Today's Issue

Today’s issue of the Faculty Focus contains new remote teaching resources on recording video for courses and exam proctoring, Spring 2020 course evaluation information, as well as a call for side-car course applications and Faculty 180 reporting deadlines. The next issue of the Faculty Focus will be sent Tuesday, April 14. In the meantime, visit the Emory College Remote website for updates and resources.

Remote Teaching Resources

Exams and Proctoring Resources

The Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, the Canvas team, and Emory College Honor Council hosted a webinar last week on Remote Proctoring with Zoom and Respondus Monitor. You may access a recording of the webinar on the Remote Teaching site. Faculty can find additional guidelines about final exams and proctoring on the College’s Remote Teaching website.

In addition, CFDE will hold two webinars next week on Reimagining Assessment that will focus on alternative means of assessment beyond high-stakes exams. The webinars will be held:

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 8
1 – 2 p.m., Friday, April 10

More details are on the CFDE website.

Exams and Honor Code Webinar

Jason Ciejka and Blaire Wilson from OUE will host an open discussion about exams and the Honor Code from 3:30 p.m.- 4:30 p.m., Monday, April 13. Join the meeting here. The session will have a brief overview of options for final exams followed by an open question and answer session. Participants are welcome to join the session at any point during the meeting.

Asynchronous Teaching Workshop

The Remote Teaching team will offer a workshop at 1 p.m., Wednesday, April 8 on “Engaging Students in Asynchronous Activities”. This workshop will focus on using VoiceThread to deliver content and engage students as well as best practices for online discussions. It will include time for Q&A. Visit the Remote Teaching website to access the webinar details.

Prevent “Zoom-Bombing”

Multiple resources and advice on best practices to prevent “zoom bombing” are available on the Zoom page of the Emory College Remote Teaching website. In addition, Zoom has a blog post providing more context and information.

Recording Video: Best Practices

Many College faculty are recording lectures and announcements for students to view asynchronously. Information on best practices in asynchronous instruction, including the recommendation to break lectures into 5-10 minute videos, can be found on the Remote Teaching site. You can also find information about when to use Zoom and when to use Canvas Studio to record content.

CFDE Faculty Support Workshops

The Center for Faculty Development and Excellence is offering several online workshops and webinars for faculty, including:

Maintaining Community and Connections Online
10 a.m., Every Friday

At the end of every week of remote teaching, CFDE and the Emory Libraries will provide a space to hear how things went in your class, share strategies, resources, and ideas for building community in a remote teaching environment. Join us on Zoom.

Faculty Balancing Student Support and Personal Stress
2 p.m.-3 p.m., Thursday, April 16

The session will offer important self-care strategies and academic resources available to assist faculty with managing pressures that come from their students, departments, and individual expectations. For more information and to register to receive Zoom information, visit this link.

For more information on all of these programs plus additional new resources for faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic, visit the CFDE website.

Pulse Survey Results on Remote Teaching

More than 50 percent of College faculty responded to the brief survey last week from the College administration to assess the first week of remote teaching and to identify unmet needs. Many thanks to all who responded, and continued thanks to everyone for your work to support students with tremendous effort and compassion.

The survey found that 85% of faculty reported they agree (or strongly agree) that they have been provided the right tools and resources to be effective while teaching online.

The most common technical challenges for faculty are WiFi connections, Canvas’s video storage capacity, and how to replicate a whiteboard or other forms of writing/annotation in a remote setting. Many faculty have questions about formulating, administering, and proctoring exams, which are being addressed through workshops and individual advising (see above).

Requests for equipment or software have been shared with IT and the Remote Teaching team is providing ongoing support. Additional information and resources for faculty are continually being added to the Remote Teaching website.

Faculty also remarked upon their – and their students – relief and gratitude at seeing each other’s faces or to otherwise connect, and many faculty observed that students are experiencing significant stress. The most common student technological obstacle is poor WiFi, with many faculty remarking upon differences in time zones and difficult home or housing situations as additional challenges for some students. These concerns were shared with OUE support staff and advisors.

For College-focused support information for our students, please see the Student Resources section of the Emory College Remote website. Faculty may also reach out to OUE for student concerns at oue.facultysupport@emory.edu or fill out a Student of Concern Referral form, especially if a student is out of contact for more than three days.

Spring 2020 Course Evaluations

The College will administer online course evaluations this semester as it has in recent terms via EvaluationKIT. Evaluations for this semester will be primarily used for pedagogical purposes and to provide some insight into the altered landscape of our academic activities.

While the Spring 2020 responses gathered will remain archived in the system, they will NOT be incorporated into T&P dossiers unless specifically desired by the individual instructor. No instructor or faculty member should worry that the obvious contingencies of this term will affect their records.

Please send any questions you have regarding course evaluations to ec-courseevals@emory.edu. Two workshops are available this week for administrative department staff:

EvaluationKIT Basic Training

1:30 pm, Wednesday, April 8

This session is targeted to department staff who will be assisting with course evaluations this term or in the future but are new to the process or feel they could use a refresher. Following an overview of the evaluation process, we’ll step through the interface together online so that each participant can actually log in and see their own department’s courses and details. We’ll cover user account basics, course review, deployment date modification, custom questions, response rate monitoring, reporting, departmental Box folders, and everything in-between.

EvaluationKIT Configuration Workshop

10 a.m., Friday, April 10

This workshop will be a collaborative working session and will assume participants already have a basic understanding of EvaluationKIT and the College’s evaluation process. During the workshop participants will step through the Spring 2020 CE Configuration Checklist together, with College staff available to guide the process, answer questions, and address any technical issues as they arise. Our target will be to complete as much of the department-level work for the term as possible, leaving only those portions that must wait or that require direct interaction with instructors.

Academic Action Requests for Students

Students now have various academic action request options as they complete their coursework this semester. Students can make the following changes:

Option 1: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grading basis (in OPUS)
Option 2: Course Withdrawal (through online petition form)

As the semester continues, students will be able to request incompletes or other academic actions to respond to difficulties related to the Covid-19 crisis.

Note: Returning Study Abroad students must contact the Study Abroad office (studyabroad@emory.edu) with requests for academic action.

Full details are available on the Emory College Remote site. An FAQ for students also is available.

Grading for this semester is a point of extreme anxiety for many students this semester. Please encourage students considering their options to schedule an advising appointment through College Connect or ask questions via email to oue.advising@emory.edu or prehealth@emory.edu. Faculty may email oue.facultysupport@emory.edu for additional guidance.

University Updates

New University-wide guidelines were sent Monday, March 30. Read full details on the COVID-19 website. For the health and safety of everyone, please practice social distancing both inside and outside. Social distancing is defined as remaining out of group settings, avoiding gatherings, and maintaining a 6 feet distance from others when possible per the CDC guidelines.

Refer to the University’s COVID-19 Website for the latest University-wide updates, including useful information and resources specifically for faculty, staff, and students.

Stay Connected: Emory College Social Media

Social media is providing an important tool for staying connected with our students and each other. If you or your department is active on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, please be sure to follow @emorycollege on your posts. Please share, comment and like our posts as well to help build and support our virtual college community. Email April Hunt, april.hunt@emory.edu, with any questions.

The College Communications team also welcomes your ideas for stories or virtual events. Please email College communications director Beverly Clark, beverly.clark@emory.edu.

In Other News: Call for side-car courses, faculty reporting deadline extension, Hathi Trust resources

ILA Invites Proposals for "Side-Car" Courses

The Institute for the Liberal Arts invites applications from Emory College faculty members interested in developing a side-car course as part of a team that includes a faculty member in another department or discipline and two undergraduate IDEAS fellows. A side-car course brings together two courses (and instructors) that overlap, either through methodologies or topics, to create a short, one-hour, interdisciplinary course that runs simultaneously with its two sponsoring courses.

Each faculty member in the team receives a $1,000 stipend. No more than six side-car courses will be funded in Fall 2020. Contact Kim Loudermilk, klouder@emory.edu for more information about the program. Contact Emma Ellingson, emalise.ellingson@emory.edu, about the application process. Applications are due April 24.

Research Resources: Hathi Trust Emergency Temporary Access Service

Emory now has access to the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS). Emory University faculty, students, and staff who log in to HathiTrust will be able to access online versions of in-copyright titles which are also in our print collections. You need to log into HathiTrust as an Emory user at https://www.hathitrust.org/.

Faculty 180: Reporting Deadline Now June 1

This Year’s Faculty Activity Report for Performance Review: This spring all tenure-track and lecturer-track faculty will enter their activity information encompassing the past year (May 2019 – May 2020) in Faculty 180 instead of through OFARs. Activity information will need to be entered and complete by all regular faculty by the extended deadline on Monday, June 1.

The College is proceeding with replacing the Online Faculty Activity Report (OFARs) with Faculty 180 activity reporting as part of the faculty review and evaluation process.

Faculty 180 is a system that allows faculty to enter all professional activities in one system that can then be used to generate CVs, reporting, biosketches, etc.

This platform will provide Emory-wide uniformity for university reporting that supports faculty, administrative, and accreditation needs. This easy-to-use system will streamline data collection for your use as well as for reporting purposes in Emory College, and Emory University.

Faculty 180 Training Sessions: Your department chair may have already arranged for a department-specific session but there are also general training sessions available through Zoom. They are scheduled for:

Tuesday, April 14, 2020
8:30 – 10:30 a.m.
Monday, April 20, 2020
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, May 21, 2020
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

These sessions will be posted on the Dean of Faculty Outlook calendar so faculty can go there to claim the session link(s). You may also RSVP to the Dean_of_Faculty@emory.edu email and we will send you a calendar invite with the Zoom link information.

Reminder: Charges Related to COVID-19

Reminder: College departments and programs may incur extraordinary expenses related to COVID-19. In an effort to track these unexpected expenses, Emory’s Finance Division created a new SpeedType 8300100218 (Project ID 00094049) for the College.

If you’re unsure if an expense should be charged to ST8300100218 or if you have additional questions, please contact your dedicated College Finance Representative. Thank you for your patience while College Business Operations attempts to provide support and guidance to your department through this extraordinary time.