Virtual (Remote) Teaching FAQ

• Navigate to Zoom in your Brightspace course, under the Tools menu in the navbar.
• If you are using Zoom in Brightspace the first time, a Pro account will be automatically created for you, but you can also set up your Zoom account outside of Brightspace.
• Click here for more information on the Zoom Classroom, available to you in the Brightspace Essentials for Faculty course.
• For a list of Online Drop-in Support sessions or Online Workshops related to online teaching, please follow the link here.

Navigate to the Zoom Classroom in your Brightspace course, under the Tools menu in the navbar.  

Click here for detailed instructions for setting up a meeting, available to you in the Brightspace Essentials for Faculty course.  

The Algonquin College Library offers Zoom resources for students.

Make Zoom easier for student use by communicating through Announcements or Email to explain how to access Zoom. You can direct them to the Zoom Classroom, under the Tools menu in the navbar, or you can copy and paste the link into an announcement or an email.

Click here for more information on creating and managing Groups, available to you in the Brightspace Essentials for Faculty course. 

Click here for more information on creating and managing Quizzes, available to you in the Brightspace Essentials for Faculty course. 

Recently, there has been significant media coverage on a topic called Zoom Bombing. There are different iterations of this problem but a common one would be the interruption of a Zoom session by a participant not originally invited to the session. These interruptions include conduct that would be considered a violation of our Respect in the Workplace policy and may be presented to the other participants verbally, via their video feed or sharing of screen content.

It is recognized that with the increase in Zoom usage across the globe, the amount of media coverage and scrutiny will increase as well. This often causes panic amongst the public. In an effort to address any concerns, our AC website includes several guides authored by the ITS department that contain information to help users minimize the threat of Zoom Bombing and conduct secure Zoom sessions in general. The collection of materials include:

• How to Prevent Zoom Bombing
• AC Zoom Security and Privacy Guidelines for Faculty
• AC Zoom Security and Privacy Guidelines for Employees

These downloadable documents can be accessed by clicking this link to our Zoom Tips and Resources webpage.

We are continuing to monitor the situation and will update these resources as additional security measures are identified and properly vetted.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact the ITS Service Desk via ext. 5555 or send email to 5555@algonquincollege.com.

In an effort to mitigate Zoom bombing, Zoom has implemented changes for various categories of licensed users on April 5, 2020. Because the College uses an Enterprise license, these changes were not automatically enforced. This provides time for Enterprise users to perform the required impact assessment and conduct a proper roll-out.

ITS has completed our impact assessment and will be implementing the following default security changes to all registered Zoom user accounts effective Monday April 20, 2020. These settings apply to meetings scheduled through Outlook, Brightspace, and the web portal.

• Password protection on all Meeting IDs (ON)
• Waiting Rooms on all Meeting IDs (ON)’

What is Zoom bombing?

There are different iterations of this problem but a common one would be the interruption of a Zoom session by a participant not originally invited to the session. These interruptions include conduct that would be considered a violation of our Respect in the Workplace policy and may be presented to the other participants verbally, via their video feed or sharing of screen content.

How do the new security settings for Zoom affect me?

As a meeting organizer or host, there will be a minor impact to the way you facilitate your meetings. Your participants will see a new Password field in their meeting invitations but will only be required if they join without using the ‘Join Zoom Meeting’ link in your invitation. When hosting a meeting, your participants will reside in a virtual waiting room prior to actually joining where you can admit participants one by one or all at once when ready. This gives you an opportunity to look over those attempting to join your meeting prior to admitting them. For more details please refer to the following video tutorials:

• Password changes – https://youtu.be/t6W3XZ2KAqo
• Waiting Room changes – https://youtu.be/ySas2Rgi6yA

We recognize that in some cases, there may be good reasons for turning these features off. Therefore, we have allowed users to change them on your personal profile at https://zoom.us/signin.

What do I need to do to prepare?

You should always ensure you are using the latest version of the Zoom app. For desktop Windows and MacOS users, you should log into your Zoom app and check for updates by going into Settings then Check for Updates, the latest version is currently v4.6.10 released April 7, 2020. If you use the Outlook plugin, simply close and reopen Outlook which will trigger the auto update or visit http://zoom.us/download and select the Download button under ‘Microsoft Outlook Plugin’, currently v4.8.2 released April 8, 2020. Mobile users should make sure their Google Play Store or Apple App Store are properly checking and maintaining updates for all their apps.

Are there additional support resources available?

Zoom has available free training webinars, videos, and tutorials available on their website at https://zoom.us/docs/en-us/covid19.html. We’ve also included a quick reference guide with recommended best practices to help secure your future Zoom meetings. For all other questions or inquiries, please contact ITS at 613-727-4723 x5555 or 5555@algonquincollege.com.

• If you are considering recording a Zoom meeting, please ensure that you have reviewed the AC Zoom Security and Privacy Guidelines.
• You can choose to record the meeting, and it may be a good idea to send to students who were unable to attend the live meeting/class.  
• When you select “Record the meeting automatically”, you can choose to either save it to on the local computer or to save it in the cloud.  The cloud is better for accessibility purposes as it will automatically add closed captions within a couple of business days.
  

Please look at our Tools for Delivery section. Brightspace and Zoom are the two main recommended tools. 

At this point, it is important to focus on a course’s contribution to program section of the Course Outline (i.e., Relationship to Vocational Learning Outcomes or Relationship to Essential Employability Skills Outcomes). This contribution outlines the role the course plays in preparing learners for entry-level positions in the discipline. 

Course Learning Requirements (CLRs) are an individual snapshot at a moment in time of the ways in which a course can contribute to meeting the program-level outcomes. They can be helpful in making decisions about delivery choices, but it is important to focus on what the course contributes to the program and ensuring that that contribution is made. 

Embedded Knowledge and Skills (EKS) do not need to be worried about. When written, they are neither exclusive nor exhaustive. They are meant as stepping stones towards the completion of the course learning requirements. Imagine a garden path in your yard. You can tear up the path as often as you want putting down different, types, shapes and sizes of stones. You will always have the path, but the approach to building the path varies. The path is the Course Learning Requirements (CLRs) and the different stones, asphalt or other materials are the Embedded Knowledge and Skills (EKS). As a result, at this time, we don’t want to worry about material that could change from semester to semester and from year to year.  

We want to focus on the outcomes that employers are expecting from our graduates for entry-level positions, and those are the program-level outcomes. 

AC Online has made some courses (EDU2001, EDU2002, EDU2003) available to faculty from their Online Learning: Design & Delivery program, on the Employee Learning site.

The use of a video conferencing tool such as Zoom is not a mandatory requirement.

Zoom is the video conferencing tool supported by Algonquin and in order to provide a consistent experience for our learners all faculty are strongly encouraged to use Zoom when it is determined that video conferencing is a desirable tool for supporting course delivery.

Recording lessons, when a synchronous delivery has been chosen, is a beneficial option for providing all learners with an opportunity to be successful in your course. There is the opportunity for learners to review material and to catch up on any important information that may have been missed due to illness or other personal responsibilities that can more than reasonably arise as a result of COVID.

If alternative methods for sharing course content are not used, it will be unfair to a number of learners, such as our international learners who are joining us from their homes in another time zone, learners who have children, or need to work to ensure the continuation of their basic necessities, or learners who are sick.

The main goal is to support our learners by ensuring that they have access to the resources and materials they need to be successful.

There are a range of possibilities for meeting this goal. When recording, it is important to ensure that learners are able to exercise their right to privacy. If one recording is being shared with multiple audiences, that information would need to be identified in advance.

Where feasible, it may be worth having a conversation with learners to see if they have any ideas, preferences or concerns. New ideas may emerge from the conversation.

Synchronous activities require learners and their educator to be together at the same time and, in the case for remote delivery, in the same virtual place. Delivering information that is required in order to be successful on an assignment from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm using the College supported videoconferencing software, Zoom, is an example of a synchronous activity.

Asynchronous activities have requirements that need to be met, but those requirements are not constrained by a specific time schedule. Providing materials for learners to review along with activities to complete within the Brightspace course shell provides learners with the opportunity to manage their time and be successful in the course. Learners would not be at a disadvantage if their responsibilities mean that they are unable to join a session at a specific time.

You are able to generate a report of who had joined your Zoom session, and when they have left. Follow these steps to generate the report:

1. Login to Zoom.us
2. Click on My Account in the top right corner
3. Click on Reports on the left side menu
4. Click Usage
5. Search the dates for when you meeting took place
6. Click on the number underneath the Participants heading to get a list of the attendance of when they joined/left
7. Export to a CSV file if needed

• You can assess as you normally would, but online rather than face-to-face.  
• Have students record a video of their presentation and submit through Brightspace, or have them present live over Zoom.  
• Zoom meetings can be set up and sent to specific group members, rather than the full class (if desirable), as long as you have access to [your college Zoom account].  
• For a list of Online Drop-in Support sessions or Online Workshops related to online teaching, please follow the link here.

Absolutely. There is no problem with breaking up assessments into smaller pieces.  In fact, that strategy will be helpful for your learners as they try to keep up with all of their work, and it will give them a better opportunity to be successful. 

At this stage, all proctoring services are experiencing very, very high demand for their services. Based on this information, it is suggested that instructors try to find alternatives to tests for assessments in their courses. Information is available on the Academic Contingency Plan Worksheet site for alternative delivery (https://www.algonquincollege.com/lts/alternative-delivery-assessments/ ). 

If there is a desire to drop assessments, that information should be captured in the Continuity Worksheet submitted to your Chair for approval. Choices about drop assessments should be connected to achieving “substantial completion” for a course. 

A course would be considered ‘substantially complete’ when the course has 

1. made its contribution to the program as outlined at the beginning of the course outline (eg., VLOS, EES and General Education theme requirement), and 
2. the faculty member responsible for the course has determined that learners have had the opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities building to the applicable outcomes, and 
3. the plan for substantial completion with direction from the program coordinators is approved by the Chair responsible for the course. 

Any decisions to drop assessments should adhere to the parameters laid out in the Academic Contingency Plan Worksheet. 

For courses and programs that are regulated, and require a proctored final examination, ITS and LTS are exploring online solutions. For all other courses, there are many options for re-thinking your final exam, using a variety of alternative online assessment methods.

In an academic environment, accommodations that support learner variability can take many forms. Accommodation for each learner involves a collaboration between the course instructor, the learner and a variety of talented members of the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL) team. Find out more here – https://www.algonquincollege.com/lts/accessibility-resources-for-supporting-learners/.

Visit here for an update on CAL services and academic accommodations, which includes additional CAL-specific FAQ.

Chairs and program coordinators that are seeking support to transition to virtual (remote) delivery of courses or how to revise course documents to meet program learning outcomes may contact Stephen Murphy (murphys1@algonquincollege.com) or Lynn Cummings (cumminl@algonquincollege.com).  

Visit www.algonquincollege.com/brightspace for Brightspace related training and support information.

If you’d like to book a time Brightspace support, please use this link:

https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/EmployeeLearningExchange@AlgonquinLivecom.onmicrosoft.com/bookings/

Note: Currently, these support appointments will be done over Desktop Sharing