News Bulletin

By now, you should be able to access your Blackboard courses for editing, but if not, get in touch with us or your course administration team. If you’re looking for some guidance on setting up your course, we have information that covers refining your course’s structure to best meet the needs of your students, through to reviewing your assessment information.

Visit our Quick Checks pages and SOY Rollover Checklist for help, and if you have any questions, get in touch with the team today.

Following increased expressions of interest at the recent FBMH teaching and learning symposium, we’re pleased to share news of some new training dates for the above courses. These sessions will give you hand-on, practical experience in using the tools in your teaching and learning delivery. The upcoming training dates are:

– Mentimeter: 25/09 (in-person session) and 20/11 (online)
– Nearpod: 30/10 (in-person session)
– Camtasia: 11/12 (in-person session)

Each of the above courses can be booked via our central training page, where you’ll also find a range of asynchronous training materials to work through in your own time.

Cadmus training, delivered by Cadmus representatives, is also now available to book. Each session will guide you through the process of setting up an assessment, through to releasing it to students and marking. To book on to these online sessions, visit the university training catalogue.

As you might expect, we’re fielding lots of questions from faculty staff relating to the implementation of Canvas in September 2025. We’ve picked out a couple of frequently asked questions below, and summarised the answers for you as concisely as possible. If you’re interested in reading more, take a look at the central digital learning environment webpage.

Submit your Canvas-related questions to the eLearning Team today, and we’ll provide you with an answer in due course. We’ll also include frequently asked questions and their answers in our monthly bulletin to ensure everyone stays informed

Q: I’ve signed up for early access – when will this happen?

A: The project team will be in a position to grant early access requests following technical release 1, planned for this month. Those who have requested early access will be contacted by the team once this is ready.

Q: What will Canvas training look like?

A: While the specific details of training are still being coordinated by faculty implementation groups, the working plan is that staff will have access to both asynchronous training materials via an introductory Canvas course, as well as online help pages, and dedicated in-person training sessions delivered by your eLearning etam.

Q: Are we expected to manually transfer all of our teaching content from Blackboard to Canvas?

A: In short, no. K16 Solutions (a third-party data migration company) are currently working with UoM colleagues to devise a process to transfer the relevant content of each course to a holding-space in Canvas. Once that process has been finalised, colleagues will be advised of the steps that they need to take.

In recent weeks, we released a short series of videos covering some of our favourite things about the new Canvas system. From the calendar tool, through to modules and Canvas Studio, these short videos give you a taste of what you’ll be able to work with once the time to build your courses comes around.

To watch the videos, head over to the Canvas 5 Things page.

AppsAnywhere is a central software portal for accessing teaching and learning applications, now available on all university PC clusters. It automatically launches at startup and functions like a digital ‘app store,’ enabling students to stream apps from the cloud, rather than having to locate a specific PC containing their software. Further information can be found on the dedicated IT services webpage. Please note that support for AppsAnywhere is provided by IT Services rather then eLearning, and as such, any queries should be directed towards IT Services.

SEAtS is the university’s new tool for logging student attendance, launching for the start of the 2024/25 academic year. At the start of timetabled, on-campus sessions, the SEAtS system allows teaching staff to generate a time-limited code that students can use to ‘check’ in to the session via the dedicated mobile app. Alternatively, the system can be used to generate a digital register for smaller face-to-face sessions. For more information, and for support, visit the SEAtS sharepoint site. Again, please note that support for this tool comes from central IT services rather than eLearning teams. Please direct any queries to the following email address: engagementanalytics@manchester.ac.uk