Monthly Archives: October 2015

ARTstor Digital Library: A place of visual primary sources

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ARTstor is a digital library full of images for you to use for classroom instruction, especially if you want to integrate visual literacy. Its title can be a bit deceiving but ARTstor’s true focus is less about discipline and more about giving educators online access to over 1.8 million authoritative visual primary sources. You and your students will discover content from a wide range of museums, archives, libraries, and other types of cultural heritage institutions that span various time periods, movements, and cultures.

Check out what collections are available, http://www.artstor.org/collections. Some of the collections used with students doing research include:

Not only does this educational technology have visual resource collections, it allows easy integration into your online classroom environments. Some great tech features include curating groups of images sharable in Blackboard, links to share on blogs, and generate of PowerPoint presentations. Any images collected using ARTstor’s image group feature automatically live in the system so you never have to worry about losing them or your image presentation. Please be advised that ARTstor registration is required to use the tool!

If you want to learn how to use ARTstor there are a number of resources that come in various formats ranging from videos, written instructions, and in-person help. Visit the websites below or find help in at the Moriarty Library 

ARTstor Help Resources
Moriarty Library’s ARTstor Help Guide
ARTstor’s YouTube
ARTstor’s Knowledge Base

Contact a Librarian for help!
Kate Thornhill, MLIS
Research and Instruction Librarian for Digital Scholarship
Moriarty Library
617-349-8070
kthornhi@lesley.edu

Attaching Files in the myLesley Text Editor

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In this week’s exciting Agent L episode, we outwit Gremlins in the System’s (GITS) fiendish plot to prevent faculty from sharing important course files and resources.

Ben Friday: Agent L, we have an emergency!!! GITS has struck again. The Browse My Computer button has been removed from the Insert File window in the text editor. Faculty can’t upload attachments when creating their content. How are they supposed to share files with their students.

Agent L: Calm down, Ben. Show me what you’re talking about. I’m sure we can fix this.

Ben: (takes deep breath) OK. Go to the text editor anywhere in myLesley and click on the Insert File button.  

myLesley text editor

There should be three buttons including Browse My Computer which allows faculty and students to attach files from their personal computer, but now there’s only two.

browse computer button missing

Ben: How are faculty supposed to share their syllabus or study guide or readings or…

Agent L: Wait, Ben. Stop. Let’s take a closer look. What happens if we click on the Browse Course button? Hmmm… that appears to let us look through all the files already uploaded to the course. And look, there’s an Upload option.

browse course content

Ben: What does it do?

Agent L: I think it will let us upload and attach the files we want to share. I’m going to try it.upload files menu

Look I can click on Choose File and select the file I want to attach from my computer.

choose file

After l selecting my file, I click Submit to upload it to the course.  Then click Submit again to select it as the file I want to attach. Great, now I can edit the Name of the Link to File to something more reader friendly than the file name and add Alt Text for accessibility. Click Submit one more time.

edit file display info

Agent L: Voila! I’ve done it. There’s my file.

Ben: Amazing work, Agent L. That will teach  GITS not to mess with us.

Agent L: I live to outsmart GITS.

agent LLearn more about using the myLesley text editor at the Agent Support Site.  

New Online Training: Art Portfolio Reviews

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Alumni Admissions Ambassadors from across the country can now learn to review the arts portfolios of prospective students who may be interested in applying to Lesley University. Alumni Ambassadors with a background in the arts will use online, self-paced training to learn how to assess arts portfolios and to communicate with students during portfolio review events.

This new training system is being piloted this fall semester and will be used will be used by BFA and MFA alumni admissions ambassadors. This effort to extend and streamline the training process is important to the goal of enlisting more ambassadors with training and experience in the arts to assist prospective Lesley students in applying to our university.

Central to the training was the development of a set of guidelines by which to assess portfolios. These guidelines were tested by a group including recent Lesley alums and members of the Marketing Design team and updated based on their input. Trainees will learn to assess portfolios primarily by reviewing many sample portfolios and receiving automated feedback on their choices.

Arts Portfolio Guidelines Pilot Testing Event: Lunder Arts Center

Arts Portfolio Guidelines Pilot Testing Event: Lunder Arts Center

The development of this training has been a collective effort involving staff from the Alumni Recruitment, Undergraduate Admissions, and eLearning and Instructional Support departments.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about this project, please contact Liana Caffrey (Director) or Shirley Chin (Sr. Assistant Director) of the Alumni Admissions Ambassador Program: lcaffrey@lesley.edu (x8201); schin@lesley.edu (x8806).

Project Staff

Alumni Admissions Ambassador Program: Liana Caffrey, Director; Shirley Chin, Sr. Assistant Director.

Undergraduate Admissions: Erik Gullard, Assistant Director / BFA Specialist; Mike McCarthy, Assistant Director; Lauren O’Neill, Assistant Director / BFA Specialist / International Student Coordinator.

eLearning and Instructional Support: Robyn Belair, Instructional Technologist/Interface Designer; John McCormick, Director of eLearning Design; Bill Porter, Learning Technology Designer

Creating Links in myLesley

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In today’s exciting episode, Agent L defeats Gremlins in the System’s (GITS) attempt to prevent faculty and students from creating links in myLesley.

ALvsGITS

Ben Friday: Agent L, we have an emergency! GITS is preventing faculty and students from creating links in myLesley!

Agent L: How? What’s happening?

Ben: Faculty and students are pasting links to other websites in the text editor, but they aren’t turning into links. They are just plain text… and some of the links don’t look very good either.

text editor with non-clickable link

Agent L: Hmmmm… I think I know how to fix this. myLesley’s text editor has a tool to create links. It’s called the Insert/Edit Link tool.

You simply select the text you want to be a link such as the pasted link, or if you want those long links to look nicer, type a few words to define the website you are linking to and select that text just as I’ve done below.

create a link

Then click on the Insert/Edit Link tool.

Paste your copied link into the LInk Path text box.

create link settings

For Agent Extra Credit, change the Target to Open in a New Window (_blank). Websites don’t always display well in the myLesley content frame. Opening them in a new window gives them the full browser window and all the options.

Finally click Insert. You can then finish writing your post or content in the text editor. Click Submit when you are done and you will have a nice looking clickable link. Simple.

final clickable link

BenBen: Wow, Agent L! Way to outsmart GITS!

Agent L: It’s my mission, Ben.

 

agent LLearn more about using the myLesley text editor at the Agent Support Site.