We hope you are having a great semester and everything is going well.

In this issue, we share some exciting news and updates on how AI can enhance your course teaching and learning experience, as well as some upcoming opportunities you may be interested in.

Please take a look at the sections below and see how you can benefit from the latest AI offerings and eLearning trends:

FeedbackFruits for end-of-term Peer Review, Group Member Evaluation (and more):

FeedbackFruits supports engaging learning activities and can boost student engagement and collaboration on Blackboard. Instructors and TA/Support Staff of any Blackboard courses can participate in FeedbackFruits (Pilot) and start using the tools now.
An inspirational session will be held on 10 April (Wed), 1200-1245.

Gradescope for various types of Assessments (paper-based exams/quiz/student-uploaded work, bubble sheet assignments, and programming assignments):

Gradescope is an AI-assisted grading platform that allows you to grade faster, more consistently, and more transparently. With Gradescope, you can scan and upload paper assignments/exams, use AI to group similar answers and provide feedback and scores.
It supports paper-based exams/quiz/student-uploaded work, bubble sheet assignments, and programming assignments.
Watch the recorded workshops to learn more.

Blackboard Ultra Course View with the new AI Design Assistant:

The AI Design Assistant helps you build your courses and saves you time:
- Course structure suggestions
- Discussion generation
- Journal generation
- Rubric generation
- Assignment prompt generation
- Test question generation
- Question Bank generation from Ultra Documents
- Insert or generate images
Contact us to join the Ultra Course View Pilot and have a try (Recorded seminars).

H5P for creating interactive content:

H5P allows you to create and share rich and engaging content with students in your Blackboard courses, such as quizzes, videos, presentations, and games.
User guides and examples are available here.

Zoom: Enhanced features for online meetings and webinars

Zoom One for Education Enterprise Essentials plan for CUHK staff users. The license is assigned when they sign in to Zoom with SSO using CUHK Login. Updated features include: Meeting (capacity: 500), Webinar (attendee capacity: 500), unlimited Whiteboard, and Translated Captions.
Licenses that have not been used for three months will be unassigned. To regain the license, sign in to Zoom with SSO using CUHK Login using the ZOOM client (or via the web at https://cuhk.zoom.us).
ZOOM AI Companion features are also available for pilot. Contact us to learn more.

Pilot ChatGPT (& AI) Service for Teaching and Learning

ChatGPT Demo web app for teachers, TAs, and RPg students
ChatGPT Demo web app for students (approved by teachers) - with conversation logging
API portal for supporting classes that require students to use APIs for programming-related teaching and learning activities
Options for LLM application development for teaching and learning projects
- Use of off-the-shelf subscription-based services (e.g., chatbase.co and chatbot.com) for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot over public data source(s)
- No-code / low-code development options (e.g., FlowiseAI for LangChain)
- Open-source LLM options (e.g., Llama, Mistral, Mixtral, Gemma, Phi, Qwen)
- Options on running LLM locally for testing (e.g., Ollama, LM Studio)
Contact us to learn more.

Please also take some time to review the following tips and reminders and share the information with your students (and colleagues).

Blackboard exams: Remind students to read and understand this article before taking tests or submitting assignments. If you are planning to conduct Blackboard Tests, it is recommended that you go through the best practices.
Back up Blackboard course materials: You and your students should back up the materials before the end of the term if necessary, as Blackboard courses will no longer be accessible after a certain period (Details).
Panopto classroom recording: When using Panopto for recording, ensure the upload has been completed before closing the recorder software. 
Zoom client: You might not be able to join meetings with an outdated Zoom client (Details). Please keep your Zoom client up to date.

Do not miss - Funding opportunities:

Courseware Development Grant Scheme (CDGS) is still Open for application (projects must end by April 2025).
More Funding Schemes administered by AQS

Lastly, our support team is here to assist you. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you need any help.