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COVID-19 Resources for Faculty

As we continue to monitor the evolving situation with the Coronavirus (COVID-19), please continue to check www.ncsu.edu/coronavirus for the most up-to-date information. Please utilize the below list of resources as you plan for the coming weeks.

Important Updates:

  • The university is not technically closed, but all nonmandatory employees must work from home. If you cannot work from home, paid administrative leave has been extended through April 30, 2020 if you meet the criteria outlined in the Provost’s memo titled: Important Update: COVID-19 Special Faculty and Staff Leave Provisions.
  • The faculty/staff ombudsman will be holding a weekly open house to discuss engaging with conflict from 12 pm – 12:20 pm on Wednesdays. Participate here: https://ncsu.zoom.us/j/600172346
  • Please pair people who have capacity with people who need help (such as faculty and students).
  • Remember to be compassionate with students! Check in on their physical and mental well-being.

Continuity Planning and Remote Teaching

College of Design Communications to Faculty

Additional Resources

FAQs for Faculty Teaching

For first-line information, remember to check the university’s Coronavirus response page and Keep Teaching.

The information on this page is our recommendation for the simplest way to accomplish tasks. There are many different options, but we’ve limited answers here for ease of use.

Faculty-Student Communciations

The Office of Student Conduct has put together a best practices document: Academic Integrity in the Online Environment

You can use Remind. This app is often used in K12 to communicate between teachers and parents, but can be used between professors and students as well. 

Install the Zoom Schedule Chrome extension to easily schedule Zoom meetings using your Google calendar.

Robin Moore suggested a program called Concept Board, which allows real-time online visual feedback sessions/discussion sessions.

The easiest ways to contact all students are to (1) post a message in your course’s Moodle Announcements forum (video instructions) or (2) use WolfWare Google Groups (overview and written instructions). 

Teaching:

Remember that emergency teaching online is different than what you would do for a fully planned online course. Here are some options for getting started, based on what you’ve decided in your academic continuity plan.

  • Run live (synchronous) classes using Zoom
  • Record your lectures using Zoom, upload to the cloud and share with your students
  • If you are not comfortable recording but have detailed slides/slide notes, you can share your PowerPoint slides or notes with your students by uploading them to Moodle. We recommend saving as a PDF first so that students can open these files on mobile devices (in case they do not have a computer or reliable Internet).

The most important thing is communication. Even with uncertainty, contact your students and let them know what you have decided and what you are still working on. Try to start with the most immediate concerns first, as the situation is changing rapidly and you may have more information and options in a few weeks.

You will benefit from having:

  • Laptop or home computer
  • If not included in your laptop/computer, a separate webcam
    NOTE: External webcams usually have good microphones
  • If not included in your laptop/computer, a microphone
  • reliable Internet access
  • A quiet spot to record videos or attend live class sessions

If you need to borrow a webcam or laptop, please contact the IT staff at design_help@ncsu.edu.

Learn more about working remotely in the “Working Remotely” section below.

You can add files to your Moodle space easily using Drag & Drop.

  1. Go to your Moodle course.
  2. Click the Tools icon (looks like a gear) and select “Turn editing on.”
  3. Open the folder on your computer that contains the file you want to share.
  4. Drag the file from your computer folder onto the Moodle page.

Video directions

You can run live (synchronous) classes using Zoom. The Zoom session can be recorded to the cloud for students who cannot attend. Zoom can also create an editable transcript of the recorded session.

You can use Zoom to record lectures and share them with your students. If you have never recorded your lectures from your computer before, we recommend using Zoom

Check out this Zoom page.

The Provost has called on all instructors to be flexible in support of students who may have technical or scheduling constraints that interfere with their ability to participate in synchronous class activities. Adopting methods of assessing student learning other than proctored exams is strongly encouraged. Where exams are the only feasible way to assess student learning outcomes, ideally they should be offered asynchronously online and without direct student monitoring.

Please see resources regarding alternatives to monitored exams here: https://delta.ncsu.edu/testing-services/.

You can create online exams using Moodle’s Quiz tool. We hope to have more resources and workshops available soon.

Email mediasite-help@ncsu.edu to request that access to a previous semester’s videos be shared with your current students. Make sure to give them the full course number, section, and semester (e.g., BUS 101 001 Fall 2019).

If another instructor taught a previous semester and you are both comfortable sharing those materials with the new course, then the original instructor should email mediasite-help@ncsu.edu and cc the current instructor on the email.

There are lots of workshops and blog posts that are trying to help. Here are a few we’ve found.

General:

All masters/doctoral defenses will have to be conducted online. No waiver is necessary; just signatures on the paperwork saying this student has passed. It is not necessary to have all signatures on the same page.

Please use the Agenda for Upcoming Remote Defense guidelines to manage the online defense and allow committees to discuss the candidate via breakout rooms.

As of March 17, the university has plans in place to keep research operations, labs and related facilities operational. Additional information will follow for appropriate employees.

Accommodations:

The Disabilities Resource Office has put together a guide to help with students. See the guide here: Tips from the Disabilities Resource Office

Here is some information from OIT Accessibility:

Please refer to the IT Accessibility Quick Guide and the Quick Course Content Checklist for information about making your course accessible for students with disabilities.

Remember:

  • If you scan a document that has text, make sure the text is renderable. You may need to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in a program like Adobe Acrobat DC. [PCOM Note: The new printers in Nelson Hall’s print shop can do OCR scans.]
  • Provide captions and/or transcripts for videos. The NC State Captioning Grant provides funding and technical assistance.
  • Check document accessibility in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel using the built-in accessibility checker.
  • Check document accessibility in Google Docs, Slides and Sheets using Grackle Docs.
  • For assistance, contact the IT Accessibility Office.

The Disability Resource Office (DRO) is sending out guidance to faculty that have a student connected with their office. Use UDL principles (1 hour video) as proactively as possible and contact DRO if you have any questions – disability@ncsu.edu and (919) 515-7653.

Facilities:

The college is receiving mail and packages several times a week. Mail will be placed in your mailboxes in the Brooks Mail Room. If you are expecting a package, please notify Joe McCoy and send any package tracking information to him, jonas_mccoy@ncsu.edu.

For the most up-to-date information about the libraries, visit this page: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/coronavirus-response.All Library facilities, including the Hill Library, will no longer be open to walk-in use. The Libraries’ expanded online collections and services remain available.

Further updates will be posted to their social media accounts and on the Libraries’ Coronavirus Response page. If you don’t already, you can follow @ncsulibraries on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Labs will be closed and are unavailable. Faculty are modifying curriculum requirements to allow digital renderings in-lieu of physical builds, models and prototypes.

Software

FREE ACCESS TO SOFTWARE: Autodesk has granted access to our tools to students and educators for the past five years with no charge. This remains unchanged. Please visit www.autodesk.com/education to get started today.

FREE CONTENT & CURRICULUM: We have packaged content for educators to support distance learning efforts and self-paced training for students. Visit https://academy.autodesk.com/ to find resources.

News: