CourseLink Support information on it for student reference.

If the quiz is being taken with Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor, the piece of paper would need to be shown by the student during the environment check. This setup may have additional consequences during the examination and flag the student when they look away from the screen to look at the allowed piece of paper. This further highlights the need to critically review any flags that appear in Respondus recordings.

Instructors have the discretion to approve revised quiz access dates and times for students who are in alternate time zones. You can add students to the Special Access section of the exam with the revised exam date and time. Please review the following resources on providing special access in CourseLink quizzes:

• Provide Special Access to CourseLink Quizzes (instructional video)
• Provide special access to CourseLink quizzes that require Respondus LockDown Browser

Alternatively, you may contact the academic assistant to the executive director from OpenEd and have this set up for you. You must provide the following information:

• Course Code and Section (i.e. ABCD*1000 (01) F20)
• Student name
• Revised exam start and end dates and times
• What version of the exam should be used (if you have multiple exam versions in your course)

If you do not approve a date/time change, students should be directed to contact their program counsellor.

Access to the recordings is limited to the course instructor, teaching assistants, designated U of G staff, and individuals responsible for reviewing and making decisions on academic misconduct cases.

Respondus personnel does not review/analyze the recordings except as required to resolve technical problems, improve system performance, modify Respondus Monitor, and investigate violations of Terms.

The University of Guelph and Respondus will not share or disclose personal information from Respondus Monitor recordings unless necessary to comply with the law, a regulation, or a governmental request.

University of Guelph student recordings will not be used for research purposes. 

Yes. When Respondus LockDown Browser is enabled, there is an option to Allow live proctoring for this exam…. Once selected, you will pick the web conferencing platform (Teams/Zoom) you plan to use to invigilate the quiz/exam and provide a Start Code that you will then make available to students when it is time to begin the quiz.

Please review the Live Proctoring of CourseLink Quizzes with Respondus Lockdown Browser section of the Tips for Live Remote Invigilation with Zoom or Teams page for steps and more information.

Visit our Technical Requirements page to learn about these requirements.

This will be at the discretion of each course instructor or coordinator who is responsible for the completion of TA contracts. In the current remote delivery environment, there may be other tasks to consider for TAs, including monitoring waiting rooms and chats in live meetings, hosting online office hours, and managing online discussions in CourseLink.

It is recommended to record live lectures and then offer them asynchronously after the fact. This accommodates students who have an unreliable Internet connection, allowing them to review the parts of the lecture that they may have missed, as well anyone who may have been unable to attend the lecture live.

Review our Accessibility Tips for Alternate Class Delivery for additional options.

Consider posting the recorded files of your synchronous lectures, along with transcripts. If possible, consider posting audio only versions of your lectures as well.

The best method for this will be determined by your pedagogical goals, class size, and the tools you wish to use.

For support in determining the best methods for your course, please complete our Consultation Request Form to set up a meeting with one of our instructional technology specialists.

Add .uoguelph.ca and .guelphhumber.ca as allowed domains within the Zoom Waiting Room Options settings. This allows students who set their Zoom email with their institutional email accounts to bypass the waiting room.

More information can be found on our Using Zoom: Account Settings Best Practices page.

Please note that students will need to have their Zoom accounts set up with their institutional email addresses before joining. They may reference the Zoom for Students: Create and Use a U of G Zoom Account page for more information on how to create an account with their U of G or U of GH email address.

If you are using Zoom, once you have finished recording a lecture to your computer, and you end your meeting, an option to download an audio file (which is an audio-only type) will appear.

Learn more about recording using Zoom.

Zoom, Virtual Classroom and Microsoft Teams have a whiteboard option included. If this is insufficient, Zoom will allow you to broadcast the screen from a subsequent device (this can be a phone or tablet). This can also be used as a whiteboard or a doc cam.

By using Bongo on CourseLink, you can create an Individual Project, Question & Answer, Group Project, or an Interactive Video assignment. Visit our CourseLink Video Assignments page for more details.

Uploading video content directly to CourseLink is not recommended, unless it has been recorded natively within the course site using the Video Note option.

See the Hosting Video Content section of our Lectures page to review your options.

Microsoft Stream is included with the university's O365 integration and available to all faculty, staff and students. With Classlist-linked Microsoft Security Groups, your video content can also be limited to your class specifically.

Having a TA manage the chat room is recommended. There are ways of muting students or removing their abilities to chat in the chat room. Depending on the class you have, you may decide to disable this option completely. More information on these setting can be found on our Using Zoom: In-Meeting Best Practices page. Additionally, addressing the class of the consequences beforehand may decrease the chances of an incident taking place.