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IN > OIEI > ID&S > Step-by-Step Tutorials

Faculty Support

Our group is called Instructional Design and Support (ID&S), and we are part of NAU Online. Support for faculty with teaching and learning technologies, and with effective practices for student success, inclusion, and engagement, especially online, is what our group does. We have a 3-tiered support model, and we share this support role with the Information Technology Services (ITS) help desk and with Faculty Professional Development and the Teaching and Learning Center. We also collaborate frequently with Cline Library, Disability Resources, and the Office of Academic Assessment.

    Tier I - Self-Service: Step-by-Step Tutorials, ITS Knowledge Base Articles, and Blackboard How-to Videos (available online)

    Tier II - Technical Support: Contact the Help Desk by e-mail (LMS-Faculty-Help@nau.edu), phone (928-523-3335 or 866-802-5256 toll free) or ServiceNow ticket.

    Tier III - Design Support: Consultation and Training by Instructional Designers, and support for Course Media from Creative Designers. You can reach us directly from this e-mail address: NAUOnline.Support@nau.edu. You can also find us here. We are available to meet with you via Zoom or in-person at our offices. We are located in Building 98D, Extended Campus Operations, at the south end of campus.

Tier I: We encourage instructors to start with our collection of online self-help resources, which are based on frequently asked questions, tailored to NAU tools and ways of doing things, and which are updated regularly. If you can't find what you're looking for after a few minutes, or if you get stuck, the next step is to call or email the help desk.

Tier II: The Help Desk has extended support hours including evenings, weekends, and holidays, and answers most questions immediately. If the problem cannot be answered immediately, a ServiceNow ticket is created and the work is assigned to support staff. If the problem is technical, it is usually resolved by the help desk. If the ticket relates to teaching and learning or course design, including media support, it is escalated to ID&S.

Tier III: Instructional Designers and Media Designers work one-on-one with instructors to address more complex issues related to course design, including academic integrity issues, student engagement, accessibility issues, the use of graphics and media (audio, video, animation), publisher content, course reserves from the library, development of learning outcomes, effective practices for high enrollment classes, and more. Below are links to some common support services.

Popular Services

Course Copy Request: Use this self-service form if you want to copy the content from one of your own courses to a future term, or if you want to share your content with another instructor. If you want to copy someone else's course, ask them to complete the form or, if they are unavailable, get the permission of your department chair, and request help desk support.

New Course Shell: If you need a development shell in order to start building a new course in the LMS, contact the help desk. You can build from scratch with a completely empty course shell, or use a template which has common tools and organizational structure set up in advance to help you be consistent and work faster.

Add/Remove Person: There are various roles a user can have in the LMS. However, these are designated in LOUIE/PeopleSoft, so your departmental class scheduler is the person to ask if you need to add, remove, or change the role of a person in your course. They will make the change in LOUIE and it will synchronize with Blackboard automatically when the roster updates.

Combine Sections: Consult with your department chair before requesting this service, as it can affect workload calculations and therefore salary. You have the option to combine multiple course sections into one Bb Learn shell. You can only do this before there is any student activity in any of the sections (before the course starts). Contact the help desk for assistance.

Cline Library e-Reserves Request: Cline can embed licensed content, including articles, book chapters, and videos in your course. Get your e-Reserves request in early, as they get very busy at the beginning of each term.

Course Design Request: You can reach out directly to an instructional designer using this e-mail address: NAUOnline.Support@nau.edu Here's more information about our collaborative course development process.

Publisher Integration: Start with the help desk to get the LTI-Integration set up in the LMS. If you need additional help, instructional designer support is available.

Course Media Request: Use this form to request custom course graphics, such as banners.

Accessibility Request: Use the ALLY tool to assess and enhance your course. You can request free and rapid machine captions in Kaltura. If you need very accurate captions, contact the Usable Materials Center in Disability Resources.

Course Quality Review: You can ask us to check over your course to look for clarity, typos, inconsistencies, broken links and other issues. We use a Quality Review checklist based on nationally recognized Quality Matters standards.

Training Offerings: See the Faculty Development website for live training offerings, and there are additional self-paced courses listed here.

Academic Integrity Concerns: Review our support pages on SafeAssign and Proctoring, or contact an instructional designer on our team.