You are already familiar with communication via email, but you might wish to consider some other alternatives. 

• The Inbox tool in Canvas allows students to contact you and their peers in one space where they access course materials as well.  Remind students about this tool, and consistently use it yourself.  It can be much easier to keep up with course-related messages in the Canvas inbox than in your email inbox.  
• Consider using Zoom in Canvas to hold virtual office hours and to keep appointments with students. If your students do not have access to adequate bandwidth for video conferencing, you can use it strictly as a chat or voice meeting or consider using Microsoft Teams for real-time typed conversations, video or voice calls; or for asynchronous typed chat conversations with individuals or groups. 
• Use the Canvas Scheduler in your course calendar to designate selected time slots for which students can sign up for one-on-one or group meetings with you.  

• Announcements in Canvas can be used to help students have a centralized place within their course to see a history of updates, notes, reminders, etc. When set up, notifications in Canvas will send emails or texts to users when announcements posts.  

• You can prerecord your lecture from anywhere on or off-campus using MyMedia (Kaltura).  
• Kaltura allows you to present a slideshow, add voiceover, and add video.  
• MyMedia (Kaltura) integrates directly with Canvas allowing for quick adding of videos in a course.  
• Kaltura captioning happens within the software and Media site captioning happens with an external tool, IBM Watson. 
• Please contact CITL for assistance. 
• As an alternative to making your videos, you could search for already created videos. Canvas has options already enabled to add videos from resources such as YouTube, Vimeo, TEDed, and Films on Demand  
  
  If you're creating your videos, try to employ the following practices: 

• Keep your videos short, less than 15 minutes in length (following the Flipped Learning Global Initiative's recommended maximum of one minute per grade level). If your lecture would normally last longer than 15 minutes, divide it into smaller sections. 
• If you have students watching multiple videos for a single class session equivalent, insert a learning activity between the video segments. This can be as simple as having students briefly derive a potential test question from the video they just watched, post a reaction in a discussion on Canvas, or take a brief content quiz either in Canvas or right in the video using Kaltura interactive video quiz. (These kinds of engagement breaks make face-to-face lectures more effective, too.) 
• Prepare and use a script or talking points if you have time to do so. If you find that you must choose between audio quality and video quality, prioritize audio quality. Otherwise, don't worry too much about production values, keeping it real like in class helps students to connect.  
• The easiest way to deliver videos you've made yourself would be to upload them to your MyMedia (Kaltura), in Canvas, so you can link or embed them right into your courses.  
• Finally, you could also simply provide students with the text of your lecture—again, preferably broken up into chunks punctuated by activities in which students interact with the material. 

• Divide the lab experience into smaller segments and determine which segments can be delivered online. If you normally begin a lab session with an orientation to certain procedures or equipment, perhaps you could use a video recording to deliver the same information. This may require pre-planning to ensure access to the necessary equipment to use.  
• Investigate virtual labs (e.g., ChemCollective). In some circumstances, a virtual lab experience might be suboptimal but adequate. See the Pedagogy section below for links to virtual lab, theatre, and music options.
• Reconsider what needs to be done and when. Are there ways to separate out giving information vs collecting data first-hand? If the primary learning outcome the lab experience addresses has to do with data analysis rather than data collection, consider providing the students with realistic data sets upon which to perform the required analysis. 

For a studio course, consider ways to use synchronous tools such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams to allow for one-on-one video teaching. Students can submit videos of their work in Canvas.

Translating a seminar-style discussion into an asynchronous format is different, but keeping those conversations going throughout any course cancelations promotes student community as well as student learning. The Discussion tool in Canvas provides a digital space for these conversations to happen.  

• Begin with some type of course content—typically a reading or video—designed to elicit student response. 
• Require students to make an initial post that responds to that content in some well-defined way. Canvas allows the student not only to type responses, but also, to post audio or video responses, add links, or attach content to help make discussions more interactive.
• Use and/or modify the Online Discussion Guidelines and Netiquette document to provide students with additional information regarding discussion expectations and behaviors. 
• Require students to return later to the discussion and provide a response to one or more posts by their classmates. Be specific about when students should complete each component. By iterating through this cycle several times with a relatively short time between deadlines, you can get a little bit closer to the feel of an in-class discussion. 
• Make your discussion prompts as specific as possible, especially for lower-level courses, but also open-ended. 
• If you would grade the discussion in a face-to-face setting, grade it also in the online setting. In Canvas, while creating the discussion post you can turn on the graded option.
• Moderate your own participation. Intervene if necessary, to keep the discussion going, but be even more patient with silence than you would be in a face-to-face discussion, keeping in mind the asynchronous nature of an online forum. Let the conversation develop between students.
• Remind your students that an online course forum is an extension of the classroom, and the same expectations of civility and critical thinking apply as when you're face-to-face. You might want to share with your students the eLearning Industry's "10 Netiquette Tips for Online Discussions." 
• Consider important differences between online and face-to-face communication and urge your students to do the same. Tone of voice, body language, and general demeanor translate poorly into text-only communications, so think before you write and encourage your students to do the same. In particular, be aware that countering a student's perspective with an alternative perspective can have a chilling effect on a conversation, so try to allow those alternatives to arise from other students whenever possible. 
• You can conduct group work using similar principles. Canvas supports the creation of groups within a class. When groups are created, students get their own group page where they can create pages or collaborations, have discussions, and share files. Beyond their educational value, group activities can support class cohesion during periods when students are physically far away from each other. 
• If you have a relatively small class, you may be able to organize a synchronous discussion session using Zoom or a similar web conferencing tool. However, please do not penalize students who cannot participate in synchronous meetings. 

• Students today generally know how to make short videos on their laptops or phones, assuming they have access to devices and the internet. Students also have access to Kaltura to use screensharing and audio in a presentation format. Advise students how you want them to submit their videos, via an assignment, discussion, or through the inbox with links or embedding the content.  
• Having students post in discussions, where other students can comment on their classmates' presentations, may offer the nearest analog to a synchronous face-to-face presentation. If you're inviting peer review, encourage students to make both appreciative comments and comments that could lead to improved performance in the future.

• Focus on low-stakes assessments. 
• Allow students to use the resources at hand (like an "open book" test). Design the assessment appropriately and place a time limit, word count limit, or both on the exercise. Canvas makes it easy to add accommodations on timed assignments or the number of attempts for students that may need them or for errors in taking the quiz.

Use the Tips for Reducing Cheating on Online Exams when writing exams and when setting them up in Canvas. 

Honorlock is an online exam proctoring tool that can be used with Canvas Quizzes.