Test Security - We have had a number of instructors ask us about test security, and we also know that a lot of your schools already have programs for proctoring and browser lockdown. As such, we are not adding our own options for proctoring and lockdown (and be forced to charge for it accordingly), but rather we are providing more tools to make exporting our tests to load into your campus LMS easier. Directions to export a test created with Macmillan Learning Test Bank into your LMS are here .  In addition, each of the individual digital products that we offer have tools to help with test security. You can read through those options here . And we had a very useful  webinar with Eric Chiang where he reviewed ideas for test security.  Lastly, we have moved most of our test banks to the Macmillan Learning Test Bank, accessible only only to a verified instructor. With this system you can: Create paper or online tests that you can export to your LMS using your web browser; Drag and drop questions to create tests; Create and edit your own questions and edit publisher-created question sets. Learn more here:  https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/article/Getting-Started-with-the-Macmillan-Learning-Test-Bank .   Engaging Students - We know that one of the biggest concerns if you end up moving to a fully or partially online class is keeping students engaged. While each of our products have active aspects, we are proud to offer the market's leading student engagement solution, iClicker. Our attendance feature automates taking roll, then you can choose from flexible polling & quizzing options to engage, check understanding and get feedback from students in real time. Best of all, iClicker works seamlessly with your existing content and any other software or tools you'd like to use in your virtual, hybrid or in-person class. We also have great webinars on fostering student curiosity and engaging students online that I’d recommend.    Volume / Load - We anticipate that many more instructors are likely to try digital solutions for their students as classes are moving to hybrid or fully online options this fall. As such, we have been planning for a large uptick in student usage and making adjustments to our servers accordingly. We feel very good about our preparedness for a significant increase in student users in all of our platforms.    Instructor Training on Digital Products - We are anticipating that a lot more instructors are going to be in need of training with more digital product usage and with changing class formats. Beyond our standard training options, including time with our Learning Solutions team and our self-help documentation , we are also doing intensive training with our entire team so we have more people available to train you. In addition, there are help guides within the products and we have a group of Faculty Consultants (colleagues) who are also available to help. For this to be successful, however, we request that you don’t wait until the day or two before classes start before you request training. 🙂     Professional Development - Throughout the spring and summer, we conducted a wide variety of webinars with a number of our fabulous authors and customers and we recorded all of those webinars. You can find all the recordings here , and they cover both general teaching tips (Online Teaching, Inclusive Teaching) as well as tips for particular disciplines or products. Check out the options!    Student Training on Digital Products - We will continue to add to and refine our First Day of Class Materials for students for you to send to students or use on the first day of class so they know what you are asking them to do online, why, and how to get started.    Customer Support - Our fantastic customer support team stands at the ready to help you and your students with any issues that may arise. You can find the team (as well as a variety of help articles) online here: https://macmillan.force.com/macmillanlearning/s/   ... View more

The team has been working hard on improvements to LaunchPad this year. A lot of the changes are ‘behind the scenes’ like security improvements and changes to how LaunchPad works for visually impaired users working with JAWS, but a few to highlight are: We just released some student onboarding changes that adds a "Purchase Access" and "Enter A Code" button to the top of the LaunchPad course if a user has less than 30 days of access remaining. This is designed to make life (and purchasing) easier for students using Trial Access.  To further help with student onboarding, we increased character limit of the LaunchPad school name field so institutions with a very long name won’t be truncated, making it easier for students to find their school.  We removed the Flash Player from the LaunchPad System Check since a) we have very little Flash content in LP anymore and b) Flash is going away, as you know.  The "Zero score for unsubmitted" Gradebook Preference is now disabled by default for copied/branched course. This prevents the issue where an instructor creates a copy or branch of an existing course but doesn’t update the due dates and then when students enroll in the course, they automatically receive a zero for all past due assignments. ... View more

Macmillan Learning has a Faculty Consultant program that might work for you.       The Faculty Consultants talk about how they implement our products in their classes . They can speak about how our products actually work in real classes with live students.   They can talk about how LaunchPad changed their class or what students think of Sapling or how they included Achieve Read & Practice into their syllabus or how they use iClicker to engage students. So if you are  thinking about using LaunchPad, we can connect you to another faculty member to learn more about what they  use in LaunchPad and why they like it. Or if you aren't sure how Sapling would fit into your program, you can talk to an Faculty Consultant about their experience with Sapling.  Or if you want to know if Achieve  Read & Practice really works, you can talk to a peer about the benefits of R&P. Lastly, if you want to know anything about iClicker--active learning activities, grading best practices, or benefits of the student app & remotes--our Advocates are prepared to help out!   If you want to learn more, just comment on this post and we'll be in touch!      ... View more

Did you know that you can integrate iClicker into your LaunchPad or SaplingPlus course to keep all your grades in one place? And that you can use iClicker for attendance? With iClicker, us e GPS technology to ensure that students are attending class. No more attendance codes that can be easily shared via text! Learn more or sign up for a demonstration. ... View more

As you start to prep for your next round of classes, don't forget that we have syllabus inserts and presentation decks for you to use to help students get registered with Achieve, LaunchPad, and Sapling.    Please view the following presentation slides and download the attached syllabus inserts, input your course information, and share them with your students prior to your first day of class. You can post them in your learning management system, e-mail them, or print them out to distribute in class. If you want to make any changes to the presentation slides, go to File > Make a copy and edit the copy you create. Good luck and let us know if you have any questions as you start up classes!  ... View more

As of today, the LaunchPads for Gunn’s Speech Craft , O’Hair’s A Speaker’s Guidebook 7e, and O’Hair’s Real Communication 4e have a new video assessment program . We know that the best way for students to improve their public speaking skills is to give a speech and then watch themselves giving the speech with accompanying feedback--and this new assessment program makes that process so much easier!   So why did we do this and what do you and your students gain with this change?   The new assessment option will allow you to do the following:     Instructors and students can record directly into the assignment. Instructors can add comments and fill out rubrics in the assignment during live speeches and load directly into students’ assignments, all simultaneously . When students finish giving a speech, instructors are done recording and assessing . And since the video and feedback is all in one place for students to reference for learning and improvement, the feedback loop is complete . The program is simple to use with superior commenting, recording, and rubric assessment features. Features include: Powerful feedback Multiple comment delivery options for rich feedback. Comments are side-by-side with the video. Instructors and students can submit text comments or post audio, video, documents, or images as feedback. Visual markers that map the plusses and minuses of the speech. Easy-to-set-up markers make it possible for instructors and students to call out key issues or positive points of the video. You can track every “um,” every speech citation, every use of eye contact, and students will see these markers mapped visually against their speech video. Descriptive rubrics and publisher-provided rubrics that provide crystal-clear assessment . The rubrics in the new program provides more than just a number score for each criteria; they will now include written information on what each score means, i.e. what a 1 means, what a 2 means, etc. Instructors can create and edit their own rubrics, or they can use or edit ours. Real-time feedback Instructors can record each student’s speech directly into the assignment and assess it live while the student is giving the speech. Students can see their video powerfully, paired with instructor feedback immediately. When the speech is done, the instructor is done with their assessment. Because the grading work of the class is done at the end of the class hour, instructors get their lives back. Mobile device-friendly: Through iOS/Android apps that will go live later in the spring, video can be recorded on a mobile device and loaded directly into an assignment. This is a huge improvement over LaunchPad. Live streaming: Instructors who teach online public speaking classes bemoan the fact that students miss out on the live experience of giving a speech. With our new video assessment program, online speech classes can live-stream their speech video while the instructor and class assesses it in the moment. We will be adding this to new LaunchPads as they release, going forward. If you have any questions about this exciting new part of LaunchPad, let us know! (And check out all the instructor directions here, to get started today!) ... View more

It is disheartening to know how many students don't realize that their LaunchPad includes the ebook--and we wanted to help fix that. So with the newer LaunchPads, we added an Orientation Quiz to help students better understand how to use LaunchPad. There is a short video to watch and a series of quiz questions so students know how to find assignments, reach out to tech support, locate their ebook, see their grades, and more. You can assign this to your class at the start of the semester to make your life, and your students' lives, easier.  If your LaunchPad starts with a Welcome unit, open that up for the Getting Started Quiz that you can quickly and easily assign.  Let us know what you think about this--and if you have any suggestions for improving this, we'd like to know that as well. And if your LaunchPad doesn't include this quiz to start, you can easily add it using these directions. Have fun!  ... View more

So the end of the semester is around the corner...and then the next round of classes will start up shortly.  What should you do to make it all go smoothly? Prepare now!  Check out information on reviewing, changing or exporting grades for fall, as well as creating and activating new courses for spring. And don’t forget to sign up for training to make sure you have all the information you need to make the next semester even better!  Let us know if you have any questions—and have a great rest of the term! ... View more

As of today, 70 LaunchPad titles have the link to the new ebook under the Help Menu. We wanted to give students the opportunity to access the mobile-optimized and accessible ebook, as well as give offline access. (You can look to see if your book has this functionality.)  So how does this work in LaunchPad? Go to HELP in the upper right of your course. You will see the option for “Download Offline eBook.” Click on that. (If you don't see that option, then your book doesn't have this functionality, unfortunately.)    You will then to go to a new log in page. Enter in your email address to create an account. That will then opened the book on your bookshelf: Then, if you want to do the app, you need to download the “Macmillan Learning eBook” app and use those same credentials that you just created, to log in and see the book on your device. If you go to another LaunchPad course that has the offline ebook, simply enter in your existing username and password, and you will then see that additional book appear on your bookshelf. (You will not need to create another account.) For more information, directions, and visuals, check out the article in the support community.  ... View more

The recent LaunchPad release had a number of items in it, but there are three items that I’m particularly excited about:  help links to the new support community, a ccess expiration information in the roster, and p asscode protected quizzes. For support, we have a new Support Community for ALL our digital products (which hopefully you know about already). The support links in the entire LaunchPad family of products were re-set and now go to this new support community. Check it out! For the roster, in any LaunchPad course, an instructor can go to the Instructor Console - Roster & Groups, and now see all of their students along with the accurate Access Expiration Information. This will be especially useful in the first few weeks of classes, when students are using temporary access, to remind them to purchase full access.  For quizzes, instructors now have the option to add a passcode (not a password, since that requires more stringent policies like letters, numbers, symbols, etc) to a particular quiz to limit student access to that quiz. How does this passcode setting work? As an instructor, go to an existing quiz, or create a new quiz. On the settings page, you will now see the option for a passcode (see below). That code will be visible to the instructor as they type in the word/number combo. (The passcode has to be 8-20 characters with at least one capital letter and one number, but it can’t include special characters.) After the instructor saves those settings, when the student goes to take the quiz that has a passcode set, they will have to input the passcode in order to gain access to the assignment. They can not get in without the passcode, nor will the system shut them out after x number of attempts. Caveats: Once the instructor has used the passcode option, they can’t use the option to “allow save and continue” as well. In addition, at the moment, the passcode can only be used for the entire class; coming soon, the instructor will be able to adjust the passcode for groups or individuals. Let us know what you think of this, as I know I'm excited about these improvements in functionality. ... View more

One of the forms of assessment in LaunchPad is called "Data Connections" and is built differently than some of the other measures like LearningCurve and Quizzing. Data Connections has more of an integrative and essay aspect with regard to how it presents itself to students. In this way, it creates a place where students have some free choice in what kind of content they want to look at and how they respond to the assessment prompt. Below, I am using a Data Connections activity from the LaunchPad system on human growth and development. This one is listed as "Common Genetic Diseases and Conditions" - clicking on it will bring up a new window. This particular Data Connections has 4 pages to it. In the screenshot below you will see how Data Connections presents an opening page that introduces the topic.  Clicking on the "Get Started" button at the bottom brings up the interactive table that I have highlighted in yellow below. The student is able to click through the table and learn about each of these different genetic diseases and conditions. Personally, I like having information presented in this way as it allows for the student to become more personally invested in exploring the content provided - contrast this to just reading something in a textbook. While the latter isn't non-educational, having the material appear in a way that is different, I think, helps to capture the student's attention and thereby, hopefully, fosters retention. On the next page, in the following screenshot, the student is prompted to enter a short essay on the previous information that was just presented to them. Unique to Data Connections is how the student's response is very wide open, allowing them to select from a wide range of possibilities as to how they want to show what they learned.  As an important note, being an instructor, you will want to be sure to go back and review the grade for this activity. Data Connections provides a tentative full-credit grade after the student has submitted an answer. As a result, a review by the instructor ensures that the student is learning the concepts and ideas that are required by the course.  Finally, the last page of Data Connections will let the student know that their work has been submitted. It will also provide a list of references that can be referenced on a term paper or used by the student for further learning.  Data Connections, a unique form of assessment in LaunchPad, has the benefit of providing the student with a broad range of possibilities of how to respond and demonstrate their knowledge. It does this through presenting the material interactivity and by using essay questions as a way to gauge the student's progress. Data Connections is another feature unique to the LaunchPad learning system. ... View more

I got my assignment for teaching courses next semester. I’m teaching four sections of a course that I have not taught in two years: the research essay. I’ve composed my themes (two, because I’m an overachiever): Conservation and the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, two of my research and teaching loves. This next semester is particularly rough because right now I’m teaching the course just before the research paper course, and those students who choose to take my course again are going to call me on my every move and complain that I “did that last semester.” I need to shake things up, and LaunchPad can help with this. When I was teaching at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, two librarians, Vicky Lebbin and Dave Brier, taught a 50-minute class to first-year composition students on the research question. In that workshop, they asked students to draw (artistically) their research question or thesis (depending). The theory, Dave explained to me, is that if the student can’t draw it, it isn’t concrete or specific enough.  I’m taking that one step further and having them storyboard their research essay. A storyboard is frequently used in the film industry as a planning tool to describe or demonstrate a television episode or film. It is also used in larger graphic novels. These storyboards set the tone for what is to come. Unlike the film storyboards, however, the storyboards I assign are not complex and not drawn or pasted on some type of sturdy material. They do, however, serve the same function.  I will have students post up their storyboards on LaunchPad in Powerpoint form, allowing other students to view them. Viewing other people’s work helps students to increase their self-efficacy because viewing success in others can lead to a student saying, “I can do that!” In the way I’m describing, the storyboard acts as an outline to the research essay. The PowerPoint slides can be arranged any way a student wants, allowing a student to play with organizing an essay in different forms, giving him or her the opportunity to branch out of tried and true ways (think five-paragraph essay, which while having its place, really won’t work for every type of writing students will encounter while in college). Having peers review the storyboard helps a student to refine what he or she wants to present to a reader and provide him or her with yet another tool to help piece together a fully fleshed-out idea of what that final research product will look like. Yet another benefit to the storyboard is that a student can then self-identify what areas of the essay need more support or to tighten the focus and to eliminate some sections of the proposed essay altogether. One of the things that I love about LaunchPad is that I can use it as an archival database. If I start to notice trends or want to check to see if a method or modality works, everything is contained in one place. I can go back to test my theory to see if it has merit. Because I teach using multimodality and digital tools, my students ultimately benefit from LaunchPad, too. Through the use of LaunchPad to upload the assignments on to a discussion post, the students then have an archive to turn to, to view different ideas of presenting material--it’s another tool in the proverbial toolbox, and it’s a tool with many examples. Keeping the storyboards in one place also allows me to demonstrate previous successes to a new group of students every semester that I teach this course. I can access previous courses easily and quickly through LaunchPad’s dashboard, and those storyboards I show to students can create a new generation of storyboards that are even better than when I first created this assignment. For me, having easy access to digital assignments is helpful in multiple ways. College freshmen need to see successful examples, and LaunchPad can provide me with the digital archive that helps me to not only teach courses, but to keep previous assignments, refine those assignments, and ultimately (if I choose to go down this route) to write a publication on the assignments and trends that I’ve noticed. It all adds up to a more robust classroom that I can access any time to help me design, refine, and demonstrate. ... View more

When we first released LaunchPad, one thing we would always talk about are the 'curated units'. For Macmillan, this means that within each chapter of the book (and ebook), we select or create high quality resources that go with that chapter and appear within the unit structure. Those resources might be LearningCurve quizzes or videos or multi-media activities, depending on the book or LaunchPad in question. With just a few clicks, you can assign all of these resources for the chapter at once, trusting that the curator has done just what you would do in your class. Now that LaunchPad has been out for a while, we know that not everyone wants to use these units. We survey students and instructors at the end of every semester and at the end of the Fall 2015 semester, 35% of instructors told us that they don't use the pre-built units, but rather create their course from scratch. Depending on how your course is organized and which assets you want to use, this makes a lot of sense for some people. So how would you do this? It's very easy! First go to the Instructor Console and then click on General, Navigation, and LaunchPad Settings. Then select LaunchPad from the menu on the left and you will see the option to "Remove these units from your course?" Once the units have been removed, you can then go and create your own units (maybe you organize by week or module or topic, instead of chapter) and then you can go to the resources and add in just the items you want (maybe you just want the ebook and LearningCurve or maybe you just want the video assignments you've created). In this way, you can completely customize the course the way you want to. And don't worry, if you remove those units, you can always add them back in by going back to the same spot and select "Add these units to your course." For more detailed instructions, check out the online user guide or talk to one of our Digital Solutions Specialists to find out which approach makes sense for your course. ... View more

Just because we've been talking about it recently, I wanted to give you a little insight into what our team can tell about peak and non-peak usage. We know that Thursday nights and Sunday nights are popular nights for students to do work in LaunchPad. Friday nights and Saturday mornings--not so much. Because we have this information, we can gauge the time when maintenance to LaunchPad will cause the least disruption. As you know, there is never a time where we can cause no disruption; someone is always working in LaunchPad. But by looking at our data, like the graph below which shows two consecutive Saturdays (in blue and orange), we do our best to find the time that is least annoying to do maintenance, for students and instructors, from four U.S. time zones, working in and teaching with LaunchPad. ... View more

Welcome to Help Yourself! A new blog by me, Lynette Ledoux, Senior Manager of Self-Help. Please use the comments to dig in! I was recently dismayed to hear from one of our top technical support agents that most of the instructors he speaks to don’t know that we have a large collection of help articles and videos that one can access through the Help menu in one’s LaunchPad title, not to mention through our Macmillan Learning Web site or by direct URL pasted into, say, an email from a sales representative. Hearing my disappointment, the agent assured me that, when he points out the help site to instructors, they respond positively and are excited to have a searchable repository at their fingertips. My question for you, then, is “Did you know?” And if not, why not? Is the Help menu not obvious, or maybe it’s uninspiring? Have you thought of clicking on it? Have you needed to click on it? For those of you who have used the self-help resources we provide, what did you think of them? Did you find what you were looking for? Were the resources adequate? Would you like to see more or different things? I want our Self-Help experience to be as easy and satisfying as reaching for another helping of your favorite dish. It’s right there in front you. All you have to do is spin the lazy Susan and grab a spoon. ... View more

As we begin 2016, we want to make sure you are all ready for classes. So just a reminder of a few things: If we asked you to make a NEW course for January (not copy), then please be sure to do that. If you copied your course from the fall, make sure you update your assignment due dates before you activate your course. If you need a refresher on LaunchPad, check out our training resources. If you need First Day of Class tools (slides or documents), check out the resources on our FDOC page. If you have any questions, just let us know. And Happy New Year! ... View more

After a rigorous analysis of customer support tickets, conversations with our field sales personnel and digital support specialists, and extensive interviews and testing with students and instructors (users and non-users), we decided to focus on the following areas for LaunchPad improvements for Fall 2015: onboarding, assignment journey, and video assignment tools. Onboarding: Improvements to the eCommerce flow, so that students can more quickly buy direct access to LaunchPad Due to student feedback, changing references to temp access to "free trial access" Adding student messaging that clarifies when a user's free trial access will expire, so if I'm a student and I have free trial access, each day that I log in to the product, I'll see a counter at the top of LaunchPad saying 20 days, 19 days, 18 days, etc. Moving the system check from the login screen to the eCommerce screen - this system check on the LaunchPad sign in page was distracting users from logging into our product and was a frequent tech support complaint Assignment Journey: Expanding the clickable area in the assignment list to make loading an assignment easier Allowing instructors to set the student view of letter/point/percent grade or any combination thereof Removing the marketing banner from interior pages of the product (welcome page, dashboard, home page) Video Assignment Tool Instructors can create video assignments requiring that students have to upload or embed their own videos Instructors can create video assignments requiring that students add time-based comments on videos For disciplines with a video library, instructors can create video assignments requiring that students add time-based comments on publisher-supplied videos Instructors can use rubrics to grade video assignments You can learn more here: What is a Video Assignment? | LaunchPad Instructor's Manual | Macmillan Media for Instructors  Let us know what you think of these changes! ... View more