Online teaching and learning: guidance for staff

Use this guide alongside our guidance on:

• How to work and study from home/off campus
• Support for online learning, teaching and assessment

We encourage you to undertake the Digitally Enhanced Education course and the Moodle Essentials training module.

All taught modules have a dedicated Moodle module page, that students who are enrolled for that year can automatically access. The module convenor and associated teaching staff also have access.

Moodle is the natural online home for all associated learning and teaching materials, and assessment submission points.

You can use Teams to interact with your students, share their computer screen and collaborate on documents, making it ideal for tutorials, group work and smaller delivery sessions.

A ‘team’ has already been created for all taught modules at the University.

Alongside Teams, please continue to use:

• KentPlayer (see below) to record your lectures
• Moodle for sharing documents, resources and activities with your students

Help with using Teams

If you need help, please contact the IT Service Desk: email helpdesk@kent.ac.uk or phone 01227 824888.

Is a digital copy available?

Please check whether there are essential assessment-related library resources that are not available digitally.

• Use the new digital-only version of LibrarySearch to check
• To order digital copies, email libraryhelp@kent.ac.uk telling us when they're needed by
  

Also, if you have international students returning home to study and there are critical assessment-related digital library resources needed in the coming weeks, let us know.

Offer your students an online support session

If you want to offer your students an online support session on using digital library resources, email us at libraryhelp@kent.ac.uk

Link to Library resources from your module

Please add a link in your Moodle module to show students how to access library resources remotely.

Using our libraries

The Templeman Library and Drill Hall Library have reopened, with limited services and with safety measures in place.

• See all changes to Templeman Library services
• Check the Drill Hall Library website for updates

Staff are providing support by email, phone and online chat.

Please make sure you continue to meet the needs of Inclusive Learning Plans (ILPs). 

Online teaching materials

When developing online teaching materials, make sure they're accessible:

• Follow the Kent Inclusive Practices (KIPs)
• Follow the basic guidance for creating accessible documents
• Review the Blackboard Ally scores for your Moodle documents/slides and take action as needed

Captioning video and audio

Your pre-recorded lectures, seminars and group study sessions need to have captions to be accessible:

• Make your videos accessible

Running virtual seminars

Follow these tips for making virtual seminars in Teams accessible.

Assessments

• If you use timed Moodle quizzes make sure you make adjustments for students with Inclusive Learning Plans (ILPs)
• Review the Blackboard Ally scores for your Moodle documents/slides and take action as needed.

Support students to help themselves

Productivity tools are free tools for everyone to help with work and study related activities, such as sending large files, dictation and text-to-speech

For example, Sensus Access can create accessible alternatives for non-Moodle materials.

For more about making sure learning is accessible to everyone, go to our accessibility pages.

The move to online delivery of teaching and assessments means you'll need hardware, software and connectivity that enables you to work off-campus.

To access our online teaching tools, you'll need:

• An internet connection (ideally high speed)
• Access to a web-enabled laptop or desktop PC
• Some will work on a tablet or smartphone

For some services you'll also need:

• Audio playback
• Microphone

Most functions work across all devices, but do check what hardware, software and connectivity you need to use specific teaching technologies.

Help is available if you need equipment.

The contact for students with connectivity or hardware issues is the IT and Library Support Desk.