[Campus Notice] Spring 2023 Slack & Canvas Pilot - Participant Invitation

[UCR Information Technology Solutions]

Dear Instructors,

Information Technology Solutions (ITS) recently announced
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH3FqB5ymco&t=140s> the purchase of Slack
Enterprise Grid for campus. As part of this campus-wide offering, ITS and
XCITE have partnered to integrate Slack with Canvas.

We seek your participation in a limited Spring 2023 quarter pilot of the
Canvas and Slack integration, in advance of a larger campus
deployment.

Participating instructors will utilize Canvas to create an automated Slack
instance for a course that can be used to facilitate communication, foster
collaboration, and build community. The goal is to receive feedback from
instructors about their experience using Slack to supplement or facilitate
instruction, to gauge what adjustments should be made prior to a
campus-wide rollout, and what support may be needed to make the deployment
successful.

Space for the pilot is limited, so if this is something you are interested
in please submit the following form by 10AM, this Friday, March 24th, and
XCITE will be in touch with next steps:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/112VRXJgieLANUx4U54YAs1K0MMuEdDpmf0c_4TmhLj0/edit


More About the Slack and Canvas Integration (Coursebot)

Slack is a channel-based messaging platform that will soon be available to
everyone on campus at no cost to the user.

While Slack allows colleagues and collaborators to connect, increasingly,
instructors are finding value incorporating Slack into their courses to
better engage with students. Messaging platforms are familiar to students
and can augment course communication. Coursebot works to seamlessly
integrate your Canvas course with Slack. As a result, you can use Slack to:

   -

   Notify students and TAs in real-time (e.g., send urgent announcements or
   assignment reminders)
   -

   Interact with students and TAs asynchronously, including scheduling
   messages
   -

   Create topic-based channels for discussions, pinning important
   information to the top
   -

   Create private channels for student group work and/or course staff
   collaboration
   -

   Conduct virtual office hours
   -

   Easily search a channel’s history to find previously communicated
   information
   -

   Break through the cacophony of email with individual notification
   preferences


Campus-wide deployment of Coursebot is currently planned for fall 2023,
while deployment of the Slack Enterprise Grid for general campus use is
planned for spring 2023. ITS will share more information about this launch
and how to use Slack in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we encourage you
to participate in the pilot to familiarize yourself with and provide
feedback on this new campus tool.

Thank you,

Mike Kennedy

Chief Technology Officer

Information Technology Solutions

Israel Fletes

Director, Teaching and Learning Initiatives

XCITE, Center for Teaching and Learning



*Please Note: This email account is not monitored by ITS staff. If you
require technical support, please take one of the following actions:*

   - Visit the ITS website at its.ucr.edu to find self-help articles,
   submit and track support tickets, request IT services, and more.
   - For live support, you can contact the BearHelp helpdesk during normal
   business hours (M-F, 8am-5pm) at 951-827-4848
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