3/29/2020 - Online Learning Support

To: Caltech Faculty and Division Operations Officers
From: Margo Steurbaut, Vice President of Administration and Chief Financial Officer; David A. Tirrell, Provost; Cindy Weinstein, Vice Provost

Caltech's online spring term will open on Monday. A dedicated website, http://teach.caltech.edu, has been created to provide resources and guidance on teaching continuity to our faculty, instructors, and TAs and is continuously being updated as new tools and information become available. The website http://learn.caltech.edu has been created for our students to help their transition to online learning. For our staff,http://telecommute.caltech.edu provides information regarding applications and "how-tos" for working from home.

Caltech has established an integrated support model for online learning that includes the Center for Teaching, Learning and Outreach (CTLO), Academic Media Technologies (AMT), the rest of Information Management Systems and Services (IMSS), the Registrar's Office, and other units. Creating this support model has been a high priority for the campus, and our colleagues in these units have done a remarkable job of enabling the processes, applications, and infrastructure needed to make our online teaching and learning as successful as they can be.

CTLO and AMT have been conducting daily office hours with faculty, instructors, and TAs. Next week, sessions are scheduled for Monday and Wednesday, from 11 a.m. to noon. More sessions will be added as needed, and will be included in CTLO's emailed "Updates for Spring 2020 Instructors" and on http://teach.caltech.edu. IMSS has implemented tools and infrastructure including Zoom, Google G-suite (Google Drive and Hangouts), and Gradescope, and their integration with Moodle based on Caltech credentials. IMSS is restructuring to provide the best possible online learning support by including all the pertinent resources from the various groups such as AMT, Help Desk, and the rest of the IMSS, as well as IMSS student workers (called House Reps).

In the next few weeks, we expect an increase in the frequency of support requests associated with the transition to online instruction. Prioritizing requests from faculty, instructors, TAs, and students means that IMSS may not be able to respond to other requests as promptly as they normally do. We ask for your patience if you experience delayed responses during this transition.