Great Falls College MSU provides some software and online services to students, staff, and faculty.
Please use the buttons below to learn more about each one and instructions to access them.
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration tool that can be used for things like organizing study groups, student clubs, group project work, and in some cases it is used by instructors to provide remote instructions and group collaboration. The tutors in our Academic Success Center also use Teams for remote tutoring sessions, so it's a good idea to have it installed and ready in case you need it.
To install Teams:
- Click the blue button above to go to the Teams download page in a new browser tab or window.
- Click on Download for Desktop or Download for Mobile (depending on the type of device you are installing it on).
- Once it is downloaded open the installer to install the application to your computer.
- Open the Teams application and it will prompt you to sign in.
- Enter your NetID@gfcmsu.edu for the username and the same password you use to login to your student email and Brightspace.
Students can download two mobile apps to help them keep track of their course schedule, assignment due dates, campus events, grades, student engagement, and more!
GFCMSU Mobile
The GFCMSU Mobile app is free and available to download to iOS and Android devices from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, by searching for "GFCMSU Mobile" (without the quotes).
When you open the app for the first time, click Get Started, click Student, click Next and you will be taken to a login page. Login using your NetID and the same password you use to login to Brightspace and Banner Web/MyInfo.
Campus Tiles - Each time you open the app you will be taken to a page that contains "tiles" to view things like the academic calendars, building hours, Brightspace Mobile, etc.
Home Screen - If you click on the "home" icon, you will see a featured tiles area, favorites (which you can edit), your schedule of face-to-face, hybrid, and hyflex courses, as well as items from any other calendar you have subscribed to, upcoming assignment due dates from Brightspace (will not show due dates for assignments in publisher websites), and unread notifications.
Student Feed - The Student Feed icon takes you to the campus wall. Students can post questions, comments, events, etc to the campus wall. You can also navigate to sections for posting items to buy or sell, lost & found item information, housing questions, news, and ride sharing.
Notifications - Any announcements created in Brightspace by the admins or your instructors will be visible within the app but clicking on notifications.
Profile - Clicking on the profile icon allows you to edit your profile within the app, manage friends, manage calendars, courses, groups, and subscribed activities.
Brightspace Pulse
Brightspace Pulse is a mobile app that was created by the makers of Brightspace and is available for free from the iOS and Google Play app stores. It allows students to read and interact with course content, keep track of upcoming and completed assignments, view grades for completed activities, receive announcements, and jump straight into the mobile version of Brightspace, without the need to login, to see and do more from within the app.
navGFC
The navGFC online platform streamlines student support by breaking down communication barriers. navGFC helps guide students toward a successful college journey and makes communication easier between GFCMSU administrators, advisors, faculty, and staff.
Learn more about navGFC at https://www.gfcmsu.edu/navgfc/
Webex is one of the video conferencing services we use at the college. It can be used for things like delivering live lectures to remote students, one-on-one virtual meetings and office hours with instructors, live-streamed campus events, etc.
Students are not required to have individual Webex accounts in order to use Webex, nor do we create or assign Webex accounts to students.
Webex is used in four different ways and the type of session you are joining will dictate how you join the meeting or event.
Live Lectures Through A Module In Brightspace - Some instructors use Webex integrated with Brightspace to deliver live lectures. You will know that this is the method you will use if there is a Content topic within the course in Brightspace that provides a list of meetings with a Join button next to them. In this case, you will click Join at the appropriate time and the previously installed Webex application should automatically open, allow you to select options like to have your video and microphone off at the start of the meeting, and then you will click Join on that window when you are ready to join the meeting.
Virtual Office Hours With An Instructor Via Brightspace - Some instructors setup virtual office hours via the same Webex/Brightspace integration mentioned previously. You will know that this is the method you will use to schedule a meeting with your instructor if there is a Content topic within the course in Brightspace that has an Office Hours tab and clicking on it gives you a list of available time slots available for scheduling. To use the virtual office hours, you will click on an available time slot, provide some information that you will be prompted for, and confirm your scheduled appointment. The appointment will go onto the instructor's calendar automatically and you will receive an email, at the email address you provide, with the meeting details to include the meeting password. You will use the link and password in the email at the scheduled time to join the meeting.
A Link To An Individual Meeting Provided By The Instructor - In some cases, the instructor may choose to schedule Webex meetings directly in Webex. In this case, you should receive the information to join the meeting from the instructor directly, either posted in the course in Brightspace, or emailed to you.
Campus Events - From time-to-time the college schedules campus events that can be participated in virtually using Webex. How you attend these events depends on the type of event. In some cases, you may need to pre-register, which means you will be sent an email with the necessary information for joining the event. In other cases, you simply need to click on a posted link at the specified date and time. Information about the particular event should explain how to participate.
Download Respondus Lockdown Browser
Respondus Lockdown Browser is a software application that runs on Windows PCs, Apple Desktop and Laptop computers, and newer Chromebooks. It helps to protect the integrity of quiz and exam attempts by preventing some features of the student's computer for the duration of any quiz or exam that requires it. Respondus Monitor uses the same installed computer application but goes a step further by using the microphone and web camera of the computer to record the student for the duration of the quiz or exam.
If you are enrolled in a course that is using this software for assessments, the instructor will provide information and instructions to install the software and how to use the application to take your quizzes and exams.
As you are reading this, you may already know that it will be required for one or more of your courses. If that is the case, feel free to use the link above to go to the Respondus Lockdown Browser download page to download and install the software.
Microsoft Teams is similar to Webex, in that it can be used for virtual meetings, but it is also a collaboration tool, which may work well for instructors who might want to use the collaborative features.
To install Teams:
- Click the blue button above to go to the Teams download page in a new browser tab or window.
- Click on Download for Desktop or Download for Mobile (depending on the type of device you are installing it on).
- Once it is downloaded open the installer to install the application to your computer.
- Open the Teams application and it will prompt you to sign in.
- Enter your NetID@gfcmsu.edu for the username and the same password you use to login to your student email and Brightspace.
The college provides three separate mobile apps, GFCMSU Mobile, navGFC, and Pulse, for students, which provide the ability to view class schedules, upcoming assignments, engage with other students, and much more. Students can access the navGFC and Pulse apps from tiles in the GFCMSU Mobile app.
The GFCMSU Mobile app can also be useful for instructors, as it contains quick access to Brightspace Mobile, campus directory, links to information about Brightspace updates, the TAC Newsletter, building hours, and more.
To download GFCMSU Mobile, visit the app store on your iOS or Android device and search for GFCMSU Mobile. When you open it for the first time, tap on Get Started > Faculty, and then sign in with your Brightspace login information.
navGFC is an essential advising scheduler, communication hub, and student success platform all rolled into one.
For more information about what you can do with navGFC, please visit https://gfcmsu.edu/navgfc/faculty-staff/. Please note that you will be prompted for a username and password to visit the page. You will need to use your NetID and network password to access it.
Webex is a virtual meeting service available to faculty. There are a few different ways it can be used, depending on what the intended purpose is, which are outlined below. Use the button above to go to the Webex download page to download and install the application to your computer.
Standalone Meetings - Standalone meetings can be scheduled using the desktop application, by logging into https://gfcmsu.webex.com, or by using the Outlook plugin to schedule directly from your email. This type of meeting can include guests internal to GFCMSU (students, staff, and faculty) or external guests (invited by email).
Live Lectures via Brightspace - Through the use of an integration with Brightspace, instructors can add the Webex Education Connector to their courses. The Education Connector allows the instructor to create single or recurring Webex meetings from within the course. The meetings can then be started by the instructor from within the Education Connector and students join the meetings from within the Education Connector also, which means no one needs to keep track of individual meeting links. Once the meeting is started/joined from the Education Connector the Webex desktop application takes over.
Virtual Office Hours via Brightspace - Another type of meeting the Education Connector can be used for is to setup virtual office hour blocks that students can schedule with the instructor. Once a meeting is scheduled this way, the instructor and student each receive an email with the meeting information and link to join.
Panopto is a video creation/storage/streaming service the college subscribes to. All instructors have access to Panopto as soon as they have access to Brightspace.
To access Panopto, navigate to any course you are an instructor in, and click on Toolbox > Panopto Recordings. It may take a few moments to load the first time you do this.
By default, Panopto places you in a folder within Panopto that is specific to the course you accessed it from. This means, if you are currently teaching course A and course B and you want to create or upload a video for course B, go to course B before you click on Toolbox > Panopto Recordings to ensure your video gets stored to the correct place.
There are three ways to add videos to Panopto:
- Panopto Recorder - This is a piece of software you install on your PC or Mac and then when you click Create > Panopto Recorder from the Panopto window, it will prompt you to install or open the Panopto Recorder application to start your recording.
- Panopto Capture - This is a web based recorder which doesn't require any installation. It has a very simple interface. For most videos this is the recommended option.
- Video Upload - If you have videos that were created outside of Panopto, you can use the Upload option to upload the videos to your Panopto account.
Embedding Panopto Videos In Brightspace Course Content
There is a very specific way that is best for embedding Panopto videos within course content. If you wish to embed videos that can be seen by students in future sections of this course when you copy your content forward, this method must be followed.
- From within the course content, navigate to or create the module where the video should live and click on Upload/Create > Create A File.
- Give the file a name that is indicative of the video you will be embedding.
- Click on the "insert stuff" button. (Located between the list and link buttons on the toolbar.)
- On the window that pops up, scroll down to Panopto.
- Select the video you wish to embed.
- Scroll down and click the green Insert button.
- Click the blue Insert button.
- Click Save and Close.
Respondus provides four services to which the college subscribes. The first two are Respondus Lockdown Browser and Respondus Monitor.
Respondus Lockdown Browser (LDB) is a piece of software that students install on their Windows or Mac computer to use when an instructor has enabled and required LDB to be used for specific exams/quizzes. The instructor enables LDB from within a dashboard in the quizzes tool in Brightspace. The student navigates to the quiz/exam within the course in their normal browser and then clicks a button to "Launch Lockdown Browser" which launches the LDB application to lock the student's computer into the quiz or exam for the duration of the test, preventing the student from screen printing, printing, or navigating to another browser or application.
Respondus Monitor goes a step further and uses the student's computer's microphone and web camera to record the student while they take the exam and then during video processing flags are added to points where the student's face became obscured or other factors make it appear that cheating may have occurred.
Respondus 4.0 is a Windows application that allows instructors to push and pull quizzes to and from Brightspace. The application allows you to download quizzes and save them as Word documents with or without an answer key and also allows you to create or edit quizzes and push them to your course in Brightspace.
To find user's guides and a download link, login to Brightspace and scroll to the Respondus widget near the bottom of the page.
Respondus Studymate Class is an online tool that is integrated with our Brightspace instance. It allows instructors to create study materials for students by adding terms/definitions and questions/answers. Adding one set of terms/definitions and questions/answers will create up to 9 different study activities for students and since they are created outside of Brightspace, they can easily be reused from semester to semester.
The tool can be found by navigating to any course where you have instructor privileges and clicking on Toolbox > Studymate Class. Instructions can be found on that site.
Great Falls College has limited licenses for Camtasia Studio. While Panopto should work well for most video creation needs, if you need the specific features available in Camtasia Studio, please contact the I.T. Department to see if it is possible to have Camtasia installed on your work computer.
Great Falls College has limited licenses for Adobe Creative Cloud. If you have a need to use Adobe CC software, please contact the I.T. Department to check license availability.
DocuSign is a service that allows faculty and staff to create paperless, legally binding, secure forms that can either be sent to individual recipients for digital signature or created as a PowerForm which can be linked to from a webpage or email to allow non-specific users to sign.
Please visit the DocuSign page for more information, training, and login information.
Microsoft Teams is similar to Webex, in that it can be used for virtual meetings, but it is also a collaboration tool, which may work well for instructors who might want to use the collaborative features.
To install Teams:
- Click the blue button above to go to the Teams download page in a new browser tab or window.
- Click on Download for Desktop or Download for Mobile (depending on the type of device you are installing it on).
- Once it is downloaded open the installer to install the application to your computer.
- Open the Teams application and it will prompt you to sign in.
- Enter your NetID@gfcmsu.edu for the username and the same password you use to login to your student email and Brightspace.
The college provides two separate mobile apps, GFCMSU Mobile and Pulse, for students, which provide the ability to view class schedules, upcoming assignments, engage with other students, and much more.
The GFCMSU Mobile app can also be useful for staff, as it contains quick access to the campus directory, the TAC Newsletter, building hours, and more.
To download GFCMSU Mobile, visit the app store on your iOS or Android device and search for GFCMSU Mobile. When you open it for the first time, tap on Get Started > Staff. The staff portion of the mobile app does not require login.
Webex is a virtual meeting service available to faculty. There are a few different ways it can be used, depending on what the intended purpose is, which are outlined below. Use the button above to go to the Webex download page to download and install the application to your computer.
Standalone Meetings - Standalone meetings can be scheduled using the desktop application, by logging into https://gfcmsu.webex.com, or by using the Outlook plugin to schedule directly from your email. This type of meeting can include guests internal to GFCMSU (students, staff, and faculty) or external guests (invited by email).
Live Lectures via Brightspace - Through the use of an integration with Brightspace, instructors can add the Webex Education Connector to their courses. The Education Connector allows the instructor to create single or recurring Webex meetings from within the course. The meetings can then be started by the instructor from within the Education Connector and students join the meetings from within the Education Connector also, which means no one needs to keep track of individual meeting links. Once the meeting is started/joined from the Education Connector the Webex desktop application takes over.
Virtual Office Hours via Brightspace - Another type of meeting the Education Connector can be used for is to setup virtual office hour blocks that students can schedule with the instructor. Once a meeting is scheduled this way, the instructor and student each receive an email with the meeting information and link to join.
By default staff members do not have access to Panopto. This is due to the way we have Panopto setup for students and instructors, who access it via Brightspace. However, if you have a need to create, upload, and/or share videos Panopto is a great solution and an account can be created for any staff who have a need to use it.
If you would like access to Panopto, please use the TAC Ticket Form to request an account.
Once your account has been created, please use these instructions for logging into your account.
- Visit https://gfcmsu.hosted.panopto.com in your web browser.
- Click on the drop down menu that says "Panopto External Learning Tool" and change it to "Panopto".
- Click Sign In.
Great Falls College has limited licenses for Camtasia Studio. While Panopto should work well for most video creation needs, if you need the specific features available in Camtasia Studio, please contact the I.T. Department to see if it is possible to have Camtasia installed on your work computer.
Great Falls College has limited licenses for Adobe Creative Cloud. If you have a need to use Adobe CC software, please contact the I.T. Department to check license availability.
DocuSign is a service that allows faculty and staff to create paperless, legally binding, secure forms that can either be sent to individual recipients for digital signature or created as a PowerForm which can be linked to from a webpage or email to allow non-specific users to sign.
Please visit the DocuSign page for more information, training, and login information.