Long Beach City College cares deeply about the health and well-being of our students, faculty, staff, and community.  We have a responsibility to communicate, as in the e-mails sent on March 3 and March 4, 2020, and on the LBCC website at https://www.lbcc.edu/coronavirus, and in an abundance of caution, we are developing plans for a variety of potential situations, including remote teaching.  We also have an Emergency Operations Team that is monitoring the evolving situation and is prepared to support operations as necessary.  

If it becomes necessary to move instruction online, numerous items would need to be addressed for such a move to occur, including:

• Canvas: Assisting faculty and students who are currently not using Canvas in face-to-face classes to get their classes onto Canvas and to become trained on the platform’s basic functions (e.g., uploading syllabi, using the announcements feature, uploading documents, using the conference function, etc.). 
  • Canvas App: Also providing training on using Canvas via the app, which was designed to allow faculty and students to perform many of the same basic functions as the online version on their mobile devices.
  • Canvas Online Training Links:
    • LBCC Growing with Canvas (LBCC Canvas training self-paced Course)
    • OLET Canvas Workshops (OLET in-person workshops & training schedule)
    • OLET Canvas Help Guides (OLET Canvas step-by-step guides)
    • Canvas Help Guides & Video Tutorials (Videos & guides on various canvas topics)

Additional in-person workshops are being scheduled, and we are working with the Department Heads to schedule some sessions during already scheduled department meetings.  Others may be offered via ConferZoom. 

• ConferZoom: Supporting faculty who are not familiar with ConferZoom conferencing to learn this tool.  It is free for all California community college employees, and there are excellent online tutorials.  We will also offer training sessions. 
  • ConferZoom (Guides for using ConferZoom in the classroom and integrating with Canvas)
• YouTube: Training sessions are also being scheduled for helping faculty to use YouTube to create online lectures that could be posted to Canvas.  Training would also include how to edit the captioning on such lectures. 

As this planning process goes forward, we will offer training on a variety of additional tools to support faculty, staff, and students.  Fortunately, there are numerous resources available, and LBCC’s Online Learning and Educational Technology (OLET) team as well as many of our faculty members are very knowledgeable about them and can help provide training and support.   

We will also work collaboratively with Student Services to ensure accessibility for students. 

Some of the additional challenges that we are considering when developing this contingency plan for remote teaching are as follows:

• Identifying the disciplines that would be difficult to teach remotely and working to develop possible solutions
• Working individually with disciplines that may need special software or other resources to teach online
• Determining necessary staffing to support students and faculty who are new to Canvas
• Ensuring that faculty and staff have access to needed equipment, including microphones to improve recording and closed captioning quality of online lectures
• Providing support to students who do not have access to computers
• Shifting tutoring online as much as possible
• Providing additional support to adjunct faculty
• Offering Flex Credit to faculty as appropriate

LBCC is just one of many community colleges that are acting responsibly to prepare for all possible scenarios in the best interests of our students.  We have done research on best practices at other institutions and will continue gathering information as we monitor the situation.  

Thank you, in advance, for your assistance.  I welcome your input, and I look forward to working collaboratively with participatory governance leaders as well as campus colleagues in Student Services, Administrative and Business Services, Human Resources, Public Affairs & Marketing, and the campus community at large as this situation evolves.  I will continue to provide updates on the progress in developing the remote teaching emergency plan for LBCC.

Sincerely,

Dr. Kathleen Scott
Executive Vice President, Academic Affairs