New for 2025, the Course Merchant storefront provides a professional and user-friendly experience for the Brightspace Engage platform. Available to all URI departments and colleges, the combination of Course Merchant and Engage will allow students to easily search for available classes and submit payment. At the same time, these students’ Engage accounts will be created automatically, and they will be enrolled directly in their course, reducing administrative burdens on URI staff.

Engage is specifically designed for professional development, training, and non-credit bearing classes offered to the general public. To learn more, and discover what Engage can offer you, please reach out to the the IT Teaching and Learning Services team for a consult.

On the third floor of the Memorial Union, a formerly quiet office has become a bustling hub of activity. Thanks to the collaboration of departments across the University, and an enthusiastic and dedicated group of students, Room 317 is now home to the Rhody eLab.

The space features 5 high performance gaming gaming stations, a growing catalog of games to play, and is URI’s first dedicated esports space. It it open to all students following the completion of a Code of Conduct, and more information can be found at our website: https://web.uri.edu/rhody-esports/elab/.

For more information, or if you’re interested in collaborating, please contact us at: rhodyesportscoalition@etal.uri.edu.

Image for eSports with Rams playing games on computers

After 42 years of dedicated service, Janie is retiring from her service at URI. She has served in a variety of roles in the IT department throughout her career at URI. She began her work as part of the Academic Computer Center in 1982, supporting programming and modeling software, research and external clients on the Prime minicomputer. She earned her URI MBA amidst the arrival of microcomputers and personal digital assistants. Janie was part of the original Help Desk pilot in Tyler prior to it becoming funded and growing into today’s IT Service Desk in the Library. She also ran the original Apple Higher Education Purchase Program on campus prior to it transferring to the URI Bookstore.

Photo of Janie Palm, ITS

Starting in 1997 she served as Manager of Instructional Technology and Media Services, supporting technology solutions for remote and in-classroom teaching and learning and diverse multimedia production facilities. She contributed to learning space design efforts and oversaw the project implementation for electronic access and installed presentation capability in general assignment classrooms. One significant result of the long-term collaborative efforts of IT, Enrollment Services, Capital Planning, Capital Projects and Custodial during this time is the Joint Classroom Steering Committee. In 2019 Janie joined the newly created IT Teaching and Learning Services team, focusing on faculty support for EdTech, the learning management software, as well as applications that foster collaborative and accessible learning.

Over the years, Janie has served on countless University committees and working groups, and embraced the URI community as a family. She has been directly involved with dozens of grants, including writing, review and implementation. She has represented URI beyond the campus through conference presentations at EDUCAUSE and NERCOMP, CCUMC committee service, serving as our NERCOMP institutional representative, and maintaining connections with peers at regional schools, even coordinating the hosting of the Boston Prime Users Group conference at the Kingston campus one summer. She is well known on campus for her compassion and expertise, and her dedication to supporting students, faculty, and staff have made an enduring impact on the URI community.

We will miss her dearly, and wish her well in her retirement pursuits. 

Congratulations on a remarkable career! 

Faculty Portrait

Peter Phipps

Peter Phipps is a part-time faculty member in the Journalism department with 45 years of experience as a reporter, columnist, and senior editor for Providence Journal, Akron Beacon Journal, and Cleveland Press. He has taught Journalism for about 20 years at Emerson and URI.

Image with logos for Mentimeter, Google Docs and Brightspace learning management system

Introduction

Peter Phipps brings decades of journalism experience to URI’s classrooms, where he teaches a variety of courses including Media Law, History of Journalism, Introduction to Mass Communications, News Writing and Reporting, and Journalism and Criticism. When faced with the challenge of engaging 245 students—140 of them freshmen—in his Introduction to Mass Communications course, Peter recognized that traditional teaching methods wouldn’t suffice. He sought out digital tools that could help him manage such a large class while maintaining student engagement and facilitating meaningful group work.

Throughout his teaching experience, Peter has come to understand a fundamental truth: no matter what tool or professor is involved, student engagement ultimately depends on students’ willingness to participate. This realization led him to develop a multi-faceted approach using three key digital tools: Mentimeter for real-time engagement, Brightspace for course management, and Google Docs for collaborative work.

Mentimeter it’s free for students with lots of polling options, word cloud, multiple-choice questions, etc.

Peter Phipps

Is Mentimeter free?

Yes! Free users can create unlimited presentations with any question type and host up to 50 participants per month. To exceed 50 participants, an account upgrade is required.

Teaching Tool Usage

Before implementing digital tools, Peter had reached out to TLS on several occasions for tools and resources that he could use. He had found their consultation to be helpful in pursuit of which tools URI has as well as support/training for the various functionalities of these tools. This guidance helped him in developing strategies for managing his large class size.

Within the course, Peter structured his 75-minute classes into three carefully planned segments: 35 minutes of lecture, 25 minutes of polling activities and discussion, and 15 minutes for quizzes. To facilitate this structure, he implemented Mentimeter as his primary engagement tool, using it independently of slideshow presentations to conduct real-time polls and create word clouds. While the tool proved effective during periods of high attendance, its inability to track attendance became a significant limitation in a class where he knew only 10 of 245 student names.

The backbone of his course organization relied on Brightspace, where he divided his 245 students into 45 groups. This experience taught him valuable lessons about group dynamics in large classes. Initially creating groups of 5-6 students, he discovered this size was too large for effective collaboration. Through trial and error, he determined that three students per group would be ideal, though this would create the logistical challenge of managing 82 groups.

To facilitate collaborative work, Peter initially used Brightspace’s Locker feature but later transitioned to Google Docs. This platform provided students with more space and flexibility to organize their research and data. Each group designated one member as their document organizer, creating a clear structure for their collaborative work. However, the transition between platforms revealed communication challenges, as some students missed the announcement and continued using Brightspace Locker, resulting in temporary grading complications.

How do my students join a presentation using Mentimeter?

No installation is needed. Students can join by entering the code at menti.com, scanning the QR code, or using the voting link. They can vote directly from their smartphone or internet device.

Screenshot image for word cloud from Mentimeter

Sample Word Cloud from Mentimeter

Student Experience & Feedback

The implementation of these digital tools revealed several crucial insights about managing large classes. Student participation demonstrated a clear correlation with physical presence, as attendance dropped dramatically from 240 to 80 to 11 students over time. This decline significantly impacted the effectiveness of interactive tools like Mentimeter. Despite these challenges, some groups showed remarkable engagement with the material. One group particularly stood out by pursuing an academic investigation into the relationship between screen time and eye strain, demonstrating the potential for meaningful research even in a large introductory course.

How to create your first Mentimeter Presentation?

Resources

Mentimeter – A free online polling tool used to create interactive engagement and shape teaching approaches.

Brightspace Groups – Learning management system used for grading and organizing class groups.

Google Docs – Collaborative platform used by groups to collect research data.

View More Faculty Success Stories >>

 

 

In today’s digital education landscape, creating engaging and interactive learning materials is no longer optional—it’s essential. Lumi Education, a platform dedicated to simplifying the creation of interactive content, is helping educators, trainers, and content creators transform their teaching approaches. 

Lumi Education is one of the H5P, or HTML5 Package, editors available to create activities that allow faculty to develop a variety of interactive content for their Brightspace courses. This includes matching games, branching scenarios, and more.

Lumi Logo

Among Lumi’s many options, the Hotspot content type stands out as an innovative way to make visual content interactive and dynamic.

Here’s a closer look at Lumi Education’s Hotspot content type and how it can enhance your teaching or training materials.

Lumi Platforms

Lumi offers two main platforms for creating and managing interactive content: the Lumi Desktop application and Lumi Cloud. Both have their advantages and understanding the difference can help you choose the best option for your needs.

Lumi Desktop refers to their free downloadable app that allows users to create, edit content, and save files to their computer, while the Lumi Cloud refers to an online version of the editor that is accessed through a web browser with options of a free or paid plan.

What Is the Hotspot Content Type?

The Hotspot content type allows you to take any image and make it an interactive learning experience just by adding clickable spots that will expand and provide more information. It’s an excellent tool for creating visually engaging content that keeps learners actively involved.

Why Use Hotspot Activities?

Enhance Visual Learning
Visual aids are powerful tools in education, and the Hotspot content type makes them even more impactful. By adding interactivity, static images become rich educational experiences. Learners are encouraged to explore details, leading to deeper understanding and retention of information.

Foster Engagement
In traditional learning, students often passively consume information. With hotspots, they actively participate by exploring and interacting with the content. This approach helps keep learners engaged and motivated to dive deeper into the material.

Versatile Applications
Whether you’re teaching geography, anatomy, or art history, the hotspot feature can adapt to any subject. Highlight key landmarks on a map, label body parts, or analyze famous artworks—all with a single tool.

Learn About Berries – Sample Hotspot Content from H5P.com

Key Features

Customizable Hotspots: Place hotspots anywhere on your image, linking them to explanations, videos, external resources, or quiz questions.

Interactive Feedback: Build hotspots into activities that provide instant feedback. Whether it’s identifying landmarks on a map or labeling parts of a diagram, learners get real-time validation or correction.

Responsive Design: Hotspot activities are optimized for all devices, ensuring a seamless experience for learners on desktops, tablets, or smartphones.

Versatile Media Options:Incorporate text, images, videos, and links within hotspots, offering diverse ways to communicate information and appeal to different learning styles.

Creating Hotspots Activities with Lumi

Lumi makes it simple to create your own hotspot content using their free H5P Desktop Editor or the Lumi Cloud platform. Here’s a quick overview:

  1. Choose an Image: Select a high-quality image relevant to your lesson or topic.
  2. Add Hotspots: Use the intuitive editor to place hotspots on specific areas of the image.
  3. Insert Content: Link each hotspot to rich media such as text explanations, videos, or quizzes.
  4. Test and Share: Preview your activity to ensure it’s functioning as intended, then share it with learners via a web link or embed it in your LMS.

Need help exporting Lumi content as a SCORM package?

Check out the comprehensive guide from TLS: SCORM Export Guide.

Real-Life Applications of Hotspot Content

  • Geography Classes: Highlight countries or regions on a map with additional facts about each location.
  • Language Learning: Label items in a room or vocabulary-specific images to help learners build their lexicon.
  • Science Labs: Create interactive diagrams of cells, organs, or ecosystems.
  • Art and History: Analyze artworks or artifacts by embedding information about techniques, context, or artist biographies.

More real-life hotspot examples: https://h5p.org/image-hotspots#example=63175 

Conclusion

The Hotspot content type is a game-changer for educators who want to move beyond traditional teaching methods. Lumi Education makes it easy to create, customize, and share these engaging activities, helping learners stay interested and retain knowledge more effectively.

In today’s classrooms, the availability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is impacting learning—it is a time of raising questions as AI provides a variety of options and insights. AI tools can now assist students in writing, problem-solving, and research; offering new levels of convenience and access. But, while these tools can be helpful, they also bring challenges. As educators, it’s crucial to not just introduce AI, but to cultivate an environment of critical thinking that balances both caution and curiosity, all the while empowering students to ask: What might be missing? Can I trust this output? and What does it mean to use AI responsibly?

Critical thinking has long been a cornerstone of higher education and intellectual development. In an AI-enabled world, students need to learn to go beyond using these tools; they need to understand how to generate insights through verifying information, as well as understanding the possibilities and limits of technology.

Photo depicting a group of students viewing screen together with AI background theme

When students engage in critical thinking with AI, they’re better prepared to:

  • Think creatively and independently: Critical thinking encourages students to consider multiple perspectives and solutions, rather than simply relying on AI-generated answers. This independence nurtures innovation and personal insight.
  • Distinguish fact from fabrication: While AI can generate vast amounts of text, not everything it produces is accurate. Encouraging students to fact-check and cross-reference helps cultivate a healthy skepticism.
  • Challenge assumptions: AI often reflects only its training data. By guiding students to analyze the sources (including question potential biases) and recognize how assumptions shape information, it can help foster critical thinking.

Key areas to explore in AI’s limitations include:

  • Accuracy and Misinformation: AI produces results based on patterns in data rather than true understanding. Students may mistake plausible-sounding, yet incorrect information, for fact, undermining their knowledge and learning integrity.
  • Data-Driven Biases: AI systems inherit biases from the data used to train them, potentially perpetuating skewed perspectives. Encouraging students to question these biases nurtures an awareness of how assumptions shape content, fostering a more discerning, balanced view of information.
  • Risks to Independent Thought: Over-relying on AI can hinder a student’s own critical thinking skills. While AI might offer shortcuts, true learning often comes from grappling with complexity, not from accepting easy answers.

Ultimately, while AI may seem to provide quick solutions, it cannot replace critical thinking. Many AI-generated responses appear confident and well-formatted, however although outputs may: miss nuance, need detailed fact checking, or reflect underlying biases from source materials. Approaching AI materials with critical thinking can help students in recognizing these pitfalls and develop habits of inquiry that can prevent them from adopting AI’s suggestions without expert review.

As an institution of higher education, we have the ability to foster a mindset of inquiry. Consider the following strategies to help students and ourselves engage thoughtfully and critically with AI:

  1. Encourage Source Verification: Just as we ask students to cite sources in their own work, we can guide them to question AI sources and verify AI-generated content. This practice reinforces the importance of credible information and builds a habit of checking facts.
  2. Examine AI’s Limitations Together: Bring AI-generated outputs into class discussions; exploring where they succeed and where they fall short. This exercise helps students recognize that AI’s “knowledge” is limited, often lacking the context, depth, and human judgment necessary for complex analysis.
  3. Practice “Spot the Error” Activities: Regularly review AI outputs in class to identify inaccuracies, ethical concerns, or biases. This approach not only develops a critical eye, but reinforces the idea that AI should be questioned and evaluated, and not just passively accepted.
  4. Engage in Ethical Dialogues: The ethics of AI use extend beyond academic integrity, it also includes privacy issues and potential societal impacts. Encouraging students to reflect on these implications fosters a responsible mindset, helping them consider the broader impact of their technology use.
Image with campus scene and text for critical thinking and AI

While AI tools can provide new educational possibilities, there’s value in asking when to use AI. Asking the question of whether AI truly serves the learning objectives of the course and assignment. Some lessons may be better learned by working through challenges without automated assistance, promoting creativity, resilience, and deep, independent analysis. However, by selectively incorporating AI, educators can help students appreciate it as a tool that, while powerful, doesn’t replace the need for human insight and critical judgment.

Encouraging thoughtful reflection with a little skeptism toward AI helps students maintain their intellectual independence. Rather than seeing AI as a replacement for their own reasoning, they’ll learn to use it as a complement to their critical thinking. This balanced approach supports a learning environment where technology is seen as a helpful aid but not an unquestionable authority.

In an AI-enhanced world, it’s more important than ever to cultivate critical thinking and intellectual independence in students. Through a balanced approach—one that blends curiosity with caution —we can empower students to use AI responsibly and thoughtfully. Let’s encourage our students to ask questions, challenge outputs, and think critically so that, no matter where technology advances, they are equipped with critical thinking, curiosity, and insight.

 

As educators, understanding how students engage with course materials is key to creating meaningful learning experiences. Learning analytics provides instructors a powerful toolset to collect and analyze data on student engagement, providing actionable insights that can help tailor teaching strategies and improve student outcomes. In Brightspace, various built-in tools allow instructors to track student progress, identify engagement trends, and assess the effectiveness of course materials.

Banner image for learner analytics

What is Learning Analytics?

According to the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), learning analytics is “the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.” Learning analytics involves the collection and analysis of data about learners and their educational experiences. It focuses on using this data to understand and optimize both the learning outcomes and the environment in which learning takes place.

Learning Analytics Tools in Brightspace

Brightspace provides a variety of analytics tools that give instructors a comprehensive view of student engagement. These tools help faculty understand how students interact with assignments, discussions, quizzes, and more.

Click on the screenshots for sample data

Screenshot for Content Progress
Screenshot for Class Progress
Learning analytics screenshot for Quiz data
  • Class Progress: This tool provides a customizable dashboard that allows you to monitor both class-wide and individual student progress across a variety of metrics, such as assignments, discussions, quizzes, and content access. You can select up to four metrics from a list of seven, including assignment performance, content completion, discussion participation, and quiz performance. This feature gives you a high-level view of student activity and enables you to intervene when needed.
  • Content Reports: Content reports provide insights into how students interact with course materials. You can view data on how many students have accessed specific content items, how often they visit them, and how much time they spend viewing them. This helps you determine which materials are most engaging and which may need adjustment.
  • Quiz Statistics: Brightspace’s quiz statistics give a detailed breakdown of quiz performance, allowing you to see class averages, standard deviations, and individual student results. You can also dive deeper into individual quiz questions to understand how students are performing on specific topics.
  • Discussion Statistics: Track student activity in discussion forums with Brightspace’s discussion statistics. This tool provides data on overall discussion participation, individual student contributions, and activity within specific forums or topics, helping you gauge how students engage with each other and the course material.
  • Gradebook Statistics: Gradebook statistics offer a detailed view of student performance in different grade items or categories. You can filter the data by sections or individual users to get a clear picture of how students are progressing in the course.
  • Custom Reports and Intelligent Agents: Brightspace also allows you to create custom reports through Intelligent Agents, which are triggered based on specific conditions like assignment scores or login activity. For example, if a student scores below a certain threshold on a quiz, the Intelligent Agent can automatically send them extra resources or schedule a follow-up to help them catch up.

How Learning Analytics Improves Teaching

By using these analytics tools, instructors gain valuable insights into student engagement and can make informed decisions about how to improve their courses. Here are some ways learning analytics can enhance your teaching:

  • Identify Strengths and Weaknesses: Analytics tools allow you to see which assignments, quizzes, or content sections are resonating with students and which ones may need refinement. By identifying these patterns, you can adjust your teaching approach or course materials to better support learning.
  • Monitor Engagement Levels: These tools make it easier to pinpoint where students are engaged or disengaged. If a particular discussion topic or quiz isn’t receiving enough attention, you can explore ways to make it more interactive or provide additional support.
  • Provide Personalized Support: With real-time data on student performance and engagement, you can offer targeted interventions for students who may be falling behind or struggling with specific topics. This can be as simple as sending additional resources or setting up one-on-one meetings to discuss challenges.
  • Optimize Course Design: Regularly reviewing learning analytics helps you refine your course design based on actual student behavior. If a large portion of the class consistently struggles with a particular topic or assignment, you can modify the structure to make the material more accessible.

Conclusion

Brightspace’s learning analytics tools give instructors the data they need to make informed decisions that improve student engagement and outcomes. By using these tools, faculty can move beyond basic assessments and get a real-time view of how students are interacting with the course. This enables educators to provide more personalized support, refine course materials, and create a more effective and inclusive learning environment.

For detailed how-to steps in Brightspace, please check out this guide. For more information on how to leverage Brightspace’s learning analytics, reach out to the IT Teaching and Learning Services team at its.uri.edu/tls or attend one of our upcoming training sessions.

Major Upgrade to UNITY HPC/AI Infrastructure

We are excited to announce that ITS Research Computing / URI Center for Computational Research is increasing the URI computational resources in UNITY by over 50%. This $500K+ investment was made possible through our federal grant. Details on the hardware being added — 1,000 CPU-cores: 16, 64-core CPU nodes that are identical to our current nodes in the uri-cpu partition; 24 AI GPUs: 4 nodes with 4 Nvidia L40S GPUs each, 2 nodes with 4 Nvidia H100 GPU nodes.

As educational technology becomes more prevalent in the classroom, collaboration and communication between IT subject matter experts and Faculty is more important than it has ever been. To help facilitate these interactions, IT Teaching and Learning Services, in collaboration with the IT Governance Committee, founded the Educational Technology Advisory Council (ETAC) in October 2023.

ETAC is an interdisciplinary group of URI faculty and IT experts who meet monthly to provide guidance on matters related to Brightspace and other technologies. It seeks to build a bridge between technology users and technology experts so that the entire URI community is better served.  

Some ongoing areas of focus include the review of new Brightspace Integrations and requests for system changes.   For the latest information, please visit our website, https://its.uri.edu/tls/educational-technology-advisory-council-etac/.

Options to create interactive and engaging digital content at URI are expanding…Sign up for pilots starting soon.

Three female students working together on their computers.

‘Interactive’ and ‘engage’ are two hot topics in higher education, and rightly so. They address the neurodiverse needs and active learning our students need. But there seem to be so many choices.
Camtasia has been available at URI for a number of years. It offers a user friendly interface with the capability to manipulate and augment videos utilizing features such as area blurring, musical overlays and pop up messages in your videos.

A few more robust content creation programs the IT TLS department is recruiting faculty for participants include:

Lumi Education – Building digital interactive elearning resources and use a SCORM package in your brightspace course for automatic grading. Click and drag words into fill in the blank paragraphs, create picture sequencing, and use a SCORM package in your brightspace course for automatic grading.

Student interacting with virtual molecules

 

Softchalk – Build digital case studies, content and assessments with this powerful content creation tool. This tool allows for custom designs and building your content for creativity; the limits are mostly your imagination. Use a SCORM package in your brightspace course to enable the interactivity of the created content. We are recruiting and working on a training for opportunities later this semester.

 

TLS department is also recruiting faculty in the following Pilot Program: Digital posters or projects by students – work with our team and your students to explore creation of digital posters for interactive presentations through apps such as Canva or Prezi. ****Submit your interest for the pilots by submitting a ticket to ask for more information and a consultation about joining a pilot.