Author: Lara Flaute

Using Social Media to Promote Nursing Science

Mention social media to a room full of nurses and nurse educators and you may just see a collective cringe shudder through your audience.  From HIPAA to hospital liability and everywhere in between, social media may feel like a minefield to those in our line of work.  While there are lots of resources out there to tell you what not to post online as a nurse, we think it’s equally important to know how proper use of social media can benefit you, your colleagues, and society as a whole.

In this Huffington Post article, Mona Shattell and co-author Monica McLemore discuss the changing demographics of the nursing profession and its implications for nurses’ involvement on social media. Like other fields of science, nursing science is finding its footing in the world of Twitter, where researchers can disseminate information far and wide, potentially reaching diverse audiences across the globe.

The potential benefits of using social media to advance nursing science abound– these platforms allow for quick postings, hashtags that bring attention to issues and help organize posts, and connections to other researchers or interested parties who may never have crossed paths with the nursing researchers without the help of social media.

If you would like to explore social media as a vehicle to share your nursing research and scholarly work, this AACN webinar recording is a great place to begin. Read the session description and use the link below to access the recording. One hour of CE is available!

How to Use Social Media to Promote Nursing Science
“You’ve completed the research, presented your findings at a scientific conference, AND published your research results in a high-impact journal. In the past, this was considered to be the complete checklist for dissemination of science – but now there’s social media. This session will provide guidance for developing your social media plan as a means to build a professional network, monitor news items from our professional organizations and other media outlets, promote programs and services, and even find new funding and publishing opportunities. Advanced users can use social media as a means to become a thought leader in areas of expertise, influence policy, and inform the public; all by being a part of the conversation.”


View the webinar, and comment below if you decide to establish your professional presence in the world of social media! Note: you will need to enter your name and email address to view the webinar, but it is free and available to the public.

Cybersecurity Part 1: Internal Threats

Erik Yarberry is the College of Nursing’s Network Administrator.  He recently took some time to talk to us about cybersecurity at the College of Nursing, including what are termed “internal” and “external” threats to the network.  This post will explore internal threats, and another post will follow discussing external threats.

Internal threats are those that come from employees or others who have access to the network.  These can be both intended and accidental. Here are some examples:

  1. Employees clicking on or forwarding phishing messages sent by email
  2. People leaving employment who leave security holes or delete files they shouldn’t (either accidentally or intentionally)
  3. People getting viruses through unsafe websites, unsecured flash drives, or other means

You might be wondering, what’s the point in phishing or hacking the College of Nursing? What’s there to gain? Here are some things hackers and phishers look for:

  1. Intellectual property including copyrighted works, dissertations, etc.
  2. Personally identifying information
    • Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, anything that would help an identity thief
  3. Access to legitimate email addresses to send more attacks out

Internal security threats make up a large portion of the cybersecurity threats that the College of Nursing faces. That’s why it’s important to know a threat when you see it, and if necessary alert the proper channels.  Here are some tips to remember to protect yourself and the College of Nursing from these kinds of threats:

  • Don’t click on unfamiliar links or attachments in emails! If you are sent an email that looks suspicious, forward it to report-phish@osu.edu
  • Change your passwords frequently, and use a new and unique password each time.  If your email or other information was ever breached, those old passwords could be in the wrong hands.
  • Know how to browse the web safely. Here are some good tips.
  • Have anti-virus software, and update your computer and software regularly. Cybersecurity is basically an arms race, and the best way to be equipped is to keep all of your systems as up-to-date as possible.
  • If you suspect you have a virus or clicked on something you shouldn’t have, alert IT right away at CON-informationtechnology@osu.edu

 

In our next Cybersecurity post, we will delve into external threats and what the College of Nursing is doing to mitigate them.

 

 

Having Fun with Canvas Discussion Boards

Whether you have already taught in Canvas for a semester or are transitioning now, one thing to keep in mind is that Canvas has a more robust “text entry” feature than we saw in D2L.  Text entry is often used to post replies on discussion boards, and can also be used as a way to submit assignments and write announcements in Canvas.  By learning the various options you have in Canvas, you can take your class discussions to a new level with videos, animations, and voice as well as text.

To demonstrate several features we find in Carmen Canvas, I hosted a discussion in my sandbox and encouraged my “students” to be as creative as possible with their input.  You can find this discussion here: Flaute.13 Sandbox Movie Discussion. Note: You will need to be logged into Canvas with your OSU credentials to view this page.

You will see on this discussion board that in addition to just typing answers, students were encouraged to submit multi-media responses to the prompt. Below we can see some of the options available to you in your discussions and other text-entry:

text_entry_1

The labeled buttons above will help you brighten up your text entry. Below is a short summary of each.

Insert link: Allows you to link to a website (e.g. a youtube video or news article). The link will appear and others will click it to re-direct to the website.

Insert picture: This allows you to add a photo to the page from your computer.

Add media: This allows you to insert a video or sound file on your computer, or to record your voice or webcam video in real time to post.

Attach a file: This allows you to attach any file to your post that other readers will then download to view.

You can also copy and paste items from online directly into your text entry box. For example, that’s how Joni was able to insert the GIF found in the entry shown here:

2017-01-04-1

 

With this knowledge, we encourage you to try adding some oomph to your discussion posts, announcements, and assignment submissions!

 

Some further resources can be found here:

Canvas Guides: Replying to a Discussion

Canvas Guides: Adding media to a submission

Canvas Guides: Adding images to a submission

 

 

 

 

Top Hat: Encourage Attendance and Participation in your Classroom

If you are unfamiliar with Top Hat, read on to learn how incorporating this software in your classroom may help you to increase participation, save time, and better prepare your students for tests.

tophat

Top Hat is a software program that can be accessed on a computer or a mobile device.  Teachers can create extensions of their classroom on this online platform that students can sign into and interact with in multiple ways. The simplest function of Top Hat is attendance-taking.  See the ODEE instructions on taking attendance with Top Hat.  With Top Hat, students will log into your class and a simple button allows you to take a snapshot of who is in attendance. This feature allows instructors to save attendance records for all students over the course of the semester.  These attendance records can also be exported from Top Hat to Canvas for grading purposes.

In addition to attendance, Top Hat allows you to survey or quiz your classroom.  Students who are logged in will see questions that you post, and can enter their own answer. Once results are in, Top Hat will show a graph of the student responses, thus allowing teachers to make course corrections immediately and to gauge student comprehension during lectures.  Unlike old clicker systems, Top Hat only requires a laptop or mobile device and Wifi connection.  Later, students can log in to their own Top Hat account to see the questions that were asked in class and review their own answers.

Top Hat at OSU can be found at go.osu.edu/tophat. If you would like help getting started in Top Hat, contact the CON IT department at CON-InformationTechnology@osu.edu and we will happily help you out!

 

Some further resources and information can be found below:

Canvas: Get Started for Spring 2017

Autumn Semester 2016 is coming to an end, and you are likely looking ahead to Spring 17.  As you prepare for the spring semester, you will need to do two things for each of your courses in Canvas.  Below, you will find resources to walk you through the steps for each process.

  1. Create your course (see ODEE’s instructional post here)
  2. Import content (see our previous post about importing content here, or the Canvas guide here)

If you are developing an entirely new course in Canvas, you may not be importing content, but creating everything from scratch.  For help with any questions you have, we recommend you start at guides.instructure.com or page through some of our posts on creating  course content in Canvas (here is our overview of Canvas information)

As always, if you have specific questions feel free to contact CON IT services at CON-InformationTechnology@osu.edu. Best of luck creating your SP 17 courses!

 

 

Canvas Grading Resources

See the recorded “Flash Tuesday” workshop here: Canvas Grading Workshop

…

Our Canvas workshop series continues with Lara Flaute today, November 1, from 12:00-12:30 p.m. with a “Flash Tuesday” webinar in CarmenConnect.  Lara will show you how to grade assignments in Carmen (Canvas) with SpeedGrader, change grades in the grade book, and calculate final grades for your classes. Join us from your computer for a quick half-hour noontime session at http://go.osu.edu/jonitornwall

This workshop references the following resources from Canvas Instructure Guides as well as the Ohio State Office of Distance Education and eLearning (ODEE):

Canvas Gradebook Overview (video)

Transferring Final Grades

How do I Enter and Edit Grades in the Gradebook?

What is Speedgrader?

Links in Canvas: How to Bypass “Insecure” Warnings in Firefox

When scrolling through your Canvas course you may have noticed that some links (to Panopto recordings, OSU websites, or outside websites) will show a preview on the page, and some will instead show a warning of “insecure content” and no preview.  The warning appears in red text in the screen shot below.  Generally, these links are safe to follow, but always exercise your best judgment when you receive a warning such as this.

2016-10-13-3

The Instructure Guide to Canvas has a page explaining this phenomenon and several others issues that may arise depending on the browser you are using to access Canvas.  That guide is here: Which Browsers does Canvas Support?

For those who use Firefox, here are a few quick tips so you or your students can still access this content.

When the insecure content warning comes up, you can view the link in a new tab by simply left-clicking on the link (circled in green here). This is the easiest solution.  If you want to view the link within the Canvas page, click on the padlock icon in the address box (circled in blue).

A dialogue box will open up. Click the arrow circled below:

2016-10-13-4

Next, click “disable protection for now”.  This should allow the video (or webpage) to load in the box below the link.

2016-10-13-5

If you are accessing Canvas through another browser, such as Google Chrome, see the link above that will help you troubleshoot issues.

As always, feel free to contact us if you have specific questions!

Canvas Notifications: How are Students Receiving Your Communications?

Several instructors have contacted the CON IT department with questions of how Canvas sends out emails and announcements.  Canvas does this differently from D2L in that each individual has control over which notifications they receive and how.  Because of this, if some of your students are receiving emails when you post an announcement and others are not, this is in the control of the students– not the instructors.  Below is a quick overview that you can use yourself and send out to your students so that they know where their notifications are going:

First, know that your default email is your name.#

If you would like to add an additional email for notifications, you can do this on the profile page by logging into Canvas, clicking “Account” –> “Profile” and clicking “+ Email Address” on the right side of the screen:

2016-09-21-5

Now, to view and change your notification preferences, go to “Account” on the left hand side and then click “Notifications”. 2016-09-21-1

The Notification Preferences menu will open up.  Along the top of the menu you will see an explanation of what each of the 4 symbols mean.  There will be a column for each email address you have entered. If you have installed the Canvas app on your phone or tablet, there will also be a “Push Notification” preference column.  By clicking on the corresponding symbols, you can choose whether to be notified by email for each item, and how frequently you want to receive such emails.  If students are not receiving emails when you send announcements, their preferences will look like the below image.

2016-09-21-2

Whether or not students receive email notifications, they can always find these notifications when they log into your classroom on Canvas.

It’s a good idea to inform your students that if they want to email their instructor from Canvas, they can do so through the “Inbox” tab on the Canvas menu (see below).  The benefit of this route is that the instructor will receive the email both to their email inbox and to the Canvas inbox, and the message will inform them which course it came from.

2016-09-21-3

More information can be found on the Instructure Canvas guide here.

What other burning Canvas questions do you have?  Leave a comment or contact us by email to let us know!

 

Meet our Newest Undergraduate Student Staff Member

Shekinah Moon is our newest student employee in the CON IT department. If you see her around, be sure to say hi!

 

shekinahmoon

Shekinah Moon is a sophomore at The Ohio State University. She is in the Young Scholars Program and is pursuing a nursing degree with a minor in Spanish. Her goal is become a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner and work in the nursery unit at the hospitals.  She ultimately wants to become a nurse midwife. During Shekinah’s years in her Cincinnati high school, she was on the Varsity cheerleading team and was a member of Pep Club, CATCS (a 3D glass and ceramic class), and choir. She volunteered for her school organization “Dater Cares,” which participates in various activities around the neighborhood like cleaning, painting, gardening, and volunteering at animal shelters and schools. She also volunteered at the Cerebral Palsy Center where she participated in arts and crafts with people with disabilities.

Meet our Undergraduate Student Staff Member

The CON IT department is happy to welcome Allison Boyce, our newest student staff member on the instructional design team. Be sure to say hello if you see her in Newton Hall!

AllisonBoyce

Allison Boyce is a freshman this year at The Ohio State University. She is an aspiring nurse and has an ultimate goal of earning a nursing position in one of the medical centers at OSU when she graduates in 2020. During Allison’s time in high school, she was involved in multiple clubs such as Key Club, National Honor Society, and Spanish Club. She has also participated in many community service activities. These community service activities include “Feed my Sheep” which is an organization that helps feed underprivileged people while simultaneously spreading the gospel, and “bed brigade” which is a group that constructs bed frames for families who cannot afford them. Allison is very involved with her church and serves as an active member of the worship band by singing and playing the piano. This year, Allison is living on South Campus in Park-Stradley hall, but is from Grove City, Ohio, where she lives with her parents, twin sister, and two cats.