Organizing and Growing a State Users Group

I'm Judith Lee, and I am, the director of Check learning at North East Alabama Community College. And I've got, Anne Strickland and Katherine Jernigan with me. They'll tell you about their self in a minute. We just wanna tell you a little bit about our journey. We are three, of a leadership team. So, this is not something that the three of us have I'm gonna hand you this.

Let you this is not something that the three of us have done on our own. This is a group effort, and, and it's, it's kind of like a living, breathing document, or organism or whatever it's just always, changing. We currently have thirteen institutions on our leadership team, from the state of Alabama. And right now, that just consists of community colleges and universities. So our timeline is kinda just what we're gonna cover, where where we started, what we've learned since we started, and where where we hope to go, with this group in the future.

So it all kind of started in two thousand fifteen. Monavalli University, had, a canvas day. And I was new to canvas. We were going live in the file and so I attended that and realized, how much it meant to me to be able to share with people from Alabama community colleges, the k through twelve system was there at that event. University people.

It made a great great context. A lot of Canvas people were there. And so it was just a great day And that just kind of planted in my mind. Why don't we why don't we do this more? You know, This is a great event. But, you know, I'm the only person here from my school.

No, you know, nobody else could, was afforded to travel. So events like this in our own state was what kind of sparked. My, hey, we we wanna do we wanna do this more. So I guess nothing really happened in two thousand sixteen. And in two thousand seventeen, Troy State University is, a huge, university in our state.

They have a huge e campus, which is worldwide And so they had transitioned to Canvas. So I had contacts there. I reached out to them, and I was like, we need a statewide users group. I knew that they had the resources, they had the funding, they had the money, they were big, I'm a small community college, But I also learned that universities operate a lot different than community colleges. That was kind of my first experience with, you know, with, you know, they have to run it up the chain.

They have to get approval. It's just it's a very different way of of doing things. I guess we we get away with a lot at the community college and I didn't realize how much but they they did, we we talked about it. And then they reached out to some contacts that they had at Auburn. So in two thousand eighteen, the the contacts that we had made at Auburn started a South Eastern users group on the community.

Well, that included Tennessee and Georgia and several other people, and it was online. It was on the community. Well, I mean, I can find a lot of things on the community, but that that's not what we were looking for. That's not what we that's not what we needed. That's not what we wanted.

So then in two thousand nineteen, our state, the Alabama Community College System. There's twenty six is there twenty six? Scope twenty six Community College is in the state. Was going to issue an RFP for a common LMS statewide. So that kind of set off panic. With me.

Now I had been a Blackboard administrator for fifteen years. That's kinda like saying Baltimore. But And I went to Canvas kicking and screaming. We got a new IT director, and she went behind my back and moved us to Canvas, and I hated her, and and we had all this trouble. And then I had to stand up and testify that she was right and I was wrong because it was the best thing that ever happened to our faculty.

So then I was at the point where I'm not going back. I hadn't been here long enough to retire, but I'm not going back. So Eleven of the community colleges were on Canvas and we were like, we we gotta take a stand. We gotta do something. We gotta be heard.

So we kind of formed a leadership team, reached out to some of the universities and was able to bring on, I think we brought on about seven universities, and so we just kinda we just said anybody wanna spend the leadership team. We're gonna have a Canvas users group. We're gonna have a statewide Canvas users group. And so Southern Union, agreed to host us. They're one of our community colleges, and so We worked hard.

Canvas was a great support for us. We had a meeting in April. We had, our vendors were wonderful. You know, your everybody's competing for your proctoring services. So that was kind of our theme.

We we picked a picked a theme and said, we're gonna you know, pit them against each other. We're gonna get all the proctoring people in here. They're gonna pay for breakfast. They're gonna pay for lunch. Cause this is a free event.

We don't charge anybody. There's no registration fee. The schools, hopefully, Catherine will testify to that in a minute. We We don't have any funding. Okay.

So we just we have to depend on Canvas and our vendors to support this event. But we did we did that in April. And then we were like, well, this is so good. We're gonna do it again. So we decided we would we would rotate from community college to universities.

So then in October, we just we had us another one at the University of Auburn. And after that, we was like, what were crazy? We can't do this twice a year. That's a lot, and it it was a lot. It it was successful. In April, we had a hundred and twenty four attendees at our first meeting with, twenty nine colleges represented from the state.

And so we was proud of that. And then in October, we had a hundred and forty one attendees, with about the same number of colleges represented. But we didn't know, did we have more in attendance in October because it was in foul or more in attendance because word-of-mouth, it's just getting out. But that's when we decided that once a year, is enough because it's a big planning. It takes a a long time.

And so, we had that one in October of two thousand nineteen. And then we went to two thousand twenty. And so you know what happened there. So we won't even talk about that. So then in two thousand twenty one, we we had made the decision.

Okay. We're gonna have one a year. It was back to the community college. We'd host for us. And so, Shelton State was our host.

Again, we had grown a little bit, had a little bit of attendance. And then, I'm gonna turn it over to Katherine, and she's gonna talk about She was our host in twenty twenty two, and she's gonna give you more details about what it really takes to be the host and to actually hold the event. You gotta mind. Yeah. That makes sense.

You guys can hear me right. Okay. Alright. Well, good afternoon. My name is Catherine Jordan.

I'm the director of instructional design at Samford University in Birmingham Camp Alabama. And we did have the privilege, as Judith mentioned, of hosting the Alabama Canvas users group in October of twenty twenty two. And I will say in reviewing, because basically a lot of what I wanna talk about is a little bit more about event management, but, how we put it on to, suit the purpose of our group and what our group is looking for. But I thought, well, y'all gave me the part of the presentation probably gonna deter you from doing this because it does, as Judith mentioned, it does take a lot. And when we are planning the event, we really plan for a couple of different things.

Our our participants, our, colleagues want to come, want to network, but two for professional development. And then we've also had some other, people from around the state who are thinking of moving to Canvas to kind of come and explore as well. But the reason I mentioned that upfront is because when we're planning our event, that might look different from something that you may want to do where you're if you're looking at putting a group together. So, some of the considerations I'm gonna talk through just as an overview is like the space that you need to consider when you're hosting the event, looking at a date that might work for everyone, communication, the program programming, or the agenda for the event, talking about sponsors and partners and vendors and how there's a difference between all three. Believe it or not, so I am gonna start talking with, space.

So space is something that we found out in planning the event, like, affects almost everything else that you're doing with the event. So because, when we have, our participants come, we wanna have it more as a professional development. It's like a mini conference, kind of like we've got going here. So, when we hosted, we had to find a place on campus that had a bigger room for everyone to come together at one point in time, and then have those smaller breakout rooms for those individual sessions. And so when you're thinking about maybe a spot for, you know, your group to meet.

If you if you go in that direction, then those are some things to consider, with you know, what you have available for you. The other thing is the ease of navigation for attendees. I mean, if it if you've been doing structure even if you think about when we were at Strenture Con in Los Angeles, we got our steps in. Right? So trying to figure out a spot where it's not much of transition from your main meeting place to your smaller breakout rooms. Is it easy to navigate from one room to the other? I will have to say that, this goes to availability of space in just a second, but the room that we originally planned on using was already booked.

So we kinda had to pivot and find a place where in one building, everyone could be together. Because part of the fun is is passing people in the hallway and networking and talking as you're moving from one place to the other. As Judith said, we we don't have, funding. We have to find it from other places, but part of what we use those those sponsor, levels that we'll talk about in a minute when when they sign up for a different level is, food. I mean, that's a good way to bring people in, you know, you say the word food and everyone kind of flocks.

So a space for meals, a space for people to eat, because again, that goes back to networking. I think Anne and I probably got to know other better over lunch one day at the the Canvas users group a couple of years ago. So finding a space, for that part of your event and then a spot for your sponsors or partners because they're going to want to come, they're gonna wanna set up their tables, they're going to have a spot where they can be seen, so making sure that, you know, all of these pieces play together on on who is where and how you can access them. The technology available. This one's a big one, especially for y'all in higher ed.

You know when you go to some of the classrooms that might be used out as breakout rooms, and all you have is a chalkboard. Right. So looking at your spaces, what technology is available? Is there, a projector? Is there, Wi Fi access. I know that our campus is, several years ago, had to go and and, radio the wifi in infrastructure so that the signal was better. So if you're gonna have, I mean, we had probably close to eighty people at our last event.

That's a lot of people in one space for one building. That's something else to think about. And then the dreaded parking, y'all. I don't want our campus parking is I mean, it's it's a difficult issue. Like, if you leave midday on campus and you come and you find a parking place close to your building, it's like finding the golden chalice.

But parking is another thing, and when we talk later about how much it takes to put on, like, financially. I know some places they charge you for parking, even if it's on, an event that you are sponsoring. So some of those things play into it. Also, where are they gonna park? How far is it from where they're parking to where they've gotta go? Believe it or not, this all plays into the experience of making people want to come and want to keep, participating in the group. So with date availability of space, making sure that you plan out far enough, again, the the the room that we originally wanted to, used was booked.

It gets booked like a year and a half out. It's crazy. And then think about your attendee schedules. We deal a lot with higher ed. I think a lot of our Solutions that that come to our group or higher education, we're hoping to broaden that out to k twelve.

But know, if you wanna have an event that's at the beginning of a term or the end of a term, nope, not gonna happen. You know, you so you've really gotta think about what's best for them, where you can get more people coming. And then other scheduled events like, I know I know our upcoming one. We have competition with shrimp fest. But it's gonna be good.

It's gonna work out. But just things that, you know, you need to consider holidays. So if you're like, okay, well, maybe we'll do it in, November. Well, that's almost too close to Thanksgiving. So it sounds crazy, but when you're wanting to get a group of people together, then it all it all makes a difference.

Okay. So sponsors and partners, these are very important for us because this is how we help to pay for our event. And this is the first year that we have done this. Right? Okay. It's kind of happened a little bit in some way, shape, or form.

I think it used to be that, you know, if we had breakfast catered for the group, then one sponsor might handle paying for that. This year, we did something different with sponsorship levels. I'm gonna, pull those up in a second and show you, but this is really important for budgeting. Again, we're putting on a mini conference because that's know, people wanna come together, they wanna do professional development. So it's a little bit of a bigger event than, you know, maybe you need to start off small and everybody made it a coffee shop after I don't know.

Maybe that's your budgetary level. But it makes the difference on being able to pay and sustain for an event that everyone can come enjoy. And then one of the, one of the hiccups that we ran into was taking payments. So our group as of right now is not an official group, like, as in we have filed legal paperwork paperwork with the state of Alabama. So being able to take payment we this year, we reworked it.

So our department took the payments, and then we in turn paid the paid the vendors. But, you know, we run into some things with that because what happens if, you have to pay the invoice before you get your sponsor money in. Because when we were working with this event, we have our sponsors and our partners, but I may be working with one person from accounting to get the money. One person from marketing to get their information. I may be working with the, salesperson who's coming to the event setting up a table.

So things are happening on different timelines sometimes. So it, and so when you're trying to pay out to keep to keep the event going, it it makes a difference on how you're gonna take payments. And I believe Anne's gonna talk in a little while on how we're hoping to solve that problem. And then the other thing too is that, okay, so let's say, I'm gonna say fingers crossed. I'm gonna be hopeful and opportunist that maybe next year we get more sponsorship money than it costs to put the event on.

Well, the next year, that may not happen. So we can use that bridge. And then the sponsorship levels, I'll go over that in a minute, but we end up setting levels so that, we deliver these specific things to our sponsors and partners, and then they would sponsor us at a specific level with a specific monetary position. Vendors, we had to separate them because we are, in my office, we kept getting a little confused, wait, is it, are they sponsor, are they a partner, are they a vendor? Vendor to us were the people that we hired, so the catering company or the the people that we we had to put signage up our building because it's a little old. But it worked.

So, like, you know, the bathrooms, it's kinda it was in a circle shape. So the bathrooms you had to go all the way around the back, and there were no signs up. So we had to get signs. And they are still up, by the way. Like, it it we're still using them.

So, you know, we're getting our money's worth out of them. But, but those are the types of expenses that I was like, oh, I didn't even think about that. You know? But as far as food goes, we had an in house vendor that provided the coffee service all day. And so we had to arrange for them to come and set up, and so it was great. We, it worked out really well.

We had a point person for, like, the food delivery. Our departmental assistant, who is wonderful. Is an event management queen. Like, I do not question her event management prowess whatsoever she had, you know, in doing any of this. But having one person that kind of handled this part of it really helped out.

And then Okay. So these are the sponsor partner packages we used this past year. We have updated these. We actually did it just last week. So it's not in in this presentation.

But what we did is we structured it with a bronze package at the bottom, and then silver package. So the bronze package was three hundred dollars plus a prize donation. Oh, I'll kinda get into some of the nitty gritty in a second. The silver package was a five hundred dollar sponsorship with, a prize donation. Gold package was seven fifty, and then the the package was a thousand, and they build on each other.

So if you got the silver, then anything that's in the bronze goes with it. And I think it the concept, I think, worked really well. Logistic woah, logistically. Some of these we had a little bit of tinkering we had to do with. So for example, I'm gonna just use the bronze package as an example.

So when it said, logo in electronic communications regarding the conference. Well, I think we sent out like two emails, and then we had a website that we directed everybody to. So we just kind of put some things on the website and just lifted of that. Price included in, drawing during lunch session. Well, y'all I mean, I saw how everybody descended on those box lunches yesterday after the after the session.

So when lunch is announced, if you really think that people are gonna be able to come back and sit in one spot, for drawing, it's not gonna happen. So we ended up legit, like, as far as the agenda goes, moving that to the end of the day when we knew everyone was coming back together. And then, business card or promo gift included in each attendee's bag. So we would try to do a swag bag for everyone. But sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.

It depended on when that sponsor got their stuff to us. So, were kinda like, well, you have a table. You can put your information out there. Because some of the the salespeople would be bringing with them. Well, you're coming the morning of, and we're putting this stuff together ahead of time for the sake of our own sanity.

But again, so if it was silver, silver package, tier prominence on conference agenda, we changed that wording to the conference website. Because when we were planning our sessions and agenda in my mind is when things are happening and where. It got a little hanky because now you're kind of playing Tetris a little bit with who's going where and when. So those are some of the changes that we looked at, and we're gonna try to implement this coming year. And then, some of the I think we had a a banner or, like, to have where their logos were up.

We ended up putting that on a digital screen outside of the big meeting room because when we were looking at our space, we were like, oh, there's no there's no room to hang a banner. Like, there's. So hindsight, we did pivot some on some of these. It worked out overall. But the thing that I would emphasize with with this is, one, you wanna make sure that whatever you put on here, you're gonna be able to deliver.

And then, two, the way things are worded. You wanna make sure your communication is clear. So all parties are understanding that if you pay this, this is what you're going to get. Not that we didn't deliver on anything, but like I said, we changed the wording on some of these. And then communication.

So timeliness is key because when we, had the event in October of last year, we already had date and place set for the one for this year. And we sent out the save the date a few weeks ago. So when you're wanting people to come or we're wanting people to come, we want that to get out as much as possible as soon as possible. So being able to let the word spread, hopefully, like wildfire, being able to get that out. And then attendee registrations.

This past year, we used eventbrite which overall works pretty well. We had combined it with, having presenters submit information to and, it got a little confusing at times, I think. So we're gonna try to pivot and do something different this year. But you wanna make sure you have a way to have attendee registrations, and, be able to get that information. Also, it helped us with the head count.

Right? Like, just being able to say, okay. You know, I said we had eighty people. I mean, a difference between fifty and eighty, that makes a difference on how you set some things up. And you're in structure contacts. So we had several of the sales guys from instructure who were an absolute great resource.

They're the ones that can help you, connect with your other Canvas users in your area, help get the word out. And then, of course, sponsors and partners, you want to be able to communicate with them and say, Hey, we have this event. You need to come sponsor us. You need to come. I think we even some that maybe didn't sponsor but had a table.

In that way, at least they can come and get to know that if they attend one year, maybe there'll be a sponsor the next year. So all are welcome in that regard. And then programming. So, you know, if again, we're doing this partially for professional So we have a call for proposals. So we wanna have we wanna hear from each other.

We wanna know what each other or what you're doing. In your instance, at your school, even in your classroom, even faculty members. So being able to have a call for proposals and be able to collect those. We did kinda have a vetting process on the end, again, the team kinda got together and looked at some of the proposals, because, you wanna make sure that it's that what you're getting is fitting what you need. Mode of instruction.

So this next year, well, this year, we had like a virtual track, and then we had in person session. This coming year, there's no virtual logistically. It was a little much. But I think one thing it was not this last year, but the year before, it was it was very virtual. We had a lot of virtual presenters.

And that was really good, I think, because I got to hear from people maybe who couldn't travel, but they could still come and present and talk about what they're doing at their institution. But then again, you don't have that person, Hey, let's grab a cup of coffee afterwards. I really wanna learn more kind of a thing. So I think that's really important to our group, and so that's part of the reason that we're moving to fully in person this next go round. This last year, we also had a keynote.

It was hilarious. And we focused this year more on he had been in education and then transitioned, but just that piece of we've talked about burnout today and finding the joy and what doing. And so he spoke kinda more on on that vein of things. But, for us finding a keynote that everyone could relate to that added to our event, But that was the this is the first year we've had a keynote. And then again, I mentioned before, we had a Canvas site.

We just had a Canvas course that was a public course. We used city labs I'm not paid by city labs, but we had city labs, and we used it to design out the course. This is where we put the event information. This is where we put the session information. This is where we put the contact information for everyone.

So it was one stop shopping, and it worked out really well. And then we have a link to the course we can provide later I'm gonna try to open it now. And then, of course, door prizes. I mean, come on. You gotta have some fun with some swag.

Right? And again, so that that was also covered in our sponsor levels. And I think we also had some, like, books left over from faculty development training that were really good. We just had a bunch of extras. We used those for door prices. So, I don't know.

It was really funny. It was like the price is right. Everyone just kinda ran down to the front of the room when their name was called. So, that is, I think, most of it. And then up next is planning for the future.

Thanks, Katherine. Everyone, my name is Ann Strickland. I'm with Coastal Alabama Community College. And so as we started planning, for the coming year's event, we started, like, like Catherine mentioned last year. So at the end, of last this past year's conference.

As the leadership team, we went ahead and made a decision who's gonna host So it went from a university back to a community college, and we've really liked the rotation of the sites for that. And so, I volunteered. And I said, Hey, I wanna go ahead and volunteer my community college as the next site. We're on the Gulf Coast. So we have beaches, and it would help draw a little more people in.

And so One of the things that we thought about was, okay, so now we know a year in advance where it's gonna be. We know I'm gonna be hosting So I was able to go in and start talking with the leadership team, talking to everyone who had made decisions in the past, but also start working with my local team, especially IT. So some of the things that we started working on immediately were making some changes with how we had planned out the budget, talking about the leadership team, and over the past two years, what things worked and didn't work with the leadership team and the membership of the team, and then making those early decisions and communication. So one thing I wanna ask before I talk about these changes, how many of you are actually part of a state users group for Canvas? If you don't raise your hand, you have a state user's group. Yay, Alabama.

So one of the things that we discovered And and Judith really was kind of a just a huge implementation go getter with bringing all of this together because she kept saying, Anne, Anne, we've gotta get this started. We've gotta have people. We we wanna get together and network and talk. And so as we started coming together in those first few years, canvas truly was, instrumental in helping make this work. So through and structure and through our contacts with our instructure team as institutions.

And we continued to talk about how important it was to bring everyone in the state together. So as we've continued those conversations, changes in how we've handled budgeting. One of the things we learned, over the past was that the local host was having to manage all of that. So we're institutions, some private, some public. It started getting really difficult with how to manage the money, who's gonna keep up with the money, is your college actually gonna let you buy things for a conference and then get reimbursed? So it was really difficult to manage.

For the community college system, everything had to go through a very detailed purchasing process So I have a very, dedicated purchasing agent at my college. And so they're usually other words that get kinda tossed around when we talk about the purchasing process, but she, you know, really works through what is this for? Why are you doing this? Is this gonna get reimbursed from sponsorship funds? So it really became difficult. It was really impossible for us to transfer leftover funds. So Sanford University can't then write a check or cut funds. To Coastal Alabama to be the next host.

So that really became problematic. So what we have done for upcoming event, we've actually created a five zero one C three. And so we've actually done that through the community college system because it was a little easier to make that happen. So through our chancellor's office, we were able to get that approved as a statewide distance education association who is now the sponsor of this statewide event. So with that, it now becomes easier to manage the money.

We can keep up with a true budget. We can start working with our sponsors earlier and easier for assistance year after year. Without any kind of disruption if there are leftover funds, we can start applying those to the next year. So with the leadership team, one thing we really had to find out, the hard way was who was really interested, who was committed because this is really a huge effort to try to bring together an entire state, a state of institutions, universities, community colleges, And as you can see here, we are working in k twelve this year. So you heard Judith talk about the very first event, had a lot of k twelve out of the state of Alabama as part of that process.

Well, then they kind of got left out. So through the years, k twelve was not part of the event. And so this past year, we had some k twelve representatives attend, at Sanford, and we started talking about how many more systems, within the state of Alabama had moved to Canvas, and the fact that we all have dual enrollment. And so you have all of these faculty members, are adjunct faculty who are teaching dual enrollment classes who are part of the k twelve system, but really not getting that support. So with our leadership team, we have started updating that membership.

If the, you know, somebody who's part of a university or a college or an LK twelve. If they're not gonna attend the meetings, they're not gonna help do the work. They're off the team. And so then we bring in somebody who is interested because in the state of Alabama, we have institutions who are making the change to canvas almost, what, three or four different times a year. So we've seen a lot of institutions make the decision this year to come on board.

So all of those folks are really interested in helping him being part of the team. So early decisions in communication. Again, I mentioned, planning ahead for the hosting. So as soon as I knew I was gonna host, I'm a very geographically large region for my college. I have nine physical campuses.

That cover a very huge geographic area in South Alabama. So the first thing I had to think about was where are we gonna have this? So it's like Catherine mentioned, What campus can I put this on? Number one, that's not in the middle of nowhere. Because I wanna be able to have a good place for folks to have dinner the night before. If they're coming in from north part of the state, all the way down to the south part of the state, they need to be able to get dinner, they need to be able to you know, be in a nice town where they're gonna be able to get hotels. So that was a huge part of trying to make a decision and where this was gonna be and what campus I was gonna host on.

And so starting that notification. So at the end of the year, at the end of the last conference, we made the announcement, and then started having conversations planning out, are we gonna have a keynote speaker And so we already have our keynote speaker lined up for the next conference. We know who it's gonna be. We've had conversations. We know what topic is gonna be presented for that keynote.

And I have space reservations already made. So I know what campus I'm on. I know what buildings I'm gonna need. All of that paperwork is done. I worked with IT a year ago and said, okay.

I'm using these classrooms. Here are the things I need. We did a walk through. We discussed WiFi. And so they've had a year to start working on things which made them really happy.

Because nobody gives IT a year to to work on something. So they were they were very happy. They were like, you know, when is this gonna happen? And I said, we've got a year. And they were like, really? So we can we can get things done, you know, we can order anything that's missing in a classroom. We can make sure that the wifi is up to speed that you have the bandwidth that you're gonna need.

So that really helped with planning And then updating to the sponsor and partner packages based on feedback. So Catherine talked about that a little bit. And what we discovered was really important was to go in and clean up anything that that was an issue for those sponsors or partners. And so what she didn't tell you was that we had a really funny conversation with our leadership team where we really brought a meeting to a screeching halt and Katherine said, Hey, we need some definitions. What what is a partner? What is a sponsor? What is a vendor? You heard her talk about vendors, but what she didn't go into detail on is what we decided was a difference between our sponsors.

And our partners. So what we decided and we're doing very differently this year is that a partner is someone who is in it with us. It's a company who isn't part of our system in the state. But they are doing some kind of in kind contribution. So for this year, we have two partners, and that is in structure, and the other partner this year is city labs.

What we were able to work out with city labs is that in the past, every institution who would host would you know, throw out a canvas course. They would take that. So, well, I think two years ago, we started with city labs. But prior to that, they would just put some information out on a course and direct everybody to the site. And so when I was getting ready, to to start talking about working on, you know, hosting.

I said, look, I mean, every year we're changing the address. So we don't wanna pay for a website because we don't wanna add that annual expense. But if we're changing with the institutions' canvas instance every single year, then every single year we may lose people because they don't know where to go back to. So we had this wonderful conversation with City Labs and said, Hey, we're using your product, but guess what? Coastal Alabama doesn't license city labs, but we would really like to work with you guys on being able to use your product And so we were able to work with them, and they have approved. And for this year, we will actually host our user's group sites through city labs and their Canvas instance.

And so they became an income partner because their product will be what we use, but it won't be hosted on their site. So then the following year after, my college hosts, that site doesn't change, and it will stay the same. And then all we have to do is update our content. So then for sponsors, what we decided is those are the folks who are giving us money. So if they're giving us money, then they are a sponsor and we have those different sponsor levels.

So it's really been a really creative process so far. And how we plan and what we do, and we do come together as a leadership team, usually virtually, couple of times a year. And start trying to work through, you know, a lot of the different things that have come up and feedback for, after the different conferences have happened. And so this coming year, we're really excited because we feel like we've been able to bring a lot of things together, address a lot of issues, that have happened in the past. And I will tell you one, thing that that Judith and Katherine and I have been working on for this conference is we have really hit the vendors, the exhibition hall.

And so we printed out little save the date cards, and we have hit them up. Hey, come to the Alabama Canvas users group. You know, everybody in Alabama is gonna be interested in your product. Why don't you sponsor our event? So, you know, we've talked to the big companies, the little companies. You know, we're looking at k twelve through university level.

And so I have not talked to a vendor yet who said, you know, I just I don't think that's for us. Everyone of them said, oh, you're k twelve and community colleges and universities. Yes. We would love to talk to hopefully two hundred or more attendees at a conference in the state of Alabama. So, you know, that's been great for us to be able to to go through and really promote our state event, here at Instructure Con.

So are there any questions for us. That's really, you know, all that we have to talk about with our process and how we got things rolling, but We're welcome to take any questions. If anybody has them. Yeah. Yeah.

So the question was what level of support and structure provided? So in the beginning, they handled cost for food. They handled the eventbrite registration. So they really helped kick off everything in the beginning so that we could get our feet on the ground. And I'm gonna let Judith talk a little bit because she was really there more with them in the early days. I I think other than have been paid for the food because, you know, that's our biggest expense.

They provide a a trainer or one person, sometimes two air, what is Doug's title? Sales person, whoever always is there. And then they usually provide, another person to come in, like, we'll have a dedicated room, to where we'll have canvas sessions all day. So like the Canvas trainer will do in every time slot. He will be doing something and then he'll be available at lunch or she or whoever whoever comes. So that that's been a a a big part of that.

Yes. So in between the the annual conference, we find that people who are participating in the event are continuing the conversation after the conference, like, how how was the collaboration and communication going on in the TV? Okay. So the question is like in between the events do we communicate with each other? And yes, we do. We like like I I've created like a a mailing list lists serve for old times sake is I guess what I would still call it And, so like everybody that's attended ever attended any of our events, they get an email, they got to save the date, And then after the registration this year, I'll add those new people to that list. And so a lot of times when someone has a question or a problem, they'll send that mass email, you know, that says, Hey, I'm dealing with this.

Anybody else still with it? Know, my first reply always wants to be. Please don't reply all. Please just reply to the person, you know. But but then some somebody else will come in and say, oh, yeah. Hey, I need I need to know that.

Can can I get in on this conversation too? And then we all had lunch we, the leadership team all had lunch together today, and that was just kind of fun because like Anne said, we do all of our leadership meetings virtually. And so even, I mean, we're spread out across the state. We don't get a chance to be together very often. So just having lunch today in person was fun for us. Yeah.

So I'll add to that. One of the things this coming year that we plan to do is take all of the slides and put them into that course. And then we can open up, since we're using a Canvas course, we can open up discussions to continue the discussions after the event. But I will say that for me personally, you know, kind of being involved since twenty nineteen was the first year for me to get involved with the state users group, but I've met so many contacts from other schools you know, that I could bounce a question off of, when we first started thinking about, how, you know, we wanna hand we wanna do something with blueprint. But we have no idea how it works.

Even though I've watched all the webinars, I've read all of the material, I wanna find a college or another school who's doing it. And so I met someone at one of the conferences who gave a presentation, but man, she's talking about API calls, and she's going into this. And I'm like, Oh, wow. I don't I mean, I can't absorb all of that in forty five minutes, but she and I became very good contacts from different ends of the state over the past five years. So it definitely has helped us create connections and finding people who have a niche and things that they could do with Canvas.

And like try she's here from Athens State. She's one of our universities that's just moving, to Canvas from the Baltimore School. And you came last year, Ryan you came she came to the users group meeting last year knowing that her school was fixed into transition. And so she's had that whole year of contacts and building building out and then, somebody kept Caitlin is new to our community college system. So did you come from that other school too? One of those other schools? She came from one of those other schools.

So just having just having that, you know, when You know, when I was, you know, dragged to canvas kicking and screaming, you know, I didn't know what to do in that one event at at Mont Valley kinda, I guess, saved my life or saved the lives of my faculty and students, I guess, who's who's saved. Yeah. Any other questions? Alright. Thank y'all. I think we're holding you for for dinner.