Slack
Slack is a messaging and collaboration platform where classes and other groups can connect with each other and share information and resources.
Smith has a campus-wide license for faculty, students, and staff.
Request a Course Space (faculty/instructors only)
Go to our Request for Help form.
Select the radio button to identify yourself as faculty, then choose your primary appointment.
Under "I need help with...", select "Tools, my course, or a consultation".
Check the radio button for "I need to request a Slack Workspace".
Complete the remaining fields with the relevant course information.
What happens to my Slack Workspace when the semester or term ends?
Nothing! At this time, ITS is not deleting Workspaces at the end of the semester. Faculty/instructors and students can leave the workspace once the course has concluded if you no longer wish to see it in your list of Workspaces.
Instructions and Help Materials
Invite Smith College community members (e.g. graduate assistants or co-professors) to join your single, combined, or cross-listed Workspace using their email addresses.
Most Smith and Five College students are automatically added to course workspaces. Any student who joins a class late or other types of students (e.g. high school students enrolled in classes) must be added manually
Leave a Workspace
Navigate to the Workspace you wish to leave. Once there, select the Workspace title in the top left corner.
Scroll down to and hover over Sign-Out.
Select Leave workspace. You will not be able to rejoin the Workspace without help from the ITS department or a Workspace administrator. Submit a Help Ticket to rejoin a Workspace.
Note: If you want to be able to return the Workspace but don’t want to continue to see it in your list, select Sign-out of the workspace. This option is only available on the Slack desktop app.
If someone is having difficulty leaving your Workspace on their own, you can remove them manually.
Channels are the best way to keep conversations about various projects, topics, or teams organized in Slack. There’s no limit to how many unique channels you can have in Slack. Workspace Admins or Members can create new channels.
There will be times when the only channels you see in your workspace are General and Random, which are the default channels in every workspace (although they can be renamed). Instructors may create additional channels and tell you there are more channels you need to join.
Materials from Slack
Live webinars offered by Slack
Teaching with Slack at Smith
Building class community through emojis, incorporating Poll Everywhere, and experimenting with language (Video) by Jonathan Gosnell, French Studies.
Employing Slack for weekly discussion posts, organic conversations between students, and managing small group work (Video) by Miranda McCarvel, Multilingual Writing Specialist, English Language & Literature and Education & Child Study
Slack for (A)synchronous Course Communication (Blog post) by Albert Kim, Jordan Crouser, and Benjamin Baumer.
Tour of Slack for the SDS Coalition of Color (SDSCC) (Video) by Albert Kim, Statistical and Data Sciences.
Using Slack as the central point of communication for a class and file sharing (Video) by Albert Kim, Statistical and Data Sciences.
Using Slack as a flexible communication tool, to answer questions about class material, and as a space for students to ask questions and collaborate on lab projects (Video) by Marney Pratt, Biological Sciences.