To: L& S Chairs and Directors, L&S Department Administrators

From: L&S Pandemic Planning Group: Diana Allaby, Bruno Browning, Bill Barker, Chris Bruhn, Joyce Helt, Elaine Klein, Maggie Sullivan, Nancy Westphal-Johnson (Pandemic Coordinator)

RE: Pandemic Influenza Continuity of Instruction Plan

There is on-going concern over how the campus might continue instruction in the event of a pandemic disease like the H1N1 flu. Each of you has been asked to prepare a first draft of a plan for continuity of instruction and submit it to the college (via Nancy Westphal-Johnson) and the campus by September 30, 2009. We are writing to you at this time to clarify college level assistance with regard to your continuity of instruction plan and expectations in this regard, and to try to help provide some streamlined information about how to proceed. You have several communications from campus already in your files and we will try not to duplicate what is there, but also wanted to provide a digest of sorts to make the information more manageable.

If a significant portion of campus were to be either infected or at risk of infection, public health authorities may recommend or require “social distancing” (minimizing face-to-face contact) as a preventative measure. Much greater detail can be found in the June 19, 2009 memo from Dr. Sarah van Orman and the memo of the same date from Interim Provost Underwood and Vice Provosts Berg and Brower (see attachments). If this situation is called for, how would your department respond?

We will begin college-wide discussion of this topic as part of the August 25th L&S Chairs Orientation meeting. While we hope that you will be able to begin consideration of this important issue in advance of that meeting, we are also aware that this may be difficult in the late summer when so many faculty and staff are away from the campus. Although continuity of instruction is but one part of planning for a pandemic, it is a crucial area and one that the campus needs to make progress on in the very near future.

It is important to note this is a work in progress. We do not expect that all will be ready to go come fall. The goal is to be more prepared than we are now and then to continue planning over time so that the campus is prepared in the future. One of the most significant preparations at this beginning point will be just discussing the possibilities and sharing them across the college. We fully realize that trying to convert many of our L&S essential courses to a socially distanced framework will be an incredibly challenging and complex endeavor. While campus-level help may be possible for extremely large essential courses, we generally need to be able to plan to carry out this work using existing department and college resources. The college has established a Pandemic Planning Group to try to help coordinate our college-level response to all aspects of a pandemic. We have been meeting regularly and hope to be able to be of assistance to you in this effort and in the future concerning your efforts to plan for all aspects of a possible pandemic situation.

Although the full instructions are complex, in essence there are just five steps required and these are laid out in the attached document:

1. identifying a point person
2. prioritizing class offerings,
3. preparing for the possibility of a shortened semester,
4. planning to monitor the situation as the semester progresses
5. reporting the results of steps 1 through 4 to the college and to campus.

Please feel free to contact Nancy Westphal-Johnson, the pandemic coordinator for L&S, with any questions or concerns you may have at this point.

xc: Associate Deans Ellis Weismer, Groves Lloyd, Gunther, Halaby, Hauner, Wilcots
Vice Provost Brower

Attachments:

1. Academic Planning for Influenza Pandemic - Creating a Continuity of Instruction Plan (June 19, 2009)
2. Unit Pandemic Influenza Planning (Sarah Van Orman to Deans, Directors, Dept Chairs, and Pandemic Coordinators , June 19, 2009)
3. Pandemic Academic Planning - Continuity of Instruction (Curricular Services to Curricular Representatives, Department Chairs, Pandemic Coordinators, July 7, 2009)
4. Flu Pandemic Appendices E and F

INSTRUCTIONS ON PREPARING YOUR CONTINUITY OF INSTRUCTION PLAN

1. Name a Pandemic Coordinator.

Responsibilities:

• Compiling the department’s plan for continuity of instruction as well as the department’s overall plan
• Forwarding the department plan to the College (c/o Nancy Westphal-Johnson) and to the Campus Health Issues Planning (CHIP) team
• Receiving updates from the CHIP Committee regarding campus planning assumptions and from the college Pandemic Planning Group and adjusting unit plans accordingly
• Monitoring the campus pandemic website in the event of a pandemic and directing the implementation of the unit plan
• Establishing a departmental communication plan

2. Prioritize courses for continuation.

1. Go to: http://registrar.wisc.edu/essential_courses.php. This is an Excel spreadsheet created by enrollment management based on criteria below. Enrollment Management has already identified many courses as essential based on the criteria below. You should review these courses and add courses you think fit the essential category.
   NOTE: For the convenience of L&S Departments and Programs, we have extracted the L&S courses from this list. Please feel free to use the L&S-only course list.
   
2. Identify courses that are essential by marking the appropriate box in the “Essential Course or Section Level” column with an “X”
3. Identify courses that are social distance ready by marking the box in the “Distance Ready Course (or Section) Level” with an “X”
4. Identify essential courses that are not social distance ready but could be by writing “could be” in the “NOTES” column.

ESSENTIAL COURSE CRITERIA:

• The course is a gateway course (i.e., a lower level course that is a prerequisite to declaring a major or advancing to upper level course work)
• The course is required for majors or degree completion in your department
• The course is required for majors or degree completion in other departments
• The course is required for students graduating in December 2009 or May 2010

SOCIAL DISTANCING:

• a mode of teaching that is not face-to-face for a period of time: e.g. podcast, teleconferencing, phone calls, web based discussions, mail or email exchange. This does not mean converting all classes to on-line instruction. Low tech as well as high tech methods might be used. The goal of social distance instruction during a pandemic emergency should be to deliver essential courses and essential course content in a way that leads to continuity of instruction and progress towards degree completion.

If it helps, use the table below to decide on readiness of courses for social distance instructional modes:

3. Prepare for the possibility of a shortened semester.

This is an extremely important step. Plan to track student grades carefully, especially given that colleague coverage may be needed or sections might need to be combined. In the event of a serious pandemic event, a semester may be considered complete after 12 weeks and final grades can be submitted based on 12-weeks worth of work. There may not be a final exam period. Have plans in place to keep grades up-to-date and a mechanism to complete student evaluation if final examinations are cancelled.

4. Prepare to monitor “wellness”.

You need to develop department level mechanisms for providing “wellness” feedback to the College via my office and include assessment of the following:

• Are there sufficient numbers of healthy instructors and teaching assistants for the department to continue instruction using standard Colleague Coverage guidelines, including colleague coverage for TA-led sections?
• Are there enough healthy students enrolled in and actively participating in coursework to merit continued instruction?

5. Provide information on your plans to the college and campus.

1. Forward the list of essential courses to the departmental curricular representative (formerly known as Timetable representatives).
   
2. Curricular representatives (formerly known as Timetable Reps) should enter the "Mode of Instruction" information for social distance courses into ISIS using the “attributes” field.
   
3. By September 30, 2009 send a copy of your draft plan to:
   1. L&S, c/o Nancy Westphal-Johnson
   2. Campus Health Issues Planning team at pandemicinfo@mhub.uwpd.wisc.edu

For more guidance on Pandemic Planning in academic areas, please refer to the memo "Academic Planning for Influenza Pandemic – Creating a Continuity of Instruction Plan" (July 19, 2009) .

Campus Resources for Departmental and Instructional Planning for Academic Continuity

The university has created a website (www.flu.wisc.edu) that posts information and resources to help departments and instructors with their pandemic planning. By clicking on Campus Planning Documents located on the left navigation bar, you can access the specific resources below:

 Academic planning

 Academic Pandemic Planning Guidance — June 19, 2009

A memo from the Office of the Provost to academic departments regarding the development of a continuity of instruction, or social-distance teaching plan.

Continuity of Instruction for Departments: Coding Essential Courses in ISIS — (memo dated: 7 July 2009, to Curricular Representatives, Department Chairs, Pandemic Coordinators)

This memo from the Office of the Registrar Curricular Services provides guidance on identifying and coding essential and social distance ready courses in ISIS .

Guidance for Departmental Planning for Continuing Instruction — July 31, 2009

This document provides help to departments who are developing how they will continue instruction for their essential courses in the event of a flu pandemic.  You can think of it as the "cliff note" version of the instructions contained in the documents "Unit Pandemic Influenza Planning" and "Academic Pandemic Planning Guidance".

Preparing Your Course for Social Distance Teaching — July 31, 2009 (Document title: "Continuity of Instruction During a Pandemic or Catastrophic Event")

This document provides help to instructors who are developing their social distance teaching plans.  It “walks through” a variety of decisions you will need to make, provides several examples, and provides links to example syllabi.  

Unit planning

 Unit Pandemic Influenza Planning — June 19, 2009

This memo, from Sarah Van Orman, chair of the Campus Health Issues Planning Committee and executive director of University Health Services, addresses questions and offers assistance to campus units in preparing their pandemic influenza plans.

Additionally, the Teaching & Learning Excellence website (TLE.wisc.edu) will host a special section ( <https://tle.wisc.edu/pandemic>) that will be continually updated with activities and technologies for how to teach under conditions of social distancing. The site also contains areas where faculty and staff can discuss these issues.

From: presentation to L&S Chairs, August 25, 2009