How can we make Quercus better for you?
We're looking for your recommendations for expanded Quercus functionality!
Over the past year, Academic and Collaborative Technologies (ACT) has been focusing on migrating external tools (integrations) that existed in the Portal (like Turnitin). That first round of integration development is wrapping up, and ACT is looking to its divisional EdTech contacts for recommendations as to which tools should be considered for Quercus integration in round 2.
Tools that are integrated "talk to" Quercus directly, which has major benefits to you. Typically, this results in single sign-on (you log in via Quercus and have access to the tool), a grade centre tie in for assessments, and dynamic course roster updating to reflect course adds and drops. In addition to the major time saving administrative benefits, integrated tools have also passed U of T's Information Risk Management Assessment. (For more details about what you should consider BEFORE implementing EdTech, check out Avi Hyman's Blog Post, Educational Technology policies and guidelines.) But, each tool's integration is different and often requires development and testing for it to work optimally. Due to the amount of custom development required, and the time involved in assessing the security risks of each tool, we can only integrate a limited number of tools per development phase.
Our goal, as the Education Technology Office, is to find out what your major Quercus toolbox needs are, across the Faculty, and to bring these back to the central development group as FASE recommendations for the upcoming phase of Quercus Toolbox Integration Development. Several tool suggestions have already been made via the Academic Toolbox's Submit Ideas webform (and it continues to be important to submit your ideas using this official channel). However, these are usually submitted by an individual, and it is difficult to see if these requests are ones that will serve many or only a few.
This is where we need your help and input: In your opinion, what areas of the Quercus toolbox should be enhanced? Do any of the already submitted tools resonate with your needs? This survey will ask you to rank areas of tool enhancement priority and what third-party tools you're currently using in your courses. The results will be consolidated and submitted as a Faculty-wide recommendation.
