March 8 Message to Faculty/Staff: Delivering Courses Remotely

To Case Western Reserve Faculty, Instructors, and Staff who assist in the delivery of education:

While I know many of you are off-campus during spring break, I write today to ask you to review your preparations for delivering your courses remotely. Please know that we do not have a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the State of Ohio. However, out of an abundance of caution, I urge you to take a moment to ensure that you are prepared to teach your classes remotely should the university make the decision to suspend in-person classroom teaching due to issues around COVID-19. Similar to other universities, we want to prepare and make sure you have access to deliver your courses and support your research should you need to work remotely.

Please go to the Technology for University Closure and Working Remotely page, where you will find the following resources:

Check these links often for updates.

If you have not used these online tools, we are providing the following opportunities to receive assistance:

Online help (links above)
Faculty Training Opportunities for Teaching Online; visit the webpage for a schedule of webinars and workshops. Registration for webinars and workshop locations will be provided by 1 p.m., Monday, March 9.
Service Desk: 216.368.HELP
Your fellow faculty and local IT support, as well as TAs. We encourage you to reach out and help those with less experience using these tools.

For those classes that you cannot deliver remotely—such as a dental clinic and nursing clinic classes, science lab classes, art studio classes, or clinical clerkships for health sciences students—your dean’s office will provide further guidance. For example, faculty with lab classes can provide students with computer-based simulation tools or data sets for students to analyze remotely in lieu of these students obtaining their own data in the lab.

Please note that we will send a separate email regarding research in the coming days as we await additional guidance from federal agencies. Please go to the Coronavirus and Your Research Program page for information you should consider related to your research program.

I thank you for your cooperation in helping us prepare for continuity of our teaching mission. We will provide updates on teaching resources as needed. For now, I hope you enjoy a safe and restful spring break.

Ben Vinson III
Provost and Executive Vice President