Taking Care During Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving is right around the corner! During the holiday, many of our students and faculty will be gathering with friends and family, enjoying some fellowship and well-deserved rest. With increased travel and visits occurring in the days ahead, Health Services sent a communication to students this morning entitled "Squash COVID, Grow Gratitude," which provides helpful ideas to keep in mind over the break. These reminders are important for all of us as both internal numbers and external numbers indicate that COVID is still very present among us. In fact, MN made headlines recently about the rise in cases. It is important to recognize as well that COVID has impacted many members of our community this fall. Please take care of yourselves as we all seek to have a safe and blessed Thanksgiving holiday. 

Change to Notifications of Student Absences

Based on feedback from faculty and the Academic Continuity Team, the daily notifications sent to faculty have been updated as follows:

• Emails will now be sent every day and will include all classes faculty are teaching.
• Students who will need to miss class for a university-approved event (e.g., athletic contest, field trip, etc.) for the following seven days will be included.
• The subject line of the email will indicate the dates included in the attached file with student absences (e.g., Approved Student Absence List 11/17/21 - 11/24/21).

When you open the file attached in the daily communication, you may notice that the start and end date columns are too narrow to display the actual dates. When that happens, you will see hashtags (#) as show below. To see the dates, simply click on the line between the columns, as in the red rectangle below, and drag the column to the appropriate width. 

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Planning Now for the End of Semester 

Helping Students Finish Well

As we approach the end of the semester, I am grateful for your continued extension of grace and support to your students. Those students who have been granted virtual learning adjustments through Academic Achievement will need an online option for their final exams, if at all possible. You may also find that some students need to enter isolation or quarantine during these final weeks, which would likewise require them to complete their courses virtually. We realize this may be very challenging in some courses. If possible, we would like to help our students finish the semester rather than having to take an incomplete grade (I).

After Thanksgiving recess, Cheryl Norman will send a communication which will include several suggestions for support as you plan for finals week. The Online Learning Office is also available to help any faculty who might need assistance. If you identify a course for which virtual exams cannot be offered, please contact your department chair for assistance in brainstorming a solution. Thanks in advance for doing all you can to help our students complete the semester successfully.

OLO Is Here to Help

The Online Learning Office (OLO) is available to help any faculty who might need assistance with setting up finals in Moodle or thinking through other final assessment ideas. As you prepare your final exams, you may want to consider using one of these strategies to help improve the integrity of your assessments: 

1. Consider setting an open date and a close date for the exam along with a time limit.
2. Shuffle/randomize answers in the exam.
3. For assignments, enable Ouriginal to analyze papers for similarity to internet resources.
4. Consider changing the final exam into a project that can be managed better remotely.

OLO has created a resource for academic integrity with additional options. You may also contact the Online Learning Office directly to discuss ideas relevant to your testing setup. We are eager to help in whatever way we can.

Lecture Capture Guidelines Extended

After receiving feedback from the Academic Continuity Team and Academic Technology Roundtable, it was determined that the Lecture Capture Guidelines developed for the fall 2021 semester have been working well and will continue into the spring 2022 semester. Thank you for continuing to use this tool to support students based on necessary and recommended use. 

Professional Development Spotlight

Plagiarism: Can We Effectively Deter It in Moodle?

Can you reduce plagiarism in your course assignments? This webinar covers academic integrity solutions for assignment submissions, discussion posts, and quizzes in Moodle. These suggestions may be  helpful as we head into finals and the end of the semester. Watch Recording (47:10)

Your Feedback 

If you have any feedback you'd like to share about your fall semester, how you're doing, or perspectives on how things are going, you are invited to do so through this anonymous form (feel free to include your name if you'd like). As we seek to lead effectively with wisdom, understanding, insight, and kindness, we appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thank you, Colleagues!