Important systems related to the work of a block director include file storage, Canvas and Elentra (the curriculum management system).

File Storage

The Block, Thread, and Theme Leaders (BTT) SharePoint site is the faculty facing shared workspace and file storage for the foundation’s curriculum.  This is where faculty share content, schedules, and assessment plans that will be used for the block. Each Block and Thread has there own folders organized by Entering class year (EYR). It is considered the file of record for yearly block content and can be reviewed by LCME. Please contact the block admin (link to the foundations directory) for access.

Responsibilities:  

Block Directors upload content and other materials to SharePoint and inform the block admin when it is ready to be posted. 

Block Admins copy the content from SharePoint to Canvas/OneDrive.

Canvas

Canvas is the University of Washington Learning Management System (LMS). Canvas course web sites are used to distribute course materials, communicate with students, and conduct some assessment activities like quizzing and grading. The Canvas course site design is consistent across all blocks.

The Canvas Timeline: 

• About 4 months prior to the start of the block, the Development Site (Dev Site) is created. This is where the Canvas site for the block is built by the admin with input from the Block Directors. 
• 1 month prior to the start of the block, the Dev Site is copied into 6 separate Canvas Sites (one for each location in the region). Each of the regional sites has its own URL.
• Region faculty and staff have two weeks to make local adjustments. 
• 2 weeks prior to the start of the blocks, all 6 Canvas sites are published, making them available to students.

Canvas notifications: Block directors are automatically given permissions to view and get notifications from Canvas courses for all blocks. See these instructions on how to manage Canvas notifications for all Canvas courses or how to manage notifications for individual Canvas courses. Please note that students have been told they can turn off all Canvas notifications.

Responsibilities: 

Block Directors are responsible for the content that is displayed on the Canvas site and for determining what gets displayed on the site. (Sample Canvas Site)

Block Admins:

• Build out the Canvas pages, based on the current course templates
• Upload and/or link all course materials to Canvas
• Make sure that the Dev Site is copied out and the region sites are published
• Make sure the region sites stay current if changes are made to materials

Elentra (Curriculum Management System)

Elentra is our Curriculum Management System (CMS) and is a cloud database that is crucial in our reporting for LCME accreditation and for providing schedules to students.

All learning objectives (Session Level [SLOs], Block Level [BLOs], and Program Level [PLOs]) for the Foundations Curriculum are stored in Elentra, as well as all objective mappings and faculty assignments. Each learning event (session) is tagged with the appropriate SLOs, USMLE Content Descriptors, and threads/themes tags.

Though Block Directors do not have to go into Elentra they can see schedules, sessions, and SLOs for all courses in Elentra and explore other curriculum management reporting. (See the Elentra Faculty Guide for instructions).

Responsibilities: 

Block Directors are responsible for completing the session schedule, SLOs, BLOs, objective mapping, USMLE mapping, and Thread/Theme Tagging on the Detailed Block Schedule in time for Lockdown.

Block Admins and Site Admins work with the CMS manager to create the Elentra event upload sheets (due 5 weeks before the start of the block), which are used to upload all the information into the database.