Prepare for Teaching Disruptions

Interruptions to instruction—technology disruptions, weather emergencies, or personal circumstances —can occur at any time. Taking a few steps at the start of each semester can help you maintain academic continuity if an emergency occurs.

Communicate with Your Students

Communicate with your students as soon as possible through alternative methods, such as university email or other approved communication platforms.

Use Class Tools to Send Emails

The most streamlined method to contact your students outside the LMS is to utilize the Grainger College of Engineering Class Tools. This is available to all instructors and is an efficient way to email your course. Selecting the sections to message and sending the email are both done within the same browser page. Please see the Engineering IT Knowledge Base Article on Class Tools for details on how to access the Class Tools messaging.

Note: there are limits to University Email that may present issues to large enrollment courses. The Grainger Class Tools application will avoid issues with sending mail to large enrollment courses. For more options for sending messages to large courses, please review this Knowledge Base Article on bulk emails. The Grainger Class Tools application will avoid issues with sending mail to large enrollment courses.

Use Zoom

Zoom can be used to communicate directly with your students. Creating a Zoom meeting and sending the join link to your students via email is a simple way to meet with students during a teaching disruption.

Share Course Materials with Your Students

If possible, use copies of your course materials, syllabi, assignments, and grade records that may exist on your computer, departmental drives, Box OneDrive or other approved storage locations.

Here is a three-step process for creating a folder and securely sharing materials with your students using Illinois Box. This method restricts access to only those with an Illinois Box account.

Create Folder and Share

Here is a three-step process for creating a folder and securely sharing materials with your students using Illinois Box. This method restricts access to only those with an Illinois Box account.

Submitting Assignments and Proctor Exams

We have a lot of tools at our disposal to collect assignments and to proctor exams. Using Box to Collect Assignments can be a very easy process. Illinois Media Space is a great option to have students present any presentations or final projects. And of course, Zoom is a low-effort option to proctor any exams you have.

Using Box to Collect Assignments

Use the following steps to create an upload-only folder in Box for collecting any assignments:

Using Illinois Media Space to Collect Projects and Presentations

Illinois Media Space offers several media upload and sharing options to consider when leveraging this system for video assignments.

• The Kaltura, Getting Started documentation offers an orientation to uploading and sharing.
• For resources on the various sharing, permissions, and publishing routes so someone other than the media uploader can view a video:
  • Documentation on Sharing Videos, Adding Collaborators, and Making a Video Public
  • CITL provides a video Walkthrough of Media Space Sharing & Permissions
  • If your grading needs require a Channel to organize media uploads from various submissions, see this article on Channel Creation and this one on adding a Roster for a Media Space channel.

Zoom recordings into Media Space: Consider whether to leverage the automatic depositing of a Cloud Recording of a Zoom Meeting into the meeting host’s My Media of Media Space. More information is available in the article “Zoom, Recording to cloud or Illinois Media Space.”

Using Zoom to Proctor Your Exams

Zoom Settings

Sign into Illinois.zoom.us. Before scheduling the meeting, adjust these settings. The easiest way to find them is to use the search field.

Schedule the Meeting

Press the Meetings button in the left-hand navigation menu and then press the +Schedule a New Meeting button. The following options are recommended:

How Students Join

The passcode is embedded within the link that you get when scheduling the meeting, but you should share the meeting ID and passcode with your students so it is easy for them to join on a mobile device.

Students should join the meeting from a mobile device so that they can angle the camera at them sitting at their computer. They should try to make it so you can see them, their monitor and the top of their desk. You probably won’t be able to read their screen but should be able to see if they open anything on the computer not permitted or try to use other resources nearby.