As part of this planned return to Campus 2021/22, we will be sending out a weekly update which will cover a number of topics related to the Academic year. These updates will also be hosted on staff.dbs.ie to allow ease of access for review. 

Previous Communication

Click here - 3rd September

Further information relating to Covid-19, please click here. 

With the return of more students and staff to campus, we are doing our utmost to ensure that people are as safe as possible at all times.

Managing flow of traffic in buildings

DBS will use our student leaders to assist in managing the flow of students through the buildings to ensure no one is congregating in large groups, or blocking the flow through corridors.

Classes should end between 5-10minutes before the scheduled end time to allow ease of movement. If possible please check the hallways before letting your learners leave to ensure there is no congestion, and if there is, ask them to wait a moment.

Please also be considerate of late arrivals into class as the lifts in Castle House are still limited to 2 persons.

Ventilation

With reduced capacity on campus, where rooms will have less than 70% occupancy, (average 60%), ventilation shouldn’t be a big issue. However, as our buildings are old and don’t have mechanical ventilation, windows will need to be opened to allow fresh air to circulate. 

The third edition of the Research Newsletter went out during the week and is available here.  In the future, the Research Newsletter and the LT&A Newsletter will be made available in alternative months, with the next LT&A Newsletter due out in the first week of October.    

Please login and check for any new features released with the latest upgrade over the summer. 

Remember you will no longer be able to login using staffID 88xxxx number you must use your DBS email address and the same password you use for logging into DBS Gmail account.  Please contact IT if you have any issues.

One thing to pay particular attention to is the assessment breakdown for CA/Exams. If you believe this to be incorrect, consult with the Approved Programme document before contacting your Course Director to have it resolved.

Old Zoom Links will be gone and replaced with automatic Zoom links created and named as your module code when you open the module page on Moodle, you will need to open each of your modules in Moodle to ensure the Zoom links are created. This link pushes to your Zoom account under Meetings. All Zoom recordings automatically load to your module page once finished. These recordings are hidden to students for the lectures to unhide and position on the page.Your previous recordings will appear on the Panopto block as before.

DBS Online Class block. All your Zoom links will appear in the new DBS Online Class block for students. Please direct students to access their zoom link in the new DBS Online class block on Moodle.

Editing Zoom videos. Editing videos in panopto is still available to faculty as previously. Please review the training videos.

Please check the Moodle staff training page for more info and training videos.

DBS’s subscription to Panopto will end on October 28th.  DBS has converted all the online broadcasting and recording of learning activities over to Zoom, which is now fully integrated with Moodle.  The EdTech team and IT are working with Panopto to remove and re-house all panopto recordings.  The EdTech team is also ensuring that alternatives to other tools used in panoptos--editing, captioning, transcripts et., will be made available to faculty and students before the end of October and communications on those alternatives will follow.  

Zoom Rooms - What are they?

Zoom Rooms are an additional service designed to enhance hybrid teaching and learning.  In 17 classrooms across CH and AS, additional TV screens have been installed facing the lecturer that allow faculty to view online participants.  The TV screens also come with a powerful microphone/speaker and a roving camera.  The microphone/speaker will allow everyone to be heard whether they are online or anywhere in the room.   Zoom rooms have been active in DBS throughout the summer and over 20 members of faculty have engaged in the platform.  

You can identify which rooms are Zoom Rooms by looking at the name of the room which will have (ZR) at the end of the room name e.g. Castle House Room 2.1 (ZR)

Zoom Room training is ongoing.  Please see the DBS events calendar, available on the staff intranet, for the timing and locations of those sessions and all other EdTech training sessions over the next three weeks.  

All faculty staff will need to book a desk through our desk booking software (Condeco) for CH5.10. Full-time staff should book a desk with a docking station and peripherals for Surface PC’s.  Part-time can book a desk which will have a PC setup.  Please check here for the user guide.

With more students returning to campus this semester, it is worth highlighting the policy that all classes will continue to be broadcast live over Zoom and recorded for playback. There are limited exceptions to this which are agreed with respective Course Directors.

If you have a scenario where you think all students are present on campus, classes still need to be recorded for playback purposes.

Recording Pods in Castle House

Click here for more information

Academic Ops - Who’s who

With some new changes to Academic Ops over the past few months, you’ll find an updated list of who is looking after each programme here. If you can’t find a particular course, please contact Darragh Breathnach.