• Resources To Support Online Learning for Undergraduates & Graduates, Western university – aimed at transitioning to online
• The University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation developed a succinct student guide, “Adjusting your study habits during COVID,” providing advice about staying organized, staying connected, getting the most out of online learning, and more.
• COVID-19 – Student Remote Guide & Resources, NYU School of Global Public Health
• Keep Learning, University of Waterloo
• Getting started with online learning, Pearson
• Succeeding as an Online Student, DePaul
• Purdue University Global’s “How to Create the Perfect Study Environment for Online Learning” article discusses creating a study environment for online learning to provide students with tips that will help set them up for success for their online lessons.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• Covid 19 – Student Resources, Race & Equity Initiative, University of Washington
• LGBTQ2S+ Students in the Time of COVID – Connecting Amongst Distance, BCcampus

Supporting Student Transitions Resources 

• Student Experience Resources (Self Care, information for parents, reorientation, staggered return, next steps), Improving the Student Experience in Higher Education.

Sample Institutional & national frameworks

• Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Institutional Framework & Strategy Update, Humber
• Best Practices in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Research, Canada Research Coordinating Committee

Sample Funding for EDI

• Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Institutional Capacity-Building Grant, NSERC

Campus Tool-kits and Educational Resources for combatting racism

• Webinar on Addressing Anti-Black Racism in Education (May 26, 2020), OISE (Video)
• The Office of the Vice-President, Equity and Community Inclusion offers educational resources to increase your racial literacy, Ryerson University – includes videos of presentations by Desmond Cole, Robin DiAngelo, John A. Powell, Shirley Cheechoo from Ryerson’s White Privilege Conference & book recommendations. (videos)
• Anti-racism Resources, Equity office of the University of Waterloo – a comprehensive set of resources including general resources on racism, resources for white allies and resources specifically for BIPOC

Reflection/Call to action

• Your Predominantly White Academic Organization (Yes, Even Yours) Is Exactly One Live-Tweeted Racist Event Away from Public Disgrace by Brigitte Fielder, Avidly review of books
• Black Racialization and Resistance at an Elite University by Rosalind Hampton (book) – link is to the book launch at the institution the book is about.

Sample statements

• OCAD University President issues statement on anti-black racism

Faculty development resources:

• UBC’s Remote Teaching Institute Wiki of faculty development resources
• New Faculty orientation, Keepteaching.ca webinar
• Distributed learning course for instructors, Coast Mountain College: Distributed Learning Course structure; Course Syllabus

Reflective Tools

• Reflective Tool for Emergency response to teaching online, Centre for Distance Education, University of London

(For a list of Ontario institutional pages) Academic Continuity Pages and Resources (Google Sheet) updated April 2020, OUCEL

• Keep Learning, University of Waterloo
• Teaching Continuity, University of Calgary
• Remote Teaching, Queen’s University
• Course Continuity, York University
• Keep Teaching, Indiana University
• Keep Teaching, Illinois University
• Continuité de l’enseignement, TLSS-uOttawa (en français)

For institutional consideration when moving online

For resources for educators moving online see keepteaching.ca/teaching/#movingonline

• COVID-19 Response: Supporting Students in Times of Uncertainty, College Transition Collaborative, including:
  • Supporting Students in Times of Crisis: Guidance for Administrators
• How Your Higher Education Institution Can Quickly Move To Fully Online Delivery: Considerations For Campus Leaders, D2L

Samples identified by the STLHE community. To suggest, email edc_communications@stlhe.ca .

Closing/COVID

• Laurentian – COVID-19 webpage:  https://laurentian.ca/COVID-19 (English) and https://laurentienne.ca/COVID-19 (en français) (includes emails to the community, resources)
• University of Windsor – President’s update and Emergency measures announcement (where there is no known cases in the city), and email to instructors from CTL, OOL, and ITS; and official COVID webpage
• University of Calgary – COVID-19 webpage – https://ucalgary.ca/risk/emergency-management/plans-procedures/covid-19-response (University remains open, classes resume via remote learning as of March 14th)
• OCAD University – All Face-to-Face Academic and Research activities suspended 
• Preparing for COVID19, Thompson Rivers University – Short screencasts and documentation in support of the above practices will be available in the COVID-19 Preparedness Moodle shell, to which all faculty will be given access
• COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Frequently Asked Questions, The University of Vermont
• Coronavirus (COVID-19), University of Victoria

Final Grade Announcements

• • University of Calgary has updated its approach to grading for the Winter 2020 term. https://ucalgary.ca/news/final-grades-winter-2020-term “offer our students the choice to accept their final course grade or opt for Credit Received/Fail (CR/F) for each of their courses in the Winter 2020 term”
  • Program-by-program decision at U of T
  • Grading Procedures and honors – COVID-19 FAQ, Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania, US) – all grades are credit/no credit. Students can opt to “uncover” their grades  after they know their grade.

Final Exam approaches

• • Proctoring was not allowed or expected at the majority of institutions mentioned. Proctorio and ProctorU are being allowed at some institutions (noted in March 23rd webinar) based on Faculties requests or only when necessary.

Exam accommodations for students with disabilities

• Exam accommodations during the COVID-19 outbreak, UBC Okanagan Campus

Course Evaluations

Shared in March 17th Webinar by community

• McGill language around course-evaluations: 1) Some instructors are concerned that they themselves may be penalized in student end-of-course evaluations of them/their courses given current disruptions to teaching activities. To address this, the University has decided that, for the purposes of merit, reappointment, and tenure, instructors may decide that their course evaluations for Winter 2020 will not “count” in their performance assessments. That is, instructors can include these results if they think it will help their file, but may set these results aside if they feel that the current situation has caused so much disruption/uncertainty that their inclusion would be unfair.
• Laurier: winter term evaluations will run as planned but faculty have the option not to have these included in their official files.
• Western: cancelled for Winter 2020 – here’s the announcement: https://teaching.uwo.ca/news/2020/Student%20Questionnaires%20on%20Courses%20and%20Teaching%20Suspended%20for%20Winter%202020.html

Graduate Students announcements

• COVID-19 Updates Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Western University
• Up-to-date information affecting UCalgary graduate students, University of Calgary
• Frequently Asked Questions for Students (undergrad/grad student FAQ page), University of Calgary 

Communicating Institutional Coordination (Methods listed during March 17th webinar)

• Lots of working groups in functional areas (e.g. academic continuity, business continuity, etc. – these groups include reps from all academic divisions as relevant – using Teams and SharePoint as tools; Daily calls with these groups, briefing notes get sent to institutional leadership
• We have a pyramid: a central Emergency coordinating committee that has subgroups
• We have an online system where both faculty and students can ask questions and those get triaged to relevant institutional working groups

Communicating with Educators (Methods listed during March 17th webinar)

• Centralized website; Google docs
• Holding one-on-one with faculty through Teams chat
• Posting resources on website and Sharepoint
• BBB (Big Blue Button) through Canvas; Bluejeans; Microsoft Teams; Skype; Bongo (embedded in D2L as Virtual Classroom), WebEx,
• WhatsApp (often I send voice notes and they share with others in their department); FaceTime; Wechat
• Email
• Phone calls; Phone voice messages forwarded to email to receive them remotely
• Few F2F (face-to-face), any in-person with social distancing
• Coming from a specific department perspective (medical education), we’ve adopted a communication strategy where the postgrad director summarizes critical messaging, twice daily, from the various stakeholders (in a ‘what-so what-now what’ approach)
• Short screencasts and documentation in support of the above practices will be available in the COVID-19 Preparedness Moodle shell at Thompson Rivers University

Communicating within Teams (Methods listed during March 17th webinar)

• Combinations of online platforms (Microsoft teams, Skype, WebEx, Slack, BlueJeans) + Emails + phone when needed
• Google calendar to book online consultations

How Educators are being recommended to communicate to students (Methods listed during March 17th webinar)

• Blackboard, Blackboard Collaborate; Brightspace;
• Email
• Flexibility, asynchronous as much as possible, synchronous for small groups and record
• Options to connect if students do not have computer/internet at home
• Reminder: We had a poll in moodle, some of the new international students do not even have a personal computer yet. That makes everything difficult.

Other Stakeholders to Communicate with (Methods listed during March 17th webinar)

• Reminder: A note for professional programs is to ensure they connect with accrediting bodies (if relevant)
• Reminder: check on national professional exams (e.g., a person shared in the webinar chat that national exams for medical Residents have been canceled – see, for example, Resident Doctors of Canada website).

• COVID-19: Research Operations at University of Georgia, University of Georgia including
  • Undergraduate Student Research
  • Graduate Student Research
• COVID-19: Coronavirus FAQs for Graduate Students, Princeton University

• University Affairs List of Canadian Universities
• Tri-Council Policy
• Times Higher Education – Coronavirus page

• Canada Public Health COVID website
• Canada Travel Health Notices

• Shared Modular Course Development: A Feasibility Study, University of Windsor

• Tips on how to plan a virtual academic conference, EDC experience, by Celia Popovic and Erika Kustra