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Teaching Resources: Message from VCAA Joni Onishi to Faculty and Lecturers

Administrative
 / 19 August 2020
Aloha Faculty and Lecturers,
 
Welcome to Fall 2020 semester.  I hope this email finds you and your family in good health.  As we continue to live through these unprecedented times, COVID-19 has impacted our daily lives and we will experience a semester unlike any other.  
 
There are many to mahalo who worked hard throughout the summer preparing for the opening of fall 2020 to assure the safest and best learning environment possible.  About 80% of our classes will be offered via distance delivery with 20% offered fully or partially face-to-face.  Regardless of the delivery method, we are committed to provide our students with engaging and robust instruction as well as top-quality, high-touch academic support and resources. 
 
In an earlier email, I asked you to contact your students in all your classes (multiple times) before instruction begins to provide first day information.  I hope you have already made the first contact.  Be sure to monitor your rosters in myUH as students will be registering up to the start of the first class meeting.  Information to be included in your communication with students
  • Modality (if via ZOOM, please provide students with the ZOOM LINK)
  • Syllabus (Add ZOOM link to syllabus)
  • Supplies and Equipment Needs
  • Detailed instructions on how to access the first day of instruction

 

Teaching Resources under Faculty & Staff page on our website, http://www.hawaii.hawaii.edu/faculty-staff, has resources to assist in your teaching as well as information to add to your syllabus.  If your class requires any face-to-face contact, please include verbiage about face masks in your syllabus.
NEED TO KNOW:
  • With the move of classes online, you may have concerns about how to administer proctored exams.  
  1. If your class meets synchronous either face-to-face or online and you have regular meeting times, you are expected to proctor your own exams with your students.  
  2. If your class meets asynchronous online, you may either proctor your own exams or request test proctoring through our testing centers (Distance Learning Test Proctoring Request Form); students will then schedule a proctored exam appointment.   
  3. Offer students the option to take an online proctored exam.  Hawai‘i Community College has an agreement with ProctorU to provide proctoring services using webcams and live proctors to monitor online exams and to use industry-accepted processes to authenticate that the named examinee is the individual taking an exam.  The use of ProctorU is OPTIONAL and should not be made mandatory.  Should you choose to offer ProctorU as an option for your students, you should always inform students that they can still take proctored online tests free of charge at our testing centers.  It is also important to provide detailed information about this option in your course syllabus, since there is a cost involved. 
  • The Fall 2020 Academic Calendar posted, http://www.hawaii.hawaii.edu/academic-calendar, is missing the Election Day holiday, November 3, Tuesday.
  • Students who need a place to attend a class synchronously via ZOOM may go to The Learning Center, an area has been sectioned off
  • The Learning Center, Hale Kea Testing Center, and I`Ola Haloa Center are open to provide their services and where students can go for internet access and use of computers.
We are all in this together and I sincerely appreciate your patience, understanding, kindness, and support.   I don't know what the "new normal" will be but we will all persevere and our goal is to successfully complete the semester.
 
Take care and keep safe.  Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions or concerns.
 
Joni