Updates to key tools in Canvas enable even richer student engagement and learning experiences
IT teams and vendor partners pushed out updates to five different Canvas integrations, improving functionality and security with minimal disruption to the university’s teaching and learning community. All five integrations—Panopto, VoiceThread, Top Hat, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson—were updated without any disruption to service during the week between spring and summer classes. These enhancements, which were coordinated between Northeastern and external technical teams, ensure continuous access to video hosting, interactive collaboration, audience response, and textbook-linked content. The updates promise to enrich faculty and student engagement and interaction across Canvas courses, fostering innovative educational experiences.
IT Services expands NameCoach offering to all faculty, staff, and students demonstrating continued commitment to equity and inclusion
NameCoach is an easy-to-use tool that allows students, faculty, and staff to record how their names should be pronounced and hear how others’ names should be pronounced. The tool was previously licensed for use by only those affiliated with the School of Law but is now available to all students, faculty, and staff at the university with Canvas and Outlook add-ins. NameCoach ensures a person’s name is pronounced accurately which is the first step in showing respect and appreciation. With over 30 million names in the world, 80% of which have multiple pronunciations, getting someone’s name right is the first step in showing that you respect and appreciate them, leading to stronger connections and the feeling of belonging within the university.
Improved processes for tracking and paying PhD students’ stipend payments support the university’s strategic goal of fully funding PhD students, meeting the increased number of students and stipends
A collaboration between the colleges, Student Financial Services, Finance, Human Resources, SEGAF, ITS, and the PhD Network launched a new process for tracking and paying PhD students’ stipend payments on April 29. This included new functionality in Workday and Salesforce which improves the processes through which SGA stipend payments are distributed to PhD students. The project to modernize these business processes addresses issues with data integrity, communication, and inefficiencies that were identified by internal audit in 2021. The university now pays stipends for PhDs using Workday’s Period Activity Pay, which is used for adjunct faculty and extensively by CPS, and minimizes manual processes that were causing issues with data integrity and inefficiencies. Northeastern provides funding to
research doctoral degree-seeking students in the form of Stipended Graduate Assistantships (SGAs), which are awarded upon admission to the university and are typically renewed each semester. This helps the university continue to meet its strategic goal of providing full funding to PhD students as the number of these students increases.
Key improvements made to Performance Based Admissions pilot program to allow this popular program to scale up more rapidly and reduce barriers to entry for online master’s degree students
ITS partnered with Edge New Ventures and Business Ops, Enrollment Management, the Registrar’s Office, and Student Financial Services to make key business process automation and data integration improvements to the Performance Based Admissions program in time for the Fall 2024 admissions cycle. This past fall the PBA pilot program launched to provide online master’s students an avenue to gain admissions in a much easier way with fewer barriers to enter these advanced degree programs. In this partnership, ITS worked with these units to identify key areas from the pilot that could be automated and enable data flow to downstream systems. These changes remove time-consuming manual steps so that Edge can work with the colleges to launch more programs in this model and allow this popular program to scale up more quickly.
Years-long effort to consolidate and transform accounts program went live May 12, retiring legacy Waveset system and significantly reducing risk to the university
Marking a significant milestone in Northeastern’s transformational shift to a new security model, the university moved all employee and
sponsored accounts to a cloud-based system, Saviynt, and retired the older Waveset system that had already reached end-of-life and end-of-support. Following the go-live, all Northeastern accounts are now consolidated in Saviynt. This consolidation creates more consistency for all members of the university community, and for the teams supporting the technology, with one system of record. It also streamlines and enhances the account creation and activation process by including a built-in step to enroll in two-factor authentication and sending automated account activation instructions to all new employees. This move also gives the university the ability to facilitate One Identity for Life in the future, by attaching multiple personas and customized access permissions to a single identity. The technical and support teams worked throughout Mother’s Day weekend, and in the days since, to deploy the updates and to field and quickly address the subsequent incidents that would inevitably arise with change as complex and wide in scope as this one.
Important updates to the ServiceNow Tech Service Portal in the same week as Northeastern’s celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day demonstrate university’s commitment to digital access and inclusion
The configuration of AI search capabilities and updates to the navigation menu within the ServiceNow Tech Service Portal went live on May 12. These changes bring the portal into better alignment with W3C accessibility requirements and improve screen reader navigation for community members with disabilities. This update also moved the search algorithm from contextual to internal AI searching, which removed technical debt and addressed accessibility issues. The AI search feature allows for immediate type-ahead results, reducing the wait time for any user looking for resources. This change came just days ahead of Northeastern’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day celebration later in the week, which centered around the theme of Accessibility for Everyone and featured two virtual workshops. Over 100 participants attended these sessions that focused on practical tips and methods for enhancing accessibility in everyday interactions and communications.
Partnering with CATLR, Academic Technologies team supports full-day conference that showcases innovative educational strategies, including the transformative opportunity that generative AI holds, and fosters knowledge-sharing around Northeastern’s global teaching and learning community
ITS staff supported this year’s full-day Conference for Advancing Evidence-Based Learning, hosted each year by Northeastern’s Center for Advancing Teaching & Learning Through Research (CATLR), by helping facilitate 88 virtual presenters across 21 sessions and two poster sessions. This year’s event centered around the theme “Teaching and Learning in an Era of Transformational Change” and drew 260
attendees from across Northeastern’s Global Network on April 30. Generative AI presents a particularly transformative opportunity in education, and Academic Technologies staff can help equip faculty and students with the knowledge to effectively adopt and utilize AI tools, balancing the benefits against potential drawbacks, such as issues related to academic integrity, accessibility, security, and ethical
concerns. Collaborating closely with CATLR, AT supports faculty in developing pedagogical strategies that responsibly integrate AI into the curriculum, ensuring that this technology’s adoption aligns with Northeastern’s educational standards and values.
Wireless infrastructure upgrades completed in preparation for upcoming initiatives that will make logging in to the network more seamless and secure
This month, ITS completed upgrades to the Clearpass radius servers used for authentication into the wireless network. These upgrades, which took place with no service downtime or otherwise negative impacts, allow the university to implement passwordless logins for wireless, making it easier than ever for members of the global university community to connect. Completing this work also prepares Northeastern for zero-trust networking, which will provide better security protections, make accessing sensitive services and data easier, and better support the myriad devices that join the university’s wireless networks.
New Canvas integration prioritizes accessibility in Canvas courses, improving compliance with legal requirements and simplifying universal design for course creators
UDOIT (Universal Design Online Content Inspection Tool) is an accessibility tool now available in all Northeastern Canvas courses
by default, enhancing course accessibility and reinforcing the university’s commitment to inclusive education. UDOIT is a more cost-effective, full-featured, and supported tool than the one it replaced, Ally. Use of the tool dramatically simplifies the process of identifying and resolving accessibility problems, ranging from identifying difficult-to-read colors to files that are not usable with screen readers. This tool empowers faculty, staff, and students to learn, create, and access content in formats that best suit their needs. With a single click, faculty can now transform inaccessible PDFs into fully tagged, accessible documents, replacing outdated versions effortlessly. ITS rolled UDOIT out this spring with video training and knowledge articles to help faculty use it efficiently and effectively.