Vice Provost Messages

Dear Faculty, Chairs/Directors, and Deans,

As previewed at the Open Meeting on Promotion and Tenure last week, this message is being sent to confirm that the new forms for the 2021-2022 P&T cycle are now posted on the Faculty Development website, along with complete guidelines about how we will take COVID-19 impacts into account in the P&T process.

We recognize that faculty work has been affected since Spring, 2020 by COVID-19 disruptions:

• As individuals, we experienced the impacts in different ways.
• These impacts are not distributed evenly.
• We can't assume we know the impacts across our faculty.

Therefore, as we move into the upcoming cycle for promotion and tenure in 2021-2022, it is important to enable our faculty to document any impacts arising from the pandemic, and have review committee members document how they took those impacts into account in their evaluations.

Thus, all candidates have the option to address the impact of COVID-19 disruptions on their teaching, research/scholarship/creative or artistic work (hereafter, scholarship), service, and professional performance in their candidate statements for P&T.  While not required, Faculty Development encourages candidates to supplement their candidate statements as applicable, given the challenges raised by COVID-19 disruptions, specifically:

• It may be that some normally expected activities were simply not possible to accomplish or were drastically curtailed during the pandemic, especially, but not exclusively, in the area of scholarship.
• The conditions of the pandemic may be directly related to a change in the pattern or types of activity faculty pursued in the face of the challenges.

For privacy reasons, candidates should not share any personal circumstances in their statements, but rather focus on the impact to outcomes that they want to address. The inclusion of this supplemental information about the impacts of COVID-19 disruptions will allow chairs, deans, and promotion and tenure committee members to carefully review faculty dossiers and conduct fair and contextual evaluations of whether, except for COVID-19 disruptions, faculty are meeting our standards for P&T (FSRR 6.2).

Complete guidance is now posted on the Faculty Development. It includes:

• A non-exclusive list of some of the types of impacts faculty may want to address in their candidate statements.
• How internal evaluators are expected to respond in each evaluation section of the form (teaching, scholarship, service, professional performance)to any impacts from COVID-19 mentioned by candidates.

Sincerely,

Chris

Instructors,

Beginning with spring 2021, KU has adopted a new strategy of marking courses that have low-cost or no-cost course materials. This strategy aligns with a growing effort among higher ed institutions to provide cost information as secondary criteria students can consider when selecting courses.

We have all heard the challenges many students face when it comes to affording college. Some students work two or three jobs, while others skip meals or make other financial sacrifices to pursue their education. Hunger and homelessness among college students has been on the rise in recent years, and these challenges disproportionately impact marginalized and vulnerable populations: low income, first generation and students of color.

Beyond tuition and fees, textbooks can be a significant cost that some students struggle to afford. Reports indicate textbook costs have increased 1000% — triple the rate of inflation — since 1977. Students, faculty and staff representing groups and units across campus have advocated for and used a variety of strategies for reducing and eliminating the cost of course materials for these students.

What is course marking?

• Beginning with the spring 2021 semester, the Schedule of Classes will show “no-cost” and “low-cost” icons for courses that meet those criteria.
• This effort to help students who are struggling financially does not require any additional effort by instructors.
• Course marking provides increased cost transparency and student agency to make informed decisions and plan for the upcoming semester. Cost of materials is only one of many factors students will consider when choosing their courses.

How will courses be marked?

The Course Marking project team worked within existing platforms and created a process to automatically mark courses based on material adoption information instructors already provide every semester to the KU Bookstore. The Schedule of Classes will display:

• No-cost icon — classes bearing zero course material cost (Ø)
• Low-cost icon — classes with cumulative course materials cost less than $45 (L)
• No icon — The absence of an icon can mean any of the following:
  • Information about required course materials has not yet been provided;
  • The cost of required course materials is greater than $45; or
  • The course type is typically not associated with required course materials, such as discussion sections.

Why was $45 chosen for the low-cost threshold?

The threshold of $45 was selected based on KU student and instructor responses to a survey earlier this year asking what they considered the upper limit for affordable course materials:

• The more than 2,000 student responses averaged $42.50.
• The more than 300 instructor responses averaged $48.50.
• The combined average was $45.50.

What was the process for implementing course marking?

This was largely a student-initiated effort, with the collaboration of several campus partners.

• In academic year 2018-19, student body presidents from Kansas institutions developed and presented an action plan to KBOR, which included marking the affordability of courses.
• In fall 2019, Tiara Floyd, then KU student body president, requested that KU explore a course marking project.
• A project team was convened in fall 2019, including KU IT, KU Bookstore, Registrar, Student Information Systems, KU Libraries, Office of Accessibility, Kansas Union IT team, and the Enterprise Project Management Office.
• The project team researched the issues and engaged stakeholders, including the Academic Systems Steering Committee, the Textbook Working Group, the Academic Change Management Committee, Student Senate, Faculty Senate and University Senate.
• In September 2020, a proposal was presented to Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FacEx), the Academic Systems Steering Committee, and the KU Advisors Network.
• Based on feedback received from these outreach efforts, including from faculty, substantial adjustments were made to balance stakeholder needs and perspectives.
• The proposal was approved and last month the first courses were marked for spring 2021.

What can you do?

Instructors don’t have to do anything new or different to support this effort. The course materials information you routinely provide each semester will be used to automatically designate courses as low-cost or no-cost.

If you want to learn more about how you might adopt low-cost or no-cost course materials in the classes you teach, reach out to the Course Marking team at marking@ku.edu. The team also is interested in your comments and suggestions for improving the program.

Learn more at marking.ku.edu.

Respectfully,

Chris

Dear Instructors,

I want to share with you several updates on the end-of-semester student survey of teaching and provide guidance on the inclusion of survey reports in all types of evaluations.

Online Administration of Student Course Surveys

• Attached is the survey for Fall 2020 that our central administration will send to your students online, as has been done since the Spring 2020 semester.
• It's the same survey used in Summer 2020, developed by an ad hoc committee of faculty representatives from across campus.

Timing

• Surveys for regular semester courses are open to students during the last two full weeks before final exams.
• Surveys for courses scheduled to meet for a shorter or longer calendar than the standard semester are adjusted to ensure timing of the survey at a comparable point in the term.

Protecting student anonymity

• University policy requires that instructors be evaluated each semester by students voluntarily in all courses with five or more students.
• Classes with fewer than five students may be surveyed, but will only have a report produced if combined with another class to total at least five.
• Instructors will receive their survey results only after the semester ends and final grade submission deadlines have passed.

Surveys for Spring 2021 and beyond

• The ad hoc committee is developing a new standard survey for use beginning Spring 2021.
• Survey will be based in part on feedback we have already been receiving from faculty and departments.
• A draft of the proposed new standard survey will be available for review and comment in late December or early January.

Instructor guidance: optional inclusion of student survey reports in evaluation files

• Supervisors will not receive the reports unless instructors forward them. Our policies on evaluation and promotion and tenure require multiple sources of information be used to evaluate teaching.
• Instructors have the option to include their Summer and Fall 2020 student survey reports in the files they forward to supervisors for annual evaluation, PTTR, P&T, and PTR.

How to evaluate teaching without student survey reports

• In the coming weeks, we will be sending messages with tips on what instructors can do to provide supervisors with other meaningful sources of information for evaluation, such as documentation of the effort and intellectual work of adjusting to online and hybrid teaching this year and self-evaluations that could include reflections on student survey reports.
• We will also introduce how supervisors can use rubrics to make meaningful assessments of teaching effectiveness in a time-efficient way. Much of this guidance will be based on the work of CTE's NSF-funded Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness Project.

I want to thank the Faculty Rights, Privileges, and Responsibilities committee of Faculty Senate, the Faculty Success Design Team, the ad hoc Committee on the Student Survey of Teaching, and others for their input on how our evaluation of teaching should adjust to the challenges presented by COVID.

Take care, and stay well.

Chris

Dear Instructors,

Thank you.

Here we are in the first week of classes, and now your preparation is bearing fruit. I thank you for all you did to reach this point and recognize what an extraordinary achievement it was. Data from the Center for Teaching Excellence, the Center for Online and Distance Learning, and KU Information Technology show that you collectively devoted tens of thousands of person-hours in professional development over the summer in preparation for fall. Our students are now benefitting from this work as they continue their education.

In these first few days of classes, I have received questions on some important topics and want to offer guidance. 

Students Who Need to Isolate or Quarantine

It is important we continue to address the needs of our students directly affected by COVID-19. Our surveillance testing shows some students are positive for COVID-19, or are identified by Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health as a close contact of someone who is positive. These individuals have been instructed to isolate or quarantine. I can understand that this situation can increase anxiety in already challenging times. Please remember, many additional measures are in place at KU to help reduce the risk of transmission and testing was undertaken in part to help individuals understand their status and take appropriate action to help protect themselves, their friends and family and the larger community.

I want to provide some clarity on procedures related to test results, and it comes down to following the guidance of public health officials and adapting courses for students:

• If a student informs you they must miss in-person class because of a positive test or that as a close contact they have been instructed to quarantine by a public health professional, please allow our public health authorities to do their job of contact tracing. No one else must quarantine unless they are personally contacted by health authorities and told to do so. If you have concerns about your own health, please reach out to your healthcare provider and follow their instructions.
• To protect privacy, do not share health information about a student unless they have given you permission to do so.
• Reach out to your isolating students and assure them you will adapt the course for them in the most engaging way possible so that they may continue to make progress remotely. If you need assistance in adapting your course for a student, revisit flexteaching.ku.edu. New on the site is some sample text to reply to a student who needs an adaptation. 

Changing Course to Online

While it may feel unsettling to learn that a student needs to isolate or quarantine, our instructional spaces have been modified to better protect you and your students. Research indicates that wearing a mask and appropriately distancing from others helps mitigate the risk of contracting the virus. Class participants who have been adhering to physical distancing guidelines, as in our modified classrooms, would not be considered close contacts by either Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards.

Please do not change modality of your course unless you have been personally contacted and advised by a county health professional that it is appropriate for the circumstances. If you have any concerns about your own health, please contact your healthcare provider.

Liability and COVID-19

Some instructors have asked questions regarding protections they have against liability claims. 

Under the Kansas Tort Claims Act (K.S.A. 75-6101 et seq.), the State of Kansas assumes liability for the negligent or wrongful acts and omissions of its employees (including KU employees) who are acting within the scope of their employment. Additionally, recent Kansas legislation provides that a person conducting business shall be immune from liability for a COVID-19 claim if such person was acting pursuant to and in substantial compliance with public health directives. You can view the full bill here.

Intellectual Property and Flex Teaching

Many of you have asked about how the university's Intellectual Property policy relates to the work done to develop new online and hybrid courses due to COVID-19. The current policy adheres to KBOR regulations concerning mediated courseware. It was not written with a pandemic in mind with the need to develop courseware that allows for seamless transitions across in-person, hybrid, and fully online modes of instruction. Faculty Development and Faculty Governance will partner to clarify that the courseware developed in response to COVID-19 is owned by the creator.

Recording of Online Class Sessions

Recording your online or in-person class sessions can be useful for a number of different reasons, including allowing asynchronous participation in hybrid courses. If you are recording just for students in your class, you do not need student consent to do so, although it is a good idea to let students know you’re recording. If you are recording to share the recordings with audiences beyond your class, please visit the Flexible Teaching website for guidance for gaining consent, sharing recordings and limiting student faces/images in your recordings. I encourage you to review this information and follow the guidance to ensure you respect the privacy of your students, as well as comply with FERPA and other regulations. 

New Faculty, Staff and GTA Testing

COVID-19 testing is still underway. New faculty, staff and GTAs can visit a mobile test site set up in the Naismith Hall parking lot at 19th Street and Naismith Drive for a free walk-up COVID-19 saliva test. No appointment is necessary.

Thanks again for all you are doing to engage with our students, whether they are here in person or connecting with you and their classmates remotely.

I’ll continue to be available for your questions (please send them to facultydev@ku.edu) and I will work to offer regular messages to all instructors as the semester continues. This message as well as previous messages from me will be archived on the Faculty Development website.

Take care,

Chris

Instructors,

A tremendous amount of work went into scheduling courses for the fall semester with the goal of providing as much clarity as possible regarding course meeting dates, times, locations and delivery modes. However, a technical issue resulted in all online class components being labeled as “ONLNE ZOOM” which caused confusion. This issue has now been resolved by indicating online components of classes, whether fully online or hybrid, are generically “ONLINE” to emphasize instructors have discretion as to what online platform to use.  Instructors can also employ real-time or asynchronous instructional methods. (See the links below for resources related to alternating cohort courses and in-person instruction options.)

To reiterate, student course schedules will not reflect each course’s platform (e.g. Zoom), and it is imperative that you tell your students how online class times will be facilitated. As in past semesters, instructors are responsible for creating any Zoom rooms, Microsoft Teams Rooms, etc., or setting up asynchronous activities in other platforms and sending the relevant links to students.

If your class only meets once per week and you are using an alternating cohort schedule (i.e. group A will meet on odd weeks and group B will meet on even weeks), sections were not created for each cohort. In these situations, you will need to split the students into cohorts and communicate group assignments to students.

To help ensure students retain this important information, we ask that you clearly reiterate and clarify course logistics for students during the initial class meeting. We also ask that you post the course logistics information on each course’s syllabus and in the learning management system (e.g. Blackboard).

Guidance on safety measures

Physical safety

Campus classrooms will be open starting Monday, Aug. 17. I highly encourage you to visit your classrooms before the first day of class so that you can practice and plan for the uniqueness of this semester. To gain access to buildings, you will need to use the CVKey app. While you are there you will notice physical distancing and personal protective equipment (PPE) measures that have been implemented this summer. Plexiglass barriers and other safety equipment have been installed in most classrooms.

Study Spaces

KU has erected outdoor tents that students can use when participating in online classes and studying. We are also in the process of identifying existing common spaces and specific rooms in buildings that can be used for these purposes. This work is still in progress, but an online campus map at rockcha.lk/study-spaces shows this information. If students ask you about available study space, please direct them to this site. (It is recommended you use Firefox to view this site.)

Help and Resources

If you have a concern about personal protective equipment measures or the distancing layout of any of your teaching spaces, please contact KU Operations at kuoperations@ku.edu. Someone will follow up with you as soon as possible.

Additionally, if you have a concern about any IT-related equipment, please contact your departmental IT support staff.

Finally, the Center for Teaching Excellence has collected information on alternating cohort courses and ideas for creating online options for in-person courses.

I want to acknowledge that all of you are working very hard to prepare for this unprecedented semester. Your commitment to your students and to KU is seen and it is appreciated. I am grateful to you for all you do.

Take care,

Chris

Colleagues,

Class attendance policies can increase student engagement and many of us use attendance points in calculating the final grades in our courses. This fall, using attendance as part of grading will be complicated by a number of factors that make synchronous participation in lectures, activities and exams difficult for some students. These factors include:

• Some students’ limited access to adequate technology.
• Time zone differences for students participating remotely, especially international students.
• Inability to attend classes in-person because of public health directives (quarantine).

University Senate Regulations are clear that instructors control attendance and grading policies for their courses. This semester, however, students are facing many unique challenges and we encourage you to take attendance not for grading, but as a way to monitor student engagement so you can reach out and help students who might be struggling. Consistent class attendance, whether in-person or online, is an important indication of engagement and student success. However, we do not want to penalize students who are facing health, technology or other challenges to synchronous participation.

Students who are ill or who are taking steps to protect their own health or the health of others should be given an excused absence (no doctor’s note required) from in-person class activities if they have COVID-19 symptoms or are following state or local quarantine guidelines. I encourage you to include clear health and attendance guidance for students in your syllabi. I have included some suggested language you can use or adapt.

The following is suggested language you can add to your course syllabus to communicate COVID-related attendance guidance:

Please use the CVKey app for self-screening to help determine if you should attend in-person class activities. If you choose not to use the app or do not have a compatible device, please use the paper health assessment form. The app and the paper form are available at cvkey.ku.edu.

You will be given an excused absence from in-person class activities (no doctor’s note required) if you answer yes to any of the questions in the app or on the paper form. Symptoms and other guidance in the app and on the paper form may change based on new federal, state and local health recommendations and requirements.

It is important that you spend the necessary time working in this course to achieve the expected outcomes by the end of the term. If you face challenges to fully participating at any time during the semester, please let me know, and please contact me if you expect to miss class. I am available and ready to support your success. Additionally, if you need to report an extended illness or serious accident, please contact Student Support and Case Management at course-adapt@ku.edu or 785-864-4060. A case manager will send email notifications to your instructor(s) on your behalf. When you are able, you will need to follow up with your professors to coordinate a temporary arrangement regarding missed instruction and coursework.

Faculty colleagues at the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and staff at the Center for Online and Distance Learning (CODL) can assist you in strategizing ways to adjust the way you measure your engagement with students away from the traditional taking of attendance for a grade in class. KU’s new FlexTeaching website also has information on attendance and student engagement.

Qwickly Attendance Tool

With a mix of in-person, hybrid and online classes, knowing who is showing up and engaged is harder than ever. KU is expanding the capabilities of Qwickly Attendance, a tool you may have used in the past to manually take attendance in Blackboard. Now with Qwickly Attendance, you can allow students to check in themselves, whether they are attending a class in-person or online. Qwickly Attendance keeps track of attendance throughout the semester and provides a dashboard where you can see information at a glance. Students can also track their own attendance in each class.

More information about Qwickly Attendance is available on KU’s Blackboard website.

Responsibilities of Students

Students should contact their instructor(s) directly to report an absence. However, students who need to report an extended illness or serious accident should contact Student Support and Case Management at course-adapt@ku.edu or 785-864-4060. A case manager will send email notifications to the student’s instructor(s) on the student’s behalf. When they are able, the student will need to follow up with professors to coordinate a temporary arrangement regarding missed instruction and coursework. Please see studentaffairs.ku.edu/student-emergencies.

A Collaborative Effort

The guidance I’ve included here on attendance and student engagement was developed following input from a number of different groups that were asked in early July what guidance the University should provide instructors when dealing with the challenges they will face regarding attendance in fall 2020. Groups included the Faculty Rights, Privileges and Responsibilities committee of Faculty Senate; the Teaching and Learning Design Team; the Faculty Success Design Team; Academic Success; CTE and CODL.

Thank you for your attention and input.

Sincerely,

Chris