Dear Engineering for Professionals Faculty:
As President Daniels has already communicated, Johns Hopkins University has canceled on-site classes today, tomorrow, and Friday, and on-site classes will resume on March 23 via remote delivery, through at least April 12. To be sure, Engineering for Professionals is well-positioned to continue normal operations with the large number of online classes that we run every semester, and we should take this opportunity to clearly state that there are
no anticipated changes to the delivery of existing online courses during this period
. We are thankful, especially in times like these, to have taken long strides in the online education space. That said, EP still maintains an important portfolio of on-site and Virtual Live courses delivered at the Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Center and the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland campus.
The remainder of this message will address moving these courses to a fully online delivery modality.
On-site Courses
After Spring Break, you should continue to teach your course on the same scheduled day(s) and time(s) but students must attend your course remotely via
Zoom
. The instructional support team will work with you to add basic information to
your Blackboard course site
before March 23, including Zoom meeting link, syllabus, and instructor contact details.
Virtual Live Courses
Students who previously attended your Virtual Live course in person must now join and participate via Zoom. The course will now be delivered entirely online, synchronously with no on-site component.
Below we list some important guidelines to keep in mind and resources to employ as you use the next 12 days to adapt your teaching modality.
- Communicate clearly and regularly: Please keep in mind that this is a stressful time for your students. They are likely to be anxious, both about COVID-19 and about changes to the way your class is going to be delivered. Students will be eager to learn about new procedures, routines, and expectations and about how they are to make up any work or exams that were canceled on the days before spring break.
- Comply with the class cancellation: We expect that you will not hold any class meetings or exams during Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday of this week. Deadlines that were originally set for those days should be delayed until after Spring Break. Exams that need to be delayed until after Spring Break due to class cancellations will need to be administered after time as take-home exams or in an on-line format.
- It is expected that your online sessions with students will be held at the scheduled meeting time for your class: While the content of your class sessions may need to be altered, it is the policy of our school that routine contact with students through synchronous interaction over Zoom is the best way to maintain continuity through this disruption.
- Support is available to help you manage this transition: The EP instructional support team will be in touch to help you navigate this transition. This is the same group that has developed nearly 500 online courses for delivery at EP, so they have deep expertise in this area. In the meantime, if you have questions, please contact ep-help-desk@jhu.edu.
Thank you for your understanding and adaptability as our school seeks to meet the challenge presented by COVID-19. We appreciate your dedication to your students, your discipline, and the educational endeavor. If you require clarification regarding issues of school or university policy please feel free to reach out to Associate Dean Dan Horn (
dhorn@jhu.edu
) or to Heather Stewart, EP’s Academic Affairs Manager (
hstewa13@jhu.edu
).
Sincerely,
Sri Sarma
Vice Dean for Graduate Education
Dan Horn
Associate Dean for Engineering for Professionals
