2020 – Math Course Hub Initiative

Align on [latexpage]!

Hi everyone! Back when I was beginning to work on the MAT 1575 course hub (after most of you had already finished your course hubs!) I asked about whether we could line up equal signs on latexpages on the OpenLab.

At the time it seemed like the answer was no, but I just determined that IT IS VERY ANNOYING BUT YES WE CAN!!!

Meeting Agenda and Notes 8/20/20

Halloooo!
Status updates – how are we doing?
- MAT 1275 Course Hub– Ariane
- – ready (all pages need to be polished, but good to go).
- MAT 1275CO Course Hub – Ariane
- – should be ready by tomorrow (2 lessons to go)!!
- – Table of Contents – they fixed one of the problems (possible to minimize – but not minimized as default)
- – giving credits: Thomas & Holly, Henry, (Desmos).
- – sidebar menu adventures
- TO DO (EVERYONE): On About page, add a note that the Course Hub was developed in Summer 2020 by XXX (your name here), any other credits that are appropriate.
- MAT 1372 Course Hub – Marianna
- MAT 1375 Course Hub – Jonas
- – I’m behind! But working on it now – hopefully complete in next couple days
- – videos: Could Ariana apply for OER fellowship (Aug 17 deadline)? (Applications are available now). Kate: involvement in Course Hub initiative? Generally people like the idea of using the videos and compensating her if possible.
- MAT 1475 Course Hub – Lin
- – all done! (Awesome!). Except: Answers for exit problems? Kate is not planning to!
- – waiting for Jonas to give link to model course (See MIR page)
- MAT 1575 Course Hub – Kate
- – through lesson 20 (End of Taylor series)!
- – turning to personal course for now – will return to it once semester starts (end of September latest).
- – need to add learning outcomes, TOC
- MAT 2680 Course Hub – Satish
- – content is collected for all lectures
- – fine-tuning one lecture, then will clone & put up others
- – added “Lesson 0:” Why do we need to do differential equations?? (Great video)
- – by end of weekend should have 15 lessons up.
- – learning outcomes – will be simple, one line
- Feedback on design – colors & graphic
- – LaTeX fun (lining up multiple lines of equations)
- – great 🙂 !
Promoting Course Hubs (& Model Courses)
- Initial email from Sandie re: Resources & Workshops
- – maybe an email to MIR site, explaining Course Hubs & Model Courses (?)
- Math Dept OpenLab site
- Math Instructors Resource site
- – update list in 8/14 workshop post on Math Instructor Resource page
- where else?
  - Atrium Learning Center website: https://www.citytech.cuny.edu/alc/math.aspx
  - – let’s ask Kate! She can reach out to Judy about adding Course Hubs (also may be some additional WW links, video resources etc to add)
  - – Mariya bessonov? (sabbatical)
  - Math Dept website
  - – JONAS: Did someone take over for Mariya? Go through website committee (Peter Dinh is contact in CIS)
  - JONAS: Sandie is meeting with Adjuncts (next week?) – can she talk about Course Hubs/Model Courses?
  - JONAS: Ask Course Coordinators To send link with resources?
Credit to Course Hub team for lesson development?
Model Courses
- Status
  - MAT 1275 Model Course
  - MAT 1275CO Model Course
  - MAT 1372 Model Course
  - MAT 1375 Model Course
  - MAT 1475 Model Course
  - MAT 1575 Model Course
  - MAT 2680 Model Course
  - JONAS: Can we track how many folks are cloning Model Courses?
  - Satish: CUNY IT Conference December. Shall we present? Yes, folks are interested. DEADLINE: Sept 15! (Satish has a draft in his head)
  - Kate & Andrew should present on WeBWorK Final Exams!
Request: Please look at the Model Course for your Course Hub
- Any links need to be updated?
- Any additional resources that would be appropriate to include?
WW discussion:
– timeline for setting up current semester courses?
– do we have WW sets for 2680? (Satish: Yes, problems are fine w/ small exceptions (Bernoulli, representing constants)).
TO DO (EVERYONE):
- On About page, add a note that the Course Hub was developed in Summer 2020 by XXX (your name here), any other credits that are appropriate. JONAS TOO!
- JONAS: In the Faculty area, provide link for feedback. – follow up with group.

Accessibility cheat sheets

Hi everyone! I found some interesting cheat sheets for designing accessible websites. The information in the images below would have been useful to have a few weeks ago before everyone had already made up their lessons, but better late than never??? If we continue to update and maintain the course hubs, we can keep these tips in mind. I like that they go beyond the bare minimum of having a site be “accessible” according to some narrow or bureaucratic definition and instead offer tips for making sites actually *accessible* to different types of users. (A bit ironic: I doubt posting text in jpgs like this passes any accessibility tests…)

Updates to ALL Course Hub sites

Hi everyone,

While you’ve been building lessons, I’ve been working on updating all the other pages & resources on Course Hub sites. The final versions are all available on the MAT 1375 Course Hub. It’s time to copy all of those changes to each of the other Course Hub. I’m asking each of you to go through the list below and make the indicated updates. Of course, there may be some places where you’ve already included some resources – in that case, take a look at the resources that I provided and see if you can merge them together. There are also a few organizational changes (menu items and so on) which I’ll ask you to make. Please respond with a comment if you run into trouble!

Thank you to everyone for your enormous efforts over the past few weeks. It’s great to see these coming together!

Best,

Jonas

Updates to all Course Hubs

Updating pages: For the most part, this consists of copy/pasting the page from the MAT 1375 Course Hub to the page on your own Course Hub.

TIPS FOR EASY COPY/PASTING:

I have made all of you mods on the MAT 1375 Course Hub, so you should be able to edit pages & copy their contents.
In the block editor, you can easily copy the entire page contents by clicking the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the screen and selecting “Copy all content”

TIPS FOR UPDATING LINKS:

If you need to update a link on a page, edit the page and click on the link – an Edit button should pop up.
You can easily find links to pages on your own site without copy/pasting them – just delete the link in the popup box (after clicking Edit), and then start typing the title of the page you want (for example, type “Resources”). You can then select the appropriate page from the list that appears.
Don’t forget to click the “elbow arrow” button to save your edits.

Pages to update:

About page
- Copy/paste content, update all links to point to appropriate pages on *your own* course hub (don’t worry about links pointing to other sites – leave them as-is)
Resources page
- Copy/paste content, update all links to point to appropriate pages on *your own* course hub
Resources/Textbooks
- Update textbook information for your course – (no need to copy/paste if you’ve already done this)
Resources/WeBWorK
- Copy/paste content
Resources/VideoResources
- IF your course has a Video Resource Site, please copy/paste the content from this page and update the link in the page to the appropriate Video Resource site. Here’s a list of Video Resource sites:
- If your course does NOT have a Video Resource site, please edit the Menu and remove this option from under “Resources”.
Resources/Tutoring
- Copy/paste this page
Resources/Review
- Copy/paste this page, update all links (& text if necessary – not every course has video solutions to select final exam questions, for example)
- Guest Access WeBWorK sections are all listed here — scroll down to “G” for the Guest Access listings
For Faculty (no updates necessary)
For Faculty/Announcements
- Copy/paste the “Faculty Announcements” post (it’s a post, not a page – the Edit button should be just under the post title), or create your own welcome message for faculty.
For Faculty/Course Coordination
- Copy/paste this page. OR update it with appropriate resources for your course, if you have them
For Faculty/WeBWorK Faculty Resources
- Copy/paste this page.
For Faculty/Training and Support (ENG FYW Course Hub has some links on this stuff – https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/fyw-pedagogy/)
- Copy/paste this page.

Additional Course Hub changes

Change “Syllabus” to “Course Outline”
- Click “Syllabus”, click “Edit” (edit pencil) to edit the page
- Change page title to “Course Outline”, change link text to “departmental course outline”
- Update (save) (the menu should update automatically to match the page title)
Update the sidebar menu for the Lessons pages
- Step 1: add all Lessons to the sidebar menu:
  - Dashboard/Appearance/Menus:
  - Menu to edit: lessons_sidebar
  - Drag all lessons into menu structure (in order)
  - Save
- Step 2: assign this menu to appears in the sidebar of all Lessons pages:
  - Dashboard/Appearance/Theme Sidebars:
  - Sidebar to edit: Lessons
  - drag all Lesson pages under “Sidebar Replacement Pages” (order doesn’t matter)
  - Save
Lessons menu – remove dropdown from main menu, put links to all lessons on the Lessons page:
- To remove the dropdown menu item(s):
  - Dashboard/Appearance/Menus
  - Menu to edit: top
  - Delete anything that is indented below “Lessons” (e.g. “Lesson 20”). NOTE: To delete, click the down-arrow and select “Remove”.
  - Save
- To put lesson links on page
  - Click “Lessons”, click “Edit” (edit pencil) to edit page
  - Add list of lessons, link each one to the appropriate page
  - Save (Update)
Update the site Header and Avatar using the provided resources for each course:
- Site Header Graphics for each course will be posted here in the next few hours (I’m working on them!). I chose a “hub-like” graphic with custom background color for each site (aligning with the color schemes already in use in the Video Resource Sites) – not sure if it’s perfect it will have to do for now, happy to make changes to this later!
- Start by downloading (right-click and “Save As”) your Header file to your hard drive. Use the same file for both Header and Avatar (you will need to upload it twice, once for the Header and Avatar – see instructions below).
- HEADER FILES (background colors are listed for information only):
  - MAT 1275 Header Image – background color Red #FA0D21
  - MAT 1275CO Header Image– background color Green #5E9C42
  - MAT 1372 Header Image– background color Pale Yellow #FFFCAA
  - MAT 1375 Header Image– background color Brown/beige #CC8623
  - MAT 1475 Header Image– background color Blue #63B0EF
  - MAT 1575 Header Image– background color Deep Blue/Violet #5943ED
  - MAT 2680 Header Image– background color Plum #AE0EBD
- 1. Update Site Header:
  - Go to Dashboard/Appearance/Header
  - “Add New Image” – this takes you to the Media Library
  - Click the “Upload Files” tab
  - Select or drag-and-drop the Header Image from your hard drive
  - Once the file appears in your Media Library, hit “Select and Crop”
  - Crop the image however you like – it’s ok if they are all a little different
  - Click “Publish” at the top of the page to save the changes
  - (NOTE: If you don’t like the way it comes out and you want to try cropping it again differently, just go back to Header, click “Add New Image”, and select the image from your Media Library and hit “Select and Crop” again.
- 2. Update Avatar:
  - Click “Edit Profile”
  - Click “Change Avatar”underneath the picture
  - “Choose file” and select the Header Image from your hard drive
  - Crop it however you like – it’s ok if they are a little different

Meeting Agenda and Notes 8/6/20

Halloooo! And welcome Kate, course coordinators, and Sandie!
Review of project
- What is a Course Hub?
  - departmental resources for students and faculty
  - team is building Online Lessons
  - Jonas is building other resources
  - static (not meant for interaction/discussion)
  - brief tour of course hub
  - Volunteers to show a sample lesson?
- Course Hub vs Model Course
  - every section needs an online home! Blackboard or OpenLab.
  - if you’re using OpenLab, Model Course is place you start (clone it for your own section)
  - course hub lives on OL but resources are for use by everyone, whether they choose blackboard or openlab
Feedback:
- Thomas: would be *great* to have internal City Tech videos for all of these!
- Kate: there is an existing (possibly unused) faculty resource site for Math – maybe we can adopt this?
- Ezra: let’s try to finalize lessons 1 month before they appear on syllabus?
Update on faculty training
- Initial “What is an online course” training Wed 8/12 and Wed 8/19.
- Focussed technical trainings on Ths Fri both weeks.
- Model Course trainings tbd within those two Ths/Fri windowsill (tentatively Fri mornings)
- Kate will help out with the Model Course trainings (thanks Kate!)
- Jonas: MathType – good OCR for math equations
- Ezra: class slides w/ content from publisher – put these on private instructor area
Course Hubs – status updates
- Lesson development:
  - MAT 1275 Course Hub– Ariane
  - MAT 1372 Course Hub – Marianna
  - MAT 1375 Course Hub – Jonas
  - MAT 1475 Course Hub – Lin
    - contrast learning outcomes? accessibility
  - MAT 1575 Course Hub – Kate
  - MAT 2680 Course Hub – Satish
- Other resource development – any input from course coordinators on resources to include (especially faculty resources specific to your course)?
  - Resources
    - Textbook
    - WeBWorK
    - Video Resources
    - Tutoring
    - Review
  - For Faculty
    - Kate: link to stem applications from OG.
    - Project Prompts for faculty (and solutions/examples)
    - Faculty Announcements
    - Course Coordination
    - WeBWorK Faculty Resources
    - Training and Support
Accessibility:
- Document discussing accessibility and opening links in new tabs – includes examples at the bottom of language that can be used in links.
Questions:
- Marianna: question about cover image (converted to HTML???) – Jonas will look into
- Kate: Numbering lessons – consecutive? Or skip a number for exams?. Consecutive
- Kate: Learning outcomes for individual lessons? (OpenStax has them listed – will pull from there)
- Kate: (1575 reduction fmlas for trig integrals – some faculty use them, some don’t – included paragraph “these exist, talk to your instructor about whether you are using them”)
- Kate: embed desmos graph? JONAS will follow up OpenLab team.
- Ariane: screenshots from Desmos OK? JONAS will look into it (think its ok – does it need attribution?)
- Kate: Colors in LaTeX? (I think this is not supported)
- Ariane: is there another plugin for LaTeX that allows us to use more functionality? JONAS bug OL team about this.
- Block editor: the gosh-dang popup bar covers up what I want to look at!
- Kate: Accordions – Pages with accordions have extra accordions generated when you click edit?? BUG! JONAS will report.
Kate: Interested in Mastery grading – “standards based grading”. Make a list of standards for the course (specific learning outcomes). Assessments – whether that standard has been mastered or not. Interviews?

Meeting Agenda and Notes 7/30/20

Hallooo!
Timeline
- Trainings tentatively scheduled 8/12-8/14 and 8/19-8/21
  - What do we absolutely need in place by then?
  - Satish: let’s shoot to have stuff done by 8/12!!
  - Lin: shooting for August 5th (out from Aug 5-12). Draft of everything. When she returns, will go through one more time. (NOTE: Lin won’t be available next Thurs Aug 6th weekly mtg)
  - Ariane: shooting to have everything by Aug 11th (Definitely 1275, for 1275CO)
  - Jonas: needs to build out the “other” pages.
    - Pages by Sheila Miller that we might want to leverage:
      - https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/math1275videolibrary/how-you-might-use-this-page-students/
      - https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/math1275videolibrary/notes-for-students/
Status updates
- How is everyone doing?
- MAT 1275 Course Hub– Ariane
  - “Table of contents” at top – design? (Can we get COMD to help?)
  - section headings? maybe numbered to match TOC
  - Request for review of language/editing
  - working with Holly – all videos on YouTube
- MAT 1372 Course Hub – Marianna
- MAT 1375 Course Hub – Jonas
- MAT 1475 Course Hub – Lin
  - 7 lessons complete – workflow in place, etc.
  - comments: add equation for line when tangent line is introduced (or link to review material on another course hub)
  - red color might not be enough contrast
  - Learning outcomes – contrast?
- MAT 1575 Course Hub – Kate
- MAT 2680 Course Hub – Satish
  - Summer school finishes next Thursday – expects to do a big push after that.
  - Collected content for about 20 lessons (NOTE: a few optional section – ommitted)
  - SIMIODE – will use some links from here (math modeling perspective) – Sheila Miller has some content here
  - Will do first OpenLab lesson this weekend.
  - Heads up: using Canvas – it’s great, works well with LaTeX
Lesson structure discussion
- Common elements for all lessons?
  - Title
  - photo element? (use as background for title? or drop?)
  - Resources:
    - Learning Outcomes – ??
    - Textbook section
    - WeBWorK assignment
    - Notes (lecture notes) – if available
    - Videos vs Additional Video Resources – vary a bit by course
- Some review notes
TO DO:
- Change “Syllabus” to “Course Outline” – in menu & on page (ALL COURSE HUBS) – validate with other Model Course folks first!!
- JONAS: Reach out to COMD folks about “Table of contents” (Ariane’s lessons) – formatting? Look at Lesson 16.

Meeting Agenda and Notes 7/23/20

Hellooooo!
Status update
- How is everyone doing?
- Acknowledgements: on about page
- 1475: Lin is using Ariane’s video resource guide – will verify it fits.
  - Ariane will make Lin admin on the VRG
- 1372: Marianna – Collecting video resources. Working with Suman – will make him an admin on the 1372 course hub.
- Organization of Lessons: Are we numbering them? Or name by topic? Should numbering skip exams?
Inviting course coordinators to join our meetings? (Henry, Holly, ??Ezra/Thomas)
- Pass along links to course coordinators
- Would be great to have their input but not being paid
- Lin: Henry modified course outline for 1475. Will reach out to Henry (cc Jonas) – will use his new course outline, will keep track of any changes.
- Invite to a meeting in August
Accessibility issues – making content accessible
- Some basics to keep in mind:
  - People using screen readers (translate the text on the page to speech).
  - Download links (include explanatory text, avoid opening in new tabs, use text rather than URL in link.
    - Question: linking to external resources that you might want to access without losing your place on the OpenLab? (e.g.: include text “link opens in new tab” or “to open link in new tab, right click…etc”)
    - Ariane – attended webinar by AMS – accesibility expert in UK. Especially critical in math! (pdf is the worst format for screen readers)
  - Color contrast – text on colored backgrounds
  - subtitles for videos – (waiting to hear back – maybe Youtube is preferred?)
  - Alt tags for images
- ASSIGNMENT: Read through these two posts on accessibility on the OpenLab:
  - Making your work accessible
  - Reading ease and accessibility
- WAVE – tool for checking all contrast on a page at once
- On Dashboard/Plugins:
  - WP Link Checker plugin – check for broken links
  - TablePress plugin – for making nice tables
Design:
- Similar enough so folks recognize “course hub”
- Distinct enough by course so folks make connections between course resources (course hub, model courses, Video Resource Guides)
- Existing resource design – each course has a color:
  - https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/projects/?search=video%20resources
- Could consider a pic/graphic theme –
  - Pexels has free photos – https://www.pexels.com/search/math/
  - or take pictures ourselves – notebooks, textbooks, blackboards, etc
- IDEA: Use color scheme for each course, e.g. 1475 is blue, but different visual elements for each different site (e.g. different elements).
QUESTIONS:
- Ariane: embedding video from Dropbox?
  - JONAS: reach out about embedding video – why is it small sometimes? Compare MAT 1275 lesson 14 vs lesson 16? (sometimes is converts video block to HTML block?!)
- Lin: how to duplicate a lesson?
  - “clone” option appears in bulk edit dropdown but not in mouseover menu (?)
- for Ariane: OG summer salary/webwork dev?
  - Focus on 1275, then clone and update for 1275CO
  - Focus on Course Hubs now – worked on WeBWorK in June, and will in August, also build resource page for 1575 (?). Will coordinate with Kate (and use videos recommended by Samar)
    - Will look into existing VRG – ask for cloning assistance if needed.
- Menus & Sidebars:
  - As you create lessons, add them to the “Lessons” Menu
  - For now, don’t worry about the menu in the sidebar (Jonas is going to do some work on this).
- Spoke to Sandie a few days ago re: online training in August
  - Sandie: in the module that we’re building, use 1275/1275CO as an example/model.
  - NOTE: for fall, looking like we have many more 1275 sections than 1275CO sections (new placement criteria?)
  - NOTE: Lin is also involved in SStF. Sandie says we have have funding going forward (next year) – RT. (last year: Andrew, Ariane, Lin – not sure about this year, also probably no Developmental work in this program this year??)

Weekly Working Thread

Hi everybody! As discussed in our meeting, let’s use this post to communicate between meetings – in particular:

leave a comment below every day or two – let us know what lessons you’ve completed
if you run into OpenLab problems, put them here – I’ll follow up and see what I can find (include a link where possible)

Thanks, everyone! We’ll talk again next Thursday 7/23, 4pm-5:30pm as usual.

-Jonas

Meeting agenda and notes 7/16/20

Hello and welcome!
Updates
- Rollout to department (meeting with Sandie tomorrow to coordinate various prof. dev. – Ariane, Samar, Bruce. But Sandie not sure if there will be funding available. BUT Ariane Too many commitments already this summer! Separate from 1275CO training, more general. Had put Ariane down to talk about OpenLab but not sure it’s the right fit/enough time. Marianna available to help in live sessions if that’s useful. Satish is available in a pinch (is also busy!)).
- Email to course coordinators sent Wed evening
Lessons
- What does a lesson look like? (cont’d) – Share initial lessons, discuss
  - Satish: sample lesson – in LaTeX, about 3 pages. On OL page: brief description, embedded video (recorded), link to lecture. NOTE: Not all lessons will require this level of content development – this particular topic (Bernoulli eq’s) is presented in a nonstandard fashion
  - Lin:
    - link to video resource page: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups-mat-1475-student-video-resources-/syllabus-with-links-to-videos/
    - (Ariane currently workin on Calc II)
    - Marianna: no video resource guide. Will pick & choose for now, revise in Fall as teaches class
- Structure for peer review?
- Timeline for lesson development?
  - Let’s draft as much content as we can in the next two weeks!
  - Everyone commit to commenting updates on their wrk (what lessons you’ve created, etc) on “WEEKLY WORKING THREAD” post – Jonas will post this today or tomorrow.
  - Can leave OpenLab questions there too (include a link)
Other resources
- About page: initial draft completed – needs feedback
- Video Resources: What’s our strategy for integrating existing video resource guides? Just put a link here, for now?
  - Discussion: let’s keep the VRGs (Video Resource Guides) as separate site, include links to appropriate pages on VRG within the lessons
- WeBWorK, Video Resources, Tutoring, Review pages – JONAS will work on drafting these
- Faculty Resources – need some help on what to put here
  - Course Coordination: what goes here? ideas?
  - WeBWorK – Faculty Resources: Mostly this will contain links to existing content on the WeBWorK OpenLab project
  - Training & Support:
QUESTIONS FOR OL TEAM:
- links don’t open in new tab, even when “open link in new tab” is selected (look at “Textbook” page on Lin’s site for example)
- Embedded video doesn’t display screen shot of video (Lin’s Lesson page) – only shows gray box (but in Preview)
- Upload stick photo to Ariane’s site

Meeting Agenda and Notes 7/9/20

Welcome and Hello!
- 3D meeting app (spatial.io)?
- Marianna: updates – LibreText
- Meeting time 4pm Thursday OK
Roll-out to department (Charlie will join for this part)
- Course Hubs, model courses
- Jonas will be preparing model courses and training in using them
- Does there need to be specific training for faculty about each course hub?
  - Satish: just need to educate faculty about course hubs – intro to department.
  - Can we invite faculty to reach out to participants about each course hub (Y)
  - Lin: About page – could act as a “manual” – details about what is included on Course Hub & how to find it. (In lieu of training!). Make distinction between section and course information.
    - JONAS will draft this & share for input & feedback
    - Include links to “all responsible parties” regarding a course!
  - Should include link to person responsible for course hub (and we should continue to update these in realtime, as we go)
  - 1275CO faculty go through training – can we build in the model course training in some way?
    - (at most 20/year in the past – but may have more this year!!). Ariane guesses there will be no-one new teaching 1275CO (lots of folks have been through training already, fewer sections overall)
    - The group agrees, 30-50 estimate overall (all courses)
  - JONAS: Check in with Sandie about 1275CO training and any other training
  - Math Dept OpenLab site! Let’s use this as much as possible (morning link back to it for central information)
Course Hubs
- How is everyone doing?
  - Administrative stuff
    - Able to log in?
    - Make changes? Updating “MAT 1375” everywhere
  - Content-building stuff
    - Create page
    - Managing menus
    - What other stuff?
      - using LaTeX, embed images & videos, importing material from Word
      - Format for “Question/Solution”?
  - Updating “MAT 1375” everywhere
What does a lesson look like?
- Link from Maura – fair use of copyrighted materials: https://guides.cuny.edu/cunyfairuse/faculty
- How much detail to include?
- Things to be included in each lesson?
- What will a typical lesson look like in each course?
  - MAT 1275
  - MAT 1372: A lot of hands-on, working in excel, getting them to work in excel, etc.
  - MAT 1375: Some text, definitions, examples, some images from text, video/screencasts showing examples worked out,
  - MAT 1475:
  - MAT 1575
  - MAT 2680:

Year: 2020