Academic Policies, Instruction & Resources

Key academic dates have been finalized and can be found here.

The expectation is that students attend their courses synchronously, provided the scheduled class time falls between 8 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. in their local time zone, which mirrors the span of in-person class meeting times on campus. Of course, students are welcome to attend classes outside of this timeframe in their local time zone if they would prefer to participate synchronously rather than rely on class recordings.

This expectation extends to students in quarantine who should be able to continue their coursework; however, it may be necessary to make provisions for students who cannot attend because they are sick or are or in time zones that make synchronous participation untenable.

The notion of a “semifinal” was specified for students in this policy statement. Here are some practical details for faculty:

1. Instructors have the option of giving in-person exams for any course, regardless of its instruction format (i.e., including online and distance learning asynchronous courses).
2. Instructors (through their department) have to request a semi-final slot. They should specify whether they are requesting an in-person or online semifinal slot. Semi-final slots are 2.5 hours.
3. A course can have a university-scheduled semi-final or an online final, but not both.
4. The usual final exam period rules apply to the fall 2020 semi-final and final exam periods.
5. As usual, instructors may self-schedule and assign a take-home project, paper or exam to be due during the semi-final or finals periods.
6. If a course has an in-person semi-final, then an alternative assessment must be made available for students who are taking the course remotely or who have a pandemic-related accommodation. Students who have health-related concerns about taking in-person exams during the fall 2020 semester should contact Student Disability Services (SDS) as soon as possible. You will be asked to complete a Disability Self-Disclosure Form and then be assigned an SDS counselor, who will work with you to determine reasonable accommodations.
7. Instructors do not need to provide 24-hour windows for exams taken online (as was the case in spring 2020), and in fact are now advised not to do so. Instructors who wish to give a timed exam are encouraged to give the exam at the same time for in-person and remote students. An alternative exam time may be necessary to accommodate students who live in time zones that are not amenable to synchronous assessment (i.e., scheduled time of exam falls outside 8 a.m. – 10:30 p.m. in their local time zone). In such cases, instructors might want to consider administering an exam with different questions to address concerns about academic integrity.

Because it may be challenging to replicate a traditional exam in an online environment, you may need to adjust your end-of-semester assessments. To support this effort, the Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI) will run an Assessing Learning in In-Person Classes with Remote Students workshop throughout the fall, which builds upon the Assessing Learning Online workshop, a recording of which is available on its Guided Course Support page. 

CTI also offers strategies for promoting academic integrity, as well as guidelines for the best ways to use functions with Canvas quizzes, whether for persistent quizzing or high-stakes exams.

The F20 Guide for Instructors includes additional resources related to academic integrity, including the Code itself and the Essential Guide to Academic Integrity; information about talking to students about AI; clarity with respect to allowable collaboration and resource access; and dealing with internet issues.

In addition, the calendar has been modified to allow for in-person semi-final exams just before Thanksgiving for instructors who would prefer this option to online final exams at the very end of the term. Instructors of online courses also have this option.

There is no university-wide policy (unlike spring 2020). Individual instructors may choose to offer S/U or not. Individual majors, minors and colleges may create their own policies about accepting S/U grades for requirements. Note that some colleges have a minimum number of credits that must be taken for letter grades.

As is customary, faculty are not required to formally take attendance. Instead, faculty are asked to use established methods for reporting students of concern to their college student advising office (e.g., extended absences that are unaccounted for by notices from Cornell Health).

In the event someone becomes ill with COVID-19, the Tompkins County Health Department (TCHD), as required by New York state law, is responsible for contact tracing to identify close contacts of an infected individual (the “index case”). TCHD will identify and notify all close contacts (an individual who has had contact closer than six feet for more than 15 minutes), give them instructions for quarantine, and monitor them for compliance with the instructions and to ensure that symptoms do not develop. This monitoring will occur daily for a length of time determined by the Health Department based on current state and CDC guidelines. While each case is unique, strict adherence to physical distancing and mask wearing in the classroom will mitigate the likelihood that an entire class would have to quarantine.

When a student is placed into quarantine or isolation, Student Disability Services will send an Academic Considerations letter to the instructors of the student’s courses. The letter will specify that academic considerations are requested for 14 days. Care and Crisis Services will provide additional support to students who have tested positive, including if they require accommodations beyond the initial 14-day period.

Instructors should develop a back-up plan in case they become ill and are required to go into isolation. These back-up plans could include some combination of teaching remotely, having a colleague take over their course, or having students work on assignments or projects in their absence.

It is true that there will be more students who need to begin the semester remotely than we originally expected, though the total number of affected students remains a moving target, as the state’s quarantine advisory list changes frequently. This is one of the challenges for which instructors need to be flexible.

The Cornell University Student Behavioral Compact requires all students to adhere to a specific set of behaviors, including practicing appropriate physical distancing, inside and outside the classroom, by:

• remaining at least six feet from others;
• wearing a face covering when entering, and moving throughout, any university building;
• coughing or sneezing into elbows;
• washing hands for at least 20 seconds frequently throughout the day;
• staying home if sick and requesting evaluation by Cornell Health if COVID-19 symptoms are present.

The F20 Guide for Instructors includes resources on what students may already know and think, talking to students about the compact, setting classroom expectations, and what to do when a student is noncompliant. Concerning behaviors involving students, employees or Cornell-affiliated organizations that do not promote a healthy and safe community can be reported to the Cornell Compact Compliance Team.

Faculty are urged to:

• be conservative about in-person meetings;
• hold virtual office hours whenever possible;
• model safe behavior (e.g., mask wearing, ample distancing, avoiding indoor spaces) if you must meet in person.

Faculty and students should maintain at least six feet of physical distancing when conversing after class. Keep conversations short and schedule a virtual follow-up meeting if necessary.

Because both the student and the instructor/TA will be wearing face coverings, there is a double layer of personal protective equipment between them, which will help mitigate risks. Writing on paper may also significantly reduce the risk of transmission.

Instructors teaching in person should remind students to enter and exit classrooms in an orderly fashion and to maintain physical distance. Designated entrance and exit doors are not recommended; instead, in spaces with two doorways, both doorways should be used for entry and for exiting to allow traffic to move most efficiently.

• Lab managers, office managers and other Facilities staff have stocked up on PPE in preparation for the semester. Check with your department manager on arrangements made for you and your team.
• Local IT teams will be distributing masks and Lavalier lapel microphones (for instructors teaching in person with remote students). Instructors who need additional PPE should contact their local facilities team.
• Need a box of masks to have on hand? Contact Tammy Johnson in Facilities and Campus Services.

In most cases, recording your lecture represents best practice. Students who are attending the class from a time zone that makes it impossible for them to participate synchronously or who have a note from SDS indicating that they are unable to attend due to illness will need to access lectures after the fact. In courses where instructors use Zoom to connect with students participating remotely, recording is straightforward; thus, instructors may opt to record each class. As with any student who misses classes because of illness, the instructor should try to work with the student to find a way to address missed class sessions. In some cases, where recording is not appropriate (for example, if recording would interfere with open discussions on sensitive topics), other options should be explored. Remember that students who become ill may be unable to make up missed course obligations right away.

Global Cornell has developed “Teaching International Students: Tips for Online Instruction,” to help guide instructors in ways to think about equity for international students, as part of Cornell’s larger goal for providing a quality education this fall and beyond.

For information and resources on teaching in-person courses while providing remote access, please visit the Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI) website. CTI has also produced a video demonstration showing an example of in-person teaching with remote students, which may help visualize what it will be like.

Also available on the CTI website is an "Introduction to Online Teaching" with strategies and resources for how to teach online. Global Cornell has also developed a guide, “Teaching International Students: Tips for Online Instruction.”

The F20 Guide for Instructors includes an overview of Effective Online Teaching Practices: Faculty Experiences from S20. Developed by Professor Courtney Roby (Classics), it pinpoints selected resources and best practices gleaned from Cornell faculty experiences teaching online during the Spring 2020 semester.

Early on in planning for the Fall 2020 semester, faculty expressed a desire to wear face shields instead of masks so that students could more easily see their faces. At the time, it seemed that face shields could be an appropriate alternative to face masks. Guidance has continued to evolve, however, and emerging consensus now is that face shields are suboptimal to masks.

Although Cornell’s practice of extra distancing between instructors and the first row of students may compensate for this difference, the Tompkins County Health Department (TCHD) recently confirmed that they would be more likely to identify instructors who wear a face shield (instead of a mask) as “close contacts” in determining risk of exposure when a positive case is found.

If you are currently using a face shield but can tolerate a face mask, you are strongly urged to switch. Masks with clear windows can be used. Feedback from students and instructors indicate that surgical masks provide better audio quality than cloth masks. You can order masks through the university’s Critical Supply Storeroom. If you need assistance, please contact Tammy Johnson in Facilities and Campus Services.

The hope is that faculty who have opted to teach an in-person or hybrid course will indeed do so, but myriad factors (such as pedagogical or health concerns) could lead an instructor to want to switch to online instruction. Faculty are encouraged to monitor the university’s COVID-19 dashboard for unfolding information and consult with their department chair prior to making any decisions about changing the instruction mode of a course.

New international students must have some portion of their semester occur in-person, but the exact quantification has not been specified. Given that international students may be arriving later in the semester due to visa and travel delays and need to quarantine for 14 days, and given that Cornell plans to move fully online in late November, faculty teaching in-person courses with a new international student enrolled are encouraged to remain in-person until the semi-final period.

To every extent possible, community-engaged learning courses and activities that ordinarily involve travel and/or interaction with individuals outside of the Cornell community should take place virtually. Courses that require travel must be reviewed and approved by the relevant college leadership. Any courses that involve travel outside of the Ithaca area must comply with the university's travel policy. Instructors should also provide alternative accommodations for students who are not comfortable with, or unable to participate in, this experience and want to engage remotely. The Office of Engagement Initiatives can offer additional support in planning your community-engaged course or activity during this period.

Faculty are urged to ensure that the impacts of this potential additional burden of the fall semester do not lead to a work week that exceeds, on average, 15 hours (and no more than 20 hours in any given week). Instructors should work with TAs to develop a plan for rebalancing tasks if this is a risk. For more information related to graduate students, see the Graduate School's FAQ page.

In addition to scheduled cleanings by Building Care staff, self-service disinfectant supplies will be provided for students’ use. Disinfectant bottles will be provided based on a ratio of eight students per bottle. The following procedures are recommended:

• Students use the disinfectants and towels provided to sanitize classroom surfaces.
• One student sprays multiple towels for others to use.
• Students use their moistened towel to wipe the bottle and spray trigger after use.
• Students use hand sanitizer to clean their hands after touching the spray bottle.

At the end of class please remind your students to wipe their seats and writing surfaces. Also invite them to arrive a few minutes early if they would like to clean before class too.

The instructor station in each classroom will also be stocked with alcohol wipes to disinfect shared technology. Signage for using the wipes to clean shared technology will be placed in each classroom by the AV/IT tech team responsible for that space. The inventory of cleaning supplies is routinely checked; however, you can also request more cleaning supplies by submitting a maintenance request.

CIT is coordinating classroom technologies to help you engage all your students, both in-person and online and has provided instructions on using audio and video equipment available in the classrooms. In addition to these online instructions, you will find laminated instruction cards with the technologies in the classroom, providing connection and usage information, as well as contact information for the building's A/V support. Please contact your local IT team or CIT for more information or with any questions about classroom technologies.

The Center for Teaching Innovation has webinars, teaching tips, and virtual office hours for individual consultations.

Also available on the CTI website is an “Introduction to Online Teaching” with strategies and resources for how to teach online.

For information on in-person teaching with remote students and online teaching strategies, view CTI’s Fall 2020 Preparation guide.

The F20 Guide for Instructors includes an overview of Effective Online Teaching Practices: Faculty Experiences from S20. Developed by Professor Courtney Roby (Classics), it pinpoints selected resources and best practices gleaned from Cornell faculty experiences teaching online during the Spring 2020 semester.

Global Cornell has also developed “Teaching International Students: Tips for Online Instruction,” to help guide instructors in ways to think about equity for international students, as part of Cornell’s larger goal for providing a quality education this fall and beyond.

You can make an appointment with CIT for a demonstration of classroom technology at 120 Maple Avenue. Please reserve a time on their calendar. For general information on technical resources, see the CIT Classroom Technologies page.

Yes, faculty are permitted to use their offices. CTI also has information on equipment for improving your home-office studio. There are a limited number of high-quality recording studios on campus that faculty may request access to through their colleges. Small conference rooms can also be transformed into mini recording studios (of more moderate quality). Interested departments should reach out to their local IT teams as soon as possible to coordinate central equipment orders, where needed.

If you share Zoom within your Canvas course, this will be available only to enrolled students and the video cannot be downloaded.

Yes, you can control recordings of class sessions. If you provide the Zoom recording within your Canvas course (via the Zoom page in Canvas and/or by uploading it via Kaltura) it will only be viewable, not downloadable. However, keep in mind that students can always screen record, so recordings may occur.

This is something best tested in the classroom with an observer, such as your local IT contact.

Zoom allows the viewer to select different settings; for live sessions, you can share your screen and students can see both. However, for the recording, you may want to set it up to follow the “host” view so you (or someone you assign as a host) can show just you (in a small portion of the screen) and your projection or film in the majority of their screen.

Faculty members have had success asking someone to follow them around to capture whiteboard images via Zoom. You can also use an online whiteboard or a tablet. For more ideas regarding your specific course, please contact CTI for a consultation.

Google documents may be downloaded as a Microsoft version or accessed using Office 365. CIT is in the process of making Office 365 available across campus for the fall semester.

The university has examined this question closely and concluded that online proctoring is generally not a viable or desirable strategy. Among other issues, faculty and students expressed concern over the intrusive nature of online proctoring. For in-person courses, exams will be administered much as they have been in the past. For online courses, we encourage instructors to consider alternatives to the high-stakes exam whenever possible. CTI provides guidance and resources about these alternative assessment strategies.

Acknowledging that there may be some departments or courses interested in pursuing online proctoring, Cornell does have a contract in place with Examity, a proctoring service. It offers human, online proctoring for individual courses. They have worked with Cornell, and are ready to assist instructors in setting up proctoring. The service is expensive, and departments therefore will need to pay for their own use. In addition, if there is sufficient demand, Examity will also be able to provide automated proctoring, which is less expensive. For more information, please email CTI directly at cornellcti@cornell.edu.

As always, whether a course is taught in-person or remotely, course materials should be accessible to all students. New materials developed for online courses should be designed to be accessible to individuals with vision and hearing impairments (i.e., text readable by screen readers, audio transcription and video captioning, alternative text to describe images and graphics, descriptive hyperlinks).

Cornell now has Ally, an accessibility tool that is integrated with Canvas, to facilitate this process. Ally automatically checks course materials for accessibility and provides a specific report for each item. It can help instructors identify what needs to be done, making it easier to take some immediate steps toward making course materials more accessible. Ally also allows students to automatically generate accessible, alternative versions of course materials for their use.

Faculty can request that Ally be turned on for their fall courses by filling out a form and identifying the course(s) to be enabled.

Though Ally provides tools to help diagnose accessibility issues, it is important to remember that faculty are the best judge of which course materials to prioritize for ensuring students are able to achieve the desired learning outcomes for the course. The focus should not be on achieving perfection, but on making key course items as accessible as possible. As has been the norm with in-person teaching, Student and Disability Services (SDS) will assist with additional accommodations that may be needed for other individual disabilities, upon request. Individual faculty members and their departments have primary responsibility for ensuring that their courses meet the baseline accessibility standards.

To learn more about Ally, we recommend Getting Started with Ally and the Ally Quick Start for Instructors (Note: Ally is a Blackboard product, but it is integrated into Canvas).

The CTI will also be coordinating training workshops for Ally. Dates and additional information are available online. For support with ensuring accessibility of your course content, please request assistance from CTI's trained staff volunteers.

Masks have been shown to lower the risk of infection. Students will be expected to wear their face coverings in class even when they are seated at least six feet apart from other students.

CTI offers an Assessing Learning Online workshop, which will run over the summer, and is recorded and available on its Guided Course Support page. This course is designed to help instructors identify alternative assessment strategies for any course. Additionally, CTI has guidelines available for the best way to use Canvas quizzes, whether for persistent quizzing or high-stakes exams. These include randomized questions, test question banks, limited question availability windows and limits on backtracking to earlier questions.

In addition, the calendar has been modified to allow for in-person "semi-final" exams just before Thanksgiving for instructors who would prefer this option to online final exams at the very end of the term. Instructors of online courses also have this option.