What is ETAC and what do we do? | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

by Jennifer Peters, ETAC Chair

in the December 2019 issue

The Educational Technology Advisory Committee (ETAC) is a standing committee of Seneca’s Academic College Council. It provides regular reports and receives feedback from the Council on matters pertaining to the use of technology to enhance student learning and Seneca’s Digital Learning Strategy.

Members include multiple faculty from different schools and programs, as well as representatives from across the college (Counselling and Accessibility Services, ITS, the Teaching & Learning Centre, and the Seneca Student Federation).

Our monthly meetings consist of discussing educational technology use at Seneca for teaching and learning, identifying issues with current strategies, contributing to workflows and guideline documents, and reviewing software.

ETAC Project Updates:

ETAC Website
Launched on November 18, the   is a hub of information for educational technology at the college and includes

• A catalogue of educational technology tools popular among faculty at Seneca. The catalogue will provide examples of their use, tips and lessons learned, and any access information, if applicable
• A process for you to submit a request for the college to invest in a tool
• Information about the committee and any initiatives

Framework for Selecting Educational Technology
The committee was tasked to develop a framework that could guide our investment in technology tools. There are vast amounts of tools available, so a process that will help us to decide what is best for our teaching and learning is useful. This Framework includes seven scenarios for educational technology use and you will see much of the framework if you submit a request through our new website.

The framework also references

• Quick Guide to Secure Handling of Confidential Student Information for Faculty Using Online Learning Tools (in collaboration with the Privacy Officer)
• Pre-check for requestors when selecting educational technology

Faculty are welcome to use the guide and reflection tools to evaluate their approach to using educational technology tools in their courses.

Open Educational Resources Sub-Committee
The Seneca OER Committee was formed in 2017. Since then, we have developed an Open Educational Resources guide for faculty, facilitated two rounds of open text grants, and advocated for open educational resources across the colleges and in the college community provincially. Current initiatives include the following:

2019-2020 Grants for Adapted Open Texts:
Faculty received a grant to adapt an existing open text. Completed texts are currently being piloted in multiple courses.

• Melissa Warner and Nadia Bedok: Organizational Behaviour
• Michael Wade: Introduction to Business; Introduction to Business (including Marketing)
• Mary Drane and Hamid Faramarzi (forthcoming in Jan. 2020): Operations Management

Additional Open Text Pilots
Faculty across the college are also working to adapt and adopt open texts into their courses outside of the grants:

• Tom Bartsiokas: Communication at Work
• In multiple courses in FAAHS: Anatomy and Physiology
• Chadwick Hanna: Mastering Strategic Management (for NMP703)

User Experience Assessment

• The Teaching & Learning Centre is conducting a user experience survey with many students and faculty about their perceptions of the above open texts in their class. Results will be posted to the Teaching & Learning Centre website in Winter 2020.

Adobe Creative Cloud
We are currently in year two of having Adobe Creative Cloud licenses for all full-time students and employees. Seneca is also the first Canadian Adobe Creative Campus. From the home page of the project,

“Seneca has joined the ranks of world-renowned institutions like Berkeley and PennState as the first Adobe Creative Campus in Canada. The selection was based on:

• commitment to digital literacy in strategic goals and student outcomes
• integration of Creative Cloud into cross-disciplinary curricula
• interest in collaborating and sharing content and best practices”

More information on access for full-time students and employees is available on ITS's website.

Over the past year, the Teaching & Learning Centre facilitated 42 workshops for faculty including Adobe Spark, Premiere Rush, Photoshop, and Portfolio. They co-facilitated an Adobe Creative Jam for Faculty in February 2019 (the first time Adobe has run a Creative Jam designed for faculty) and will hold a second Adobe Creative Jam for Employees in February 2020. They are also leading the Creative Spaces research project where they investigate using Adobe programs for creating teaching materials and for student assessments.

The library’s Sandbox provided 32 workshops for students in Adobe Spark and Premiere Rush.

View the December 2019 issue of the Academic Newsletter.