Introduction

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has come out with Guidance on how colleges and universities can respond to a pandemic flu emergency. This document reviews relevant guidelines from the perspective of eLearning, offering system specific recommendations for Washington community colleges.

**To see an overview and the excel spreadsheet regarding the plans that each college/university has in place please click here.

eLearning Suggestions:

• Include eLearning staff in the pandemic response team.

• Colleges should consider eLearning tools to ensure continuity of instruction. Continuity of Instruction.

• The ELC and SBCTC have already contacted major vendors to insure capacity in case of a surge of enrollments on ANGEL, Elluminate and Presidium.

• The eLearning Council is working collaboratively to share emergency plans. Overview of plans and policies from the system colleges.

• The ELC has developed some Washington specific ideas for Continuity of Instruction.

• ELC staff should have the ability to work remotely.

• Faculty should consider making assignments available online so that students who miss class due to flu related causes can keep up with the course. Students can be encouraged to buddy up with a classmate at the beginning of the quarter so that they can to keep up if they miss class.

• To help reduce travel needs Elluminate can be used in order to instruct or teach a class live preventing the need for someone to attend in person. Elluminate Moderator Training is available free at the Elluminate Website.

• Faculty should continue to encourage and emphasize that students need to update their email addresses and telephone numbers in the SMS system to insure effective class communication. Instructor Briefcase can be modified to include student email addresses.

Note In order to see how these suggestions corespond to the CDC Pandemic Checklist please see the following link and the list above will be in red with the associated item on the checklist. Pandemic Checklist

Notes on Pandemic Preparedness from ELC Summer Meeting