At ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ, the answer has been: curiosity, collaboration, and a lot of thoughtful questions.

As generative AI tools become increasingly common in higher education, many staff members are wondering how these tools fit into their day-to-day work. Some are eager to experiment. Others are cautious. Most are somewhere in between – curious, but unsure where to begin.

That’s where AI Dips comes in.

Hosted by the Computer & Information Services (CIS) department, AI Dips is an informal, bi-weekly series designed to give staff a low-pressure space to explore AI topics together. The idea is simple: take a small “dip” into a focused AI concept or tool, share experiences, and leave with something practical to try.

And so far, it’s working.

A Small Dip Into AI

Each AI Dip session starts with a quick lightning presentation.

Past lightning presentations have included topics like introductions to NotebookLM, Nano Banana Pro, Suno, Copilot agents, Gemini Gems, and tips for writing effective prompts. After the presentation, the conversation opens up: participants ask questions, share experiments, compare notes, and sometimes discover entirely new use cases from colleagues across campus.

The sessions are intentionally lightweight, approachable, and easy to join, no prior experience required.

Why We Started

When AI tools began showing up everywhere, from email drafting to meeting summaries to brainstorming assistants, it became clear that staff needed opportunities to learn together.

AI can feel exciting, overwhelming, useful, confusing… sometimes all at once.

Rather than offering one-time training or formal workshops, CIS wanted to create something more conversational and sustainable: a recurring space where staff could explore questions like:

• What can AI actually help me with?
• What are the risks?
• How do I use these tools responsibly?
• What are other departments doing?

AI Dips gives staff a place to ask those questions openly and learn from one another.

From Summer Curiosity to Year-Round Conversation

AI Dips grew out of another CIS initiative: Summer of Curiosity: AI.

Launched in Summer 2025, Summer of Curiosity: AI was a weekly 90-minute professional development series focused on collaborative learning and experimentation. Sessions featured presentations, peer sharing, and guided exploration of tools and best practices.

To keep the momentum going between meetings, participants connected through Google Chat and Google Classroom, creating an ongoing learning community of 22 staff members across academic support, administration, and IT.

AI Dips became a natural next step: shorter, more frequent sessions that fit easily into the rhythm of the academic year.

What We’re Learning

One of the most exciting parts of AI Dips has been seeing how quickly curiosity spreads.

A few lessons have stood out so far:

Consistency builds confidence.
Regular conversations make AI feel less intimidating.

Peer learning works.
Some of the most valuable insights come from hearing how colleagues are using AI in their own roles.

Small experiments matter.
Trying one prompt or one tool in a low-stakes environment can open the door to bigger ideas.

The conversation is bigger than the tools.
Questions about ethics, privacy, and responsible use are part of the discussion.

What’s Next?

As AI tools evolve, so will the conversations. Future sessions may explore emerging technologies, policy implications, and new ways AI can support teaching, learning, and administrative work at ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ.

For now, AI Dips remains what it was meant to be from the start: a small, approachable space for big ideas.

Sometimes all it takes is one small dip.

—
Academic and Research Computing Services (ARCS)
ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ

Welcome to the ARCS blog. This first post is a practical overview of the research computing resources available to the HMC community, along with a preview of a new on-campus service coming online this summer.

If you’ve run into long runtimes, memory limits, or hardware constraints on your laptop, this is meant to help you figure out what comes next.

A useful way to think about this is through the Hardware Ladder (credit to Paul Nerenberg at CMC). On the ladder, research computing resources span a set of “rungs,” from personal machines up to national supercomputers. Each step up provides more capability, but also introduces more complexity in how you access and use the system.

Working effectively means knowing which rung fits your workload, and how to move between them as your needs change. That’s where ARCS can help.

The Hardware Ladder at a Glance

Each rung increases available compute resources, but also changes how the system is accessed and used. The table below summarizes the structure.

Each rung is suited to a different class of workload. Moving up the ladder provides more capability, but typically requires more planning, coordination, and familiarity with the system.

Rung 1 — Your Laptop

Most projects begin on a personal machine. Laptops are well-suited for development, prototyping, small datasets, and early-stage analysis. The environment is fully controlled, iteration is fast, and there is no shared infrastructure to manage.

Common signs that a workload has outgrown a laptop include long runtimes, memory limitations, datasets that exceed local storage, or the need for hardware such as GPUs that are not available locally. When these constraints become routine, it is usually time to move to the next rung.

Rung 2 — A Single-Node Server or VM

Rung 2 provides a step up in resources without introducing the full complexity of a shared cluster. This typically includes more memory, more CPU cores, persistent environments, and remote access via SSH.

At HMC, this layer has historically consisted of departmental or faculty-managed systems (for example, Knuth and Teapot in CS, Hyper in Math, and Gandalf and Galadriel in Chemistry). While effective, these resources are not uniformly available across departments.

Project Iris is designed to provide a consistent, institution-wide version of this rung.

Project Iris: an institution-wide Rung 2

Project Iris is an on-campus HPC service being deployed by ARCS. It provides access to virtual machines on shared HMC-managed hardware for both research and instructional use.

System overview. The initial node includes two AMD EPYC 9965 CPUs (384 cores total), 3 TB of RAM, 60 TB of NVMe storage, and an NVIDIA RTX 4500 Blackwell GPU (32 GB). It will be housed in the McGregor Data Center, with capacity to expand to additional nodes over time.

A GPU-focused second node is planned but has been deferred due to current hardware pricing. The deployment strategy is phased: establish the service, support initial users, and expand based on demonstrated demand.

Why virtual machines? Iris uses Proxmox to deliver compute resources as virtual machines rather than shared user accounts on a single system. Each VM functions as an independent environment.

This model provides:

• Custom software environments. Each VM can be configured independently for specific research or instructional needs.
• Isolation between users. Changes within one VM do not affect others.
• Flexible resource allocation. CPU, memory, and storage are assigned per VM based on workload requirements.

Usage models: At launch, Iris supports three primary use cases:

1. Student exploration VM. Students can request access to a shared VM without being part of a research group. This provides a low-friction entry point for learning and experimentation.
2. Rivendell replacement VM. A modern environment for Chemistry workloads currently running on Gandalf and Galadriel, with a planned transition period.
3. Faculty VM leasing. Dedicated VMs for research groups, with resources sized to the project. Faculty can also contribute hardware or funding to support expansion.

Iris is co-administered by ARCS, with support from central IT. A request form will be available soon; early interest is welcome.

Iris as a development environment. VMs provide a controlled space to develop and test workflows before scaling. Once a workload’s requirements are understood, it can be moved to larger systems such as Hopper, Laguna, or ACCESS as needed.

Rung 3 — Hopper (CMC Consortial Cluster)

Hopper is a SLURM-managed cluster hosted at Claremont McKenna College. It provides a traditional shared-cluster environment with job scheduling, environment modules, and support for parallel workloads.

Hopper is appropriate for workloads that exceed the capabilities of a single machine, including multi-node jobs, large-scale parallel processing, and GPU-based computation. Access is currently limited to research use and is coordinated through account requests.

Rung 4 — Laguna (USC CARC Regional Cluster)

Laguna, operated by USC’s Center for Advanced Research Computing, is a regional cluster available to institutions across Southern California, including HMC. Access is PI-based and uses a compute-hour credit model.

A distinguishing feature of Laguna is its web-based interface (OnDemand), which provides browser-based access to shell environments, file systems, job submission, and interactive tools such as JupyterLab and RStudio.

Faculty can request access as PIs, and students typically access the system through a faculty allocation.

Rung 5 — ACCESS (National Supercomputers)

At the top of the ladder is ACCESS, the NSF-supported network of national computing resources. These systems provide large-scale compute, specialized hardware, and infrastructure for advanced research workloads.

ACCESS uses a credit-based allocation model. Projects apply for allocations, which can range from small exploratory requests to larger, proposal-based awards.

ARCS can assist with selecting appropriate resources, preparing allocation requests, and onboarding to specific systems.

A Natural Path Up the Ladder

A typical progression through these resources might look like:

1. Start on a laptop. Develop and test the workflow.
2. Move to an Iris VM. Address limitations in memory, runtime, or storage and refine the environment.
3. Transition to larger systems. Use Hopper, Laguna, or ACCESS depending on the scale and requirements of the workload.

Not all projects follow this exact path, but the ladder provides a useful framework for making these decisions.

How ARCS Can Help

ARCS provides support across all stages of this process, including:

• Identifying appropriate resources for a given workload
• Assisting with account setup and access
• Supporting workflow development and scaling
• Providing guidance for students new to research computing
• Connecting users with documentation, training, and external resources

Get in Touch

For questions about Iris or research computing resources at HMC:

• Email ARCS: arcs-l@g.hmc.edu
• Submit a Help Desk ticket: helpdesk@hmc.edu
• View for helpful guides, tutorials, and tools.

Additional posts will cover specific systems, workflows, and updates as Iris becomes available.

Nicholas Dodds

Research Computing Specialist & NSF ACCESS Campus Champion

Academic & Research Computing Services • Computing & Information Services ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ

On Tuesday, October 22, 2024, CIS held our first ever generative AI Fair on the ground floor of the Sprague Building. In addition to four stations where attendees could learn more about different generative AI tools, there was food, drinks, prizes, and games. Turnout was excellent, with faculty, staff, and students attending.

The four stations highlighted a variety of generative AI tools. Elizabeth Hodas described how to use Google Gemini Chat at one of the stations. She also demonstrated how the Gemini Education license, which is available for an additional monthly fee per user, integrates Gemini into Google Workspace tools, such as Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Email. CIS has not yet turned on Google Gemini Chat for everyone in the HMC domain, but we hope to do so soon. We are waiting for Gemini Chat to be covered under the same licensing conditions as our Google Workspace license, which will include data privacy and FERPA protection. Unlike with consumer products like ChatGPT, which can use anything a user enters into the prompt for training purposes, once Gemini Chat is included in our Google Workspace license, your data will remain private and cannot be used for training purposes.

James Sadler and Gilbert Gutierrez hosted a station focused on creative applications of generative AI, using Midjourney for text-to-image generation and Suno for text-to-music generation. Both of these tools are just examples of the many creative generative AI tools available for use by anyone. Most services offer a free tier that limits the number of prompts a user can submit per day. If a user wants to access more submissions they can upgrade their account or buy extra “tokens.” None of these tools are supplied by CIS at this time, but we are always willing to help however we can.

Yi Luo’s station focused on teaching faculty, staff, and students how to craft effective prompts for generative AI tools. Prompts are key to getting meaningful, creative, and relevant outputs from AI, and this station guided participants through the process of developing clear, concise, and imaginative prompts for text generation tools. Participants first spun a wheel that lands on different prompt categories. After they tried writing the first prompt, they then used a checklist of prompting techniques to “polish” the prompt. After polishing the prompt using the checklist, they submitted the refined version to the AI and compared it to the output from their original prompt.

Aashita Kesarwani and Jonathan Ebueng hosted a station on Coding with AI that demoed Generative AI tools’ coding capabilities. Participants learned how to use the Gemini AI tool integrated with Google Colab to generate code based on instructions in plain English. They were then able to ask Gemini to explain the generated code, chat with the AI tool to check for sources of data and other information, and upgrade/improve the code using prompting techniques. Participants also got to check out a cool application that Jonathan built using Github Copilot, an AI coding assistant based on GPT models, that displayed how to create visual art with code using p5js, a creative programming library.

Another highlight of the event was a Kahoot online trivia game where participants could test their knowledge of generative AI. Attendees could join the game on their phones and answer increasingly difficult questions in order to get on the leader board. Elisabeth Villalta designed the game and Sara Palacios hosted it. The participants had a lot of fun with it. James Sadler also setup a station at the back of the room that demonstrated an AI-driven text adventure game from AI Dungeon. This platform allows users to play an old fashioned style text adventure game, or even create multi-player games role playing games where the AI acts as the game master. Game and character styles can vary widely, from medieval fantasy to gritty cyberpunk. The games are free, but are limited to 100 interactions per day.

All of the attendees received a stamp card when they arrived and could get it stamped when they visited one of the stations or played the games. Those who collected four or more stamps could turn in their stamp card and receive a free, colorful flash drive. Their stamp card was also entered into a raffle for a 1 TB portable hard drive, or one of six Gemini Education licenses that they can use for free for two months.

We are thrilled that the fair was such a success and look forward to sponsoring more events around this fascinating, and controversial, topic! In fact, there will be A Bite of Learning presentation on generative AI on November 13th, featuring a faculty panel. We hope to see you there!

Photos by Courtney Espiritu.

This past spring semester we surveyed both faculty and students to get feedback on their use of Canvas. The good news is that both students and faculty are overall satisfied with Canvas. Of the 77 students who responded to the survey, 44% were satisfied, 23% were somewhat satisfied and 19% were very satisfied with their overall experience with Canvas. Of the 26 faculty who responded, 50% were satisfied, 19% were somewhat satisfied, and 15% were very satisfied.

Students also had some suggestions for how their experience with Canvas could be improved:

• Consistency in where content is located. One common comment was that students found it difficult and frustrating to find their course content when it could be located in the Canvas Assignments tool, Gradescope, Canvas Modules tool and/or the Canvas Files tool. In addition to making it clear in your Syllabus which tools you will be using, it’s also good to disable tools that you are not using. If you are using Modules to organize course content, disable the direct access to tools such as Files or Assignments to ensure students use only the Modules to access content. Disabling these tools does not prevent students from accessing the content if it is linked through Modules or your Home page. Tools can be disabled by going to Settings/Navigation.
• Overall Grades. The overall grades feature is defaulted to “off,” but faculty can turn the feature back on by going to their course Settings and disabling the checkbox called ‘Hide totals in student grades summary.’ Note: Using this feature does not mean final grades will automatically be synced with the portal. Faculty will still need to submit final grades on the portal at the end of the semester. 
• Mobile App. Students reported challenges using the Canvas mobile app, particularly for viewing assignment feedback. Be aware of these limitations and you may want to encourage students to use the desktop version for important tasks.
• Links. Ensure all links in your Canvas courses are functional and lead to the intended content.
• Canvas Help. Don’t hesitate to use the 24/7 Canvas support for any questions.

Feedback from faculty included some recommendations that we will act upon:

• Gradescope Integration: The Canvas Gradescope integration  is different from Sakai in some significant, and unwelcome ways. We will reach out to Instructure/Gradescope about the following issues:
  • Redundancy in managing assignments: Instructors need to enter assignment details in both Canvas and Gradescope, leading to extra work and potential errors.
  • Due date syncing issues: Due dates don’t automatically transfer between Canvas and Gradescope, requiring manual updates in both platforms.
  • Late submission marking: Canvas doesn’t automatically mark late submissions from Gradescope, requiring instructors to check them individually.
• Faculty Professional Development: Faculty had some suggestions for how CIS could improve the professional development that we offer. We’ll start developing some new workshops on the following topics:
  • Workshops focused on creating engaging and well-structured courses on Canvas.
  • Showcasing best practices for content organization (e.g., using modules consistently).
  • Showcasing best practices for using gradebook and providing feedback 
  • Showcasing best practices for integrating Gradescope with Canvas
• Canvas Documentation
  • We’ll provide better documentation and tutorials on using Gradescope effectively with Canvas and using external plugins.
• Canvas Exploration: Consider exploring Canvas usage at other universities to identify potentially useful features. Attend relevant conferences if possible.
  • James Sadler, our Senior Instructional Technologist recently attended the annual Instructurecon conference in Las Vegas.
  • James is also registered for the Canvas Certified Technical Administrator course.

ARCS worked with Profs. Kathy van Heuvelen and Karl Haushalter to research and test several software platforms for Chemistry 42. The faculty were looking for a single platform that would increase communication and engagement in the lecture class. They wanted a platform that would allow them to ask questions, polls, and similar activities that students could respond to without requiring a device like the iClicker. They also wanted students to be able to ask anonymous questions during the lecture. After some research, the team selected two platforms for testing: Acadly and Poll Everywhere. While Acadly had all of the features we were looking for, the interface was very disappointing. Poll Everywhere had some limitations, but was very easy to use. The low cost for an Instructor’s license was also a plus. The instructors will be trying it out in the Fall in Chemistry 42 and we look forward to hearing how it goes and to getting student feedback. Look for a Bite of Learning presentation in the Spring!

Profs. Matina Donaldson-Matasci and Steve Adolph requested assistance with Biology 46 (Introduction to Biology). For this project they were primarily looking for help with evaluating and testing the R Studio Cloud platform and determining if it would be a good fit for the types of assignments they wanted to use. Our Data Scientist, Dr. Aashita Kesarwani, worked with them to decide on the best license model for the software platform, design a workflow for students, and create documentation.

Aashita is helping Prof. Jamie Haddock on her Math 189AD course (Mathematical Data Science & Topic Modeling) with revising the course assignments by converting them from Matlab into Python in Google Colab. She is helping with choosing the Python packages and figuring out the best way for students to use the required data sets in Colab. Part of the project also involved integrating Colab to use with Google Classroom for teaching the course. Yi also reviewed the self-grading rubrics that Jamie used.

Prof. Xanda Schofield and Surani Gunasena approached the ARCS team for help with redesigning the CS 121 course for Spring 2023. The team is working with them on a variety of tasks. Aashita helped set up Github pages using Jupyter notebooks and created a machine learning project as an example for students. Aashita also helped with using Google Colab for version control and code review using the Comments feature. James Sadler, our Senior Instructional Technologist, recommended Google Tables as a Kanban platform for the students to learn project management techniques. Elizabeth Hodas recommended best practices for using the peer review feature in Sakai. And Dr. Yi Luo, our Senior Instructional Designer, researched survey questions for professional development-oriented courses. She also began drafting the course schedule using the Sakai Lessons tool.

Prof. Alberto Soto, a Postdoctoral Scholar in Interdisciplinary Computation (PIC) within the Engineering department, reached out to us for help with designing a new course which he will be teaching next year. The course will focus on the biomechanics of animal locomotion and sensory systems. Yi has been meeting with him to discuss learning outcomes and assessments, while Aashita is working with him on converting assignments from R into Python in Google Colab, as well as discussing what the assignment workflow would look like.

If you have a project in mind that you’d like to work on with the ARCS team please feel free to contact us by emailing arcs-l@g.hmc.edu.

Dr. Aashita Kesarwani, whom many of you know, received a promotion to Scientific Computing and Data Science Specialist.  Aashita has been knocking the ball out of the park in her position, offering workshops on machine learning that are in high demand. Over 100 people signed up for her workshop in Fall 2019).  She spends lots of time working individually with students and faculty too.  We are very lucky to have her with us in CIS.

Brad McCauley had been with CIS in a time limited position that was funded by the .  Brad had been wowing us every day since his arrival, and I am delighted to say that he has now accepted a regular position with us as Software and Data Engineer. He has moved into our Infrastructure and Systems group and, as well as supporting a new person in his old position (yet to be hired) Brad will focus on Integrations (Dell Boomi), other Workday Student needs and Identity and Access Management.  When you run into Brad on campus, make sure to congratulate him!

James Sadler has been with CIS for 12 years and has held a number of different positions within our department. In late 2019 a review of his job description resulted in a promotion, although he keeps the title of Instructional Technologist.  In that role, James will continue to work with his team mates in Academic and Research Computing Services, under Elizabeth’s leadership.  James also works closely with many individual faculty members on projects and constantly explores new technologies.  James is a much loved member of CIS and I am delighted to make this announcement.

Please join me in congratulating all three.   And a big thank you to the staff in Human Resources for their help with this, especially Dana Nagengast and Patrice Siffert.

Spring 2020 Sakai course sites were created and have been populated with faculty and students. If you have not yet requested your ubercourses, this would be a good time to do so. If you’re having trouble finding and organizing your sites in the Home site, please read our . There are several new tools in Sakai 12, including the Attendance tool, a quick and easy way to take attendance during class. It even integrates with the Gradebook!

As part of the College’s website accessibility initiative, we have added a link to the HMC Accessibility web page on all HMC Spring 2020 Sakai course sites. This is one of the requirements for compliance with accessibility requirements. If you’re using a web site other than Sakai to host course materials, we’d appreciate it if you would add a link to /website-accessibility/ to your site as well. If you’d like to learn more about how to make your course materials more accessible, please contact us at the  CIS Help Desk helpdesk@hmc.edu or 909 607 7777. We also now have an accessible syllabus Word template that faculty can use. You can find it linked from our Web and Document Accessibility Consulting service catalog page.

Mudd Shots

Course Mudd Shots have been updated and are available in the HMC Portal. Course Mudd Shots are now available only on the HMC Portal. The HMC Portal version includes photos of non-HMC students. The HMC web site version has been retired and is no longer available.  More information and links are available on the Mudd Shots Service Catalog page.

Google Groups

Course mailing lists have been created in Google Groups. You can see your course mailing lists in your  or get a full list of all course mailing lists at: . With additional feedback from the HMC Computing Committee we have created a “master” Google Group for all courses that have multiple sections. For example, bio-23@g.hmc.edu contains all faculty and students associated with all 5 sections of Bio 23. Master lists will be automatically maintained just like the other Google Groups for courses.

Gradescope

You’ll be happy to know that we now have an institutional license for Gradescope, the online grading platform. It’s been integrated with Sakai, which allows you to easily synchronize your Gradescope roster with Sakai, as well as the Gradescope gradebook with the gradebook in Sakai. If you are new to Gradescope and would like to try it out this semester please send an email to the CIS Help Desk and one of the ARCS team can help you set it up. If you want to use the integration with Sakai please be sure to read the instructions for  since there are already a couple of gotchas that we’ve discovered. You can also point your students to  for some useful instructions on scanning to PDF using the CIS student printers or the smartphone app called CamScanner. Both of these documents are available on the CIS Gradescope service catalog page.

Classroom technology

You can find a full list of which rooms have what equipment in this document: . We have made a change this semester in that we are no longer leaving the document cameras or DVD/Blu-Ray players in the classrooms, so you will need to send in a request if you would like to use either of these technologies in your classroom. To request the use of any of the technologies below please send an email to the CIS Help Desk at helpdesk@hmc.edu or use the . We need at least 48 hours notice to serve you well.

Other technology available for use in the Shanahan Center and other classroom includes:

1. Laptop carts
2. Lecture capture
3. iClickers
4. Smartboard
5. Video cameras for displaying experiments

More details on these other technologies can be found below:

1. We have three carts with 15 laptops each, which are stored on the second floor of the Shanahan Center for use throughout the building. Laptops are made available on a first come, first served basis so please let us know as soon as you can if you need laptops for your class. Also, consider carefully how many laptops you need or if at some point you realize that your class is using fewer laptops than you requested, please update your requests so that the systems can be made available for other classes. If you’d like more information about the laptops and how to reserve them, please visit  the Laptop Cart Reservation Service Catalog Page. You can find a full list of the software that is included on the laptops and the CIS lab computers in this document: .
2. There are six rooms in the Shanahan Center that are lecture capture-ready, including the Lecture Hall (1430), the Recital Hall (B480), the 85 person classroom (B460) and three rooms on the 2nd floor (2450, 2454 and 2460). All of those rooms have a video camera and microphone. Each of the Galileo Auditoria also now have lecture capture available. You can visit the CIS web site for more information at the Lecture Capture Service Catalog Page.
3. Clickers (personal response systems) are also available for loan. Faculty can borrow sets of 50 iClickers and a wireless receiver from CIS. We can also help install the iClicker software on your computer and provide training on how to use the system. More information about the iClickers can be found at the iClicker Service Catalog Page.
4. We have one Smartboard (interactive whiteboard) for faculty to try out. While the Smartboard is on a mobile stand, it is too big and heavy to move between classrooms, so we are currently keeping it in one of the technology-rich classrooms (Shanahan 2460). Use of the Smartboard is on a first come, first served basis so please let us know right away if you would like to try it out in your class, as we may need time to work with the Registrar to reschedule classrooms.
5. Many faculty also like to be able to project a demonstration or experiment from the front of the room to one of the big screens. The document camera is capable of doing this or you can use a video camera, either one of the built-in video cameras available in the lecture capture rooms listed above, or CIS can set up one for you.

If you’re interested in using one of these technology services in a class, please submit a request to the CIS Help Desk. You can use the  or send us an email at helpdesk@hmc.edu.

We ask that you give us at least 48 hours notice when submitting a request. If possible, please do not wait until the last minute to submit your requests.

Have a great Spring semester!

Fall 2019 Sakai course sites were created and have been populated with faculty and students. If you have not yet requested your ubercourses, this would be a good time to do so. If you’re having trouble finding and organizing your sites in the Home site, please read our . There are several new tools in Sakai 12, including the Attendance tool, a quick and easy way to take attendance during class. It even integrates with the Gradebook!

As part of the College’s website accessibility initiative, we have added a link to the HMC Accessibility web page on all HMC Fall 2019 Sakai course sites. This is one of the requirements for compliance with accessibility requirements. If you’re using a web site other than Sakai to host course materials, we’d appreciate it if you would add a link to /website-accessibility/ to your site as well. If you’d like to learn more about how to make your course materials more accessible, please contact us at the  CIS Help Desk helpdesk@hmc.edu or 909 607 7777. We also now have an accessible syllabus Word template that faculty can use. You can find it linked from our Web and Document Accessibility Consulting service catalog page.

Mudd Shots

Course Mudd Shots have been updated and are available in the HMC Portal. Course Mudd Shots are now available only on the HMC Portal. The HMC Portal version includes photos of non-HMC students. The HMC web site version has been retired and is no longer available.  More information and links are available on the Mudd Shots Service Catalog page.

Google Groups

Course mailing lists have been created in Google Groups. You can see your course mailing lists in your or get a full list of all course mailing lists at:. With additional feedback from the HMC Computing Committee we have created a “master” Google Group for all courses that have multiple sections. For example, bio-23@g.hmc.edu contains all faculty and students associated with all 5 sections of Bio 23. Master lists will be automatically maintained just like the other Google Groups for courses.

Gradescope

You’ll be happy to know that we now have an institutional license for Gradescope, the online grading platform. It’s been integrated with Sakai, which allows you to easily synchronize your Gradescope roster with Sakai, as well as the Gradescope gradebook with the gradebook in Sakai. If you are new to Gradescope and would like to try it out this semester please send an email to the CIS Help Desk and one of the ARCS team can help you set it up. If you want to use the integration with Sakai please be sure to read the instructions for since there are already a couple of gotchas that we’ve discovered. You can also point your students to for some useful instructions on scanning to PDF using the CIS student printers or the smartphone app called CamScanner. Both of these documents are available on the CIS Gradescope service catalog page.

Classroom technology

In addition to the video projectors, LCD TVs (in the 12-person classrooms), speakers and screens, many classrooms have resident document cameras, Blu-Ray/DVD or DVD/VHS players. You can find a full list of which rooms have what equipment in this document: .

Other technology available for use in the Shanahan Center and other classroom includes:

1. Laptop carts
2. Lecture capture
3. iClickers
4. Smartboard
5. Video cameras for displaying experiments

More details on these other technologies can be found below:

1. We have three carts with 15 laptops each, which are stored on the second floor of the Shanahan Center for use throughout the building. Laptops are made available on a first come, first served basis so please let us know as soon as you can if you need laptops for your class. Also, consider carefully how many laptops you need or if at some point you realize that your class is using fewer laptops than you requested, please update your requests so that the systems can be made available for other classes. If you’d like more information about the laptops and how to reserve them, please visit  the Laptop Cart Reservation Service Catalog Page. You can find a full list of the software that is included on the laptops and the CIS lab computers in this document: .
2. There are six rooms in the Shanahan Center that are lecture capture-ready, including the Lecture Hall (1430), the Recital Hall (B480), the 85 person classroom (B460) and three rooms on the 2nd floor (2450, 2454 and 2460). All of those rooms have a video camera and microphone. Each of the Galileo Auditoria also now have lecture capture available. You can visit the CIS web site for more information at the Lecture Capture Service Catalog Page.
3. Clickers (personal response systems) are also available for loan. Faculty can borrow sets of 50 iClickers and a wireless receiver from CIS. We can also help install the iClicker software on your computer and provide training on how to use the system. More information about the iClickers can be found at the iClicker Service Catalog Page.
4. We have one Smartboard (interactive whiteboard) for faculty to try out. While the Smartboard is on a mobile stand, it is too big and heavy to move between classrooms, so we are currently keeping it in one of the technology-rich classrooms (Shanahan 2460). Use of the Smartboard is on a first come, first served basis so please let us know right away if you would like to try it out in your class, as we may need time to work with the Registrar to reschedule classrooms.
5. Many faculty also like to be able to project a demonstration or experiment from the front of the room to one of the big screens. The document camera is capable of doing this or you can use a video camera, either one of the built-in video cameras available in the lecture capture rooms listed above, or CIS can set up one for you.

If you’re interested in using one of these technology services in a class, please submit a request to the CIS Help Desk. You can use the or send us an email at helpdesk@hmc.edu.

We ask that you give us at least 48 hours notice when submitting a request. If possible, please do not wait until the last minute to submit your requests.

Have a great Fall semester!

The Academic and Research Computing Services (ARCS) team presented a poster titled, “Digital Humanities: Integrating Scalar into an Undergraduate American Studies Course” at the Educause ELI Conference on Feb. 21 in Anaheim, CA.

The team investigated students’ experience using Scalar, an open-source scholarly publishing tool that can be used to create media-rich content, in LIT 179X Zora Neale Hurston: Theories of Race, Science, and Art. This course was taught by Professor Isabel Balseiro, who received a Digital Course Development Grant from the Mellon Foundation. The team helped with the course design and taught two workshops on Scalar for the students when the course was taught in Spring 2018 and Fall 2018. We also conducted two rounds of interviews to learn about students’ feedback on the Scalar component of the course. Based on the students’ feedback we were able to make several instructional design recommendations.

Overall, the team believed that Scalar served as a valuable tool for teaching the course with its features such as media integration, visual display of classwork, writing collaboratively in non-sequential order, and easy integration of creative components (Google Map, Timeline JS, etc.). The research concluded that scaffolding strategies are particularly important when integrating a tool like Scalar. The team hopes that the data-based instructional design recommendations they provided for integrating Scalar could help both students and instructors accrue greater educational benefits. They ultimately aim at pointing out best practices for integrating this tool into the broader ecosystem of Digital Humanities.

If you have any questions or comments about this research, please contact the ARCS team at arcs-l@g.hmc.edu.

ARCS team members are:

• Elizabeth Hodas, Senior Director, ARCS
• James Sadler, Instructional Technologist
• Yi Luo, Instructional Designer
• Aashita Kesarwani, Scientific Computing Specialist

Spring 2019 Sakai course sites were created on January 10th and have been populated with faculty and students. If you have not yet requested your ubercourses, this would be a good time to do so. If you’re having trouble finding and organizing your sites in the new Home site, please read our .

As part of the College’s website accessibility initiative, we have added a link to the HMC Accessibility web page on all HMC Spring 2019 Sakai course sites. This is one of the requirements for compliance with accessibility requirements. If you’re using a web site other than Sakai to host course materials, we’d appreciate it if you would add a link to Website Accessibility to your site as well. If you’d like to learn more about how to make your course materials more accessible, please contact us at the CIS Help Desk (helpdesk@hmc.edu or 909.607.7777).

Mudd Shots

Course Mudd Shots are now available only on the HMC Portal. The HMC Portal version includes photos of non-HMC students. The HMC web site version has been retired and is no longer available. More information and links are available in the Mudd Shots Service Catalog Page.

Google Groups

Course mailing lists have been created in Google Groups. You can see them in your  or get a full list of all course mailing lists at:

With additional feedback from the HMC Computing Committee we have created a “master” Google Group for all courses that have multiple sections. For example, phys-51@g.hmc.edu contains all faculty and students associated with all 11 sections of Physics 51. Master lists will be automatically maintained just like the other Google Groups for courses. You may need to manually remove previous instructors from the course since our automatic removal scripts don’t yet have that functionality.

Gradescope

The use of , the online grading platform, has become more popular over the past couple of years. If you are interested in trying it out this semester please send an email to the CIS Help Desk and one of the ARCS team can help you set it up. We recommend using students’ username@hmc.edu addresses when adding them to Gradescope rather than giving them a code to self-enroll. This helps avoid students’ having multiple Gradescope accounts. We can also help by sending you a spreadsheet that you can import into Gradescope that includes students’ Sakai usernames and section numbers.

Classroom technology

In addition to the video projectors, LCD TVs (in the 12-person classrooms), speakers and screens, many classrooms have resident document cameras, Blu-Ray/DVD or DVD/VHS players. You can find a full list of which rooms have what equipment in this document: .

Other technology available for use in the Shanahan Center and other classroom includes:

1. Laptop carts
2. Lecture capture
3. iClickers
4. Smartboard
5. Video cameras for displaying experiments

More details on these other technologies can be found below:

1. We have three carts with 15 laptops each, which are stored on the second floor of the Shanahan Center for use throughout the building. Laptops are made available on a first come, first served basis so please let us know as soon as you can if you need laptops for your class. Also, consider carefully how many laptops you need or if at some point you realize that your class is using fewer laptops than you requested, please update your requests so that the systems can be made available for other classes. If you’d like more information about the laptops and how to reserve them, please visit  the Laptop Cart Reservation Service Catalog Page. You can find a full list of the software that is included on the laptops and the CIS lab computers in this document: .
2. There are six rooms in the Shanahan Center that are lecture capture-ready, including the Lecture Hall (1430), the Recital Hall (B480), the 85 person classroom (B460) and three rooms on the 2nd floor (2450, 2454 and 2460). All of those rooms have a video camera and microphone. Each of the Galileo Auditoria also now have lecture capture available. You can visit the CIS web site for more information at the Lecture Capture Service Catalog Page.
3. Clickers (personal response systems) are also available for loan. Faculty can borrow sets of 50 iClickers and a wireless receiver from CIS. We can also help install the iClicker software on your computer and provide training on how to use the system. More information about the iClickers can be found at the iClicker Service Catalog Page.
4. We have one Smartboard (interactive whiteboard) for faculty to try out. While the Smartboard is on a mobile stand, it is too big and heavy to move between classrooms, so we are currently keeping it in one of the technology-rich classrooms (Shanahan 2460). Use of the Smartboard is on a first come, first served basis so please let us know right away if you would like to try it out in your class, as we may need time to work with the Registrar to reschedule classrooms.
5. Many faculty also like to be able to project a demonstration or experiment from the front of the room to one of the big screens. The document camera is capable of doing this or you can use a video camera, either one of the built-in video cameras available in the lecture capture rooms listed above, or CIS can set up one for you.

If you’re interested in using one of these technology services in a class, please submit a request to the CIS Help Desk. You can use the or send us an email at helpdesk@hmc.edu.

We ask that you give us at least 48 hours notice when submitting a request. If possible, please do not wait until the last minute to submit your requests.

Have a great Spring semester!