Q: Why is the CVM CarmenCanvas template (and workflow) the way it is?

A: We believe that students’ time and energy should be spent on learning, and not on trying to navigate the Carmen course, so the template was designed and is continually improved based on best practices in accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), as well as established evaluation tools such as Quality Matters. The intent is to also allow instructors’ time tp be better spent on providing excellent content and learning experiences. We hope that we have been diligent in striking a balance through our consultations, resources, training, and on-site supports. Please be assured that we are listening to your feedback regarding working in CarmenCanvas. This year’s revised master workflow may serve as an example of that.

Q: How do I send a message to all individuals in my course? What if I don’t want to receive those messages as an instructor?

A: CarmenCanvas provides a convenient Announcement Tool that lets you easily make announcements to all individuals in your course, including instructors. The announcements are all archived in your course for easy access. If your want to send a message to a more specific group, such as all students, all instructors, or specific course sections/student groups/students, the Inbox tool gives you more control over specifying your recipients. If CarmenCanvas’ messaging capabilities do not meet your needs, emails through either Faculty Center or Outlook are still valid options!

Because of the way messaging works in CarmenCanvas, your messages do not go directly to the recipients as emails; rather, CarmenCanvas forwards your messages on to additional destinations specified by each user, which may include the built-in Inbox tool, email, text message, and mobile app push notification. Notification settings are adjustable by individual users; for example, we recommend students adjust their settings to receive emails for Announcements and new Inbox conversations.

Q: I am using BuckeyeBox to host my course files, and I’m inserting links into my CarmenCanvas courses. Why can’t students access them?

A: If your course storage is outgrowing the default CarmenCanvas quota, BuckeyeBox is a great solution for storing your larger course files. There are multiple ways to link to files hosted on BuckeyeBox within CarmenCanvas. There are two common issues to be mindful of, both of which are addressed in the link above:

• By default, a shared link is set to expire half a year from its creation.
• For the link to accessible by anyone you share it with, you must manually adjust its availability setting to “People with the link.”

Q: Lecture captures are not playing on some computers. Why?

A: Currently, lecture capture videos are served to PCs/Laptops in Adobe Flash format. Since Adobe Flash is set to be retired in 2020, major browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have begun to disable Flash by default. Due to security concerns related to the plugin, we recommend that you enable Flash on a site-by-site basis, and only if absolutely needed:

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Apple Safari (on MacOS)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer / Edge