When you’re meeting over Zoom, there’s a variety of reasons you may need to use and share notes: collaborating with other students during an online class, working on a shared document for a group activity, taking notes and creating agendas during online meetings, and more. Now, Zoom has released a brand new feature allowing you to take notes before, during, and after meetings, as well as share and collaborate on them with other participants.
Whether you’re teaching a class or reserving a conference room for a meeting, if you’re holding a hybrid event you want it to go smoothly. Hybrid meetings are meetings with both in-person attendees as well as attendees joining over Zoom. If attendees are joining over Zoom and you would like them to speak or hear in-person attendees, you should use the room’s built-in computers.
Built-ins are computers included in iSchool conference rooms and classrooms. Some built-ins look like physical computers that can connect to projectors. Others might not be visible, but are accessible by using control panels in the room. Both kinds of built-in are designed to connect to the cameras and microphones in conference rooms and classrooms, while laptops are not. So while using your laptop to join a meeting might seem like the easier option, it can lead to audio and visual issues in the middle of a hybrid meeting.
To learn more about how to use the built-ins for specific rooms, take a look at the linked KnowledgeBase article. You can also contact the Help Desk with any questions or concerns by emailing ischool-support@illinois.edu or calling us at 217-244-4903. We can help you troubleshoot any issues using the built-ins, and can also help you set up hybrid events. Fill out the iSchool Tech Support Request Form to have Help Desk staff stop by before your event to help set up tech.
We’re back with another installment on printing! Luna might be out of order, but you can still print from the kiosk across from the Help Desk at 614 E. Daniels Street, 4th floor.
When printing at the kiosk, change the printer location to Mimas. Mimas is located down the hall in the Multipurpose Room – ask one of us at the Help Desk if you ‘re having trouble locating it.
You can also print to Mimas from Papercut, as well as to the other printers on the 4th and 5th floors and at 501 E. Daniel. To learn more about the public printers and where they live, check out this Knowledge Base page.
Last but not least, you also have the option to connect your computer to the printers to be able to print directly from your computer when you are in the building. Instructions for how to install the printers on Mac are here and PC are here! Always feel free to drop by the Help Desk if you need assistance with installing printers or have any other questions.
For more tips and guidance on printing, including troubleshooting, copying, and printing with staples, visit our page on iSchool Connect or check out the iSchool Knowledge Base.
Have you ever needed to print something and not known where to do it? Never fear! The iSchool has some printers that you can use!
Locations
We recommend using the public printers in both iSchool buildings. To learn more about the public printers and where they live, check out this Knowledge Base page.
Old iSchool Building (501 E. Daniel St.)
Optimus: in front of the Help Desk on the 2nd floor
Chip: next to the stairwell outside Room 12A on the 1st floor
New iSchool Building (614 E. Daniel St.)
Luna: in front of the Help Desk on the 4th floor (head left when you get out of the elevator to get to the Help Desk, then Luna is around the corner on your right)
Printing Cost and Quota
iSchool Masters and CAS students have $21 in printing credit per semester, and this quota may only be used on the iSchool printers. You must be currently enrolled in an iSchool course to use this budget. School faculty, staff, and PhD students are not charged for printing, although it is tracked. Both black and white and color printing cost $0.10/page. Color printing is available on Optimus (located on the 2nd floor near the Help Desk in the 501 E. Daniel St. iSchool building) as well as Luna (located on the 4th floor near the Help Desk of the 614 E. Daniel St. iSchool building).
Please note, unused printing quotas do not carry over from semester to semester. Check your printing balance on the Illinois Papercut page. Additional printing quota can be purchased on the IlliniCash website.
Undergraduate iSchool students (BSIS or BSIS+DS as their primary major) have access to printers across campus, including the ones in the iSchool. There is a printing quota of $10 per semester for fall and spring that is available for use with iSchool printers. Black and white printing and color printing cost $0.10/page until you use up your $10 quota. After you use up that $10, printing costs $0.40/page.
Please note, unused printing quotas do not carry over from semester to semester. Check your printing balance on the Illinois Papercut page. Additional printing quota can be purchased on the IlliniCash website.
Printer Installation for Your Computer
Though we do have self-service kiosks where you can log in and print from (Chip and Optimus in 501 E. Daniel St. and Luna in 614 E. Daniel St.), you also have the option to connect your computer to the printers to be able to print directly from your computer when you are in the building. Instructions for how to install the printers on Mac are here and PC are here! Always feel free to drop by the Help Desk if you need assistance with installing printers or have any other questions!
For more tips and guidance on printing, including troubleshooting, copying, and printing with staples, visit our page on iSchool Connect or check out the iSchool Knowledge Base.
Are you interested in social media outreach? Then you might want to make sure your content is accessible to as many people as possible. We’re going to discuss a few ways you can do this.
WCAG: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines can be found here, WCAG 2 Overview. This is the current standard we at the Help Desk use when writing up our own social media content and it’s one we recommend.
Social Media Accessibility: How do I make my social media content more accessible
Hyperlinks
If you want to link to something on Facebook, you have to past the full link, at which point a clickable image link will appear. Make sure there are no other forms of media on the post (i.e., graphics, polls, etc.), delete the actual link you pasted in, and make sure that the clickable image link at the bottom is still there (it should be). Now you’re ready to post. Unfortunately, Facebook does not support simplified hyperlinks (trust us, we’ve tried).
Twitter behaves similarly, but instead of deleting the initial link, you just leave the link there in its entirety and Twitter will automatically remove it upon posting while maintaining the blip. And just like Facebook, be sure to clear out any other non-text media attached to the post to ensure the clickable image link remains. Also, if your link is not accessible to viewers, a clickable image link will not appear. Is this the least obvious way to do it? Yes.
Alt Text and Captions
If you can, you’ll want to add alt text or captions to graphics. This can be difficult depending on the format of your social media platform.
For example, Facebook/Meta only allows for alt text and captions when using the Meta Business Planner. Instagram only allows for alt text and captions if you own a professional account.
Twitter posts are easy enough to add alt text to to a graphic just by selecting the “edit” option on a post’s image and then selecting “alt” above said image and entering the text you think best summarizes the image.
TL;DR
Check out the WCAG guidelines linked above for some handy tips and tricks to making your content more accessible. It can be difficult navigating the UI of some social media accounts, so be sure to poke around and do some research.
This one’s for the professors and anyone else running a Canvas course site, especially if you’re having a hard time transferring content from one semester to the other. If you follow our guide, you’ll have one less hurdle to worry about.
Rubric of original semester to next semester, and from external link to internal/course link
Links created by copy+pasting from the address bar are external links, and usually work just fine on Canvas. However, these external links will default to the course page where they were originally taken from. i.e., the course page associated with the initial link. This can complicate updates to or transferring content from those links to new Canvas Course pages for future semesters.
Links that access your Canvas Course page, and are made using the Text Editor’s “Course Links” option are internal/Course links and work better for keeping your Canvas up to date with new semesters and any alterations you might make. These internal links will not be stumped as course pages update from semester to semester.
TL;DR It’s important to use internal/Course links using the Canvas Text Editor Tool when making your Canvas Course Site. If you don’t do this, and instead take the more familiar method of copy+pasting external links from the address bar, those links will lead back to the semester they were originally made in, leaving students scratching their heads as to why the link leads to an unpublished course site that they can’t access.
LibGuides is an easy-to-use Content Management System used by thousands of libraries worldwide. Librarians and instructors use it to curate knowledge and share information by creating online Guides on any topic, subject, course, on any process, on anything.
You can use LibGuides to create subject, course, or topic guides, use as your library website, store your A-Z lists for easy reuse, create internal guides documenting workflows & procedures, create and maintain staff profile pages, LibGuides is multilingual too, and mobile and tablet-friendly.
I personally like the How-To guides for library resources. If you’re library has a program or tool you’re interested in, you might search their website for a LibGuide on how to access and use said resource. You can learn more in springshare’s tutorial here.
Here’s the UIUC Library listing of Libguides: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/?b=t
Video captions in Illinois Media Space are added in English but there may be times that you wish to add captions in another language, too. You can do this by downloading the captions file from Media Space and then paste them into Word or a similar text file to translate. Once you are done translating the captions into the desired language, go back to the video page in Media Space and click “edit” under the “Actions” heading. Click on “captions” and then select “Upload captions file.” You’ll be able to select the language of the translated captions to be added to the video. After you save the captions to the video file, users will be able to select the language of the captions when they view the video.
When you’re using Canvas to access Zoom meetings for online classes and other class materials, you may encounter some issues wherein pop-ups are blocked by your browser security settings. From browser to browser, there are different ways of fixing this issue so that you may access your Zoom meeting for an online class. The blocked Zoom meeting link pop-up is a common issue, especially when a browser is updated.
Firefox: There is a small shield icon on the left of the address bar. Clicking on this shield icon will open up a menu which you can then turn off/on “enhanced tracking protections” which, when turned off, will place a slash mark across the shield icon. In this state, you should be able to open up Zoom links from Canvas.
Alternatively, you may access more advanced security settings in Firefox from the “burger” icon to the far right of the address bar, which consists of three horizontal lines stacked atop each other. From this icon, select “settings” and “privacy & security” to clear cookies (which can often interfere with Canvas and Zoom). You may also change the level of security, lowering as necessary to allow for pop-ups. We recommend raising security again after allowing the pop-up to open and getting into Zoom. It’s a short process to drop and raise the settings and can be done easily with some practice
The shield icon on the left side of the address bar. The settings “burger” on the rightThe shield icon on Firefox once Enhanced Tracking Protection has been turned off, allowing for Zoom meeting pop-ups from Canvas. The drop down menu when the shield icon is clicked. Note the option to turn the Enhanced Tracking Protection on/off with the blue switch.
Chrome: While there is no shield icon to navigate to in Chrome, the “burger” to “settings” to “privacy & security” path is the same. The Chrome “burger” is three vertically placed dots rather than stacked horizontal lines, but otherwise, it’s a nearly identical process to lower and raise the security settings in order to open a pop-up link for a Zoom meeting in Canvas.
The Chrome browser does not have the shield icon, so the setting must be accessed through the dotted “burger” icon on the right side.
As always, if you have questions or concerns, please contact us at the iSchool Help Desk. You can reach us at (217) 244-4903 or (800) 377-1892, ischool-support@illinois.edu, or via chat at https://go.ischool.illinois.edu/TechChat. Our contact info is also on your course Canvas pages.
The desk is usually open 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM Monday – Friday. Hours may vary during finals, breaks, etc.
