[ARCHIVED] How do you want to share resources in Commons?

[kmcgee]

We would like to know how you would ideally share resources in Commons? Please share example stories of how you would consider sharing a specific resource so we can better understand your sharing needs. Thank you so much!!

Kate McGee

Commons Product Manager

[MattHanes]

One example of how we plan on using Commons is for sharing of Model Lessons. We are a K-12 District with 54 schools, 33,000 students, and 3300 teachers.

We have a team of content specialists that are creating courses as pacing guides for subjects. These pacing guides will include links to items in the Commons with resources that teachers can import into their own courses. They will be sharing lessons, handouts, slideshows, reading materials (limited to our District only), and even entire courses or modules. We're under the impression that there is some development to notify users of changes to imported Commons items. We are super excited about that feature. That way we can fix any mistakes in the Commons items and teachers will be notified automatically that a change has been made.

I'm a technology trainer for my District so I will be constructing Technology Professional Development classes that teachers can take to get the credits they need to renew their teaching certificates. Any course that I create that is not specific to our District, I plan on sharing out to Commons for others to use and modify for their needs. I'm hoping others do the same! I have one course out there already on Image Editing. I just remembered that I made some changes to that course recently and just went through the process to update the version on Commons. Flawless! I'm super-impressed with how well it is working so far.

The one concern I have is that some of my courses use some custom CSS to use things like tabs and accordions. I'm going to probably have to make a copy of those courses and strip that stuff out to share those in the Commons.

[kmcgee]

Hey Matthew,

Thank you so much for this feedback. Great to hear what you are doing in your school district, how you are considering sharing, and even that you've already contributed to the Public repository! This feedback is so helpful as part of our development of features.

We are going to run some tests on our end regarding custom CSS and let you know what we find.

All the best!

Kate McGee

Commons Product Manager

[MLentini]

Hi Kate,

This is a mix of implementation nitty-gritty and scenarios... might be a "day before a three day weekend" issue.

On the implementation side, I feel like this all needs some way for end-users (and admins) to manage the display of available sub-accounts for sharing. From the admin side, maybe this looks like the ability to switch on or off the following:

• Allow end user to share to the full list of sub-accounts (but not see the full list)
• Allow end user to only share to sub-accounts they are a part of
• Allow end user to share to individuals on this instance
• Allow end user to share to specific individuals in the rest of the world

For end users, maybe the default view is all the sub-accounts they can share to by virtue of their enrollments, and then a +More… link that allows them to pick from a larger list, and/or search by course code, instructor name, etc. within their instance.

Sharing across institutions feels like a place for Google Docs-type sharing interface. The person doing the sharing can decide to share with anyone who has the URL (and pick an access level - see, use, edit, share alike). Or, they can share only with specific email addresses. That seems like it could go under the More... button.

As for scenarios...

Sharing across departments in the sub-account structure (cross-listed courses) - One use case is the simple cross-listed course. While the regular enrollment-based sharing should work for that, it doesn't work as well when the faculty are still building the course before the actual shell exists in Canvas. For instance, we have a political science class that cross-lists into our legal program; they’re in different divisions.

Sharing across departments for basic skills/"service" courses - Over the years, we’ve had several initiatives that look like this: a short math class taught in a science department, reinforcing/remediating the math skills in that science class; an English class where the content is tied to a professional program (for example, Medical Assistant). The two instructors wouldn’t necessarily be able to see content in each others’ sub-account, but would need to share.

Sharing across institutions in a consortium - This really is like a super-account share, I guess. The idea is that a course author could designate a Commons item to be available to everyone in the system, but not to the world at large. In most cases, we just share them with the world, but a) occasionally there’s resistance to that or a restriction requiring we keep it local and b) something that really, truly is relevant only within these schools in this state (maybe a particular legislated requirement?).

Sharing with a scholar at another institution - So a faculty member at my institution is collaborating with faculty at three other institutions on a grant. They’d like to be able to share various course materials, but aren’t on the same instance of Canvas. They also aren't ready to share the materials with the world. For instance, the participants could share assignments or drafts of courses back and forth without the export/import hassle… and use notifications to share when they’ve finished their updates. Bonus points on this would be a way to manage outcomes for the materials. In our system, outcomes usually vary across colleges; some way to handle either “import and use the cartridge outcomes” or “skip the outcomes and link my own”.

Sharing with others who use the same open textbook - This probably isn’t much different than the above scenario, but a different use case for the same tools. Perhaps the workflow is ‘limited sharing to the people who are working on this thing’ until it’s considered ready for public consumption, then flip the switch to make it globally available.

Marc

[straussi]

Marc,

These are very much enhancements that our university is also interested in. In addition to limiting sharing administratively, we would also like to see automatic updating or direct linkage to the Commons source document from the courses, i.e., when content is updated, all courses sharing that content are updated without instructor intervention being needed. We use hundreds of templated courses, and so would like to update multiple copies and semesters automatically, plus are concerned with some intellectual property rights of our university and course designs.

Thanks - Ira Strauss (ERAU)

[ksauber]

My teachers have requesting a place to share the resources they are creating in Canvas.  I think Commons will be a great place for this.  However, it might be nice if they didn't have to worry about the sub accounts, and could make their own sharing group with teachers they are teaming with.  I am picturing an instance almost like a shared Google file where they could invite who they would like to view the files and they could change permissions easily.  Sub accounts are wonderful, but by giving end users freedom to create their own sharing groups we could encourage collaboration teams that we may not have even thought of.  

[kdscholl]

Sometimes getting faculty to share some of their best work is difficult, there is a mindset to overcome. One way we did this was starting small. Asking faculty to share just with their "department" or sub-group and then looking at some of the other things that were being done. This really helped with the mindsets of "I don't have anything of value to share" because others were viewing and downloading their items.

Recently, the option to view commons items by whom they were shared with has been removed. This takes us back to the scary world of "sharing with all" because they are only able to "look at all." I put in a feature request to bring back this option, but it hasn't gained much traction yet. ( ) As we are bringing on more and more faculty to the Canvas environment, we are wanting to help them rethink the way they are structuring their courses. To be able to see examples of how other faculty within their campus or even department are making these changes would be HUGE! And it also helps to celebrate those folks that are doing amazing things.

If this feature request doesn't get more votes and is therefore something Canvas will not consider bringing back, I would love to hear ideas on how you help faculty to share and see each other's work in an easy, time efficient manner. How do you encourage and build the culture of sharing?