1 Enhance the student experience
In 2021-22, the pandemic once again changed how students wanted to learn. Desiring safety, but also the opportunity to connect in person, students shifted from mostly remote learning to flexible, hybrid environments. As the desire for flexibility is expected to continue, we invested in technology to give all students equal and convenient access to education - regardless of where learning occurs.
Highlights of how ICT enhanced the student experience over the past year included completing the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) implementation and securing strategic funding to improve Wi-Fi in the classroom.
CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY
125 wireless access points added to improve Wi-Fi in 118 classrooms
According to a 2021 Educause survey, students prefer multiple online options, for pedagogical activities ranging from study guides and class/lecture notes, to recorded lectures.
ONLINE TEACHING AND LEARNING SUPPORT
Canvas LMS Statistics
Active students in Canvas
20% Fall YoY increase
6% Winter YoY increase
Active courses in Canvas
73% Fall YoY increase
25% Winter YoY increase
Canvas channel in PAWS
>90,000 times each week Canvas is accessed through PAWS
According to Educause, “students sang the praises and benefits of the recorded lecture for the flexibility of scheduling that it offered (especially under pandemic conditions) and the ability to review lecture materials whenever, wherever, and for however long they might need. And… recorded lectures are critical to providing students with disabilities online access to needed materials and resources.”
RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY
Our comprehensive Relationship Management System (RMS) improved the university’s engagement with prospective students, supporting:
5% increase
in processed domestic applications for the past year
7% increase
in processing international applications for the past year
Pilot Project
with college of A+S to implement automatic decision processing, has resulted in significant time and dollar savings
1484
new applications from email recruiting using the RMS
Indigenous student enrollment support
Using RMS recruit, we were able to prioritize applications from students who self-identify as Indigenous and needed a quick decision to apply for band funding. We helped over 300 students receive quick responses.
“So, it was good, it was quick, it’s like okay so I accept the offer, and then no sooner than I accept the offer I have the welcome letter, my student ID, my NSID, my email, I had all that information, right there, so that I’m able to submit that to my sponsor.”
– student quote
2 Empower Creative Learning
More instructors than ever before are choosing to assess students’ knowledge in alternative ways. In a hybrid learning environment, technology is required to support these new ways of teaching. From providing press books for open book development to supporting online international collaborative learning, ICT empowered creative learning.
Over the past year, we evolved our ecosystem of technologies to enable hybrid, innovative teaching and learning.
LEARNING TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEM
We partnered with the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning and DEU to launch the Learning Technology Ecosystem Toolkit. The site provides easy access to the tools the USask community uses to create, deliver, manage and analyze learning content.
30+ academic tools were added in 21/22
VIDEO
Panopto gives instructors and students simple and easy-to-use tools to record, edit, manage and distribute video content.
1,136,778 hours of video were viewed by students during asynchronous learning in the past year.
VIRTUAL LABS
Utilizing Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop, we built a more flexible virtual lab ecosystem that will allow for a better hybrid computer lab environment for the university.
New Remote Computer Lab service was soft-launched early in 2022, with great feedback from instructors and students!
"Asynchronous learning [is the best use of technology in my course]. I have a backup in case my technology isn’t working or accessible during class time. Being able to work on assignments before, after, or during class makes it very accessible for any student."
The Educause survey revealed that “a large number of students discussed how remote access to specialized software (e.g., GIS, SPSS, CAD) really made a difference in their learning experiences".
According to Educause, “students sang the praises and benefits of the recorded lecture for the flexibility of scheduling that it offered (especially under pandemic conditions) and the ability to review lecture materials whenever, wherever, and for however long they might need. And… recorded lectures are critical to providing students with disabilities online access to needed materials and resources.”
3 Enable Research Success
Over the past year, we partnered with the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) and the Global Institute for Water Security (GIWS) to expand our agile and responsive technology infrastructure for research. With the deployment and expansion of Copernicus, we provided high performance storage and supercomputing capacity so researchers could tackle problems bigger than they could on their own. This project also allowed us to expand our storage service for research, Datastore, for all researchers on campus.
USASK RESEARCH SUPPORT
Faculty, staff, and Student researchers assisted
Scientific apps available
CFI grant consutations
ICT AND PHYSICS RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP
Balancing the unique research requirements of the Physics department with the need for IT security, a comprehensive security plan was developed that allowed the research groups to have the freedom to do the work they need to do while still protecting the rest of the campus network.
"Ensuring program delivery to rural and remote communities is an important part of my role...the only reliable tool that I have used this last year has been Zoom."
- Web and videoconferencing stakeholder
COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGIES
To support the university’s needs for boundless collaboration, ICT expanded the technical infrastructure to enable more flexible collaboration opportunities. Over the past year, we completed our transition from WebEx to Zoom; provided more access to collaboration tools in Microsoft Office 365; and improved our hybrid work spaces.
Microsoft
Teams
8520 active users
9M teams chats per year
26M video call minutes per year
Added new features including breakout rooms and polling
Microsoft
Outlook
~500k emails received/day
~60k emails sent/day
Microsoft
OneDrive
46 million files stored
Zoom
Web and videoconferencing
ICT consulted >1000 staff, faculty, students and researchers to understand their needs for web and videoconferencing. Zoom is our new technology provider.
Zoom usage statistics
+160K meeting participants per month
+22K meeting participants per month
+10M meeting minutes per month
Hybrid meeting room technology
40 meeting rooms updated with webcams and microphones to enable hybrid meetings.
4 Support Institutional Excellence
Technology to enable strategic decision making
To “be the university the world needs” senior leaders need tools and data to enable strategic decision making. ICT has been working on data governance as the basis for data informed decision making. In the past year we provided self-service analytics that allow campus leaders to explore the nuance behind the numbers.
ANALYTICS / BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
ICT provided Microsoft PowerBI to give decision makers access to rich interactive data visualizations.
"During 2021, the ICT team led the creation of a dashboard that shows where programs are enabling parity in participation, retention, and achievements between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. This dashboard will help inform planning of activities by colleges, schools, and support services. The parity dashboard is a systems level tool that is potentially unique nationally."
- Dr. Airini - Provost and VP Academic
NEW PUBLIC REPORTING SITE
We launched a new public reporting site to provide greater transparency into university activity through the public reporting website.
- Peter Stoicheff, USask President
GOOGLE ANALYTICS AND WEB SUPPORT
At USask, our virtual front door is always open. And now we understand our 6 million web visitors needs thanks to the cohesive approach to analytics our digital team developed last year. Staff now have data at their fingertips to evolve content in support of institutional priorities.
43M pageviews
6.1M total visitors
66% of users from outside of Saskatchewan
33,756 student applications
17,115 job applications
30,356 shop.usask.ca purchases
1,243 online donations