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Editing a SharePoint page and adding a Call to Action (CTA)

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TOC

How can you add a Call to Action web part widget to a SharePoint page?

You might wonder how can you add a Call to Action (CTA) web part to an MS SharePoint page?
To add a call to action web part widget to a Microsoft SharePoint page, you can follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the SharePoint page where you want to add the web part.
  2. Click Edit at the top right of the page to enter edit mode.
  3. Hover your mouse above or below an existing web part and you’ll see a line with a circled +, like this: +.
  4. Click +, and then select Call to action from the list of web parts.
  5. Start typing in the Add your call to action text here field.
  6. Click the Edit web part icon to access the Call to action webpart toolbox.
  7. Customize the web part properties, such as the image, the button label, the button link, and the alignment.
  8. Save the changes.

If you need more detailed instructions, you can watch this video that shows how to add a call to action button to a SharePoint page using the call to action web part. The video covers how to:

  • Add a call to action button to a SharePoint page using the call to action web part
  • Customize the text, label, alignment, and background image of the button

How to check your SharePoint page for accessibility?

You can check your SharePoint pages with the WAVE tool from WebAIM. It will point out a lot of accessibility issues. For convenience you can get a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, or MS Edge that allows you to check a webpage in one click.

Additional resources for editing SharePoint pages:

Videos about the Call to Action webpart in SharePoint

The SharePoint Call to Action Web Part – YouTube video
Dive into SharePoint Web parts: Call to action – YouTube video
How to add a Call to Action Button to a SharePoint page – YouTube video

Articles about the Call to Action webpart in SharePoint

Use the Call to action web part –
How to add an eye-catching Call To Action on SharePoint –

Articles about accessibility and SharePoint

Resources for creating accessible sites in SharePoint Online –
Add accessible content and links to a SharePoint Online site –

How to upload and link to a PDF into your Canvas course

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TOC:

How to upload and link to a PDF into your Canvas course

You might wonder How can instructors link to PDFs in their Canvas courses? To link a PDF file in a Canvas course, you can use the Files area feature. As an instructor, you can upload one or multiple files, view all details about your files, preview files, publish and unpublish files, set usage rights, and restrict access to files. Here are the steps to link a PDF file in your Canvas course:

  1. Go to the course where you want to link the PDF file.
  2. Click on the Files tab in the course navigation bar.
  3. Click on the Upload button to upload the PDF file.
  4. Once the file is uploaded, click on the file name to open the file details page.
  5. Copy the URL of the file from the address bar of your browser.
  6. Go to the page where you want to link the PDF file.
  7. Click on the Edit button to edit the page.
  8. Highlight the text that you want to use as the link text.
  9. Click on the Link to URL button in the Rich Content Editor (RCE).
  10. Paste the URL of the PDF file in the URL field.
  11. Click on the Insert Link button to insert the link.

Congratulations! You have successfully linked a PDF file in your Canvas course.

How to check and fix the accessibility of a PDF before uploading to your course

You can use the accessibility checker feature in Adobe Acrobat to review the accessibility of your PDF and fix issues. To check and fix the accessibility of a PDF take these steps in Adobe Acrobat Pro:

  1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
  2. Run an accessibility check by selecting Accessibility, Accessibility Check, Start Checking or Tools > Accessibility > Full Check.
  3. Read the report and follow the prompts.
  4. Fix the issues identified in the report.
  5. Save the PDF.

Alternatively, you can use the ‘Make Accessible’ tool in Acrobat to automatically fix some issues.
If you need more detailed instructions, you can watch this video that shows how to use the accessibility checker in Adobe Acrobat Pro to identify and fix some common accessibility issues in a PDF document. The video covers how to:

  • Run the accessibility checker and review the results.
  • Fix the logical reading order, bookmarks, tagged annotations, and figures with alternate text.
  • Modify the tags panel to correct the nesting and tag types of headings, links, and lists.

Please note that the accessibility checker may not detect all accessibility issues, so it’s important to manually review the document as well.

Additional resources

Here are some additional resources about linking to files in Canvas course:

Articles about linking to files in Canvas courses:

Videos about linking in Canvas course pages:

Collaboration in MS Word through comments

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You might wonder, how can you collaborate on a project to do list in Microsoft Word with comments?
One of the advantages of your organization using Microsoft 365 is that you can collaborate on a project to-do list in Microsoft Word by using comments. Comments allow you to give feedback, ask questions, and collaborate with others on a document. To add a comment, select the text you want to comment on, then click on the Review tab and select New Comment. You can also use @mentions to tag specific people in your comments and assign tasks to them.
Here are the steps to add a comment and assign a task in Microsoft Word:

  1. Select the text you want to comment on.
  2. Click on the Review tab and select New Comment.
  3. Type your comment in the comment box.
  4. To assign a task, type @ followed by the person’s name you want to assign the task to. As you type various people you collaborate with from your organization should be auto-suggested.
  5. Select the checkbox next to Assign to and click Post.

The person you assigned the task to will receive an email notification, letting them know they need to take action. You can also view and reply to comments in the Comments pane on the right side of the screen.

I’ve used this method to get feedback from project team members and assign certain people to review verbiage in writing projects. It’s a very useful feature of Microsoft Word.

Using Planner in MS Teams to manage projects

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TOC
What is MS Planner?
Advantages of MS Planner
What can you do in MS Planner?
How to create a new project in MS Planner within Teams
How to add a team member to your MS Planner project in MS Teams
How to assign a task to a team member
How to create a task card to send notifications to select team members
How to schedule a due date and how this will benefit managing project timelines
Using Planner in MS Teams resources

What is MS Planner?

Planner is a Kanban board style project management system (similar to Trello) where you have a series of columns on the board in which project cards are placed and move across. A Planner plan can be added as a tab at the top of an MS Teams channel. There are also other project management apps that can be added in Teams as a tab at the top of a channel, like Trello or MS Project. Most of the time team members access our MS Planner Plans through MS Teams but they can actually also can access their Planner plans in a web browser by logging in Planner that way.

Advantages of MS Planner

  • Already hooked into and organization’s Outlook and able to send them project notifications.
  • Can be easier to use and more intuitive than more complicated project management systems.
  • Helps organize project materials for an organization’s team in one place instead in a bunch of different network locations and emails.

What can you do in MS Planner?

  • You can add a new project card by clicking ‘Add Task’.
  • You can assign someone to work on a project task by going into the task card and clicking on ‘Assign’. Then you can start typing and names will be auto-suggested.
  • You can add sub-tasks to a project, like a checklist, by going into the card and adding them under Checklist.
  • You could attach related documents to a card.  
  • You can add due dates, priorities, and labels to a card.
  • You can add notes to a card, and people working on the project can add comments as they go along.

MS Planner can be very useful in managing an academic organization’s projects, like developing new programs or curriculum. A project starts in the To-do column of the Kanban board and then proceeds through In-progress and Completed columns. Or teams could add custom columns to better suit the project.

How to create a new project in MS Planner within Teams

  • In MS Teams, go to the Team that you want your project to be in.
  • Go to the channel you want your project to be in.
  • Go to and click on the ‘+’ button at the top tool bar.
  • Search for the MS Planner (Tasks by Planner) and click on it.
  • Create a new plan (project), give the ‘Planner plan’ a name and click ‘Save’.
  • Go in your new Planner plan tab and set up the project columns (buckets).

Some examples of column bucket names might be: ‘to do’, ‘completed tasks’, ‘in-progress tasks’, ‘needs reviewed’, content topics, sub teams names, or any names specific to your projects. You can customize your buckets to meet the management needs for your project.

How to add a team member to your MS Planner project in MS Teams

You can add team members to your project by assigning them to a task in a task card.
By default, all the members of your Team can see Planner projects created in the Team. You can assign anyone from your MS Team to task cards in an MS Planner plan in the Team. In some cases, if someone isn’t already in the Team, you’ll need to be a Team owner (or ask your Team owner) to add them (depending on the Team’s settings).
You can add team members (or request to add members) by going to the three-dot menu beside the Team name, choosing ‘Manage Team’, and then clicking ‘Add member’.

How to assign a task to a team member

  • Create a task card for the task you want them to work on.
  • Click on the Assign field in the card and type in the name of the team member(s) who you want to assign to the task.
  • Click on that person’s name that comes up, they are now assigned to the card.

How to create a task card to send notifications to select team member(s) and the benefits of using the comments field for notifying your team

  • Create a task card and assign team members to it.
  • Set a project due date and create a checklist.
  • Instruct your team members to use the Comments field to update the group about. which checklist items they have completed. The group assigned to the card will get email notifications about the update.

How to schedule a due date for a task and how this will benefit managing project timelines.

  • Create a task card and assign team members to it.
  • Set a project due date. Team members will receive email reminder notifications when a due date is near and if a task is overdue.

MS Planner will send you and your team members reminder notifications when a due date is near.

 

Using Planner in MS Teams resources

Creating new SharePoint pages to be used in an MS Team

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We can do a lot of editing of MS SharePoint pages inside MS Teams but we can’t create a new page there. We can only select pages to use in MS Teams itself.

To create a new SharePoint page to use in your Team you’ll need to access SharePoint in your browser:

  • In your browser: go to: https://buckeyemailosu.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/sharepoint.aspx and login.
  • Find the ‘site’ that you want to create your new page in, like the ‘FCS Educators – FCS Database’ Team.
  • Choose New > Page and then select ‘Blank’ page.
  • Click ‘Create’ and give the page a name. Delete your name from the author box if you don’t want it there.
  • Hit ‘Publish’ to make your page available to Teams.
  • Go to ‘Share > Copy link to page’ if you need to URL of the new page to paste into a link.

Resources about MS SharePoint pages and MS Teams:

Create and use modern pages on a SharePoint site – an article from Microsoft with a video showing on to create a new page in Sharepoint. The video also shows adding images, sections, and web parts in a page.

How to Build a Website in Microsoft Teams – Using SharePoint! – a YouTube video showing how MS Teams can be enhanced by adding SharePoint pages.

How To Add a SharePoint Page To Microsoft Teams – a YouTube video showing how to add a SharePoint page as a tab in an MS Teams channel.

Use the SharePoint Team collaboration site template – an article from Microsoft outlining how MS Teams are powered by Sharepoint sites. At least one Sharepoint template page is included in each MS Team.

How to Create a SharePoint Team site – a YouTube video from 2021 showing how to add a SharePoint Team Site. MS Teams automatically creates an underlining SharePoint site when you create a new team.

How writing evergreen content can extend the impact of your blog

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One way to work more efficiently and extend the impact of your blog is to create what’s known as ‘evergreen content’. This is content that isn’t tied to a specific date or month, writing about subjects that are more timeless. Keeping up with blog posting can be a challenge if every post is date specific. It can be a good strategy to mix in some evergreen posts that will have a longer shelf life. Then you get a longer benefit for your post writing efforts.

Another idea, similar to writing evergreen content, is to write seasonal content that can be reused year to year. You might create winter, spring, summer, and autumn content that isn’t tied to a specific year, making it more reusable. It can be more efficient to preplan and schedule posts once a month or once a quarter, than to be always be publishing ad hoc.

Managing a blog is like tending a garden. It’s best to do routine checks and maintenance every month to keep your blog healthy like doing periodic content audits and accessibility checks. ‘Link rot’ is something that happens over time where links become broken. As part of the blog’s monthly maintenance, content managers should go through their site and look for broken links. WordPress makes it easy to spot broken links by crossing them out with a strikethrough. Blog authors can look for strikethrough links each month and update the URLs that they point to. Links become broken in websites because the URLs of external webpages they link to change over time from organizations adjusting the structure of their websites.

If you run a blog with multiple authors, it’s likely that web accessibility errors will pop up over time. It would be a good practice to run periodic accessibility checks as part of the blog’s monthly maintenance plan. WAVE is a free tool that is good at finding accessibility issues in individual pages. To check a large blog or website, site scanning services like PopeTech can be used. Many organizations at Ohio State have access to scan their sites with PopeTech. For smaller blogs, authors may find it more convenient to install the WAVE browser extension which can check a page for issues in one click. Forming a plan to train authors about accessible content authoring can also help lower the number of accessibility issues that pop up over time. Ohio State offers several online courses about web accessibility through the Digital Accessibility Services office (DAS).

Resources:

Evergreen Content: What It Is, Why You Need It, & How to Create It by Si Quan Ong – Updated on May 8, 2019.

Evergreen Blog Posts: Content Ideas, Examples, and Tips by James Parsons – Updated Jan 4th, 2022

Link Rot: What It is and How to Deal with It by John Hughes – Updated on Jan 25, 2023

 

Recording in Zoom

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Zoom can be a convenient way to record your screen if high resolution isn’t desired. If you just what to record a presentation with no live audience, you can start a recording in your personal meeting room and share a screen with your PowerPoint. There are two ways to record a Zoom meeting: a Cloud Recording or a Local Recording.

How to create Cloud Recording in a Zoom meeting:

  • Log into https://osu.zoom.us/ with your name.# and university password.
  • Start a meeting as the host.
  • Click the Record button in the Zoom toolbar.
  • Select Record to the Cloud to begin recording.
  • To stop recording, click Pause/Stop Recording or End Meeting.
  • When you are done with the meeting, click Stop and the recording will be queued for processing.

Zoom will send an email to the host’s email address when processing is complete. See Ohio State’s Manage CarmenZoom Cloud Recordings guide for additional information about managing your cloud recordings. These recordings only stored for 120 days. For longer-term storage, you could move your recordings to video hosting like MediaSite.

How to create a Local Recording in a Zoom meeting:

  • Login to https://osu.zoom.us/ with your name.# and university password.
  • Start a meeting as the host.
  • Click the Record button in the Zoom toolbar.
  • Select Record on this Computer to begin recording.

An advantage of a local recording might be that you get more direct access to the .mp4 video file, in case you want to edit it with video project software like Adobe Premiere Pro.

For more information about managing local recordings check out these support articles:

Video about recording in Zoom in general:

More resources about recording in Zoom:

  • See this CarmenZoom Recordings article for more information about Zoom use at Ohio State.
  • See this Info about the resolution of recorded video from Zoom article for recording resolution options. By default, Zoom records at a resolution of 640 x 360px at 25 frames per second. However, it is possible to change the resolution to HD by selecting the HD option in the camera settings. The recording resolution is affected by the resolution of the video and the network bandwidth. If you need a higher resolution for creating an educational video, you might consider another recording app like MediaSite Moasic. The maximum resolution of Zoom recordings when all conditions are good is 1280 x 720px.
  • See this page for more about Video Resolutions from the Zoom Community.

Using YouTube Studio to obtain captions for your video

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Paid captioning services like Otter.ai are nice, but if you don’t have access to another captioning resource, YouTube Studio can be used to auto-caption a video for free.

Steps to upload a video to YouTube Studio for free auto-captioning:

  • Go to your YouTube channel in YouTube Studio: https://studio.youtube.com/channel/
  • Click ‘Create > Upload Videos’ and choose the video(s) you want to upload with ‘Select Files’.
  • After it has been processed, choose the video you want to obtain captions from, from your list of videos.
  • Scroll down, find the Subtitles link, and click on it.
  • You’ll see ‘English (Automatic)’ for the automated captions track.

Here is some info about how to download your captions from YouTube:

Now you have a captions file to go along with your .mp4 video. You can upload the .srt file to other video hosting like MediaSite. Find your subtitles.srt file in your Downloads folder and edit it for accuracy in a text editor.  Now you are able to use it in another video hosting service like MediaSite.

Video about obtaining captions from YouTube Studio:

Here are some other resources related to obtaining captions from YouTube Studio:

Recording in MediaSite Mosaic

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MediaSite Mosaic replaces the older Desktop Recorder app as MediaSite’s lecture capture tool. The Mosaic app is streamlined and easier to use than the old Desktop Recorder. It can be used for capturing lecture video for online or hybrid courses. Some instructors take a ‘flipped classroom’ approach where lectures are assigned as homework and the synchronous course meetings are used for discussion and active learning. With MediaSite Mosaic, .mp4 video files can be automatically uploaded to the MediaSite video hosting system or edited with 3rd party video editing software.

Here is some information about adjusting settings before recording, recording your presentation, and renaming & editing presentations.

Adjusting settings before recording:

  • After launching MediaSite Mosaic choose which screen or window you want to record. As with recording in PowerPoint you can choose if you want to record your webcam or not.
  • Click the Microphone icon to select the mic that you want to use.
  • Click the Display Source icon under the Capture tab to choose which screen or window you want to record.
  • Click the Webcam icon in case you want to record your cam.

Recording your presentation:

  • To begin recording, click the red Record button at the bottom of the screen.
  • Click the Pause button if you want to take a break.
  • Click the Stop button when you are done.

Renaming and editing your presentations:

  • Go to the Presentations tab to find the presentations you have recorded.
  • By default, they are named ‘Untitled”. Click the three-dot menu beside a video and click ‘Rename’ to give it a different name. If you have connected your Mosaic app to Ohio State MediaSite your presentations will be automatically uploaded there. If one hasn’t uploaded yet, you can choose ‘Upload’ under the three-dot menu beside the video.
  • If you want to edit your presentation .mp4 video file locally with video editing software, you can find the .mp4 by selecting ‘Open in Explorer’ from the three-dot menu beside the video. You could create a copy of the file and move it into an Adobe Premiere Pro project to edit.

Video about recording with MediaSite Mosaic:

Here are some other videos and tutorials related to recording with MediaSite Mosaic, the desktop recorder:

Recording in PowerPoint

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MS PowerPoint can be used for capturing lecture video for online or hybrid courses. Some instructors take a ‘flipped classroom’ approach where lectures are assigned as homework and the synchronous course meetings are used for discussion and active learning. Recording lectures in PowerPoint has become much easier and more streamlined in recent years and can produce standard .mp4 video files for posting in a video hosting system like MediaSite.

To record narration in a PowerPoint presentation follow these steps:

  1. Open your PowerPoint presentation and go to the slide where you want to record from.
  2. In the SlideShow ribbon, go to ‘Record > Current Slide’ (in newer versions of PowerPoint you can also to go the Record ribbon and choose ‘Current Slide’.
  3. Go to the three dot menu to check that your desired microphone is selected. You can also select a web cam there is you want.
  4. Click the Record button to begin recording. If you make a mistake, you can retake the recording on the current slide.

To export your video for video hosting or sharing:

  1. Go to ‘File > Export Create a Video’
  2. For most presentations, choose ‘Full HD (1080p)’ for the video size, choose ‘Use recorded timing and narrations’, and click ‘Create Video’.
  3. Choose a filename and location to save your .mp4 video file. You can later edit this file with video software or upload it to video hosting like MediaSite.

Video about recording in PowerPoint

Here are some other videos and tutorials related to Recording in PowerPoint: