Getting the most out of Campuswire

Best practices + and tips & tricks for using Campuswire to save time, drive student engagement, and streamline your class communication.

1. Invite students to your class

Campuswire gives you two easy ways to invite students to your class: you can either share the class link and class code in the syllabus, or you can invite students via email.

When you invite students to your class via email, each student will get a welcome email saying “Professor X invited you to their class on Campuswire — click here to join.” This is the easiest way to maximize Campuswire usage at the beginning of the Term.

2. Make it personal 😃

Campuswire is designed to feel personal and more like modern messaging tools than a traditional LMS forum — taking advantage of this encourages students to engage.

1. Set a profile picture
2. Create a welcome post on the class-feed (here’s a template!)

3. Paste this blurb in the syllabus

Nearly all students will read the class syllabus. Pasting the following blurb will ensure everyone in the class is familiar with Campuswire’s utility.

Campuswire

This term we’ll be using Campuswire for all class Q&A, announcements, and discussions. I’ll post all class announcements on Campuswire and you should use it to ask any class-related questions. TAs and I will check Campuswire frequently and answer unresolved questions, but you’re also encouraged to collaborate with each other and answer each other’s questions.

4. Share this introductory post in the Class Feed

Welcome to (Class Name) and welcome to Campuswire! This will be our home base for Q&A, announcements, and discussion in this course.

Here’s a quick video walkthrough from the Campuswire team: https://www.loom.com/share/e9a4a33a98054ec6a74f95ef7af62fe6

Here’s a longer version for Instructors and TAs: https://youtu.be/u30YFXePCxg

And here’s a link to Campuswire’s Help Center: https://intercom.help/campuswireHQ/en

Feel free to reach out to the Campuswire team anytime — they want to hear feedback and feature requests from professors, TAs, and students.

5. Set expectations

To get the most out of Campuswire as a professor it helps to set expectations for class communication at the beginning of the term. Here are some tips:

1. Explicitly tell students that all class communication will occur over Campuswire: “We’re using Campuswire for all class announcements, q&a and discussions. Please do not email me with questions except for official matters — paste them on Campuswire”
2. Redirect all questions to Campuswire: “That’s a good question, post it on Campuswire, other students might have it too!”
3. Decide with what frequency you and TAs will monitor Campuswire and communicate that clearly to students, encouraging them to collaborate with and help each other.

6. Demo Campuswire during the first week of class

Showing students a quick, 3-minute in-class demo of Campuswire’s main features during the first week of the term helps them understand how they can use Campuswire and drives engagement (reducing email clutter!).

• Demonstrate asking a question on the class-feed
• Demonstrate answering a question on the class-feed
• Demonstrate up-voting an answer
• Demonstrate commenting on a post
• Demonstrate commenting on an answer

7. Enable the Class Reputation feature

Enabling the Class Reputation feature drastically increases student collaboration (by rewarding students for answering their peers’ questions), improves the quality of student answers, and reduces average question response times.

Turn on Rep to boost engagement and track participation!

8. Discourage email

If students email you, or TAs questions, tell them “Please post this question on Campuswire!”.

Even if the question is in regards to a private matter, students can create “Private posts” which are only visible to TAs and Professors. If you allow, students can also privately message you on Campuswire so all of your communication remains in a single place.

9. Bring Campuswire into the classroom

• During class, select a question that was asked on Campuswire and briefly discuss it!
• Consider incorporating students’ rep level on Campuswire as a part of their participation grade in the class — as you’d imagine, this gets students really involved.

10. Use Campuswire for class operations

• Use the #TAs room for coordinating with all of your teaching assistants.
• Create faculty groups on Campuswire to collaborate with other faculty members also involved with the course or in your department.

11. Reach out to the Campuswire team!

We’re always ready and available to help out, answer any questions or just generally be more useful! Simply click on the wizard in the bottom left corner of the site and send us a message — we’re friendly and we’ll get back to you quickly!