Welcome! Are you an instructor or TA that needs help and advice with online teaching tools? This page will help you get started.

Contact Us: Reach out to the Teaching Technology Support team at tts.artsci@utoronto.ca. We can set up individual consultations using MS Teams, Bb Collaborate, or by phone to help you.

Before You Start

Quercus course tips and tools for online teaching.

Webinar Tools

Host synchronous teaching activities with Bb Collaborate, Teams, or Zoom

Recording Tools

Record teaching activities for asynchronous learning.

Online Assessments

Set up online assessments in your course.

Communicating with Students

Options for communicating online with students.

Student Collaboration

Collaborative learning tools for student group work.

Considerations Before You Start

1. Get Your Quercus course ready

Are you new to Quercus? Start with our Quercus First Steps.

For instructional guides and videos, visit our Quercus Guides.

Before the beginning of each course, we recommend the following basic steps:

Make all Course Materials Available Online: Ensure all course documents and materials are linked or posted through your course site (eg. syllabus, readings, library links). You can do this in Quercus via through the Files, Pages, or Modules tools.
Enable the Course Tools you need: Some Quercus tools need to be enabled before you can access them from the course menu.
- Enable Bb Collaborate in your Quercus course if you are using it to teach live, run virtual office hours, or record a lecture.
Check your Notifications: Keep communication lines open by ensuring relevant notifications are "ON," and remind that students to keep their notifications on as well.
Check your Gradebook Settings: Understanding the grade posting policy settings will ensure you have control over the release of student grades and assessments.

2. Download productivity tools

Office365: online & desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote are available to all faculty staff and students with a valid UTORid. Download the full desktop and mobile versions of Microsoft Office apps on up to five devices by following U of T instructions.

PowerPoint - use the recording feature to record narration over your slides for asynchronous learning videos.
Teams - teach online, share content with participants, run virtual office hours, and record lectures.
OneNote - use on your own or as a whiteboard during live teaching.
OneDrive - Store your large lecture files and link to these from Quercus.

3. Consider the various webinar tools available for teaching at U of T

Decide if you will use Bb Collaborate, MS Teams Meetings, or Zoom to host live lectures, student meet-ups, and virtual office hours.

Learn more in the Webinar Tools section below.

4. Consider options for recording teaching activities for asynchronous student learning

Learn more in the Recording Tools section below.

5. Decide how to manage media files

Avoid uploading videos directly to Quercus. This will use up your 3GB course quota quickly, and is not sustainable. U of T has the following media hosting tools:

MyMedia - U of T platform for storing video and audio files that can be embedded in your Quercus course or elsewhere. No auto-captioning is available, but you can import VTT caption files for videos.
Microsoft Stream - Office 365 platform for storing videos to be shared to the U of T community. Has an auto-captioning feature.
- See: Using MS Stream to generate captions and transcripts
OneDrive - Store large or image-heavy lecture files and link to these from Quercus.
FADIS - The Federated Academic Digital Imaging System (FADIS) from U of T Libraries was designed to house high-resolution images. Images loaded into FADIS can be linked to from a Quercus course.

6. Select your teaching equipment/hardware

What pieces of equipment best suits your teaching style and needs?

Review recommendations computers, tablets, microphones, cameras, and more from the Online Learning Academy Equipment for Teaching Online page.
Ensure you have consistent connectivity for teaching on the OLA Connection & Bandwidth guide.

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Webinar Tools

For live teaching, we highly recommend using wired Internet (or very reliable wireless), a headset with a microphone, or a good quality USB microphone. However, basic built-in tools (laptop webcam and microphone) are viable options, and we recommend testing in advance.

The central Enterprise Video-conferencing & Video Meeting Resources website provides a list of U of T institutional services and key links.

Which Webinar Tool Should I Use?

The A&S Online Learning Academy (OLA) provides an excellent comparison of BB Collaborate, MS Teams, and Zoom. Please review this for in-depth information on advantages and limitations between each tool.

Webinar tool logos for Blackboard Collaborate, Zoom, and Teams

Bb Collaborate

Blackboard Collaborate is an established webinar tool that is used primarily for teaching and is integrated into Quercus. The vendor contract for this tool is due to expire in summer 2021. To get ahead of this, there is a central Information Technology Services (ITS) initiative underway to gather requirements for the procurement of the best tool as soon as possible.

Learn how to use Bb Collaborate

MS Teams

MS Teams meetings can be used for both administrative and teaching purposes. Instructors can schedule MS Teams meetings right from Quercus for students to access meeting links directly in the course. Other than this, Teams is not integrated with Quercus. Microsoft continues to update Office 365 and MS Teams features.

We recommend downloading the full Teams app for optimal experience and features.
Learn how to use MS Teams. U of T's MS Teams resource page offers training, including videos and privacy guidelines.

Zoom

U of T has arranged a one-year agreement for Zoom Education Licenses for delivering courses and meetings with up to 300 participants. Accounts are available to instructors, staff, and students at no cost.

IIT has prepared a ”Start Here” FAQ page for the U of T Zoom Education License portal roll-out. This includes links to the central Academic & Collaborative Technologies team’s comprehensive guide and FAQ . Please read this material to fully understand the new roll-out.

Access the U of T Zoom Portal: https://utoronto.zoom.us/
The A&S Zoom Guide - information on how to access, install, and set up meetings in Zoom, as well as tips for hosting secure Zoom meetings.

Hosting Secure Zoom Meetings

To strengthen security controls, we strongly recommend reviewing the following: How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Event, Best Practices for Securing Your Virtual Classroom, U of T FASE Zoom Meeting Updates (U of T login needed), Zoom Privacy and Security for Zoom Video Communications – Main Page and the Zoom BLOG for important product updates.
IIT Zoom Infographic: Visual overview of how to strengthen your meeting security settings.

**Summary of Webinar Tools**
Tool Name	What Does It Do?	How Do I Get It?	How Do I Use It?
Bb Collaborate	U of T's webinar tool is fully integrated with Quercus. Instructors can easily schedule and host sessions accessible to all students in a course. Features include: audio and video conferencing, screen-sharing, chat, "raise hand," ad-hoc polling, and the option to record sessions for students to view later (instructors control all participant settings). Capacity is up to 250 participants for a regular session, with up to 4 video screens at one time. Instructors can also turn on a "large group/webinar" session for up to 500 participants. People outside of U of T can be invited to join through a guest link. You can create online sessions with date restrictions, or use the "Course Room" for quick, ad-hoc meetings.	All instructors have access to the tool within their courses You must enable the tool first in course settings for students to access. We recommend that students participate over computer audio instead of telephone to avoid long-distance charges.	Learn how to: set up a session, record a session, and provide the recording to students. Do your students need to present in class? You can let them share their screens and files with the rest of the class by making them "Presenters" in the session.
MS Teams Meetings	MS Teams Meetings is a video conference tool that is available to all faculty, staff, and students through Office 365 (the U of T email system). Features include: audio and video conferencing, screen-sharing, chat, "raise hand," customized background, blur background, and recording (recorded meetings are automatically saved in OneDrive of the person who clicked record button. Instructors must set permissions for viewing access to students). Capacity is up to 300 participants, with 49 video screens at one time. Anyone can join via meeting link, even people outside of U of T. The Teams integration in Quercus now allows instructors to book meetings directly in their Quercus course.	We highly recommend downloading the full Microsoft Teams app using your UTORid and password. To access the web version instead, login to mail.utoronto.ca with your UTORid and password, and click the "waffle" icon to access U of T Office365 services. NOTE: Any reference to "Channels" is not available for teaching.	Learn how to set up and run Teams Meetings, and watch this helpful video introduction. Instructions to join a meeting can be shared with students. For audio issues, you can manage your settings.
Zoom	U of T has arranged a one-year agreement for a Zoom Education License for delivering courses and meetings with up to 300 participants. The license does not include add-ons such as Zoom Webinar or large class capabilities (>300) and other features which incur an additional fee from the vendor.	Instructors, staff, and students can claim their U of T account at https://utoronto.zoom.us/. Read more about Zoom Education Licenses at U of T.	For A&S information about using Zoom, see the A&S Zoom FAQ. For technical help, see our A&S Zoom Guide.

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Recording Tools

Record your lectures ahead of time to develop asynchronous teaching and learning materials. Refer to the CTSI Lecture Capture page to learn more on how to use lecture capture effectively in teaching, alternative uses, as well as potential challenges.

Tool Name

What does it do?

How do I get it?

How Do I Use It?

SnagIt

Image result for snag it

U of T's institutionally-licensed tool for lecture capture for asynchronous teaching.

You can do video and screen capture/recording in the tool itself, or edit existing video files.

When your recording is ready and saved to your computer, you can upload it to a streaming site like MyMedia or Stream and then embed the video in your Quercus course.

All faculty, staff, and students can download SnagIt using a UTORid and password.

For help, contact q.help@utoronto.ca.

Record a Video: Create a webcam recording of yourself teaching, or a capture a recording of your voice + computer screen. Note: You cannot capture your webcam and computer screen at the same time, but you can switch back and forth.
Capture or Edit Images: Take screenshots or import existing images to edit them (the "blur" feature is particularly helpful).
Edit Videos: Import an existing video file on your computer to make basic edits, such as trimming out unwanted parts.
Make a video from images (to demonstrate a process or series of steps), or create an animated GIF.

PowerPoint

Office 365 tool that can be used to record narration over your slides to be posted as a video in your Quercus course.

All faculty and staff can download Office 365 ProPlus, which includes the full desktop Microsoft Office, including PowerPoint.

Login to mail.utoronto.ca with your UTORid and password, and click the "waffle" icon to access U of T Office 365 services.

Learn how to record your PPT presentation.

PowerPoint has the added advantage speech-to-text captioning or subtitles.

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Online Assessments

For overall guidance on creating online assessment, see the Online Learning Academy guide on Assessment Methods.

Quercus has various tools for accepting student submissions online, which can then be assessed and graded by instructors and TAs. These tools can be used for assignments, tests written outside of class, and online quizzes.

The "Assign To" field can be used to manage multiple deadlines in case accommodations or extensions are needed.

Assignments:
- The Quercus Assignments tool can be used to create a drop-box for students to submit digital copies of their submissions.
- Integrated with Turnitin plagiarism tool.
- Can restrict submissions based on file types (i.e. only .pdf, .doc). See a complete list of accepted files.
- Learn how to configure your Assignments or watch the Assignments video guide.
Quizzes:
- This tool can be used for online quizzes, tests, surveys, or assignments that require time restrictions (eg.
- NOT integrated with Turnitin.
- Learn how to how to create Online Quizzes.
- Note: At this time, we recommend using the Classic Quizzes tool (versus New Quizzes) for full functionality.
Discussions (graded):
- Create a graded discussion board for students to showcase work or discuss collaboratively as part of their course assessment.
- Individual student contributions are compiled and viewed in the Speedgrader for instructors and TAs to grade and provide feedback.

Note: In order to manage the release of grades after submissions have been graded, please review the documentation on the Grade Posting Policy or watch the Grade Posting Policy video guide.

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Communicate with Students

There are multiple tools for communicating with students.

Outside of Quercus

Email: For communication to students' U of T email, you can download a list of student email addresses from your course using the UT Advanced Group Tool in Quercus. Copy the email addresses into your email client (preferably into the BCC field for privacy).
MS Teams Meetings: Hold sessions or office hours with your students. Please review the Microsoft Teams instruction page for details. The Teams integration in Quercus allows you to create meetings directly in your Quercus shell.

In Quercus

Bb Collaborate: The webinar tool integrated with Quercus. Use breakout rooms for private conversation, such as virtual office hours.
Announcements: Post messages to the entire class when there is no need for a reply. This pushes an email notification to students (as long as they haven't turned off their Quercus notifications).
Inbox: built-in messaging tool to send messages from Quercus to students' Quercus Inbox. This also pushes an email notification to students (as long as they haven't turned off their Quercus notifications).

Quercus navigation bar with comminication tools highlighted - announcements, advanced group tool, discussions, inbox

4. Discussions

Use for asynchronous back-and-forth communication. This is also where most student-to-student communication takes place in Quercus, and it can be used to showcase student work.
The Quercus Discussions tool can be used as a forum for students to ask questions 24/7 and wait for responses from their instructors, TAs or other students.
The Discussions tool needs to be enabled for students to access it.
Discussions can be organized by theme or topic or you can leave a section for general questions in an open forum.
Please review the documentation on creating and managing online Discussions or watch the Discussions video guide.

Online Discussions Interface

5. Video Messages

In addition to the tools above, you can create "on-the-fly" videos using the Rich Content Editor (available in any Quercus tool with a text editor). This tool can easily help you create video or audio-only content.

Media Recording RCE.png

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Student Collaboration

For small group student discussion or group work, students have options for both live/synchronous or asynchronous activities.

Synchronous Collaboration

Bb Collaborate:

Every course has an existing Course Room that is open for students to use at any time, as long it hasn't been locked.
- Set the Default Attendee Role as either Presenter or Moderator, so they can use all of tools, such as screen sharing.
To create more than one space for students, set up separate webinar rooms, and create one for each group (label as "Group 1", "Group 2", etc). Note that nothing would prevent students from entering the wrong room.
- Set the end dates as "No end (open session)" if you want students to be able to reuse the room any time.
- Set the Default Attendee Role as either Presenter or Moderator, so they can use all of tools, such as screen sharing.
Breakout Groups: For small group discussion during a larger group meeting, instructors can create up to 20 ad-hoc breakout groups.

Bb Collaborate Interface

Zoom:

Students have access to a U of T Zoom account (https://utoronto.zoom.us/), and are able to set up meetings themselves.
Breakout Rooms: For small group discussion during a larger group meeting, instructors can create breakout rooms either in advance or during the meeting.

MS Teams Meetings

Instructors can generate meeting links from within the rich content editor in Quercus (available in Announcements and Discussions), and all students in the course can click the meeting link to join.
Students have access to MS Teams, but they cannot search for each other in the U of T email directory to set up meetings with each other. They would need to share email addresses with each other to set up meetings. Alternatively, anyone can create a meeting, invite only themself, and paste the meeting link for anyone to join.
Breakout Rooms: Newly released feature in Jan 2021 - still testing and have experienced some issues. We advise to use Teams or Bb Collaborate breakout rooms.

Asynchronous Collaboration

Quercus Groups

Students can be assigned to groups in a Quercus course, allowing for group assignments and group discussions.
Please review the instructions for creating groups or the UT Advanced Group Tool.
Once assigned to a group, students have access to an individual workspace called a Group Homepage that includes tools to post discussions, announcements, files, and wiki pages for sharing with the group. The newly added Collaborations tool allows students to work together on shared OneDrive documents.

Please note: Group homepages are an extension of a course and may need to be monitored by course staff. To access the group homepages, go to the People tool, select a group set, then click the group options (3 dots menu) to Visit Group Homepage (see image below).

How to Visit a Group Homepage

Group Home Page Access.png

OneDrive for Document Collaboration

This tool can be used to share and collaborate on documents in real-time with version control.
- Note: Sharing can be managed to limit access to documents for specific users, users at the institution, or anyone with a link.