At the beginning of the year, Susan McCahan assumed her new role as Vice-Provost for Innovations in Undergraduate Education, and over the past month or so, Prof. McCahan has begun to take an active role in many ACT projects and initiatives, including the Toolbox Renewal initiative and Course Evaluations Framework initiative. On a personal note, … Read More

At the start of the year, Prof. Elizabeth Smyth began a six month stint as Acting Director of the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation while Prof. Carol Rolheiser is on a much-deserved leave. The entire ACT team is pleased to be working with Liz, and on a personal note, I welcome the change to … Read More

Various issues related to the Portal were recently reported in The Varsity. Here’s a link to the article fyi: Out of Order: Outages, maintenance plaque Blackboard during exam season http://thevarsity.ca/2015/01/12/out-of-order/  

Good morning. I’m writing to let you know about some recent staff changes in the ACT Group. First, long-time ITS member Yvonne Heath has taken retirement. Yvonne joined ACT as part of the ICS realignment a couple of years ago. Prior to being part of ICS, Yvonne was a member of the AMS team. During … Read More

We are pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the Instructional Technology Innovation Fund. This year’s projects cover a range of disciplines and involve participants from all three campuses. Check out this year’s exciting projects: http://www.itif.utoronto.ca/ The Provost’s Instructional Technology Innovation Fund (ITIF) is a seed fund designed to catalyze initiatives that immediately and directly impact … Read More

About a month ago, our Office of the Vice-President and Provost issued new Provostial Guidelines on the Use of Digital Learning Materials in response to provincial government’s revised Tuition Fee Framework and Ancillary Fee Guidelines. Please find the Provostial Guidelines and Frequently Asked Questions guide at http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/public/pdadc/2014_to_2015/17.htm

The Academic Toolbox Renewal Initiative is now in full swing! The University of Toronto’s enterprise education technology ecosystem (our ‘Academic Technology Toolbox’) has grown organically over the past several years. At times services and solutions have been added in an ad hoc way. At other points, the University has gone through a formal acquisition process. … Read More

Earlier this month, Suzanne Stevenson, Vice Dean for Teaching & Learning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, announced the appointment of Dr. Paul Gries, from the Department of Computer Science as Decanal Liaison for Online Learning in the Office of the Dean. As the Decanal Liaison for Online Learning, Paul will liaise with faculty … Read More

We have become aware that some instructors are sharing non-UofT online resources with students, and that in a select few cases, these sites have been taken over by hackers and phishers, who nefariously use those non-UofT sites to collect information from unsuspecting students who believe the sites are legitimate learning resources assigned by instructors. Instructors … Read More

ACT is very honoured and pleased to host the latest edition of Clayton R. Wright’s massive list of educational technology and related conferences – UPDATED MAY 2014. One piece of advice – try not to print the whole thing to paper – it’s 93 pages long! If you want your own copy, we suggest printing … Read More