• How long will a student be out of class?
  
  • CDC recommendation:  "People with influenza-like illness remain at home until at least 24 hours after they are free of fever (100 degrees), or signs of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications." 
  • Fever often lasts 2-4 days, therefore students will be out 3-5 days, generally.

• How can you lessen your students' exposure to H1N1 ?
  
• Make a strong statement to students to stay away from class if they are sick with flu.
• Encourage students to carry hand sanitizer and clean hands frequently after touching things, whether on campus or in the community.
• Encourage students to clean hand before and after handling shared items or equipment and, when possible, to clean items after using them (computer keyboards, lab equipment, etc.)
• Encourage students to seek medical attention if appropriate.
  
  
• Notifying other students if you have a sick student in the class
  
  • Not necessary as students can contact the disease from the community.
  • Have the sick student notify those who were in close contact a day before symptoms.
  • If you should have to notify other students, use generic terms such as "A student enrolled in class has been diagnosed with presumed H1N1 influenza. There is no way to be certain who, if anyone, might have been exposed, but you are encouraged to self-monitor for flu symptoms for a few days."
    
    
• Faculty verification of student illness
• If student came to Student Health Services or saw another medical provider, they will have signed form.
• Student Health Services cannot give you information about a student they've seen due to privacy rulings.
• Students may not have seen medical provider and instead, self-treat. They will have no paper verification.
• Do not encourage students to visit Student Health Services solely for verification that they are ill if medical care is not needed.
• Only encourage use of Student Health Services if students need medical attention (symptoms more than mild, medical condition that increases risk of complications with the flu, or if diagnosis is not certain).

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• Post your syllabus online and update it with course changes frequently.
• Consider arranging with a colleague to cover each other's classes if necessary.
  
• Craft your syllabus with enough detail that a teaching assistant or colleague can fill in for you if necessary.
• Have a back-up plan for each day of your class--special readings, online collaboration with other students, writing activities, special web sites which explain the content in multiple ways, senior student tutoring via phone, etc
• Develop make-up opportunities or alternatives for experiences which require attendance.
  
• Allow students to participate in class discussion via a cell phone's speaker phone.
• Allow late submission of work.
  
• Communication strategies. Have a plan in place for:
  
• Contacting your students and telling then where to find course information.  
• Notifying your colleagues
  
• Staying in touch with your TAs and other instructional staff.
• Plan for testing and evaluation by TA's and other faculty
• Plan for collecting assignments by TA's and other faculty
• Use appropriate technology to support course continuity
• Information on NC State's policy on serious illness and disability for faculty
• Information on Family and Medical Leave

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DELTA offers assistance to instructors seeking ways to minimize course disruption if students or instructors miss class due to flu. In collaboration with our partners in the Office of Faculty Development, we can provide workshops and consultations that will help you use technology to minimize course disruptions, including creating an online presence for your face-to-face course where students could communicate, submit assignments and take quizzes, even if they needed to be out of your classroom for a while.

(1) Keeping the class going when individuals are out by using available technologies

Lecture-based classes

• Post documents and assignments online in place of lecture using an LMS, such as Moodle, WolfWare Classic, or Blackboard Vista
• Create .pdf documents (using the MS Word 2007 add in) so that students using multiple platforms (Mac or PC) can easily access the documents
• Record the class lecture for students to view later
  
• Narrate a slide show from home for students to listen to
• Create a podcast for students to listen to
• Contact the NCSU Library and set up a course reserve (e-reserve page) that contains a list of additional readings that your students can access virtually
  

• Use an online forum for class discussions, such as a discussion forum in Moodle or Blackboard Vista
• Use Elluminate to hold online real-time meetings
• Consider a Meet Me conference call, for up to 30 participants
• Have an alternate assignment for those students who are unable to attend the synchronous (real time) discussion. For example, if you record the Elluminate session then students could listen to it later and then write a reflection paper or answer specific questions that you designed.
  

• Locate virtual labs online for students to complete
• Get some ideas for teaching labs online by reviewing what other faculty are doing
• Arrange alternate activities in place of the lab

(2) Distributing, collecting and grading assignments

• Post assignment instructions, rubrics and grades on the course web site
• Use an online assignment submission tool to collect assignments electronically using our campus LMS, Moodle or Blackboard Vista
  
• Use online tools to comment, grade and return assignments to students
  
  • Use the Add Comment feature in MS Word 2007 to comment on student's work
  • Use the Comment and Markup feature in Adobe Acrobat to add comments on PDF documents
    
• Offer online quizzes and tests when appropriate
  
• Consider proctored tests, when possible 

(3) Managing student meetings and group work

• Offer students online tools for group work, such as the groups tool available in our campus LMSs, Elluminate, the WolfWikis tool, Google Docs, and others
• Use instant messenger or video chat to communicate one-on-one (AIM, GoogleTalk, iChat, Skype, etc.)
• Hold online meetings, with shared visuals and audio, via Elluminate
• Use the announcements page in your LMS to tell students when you'll be available online, how to contact you, etc.

• Set up a class email list, using either the WolfWare class list, Moodle, or email your students via MyPack Portal

For additional information on keeping your class going if you can't meet face-to-face, see our blog posts related to flu-proofing your course on DELTAwire.

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Contact Information

For more information on specific topics:

• Contact DELTA (learntech@ncsu.edu, 919-513-7094) for using technology to support your course.
• Contact the Student Health Center (919-515-2563) for information about the H1N1 virus and suggestions for working with sick students.
• Contact the The Office of Faculty Development (teach_learn@ncsu.edu, 919-513-3634) for planning your syllabus and interpreting university policy as it relates to your course.

Special Note:
A special thanks to our colleagues at Duke University, who created much of this material and then gave us permission to modify it for our campus.

Visit DELTA Home Page

Visit Office of Faculty Development Home Page

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