{"id":8403,"date":"2020-07-21T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/?p=8403"},"modified":"2020-07-16T13:27:49","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T12:27:49","slug":"teaching-during-a-global-pandemic-meeting-the-sussex-baseline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/2020\/07\/21\/teaching-during-a-global-pandemic-meeting-the-sussex-baseline\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching during a global pandemic: Meeting the Sussex Baseline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Christin Hume<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Covid-19 global pandemic has introduced enormous uncertainty across the HE sector while social distancing measures will undoubtedly place restrictions on the ability of institutions  to deliver face-to-face teaching or undertake in-person assessment come the autumn term. As a result, at Sussex we’ve been preparing a blended approach – planning to ensure our curriculum can be fully delivered online in Semester 1 whilst intending to offer as much face-to-face teaching on-campus as can safely be accomodated. Work over the summer is focussed on planning and preparing modules for this new blended mode.  Lots has been learned from the recent experience of online teaching and a new initiative to emerge has been the establishment of a University Online Learning Baseline<\/a>, designed to help staff with the planning of their module to help ensure a high quality experience for our students. In this blog post we introduce the Baseline and highlight the support available for Schools with its implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Online Learning Baseline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The University of Sussex has introduced a new Online Learning Baseline which establishes minimum expectations for all taught modules facilitated via Canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Baseline has been developed based on feedback collated from School snapshot reports, focus groups and staff\/student survey data and is designed to be flexible, ensuring there continues to be space for creativity in relation to methods of teaching and supporting learning whilst setting out practical steps to deliver a more contextually rich, consistent, connected and accessible online experience for our students and staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The baseline addresses seven core areas: Technology and Software; Structure and Organisation; Orientation and Communication; Content and Resources; Collaboration and Engagement; Assessment and Feedback; and Accessibility and Copyright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Online Learning Baseline seeks to ensure consistency between the provision of modules. The baseline establishes that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n