As we welcome the fall season, we’re excited to share the latest Digital Learning resources and opportunities. In this newsletter, you’ll learn about the new Digital Accessibility Challenge, get updates from the AI Learning Lab, and find information on our October workshops and upcoming professional development opportunities.
Please don’t hesitate to contact the Digital Learning team with any questions or for support. You can reach us using the options below:
Dropping-induring our support hours, Monday through Friday.
Scheduling a meeting through our bookings website (both located in the help icon of Canvas).
Our training courses are open to all learners, and we welcome participation from anyone who wishes to develop their skills and knowledge. However, please note that only individuals who hold a current faculty appointment (including adjunct faculty) or a funded Graduate Assistant (GA) position at the University are eligible to receive payment for completing training courses.
If you do not have a faculty appointment or a funded GA position, you are still encouraged to take our courses for your professional and personal development, but payment will not be issued.
Take the Digital Accessibility Challenge: Every Student, Every Course
This October, we are launching the Digital Accessibility Challenge: Every Student, Every Course, a campus-wide initiative to help instructors make their Canvas courses more accessible. The challenge is self-paced—you'll work through eight key areas of accessibility, including headings, links, images, video, and more.
When you sign up for the challenge, you will receive regular email check-ins, with the option to book time with an Instructional Designer or Technologist if you need support.
Why Join?
By completing the challenge, you will:
Earn recognition, including a digital badge for your Canvas course and suggested syllabus language.
Make your courses more usable for every student.
Help UNO meet federal accessibility requirements.
Sign up by Oct. 15th to join the first cohort and kick off the challenge together!
Differentiation tags have just been enabled in Canvas and provide a way for instructors to discretely tag students, and then use those tags for things such as assigning content, communication, and filtering submissions and grades. Read more about Differentiation Tags and be sure to watch the short overview video about them.
Students in Need of Attention
Course Analytics, accessed by clicking the Course Analytics button on your course home page, has a new tab named Needs Attention. This new space allows you to identify students who may be struggling in your course with filters based on current grade, number of late and missing assignments, and last course participation. In addition to identifying these students you can then easily send messages to them right from the same page. Read more about it in the New in Intelligent Insights: Students in Need of Attention blog post.
AI Opportunities from UNO's AI Learning Lab
Below are opportunities all faculty and staff at UNO have access to. We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities and reach out to Cassie Mallette, Program Manager of the AI Learning Lab,if you have any questions.
Access to ChatGPT EDU
Applications for ChatGPT EDU (formerly enterprise) for faculty and staff are now available on a rolling basis. ChatGPT EDU provides exploration with added safeguards and security, where it does not train on your data and it stays in our EDU environment; you also have access to create custom GPTs, use deep research, higher limits of file uploads, and more. There are a few ways to gain access:
Faculty and Staff: Faculty and Staff can apply for a license to explore how AI can be beneficial to them in work, research, and/or class prep/execution.
Student use in Class: Faculty and staff can apply for up to 50 licenses for students to use ChatGPT while taking your class (students are removed at the end of each semester).
Generative AI Cybersecurity Training: We highly recommend all faculty, staff, and students complete this 5-10 minute bridge training to understand what you can and cannot put into free, paid non-enterprise, and enterprise tools.
PD Opportunities: Currently we have two AI PD Courses, with more micro-courses (courses that are 1 module), on the way. These are rolling start dates, allowing faculty and staff to register at any time. These PD opportunities are at no cost to the faculty or staff member. Select the links below to register for either course.
AI Jumpstart: 1-week (1 module) micro-course introducing faculty and staff to AI (this is the first module of the AI Advantage course) - no stipend for completing this course.
AI Advantage: 6-week (6 modules) course walking faculty and staff through implementing AI into their work or into their course - $300 stipend for completing this course.
Recordings and resources for past workshops are located on our AI workshops page.
AI-Powered Educator Grants
The AI Learning Lab offers AI grants where you work with an instructional designer to implement AI into your course in responsible and ethical ways. Apply at the bottom of the AI support page. These are a tiered system, providing opportunities to incorporate:
Tier 1: Individual assignment
Tier 2: A module or project using AI, approximately 4 times throughout the course
Tier 3: Full implementation throughout the course.
Maverick Flex Path (Competency‑Based Education)
Maverick Flex Path is the new name for all competency‑based education (CBE) programs at UNO. CBE enables flexible learning, ideal for adult learners, anchored in demonstrated mastery.
What’s new:
Currently in Q4 of a six‑quarter infrastructure build.
Four inaugural academic programs are part of this launch.
Built in collaboration with faculty, staff, and administration across campus.
Learn more: Interested in competency‑based pedagogy? Join the upcoming virtual session on Demystifying CBE & CBL on Nov. 6.
Skills Lab
The Skills Lab helps learners build, verify, and showcase in‑demand skills through digital badges that live in the Maverick Digital Backpack, accessible via Canvas.
What’s new:
Inaugural UNO Skills Report launched, showcasing UNO’s Top 10 Skills for 2025‑26. These skills are based on labor market data and employer input.
Subject Matter Experts from across campus have been involved in creating skill-badge assessments, and soon, students will be able to earn skills‑badges for each of these Top 10 Skills.
This fall, we will pilot skills‑badge assessments in courses across UNO and share insights from the pilot.
This annual, signature event explores the latest in workforce development and the evolving world of work. This year’s event happened on Sep. 17, 2025 and centered on the theme, “The Work Revolution: Redesigning Careers with an Entrepreneurial Approach.”
Highlights from this year’s Symposium:
Hosted 200+ participants from UNO and the Omaha community.
Featured keynote speaker Genevieve Weeks, Chancellor Jo Li, panelists, and breakout sessions led by UNO experts and community leaders.
This fall, the Digital Learning team is excited to present our Digital Accessibility Workshop Series—an engaging opportunity to build practical skills and deepen your understanding of accessibility best practices. Designed to empower instructors, this series offers a blend of tutorial-based workshops and interactive practice to help you create more inclusive and accessible digital course content. All workshops will take place on Wednesdays from 10:00-11:00 am on Zoom.
Why join us? Whether you’re new to digital accessibility or looking to refine your existing skills, this series will equip you with actionable strategies to make a meaningful impact in your courses. By participating, you’ll gain the confidence and tools needed to advocate for accessibility and support all learners.
Let’s work together to create an inclusive digital learning experience for all students. Join us to learn, practice, and lead in the effort to champion digital accessibility!
Power Up Your Readings with Perusall: Social Annotation in Action
Wednesday, October 1st, 1–2:00 p.m.
Ready to turn passive reading into active learning? Join us for an interactive session and discover how this powerful Canvas integrated tool can transform your course readings into collaborative, student-driven learning experiences. Perusall allows your students to annotate, comment, question, and connect all within the assigned text, making engagement visible and learning social. Whether you're teaching online, hybrid, or in person, this session will equip you with strategies to boost participation and deepen comprehension through meaningful peer interaction.
Get Interactive: Creating Engaging Content in Canvas
Wednesday, October 15, 9:30–10:30 a.m.
Looking for new ways to spark engagement and bring your content to life? Meet H5P, the newest interactive content tool available on Canvas! In this introductory workshop, you’ll discover how to create rich, interactive learning experiences perfect for designing activities like drag-and-drop exercises, image hotspots, fill-in-the-blank questions, and more. Come see what’s possible and start building your first engaging activity with us!
AI-Enhanced Course Design: Elevating Your Courses with AI
Tuesday, October 28, 1–2:00 p.m.
Discover how generative AI tools can streamline and strengthen your course design process—from course themes and creating rubrics to refining assignments and generating discussion questions. This hands-on session will explore practical ways you can use existing materials—like lecture slides, transcripts, or discussion threads—to design more engaging, equitable, and outcomes-aligned courses.
This faculty professional development course helps instructors learn how to improve the accessibility of their Canvas site for many types of content and tools. This course helps participants understand the most important criteria for creating an accessible Canvas course, why each step matters, and how to test your efforts. Why is creating accessible Canvas sites critical? What areas should I consider when it comes to Canvas accessibility? What steps should I take to make my Canvas course accessible? How do I test if my Canvas site is accessible? In this course, you learn answers to all these questions—and more.
This six-week asynchronous course is offered online using the Canvas LMS. The course has a rolling start date but is not self-paced, and you should plan to spend about 3–5 hours per week on it. Participants receive a $300 stipend for successfully completing all discussions and assignments.
ILCI offers resources and faculty development courses to help you incorporate Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) into your teaching. This support is designed to create highly engaging and well-connected online and hybrid courses.
ILCI's Digital Learning team offers a non-credit Advancing Excellence in Online Teaching Program that is designed to prepare you for online instruction or advance your skills if you are a seasoned instructor.
Choose from a series of offerings designed to strengthen your digital learning skills as you learn effective pedagogical practices. Earning the program badge requires the completion of one core course and three electives led by the UNO Digital Learning team. Electives can be selected by participants based on their interests and needs. Get started today and join the 48 people who have already earned this impressive badge!
Course Development Grant Opportunity
The Office of Digital Learning awards grants for faculty to develop or improve the online delivery of one of their courses; these due dates are now rolling, meaning you can apply for a course development grant at any point during the year. Learn more and apply for a grant on our ILCI Course Development Webpage.
Know someone who might be interested in this content? Feel free to forward this newsletter and encourage them to subscribe. Missed out on our previous newsletters, you can check them out on our ILCI website page.
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University of Nebraska Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE 68182, United States, 402.554.2800
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