Pilots that drive innovation in teaching and learning.
Our instructional technology pilot process is designed to find the best tools to meet the needs of our instructors. These focused pilots gather feedback and data that allow us to make informed decisions about adoption.
Current Pilots
TurnItIn Draft Coach
We’re currently piloting Turnitin’s Draft Coach, a tool that provides students writing support directly within their Microsoft Word environment. Our goal is to explore whether this feature is a good long-term fit for our campus and teaching community.
Interested instructors are invited to test the feature in their Fall courses by offering it to students and providing feedback on its impact. Participation includes working with our team to enable the tool for your students and collecting basic student/instructor impressions.
If you’re interested, fill out this short form and we’ll reach out with setup steps and instructional materials.
Note: While Draft Coach may eventually be available for student self-enablement via Microsoft Add-ins, for this trial we are enabling the tool manually on a per-course basis.
Harmonize
We are looking for faculty representatives to participate in our Harmonize pilot for Fall 2025 and/or Spring 2026. Harmonize focuses on improving student engagement and interaction through its media-rich discussion features. It allows students to engage with course content and their peers through text, images, audio, and video. Harmonize integrates directly into Brightspace.
If you're interested in participating, please reach out directly to Samantha Maxwell at samkm@arizona.edu.
Get Involved
We would love to hear about instructional technologies that interest you. If you are using a tool in your course that could be useful for others, please consider requesting a pilot. To suggest a technology for evaluation, please complete the Pilot Request Form.
Pilot Process
Request and Approval
- Submit a pilot request.
- The Instructional Technology team processes the request.
- Student Advisory Board provides feedback on the learning tool's potential.
Integration and Pilot
- Negotiate a trial subscription.
- Integrate piloted tool into the learning environment.
- Guide pilot participants to use the tool regularly and effectively.
Data Collection and Analysis
- Evaluate the tool using a rubric on the functional, technical, and pedagogical aspects.
- Collect and analyze the quantitative and qualitative user and institutional data.
- UCATT creates a presentation and report of the data findings.
Decision
- Present pilot data to Student Advisory Board members to vote on broader adoption.
- Final decision by Associate Vice Provost of Digital Learning Initiatives and Online Education.
Technology Pilot Consultation
If you would like to meet with an instructional technologist to discuss your pilot needs or previously piloted technology, please contact our InTech team at intech@arizona.edu to schedule a consultation.
2024-2025 Pilots
ThingLink allows instructors to create interactive and immersive 360-degree media content. By embedding clickable hotspots into images and videos, it transforms static visuals into engaging learning experiences, encouraging deeper interaction with course materials through multimedia, quizzes, and additional resources.
FormaVision employs volumetric video technology to create highly immersive learning experiences. This tool enhances remote and hybrid learning by delivering high-resolution, interactive broadcasts that help simulate the experience of in-person teaching for remote learners.
ChatGPT is an AI-driven tool designed to offer real-time contextual assistance for students, whether for writing, research, or programming tasks. By integrating AI support into classroom activities, it encourages critical thinking and problem-solving.
2023-2024 Pilots
This tool has been adopted at the enterprise level.
FeedbackFruits is designed to promote interactive and constructive peer review among students. Whether you use this tool for peer reviews, group member evaluations, interactive documents, or online quizzes, FeedbackFruits provides streamlined activities to enhance feedback, learner-content interaction, and classroom participation.
Cerego uses principles from neuro- and cognitive science to build adaptive learning objects for students. Cerego uses distributed practice as the basis of user memory retention; once the content is built, it does the work for you. This pilot is a collaborative effort between UCATT and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
2022-2023 Pilots
OpenClass is focused on student mastery of content and skills through review assignments. This tool is built upon the idea of spaced repetition in that learners continue to take the review activity until they earn the desired mastery level indicated by the instructor for that particular assignment. OpenClass also allows for quiz types of assignments to be created on their platform that allow students to retake quizzes until the learners hit a mastery level.
2021-2022 Pilots
Pressbooks is software that facilitates the creation of open educational resources. Users are able to create textbooks and course materials, remix the creations of other users, and add interactive elements like videos and quizzes. This pilot was a collaborative effort between Digital Learning and the University Libraries.
GoReact is an interactive, cloud-based platform for feedback, grading, and critiquing student video assignments. It allows instructors to give time-stamped feedback on student videos, grade student video submissions using rubrics, and view reports on student progress. This pilot was a collaborative effort between Digital Learning and the College of Education.
Perusall is a tool that encourages social reading, collaborative annotation, and discussion within a class reading. Perusall is integrated within Brightspace, offers machine grading based on student engagement, and a robust set of analytical tools. Our pilot focused on applications of social annotation in various disciplines, best practices, and student perceptions.