Teaching, Learning, and Working in a Pandemic

In the event that faculty and staff need to work remotely, the following resources may be helpful. This guide is intended to cover a variety of scenarios, such as classes cancelled and the university closed, classes in session with high absenteeism, personal situations that prevent campus access, pandemics or illnesses (such as coronavirus / COVID-19), weather and infrastructure-related events, and general emergency preparedness situations. Academic and Administrative Offices should plan for how they might be able to provide services in multiple scenarios so they are prepared to the extent possible. 

Resources for Faculty, Staff, and Students:

1. myOWU allows searching of password-protected resources and is aimed at getting you quickly to the system / service you need.
2. Virtual Private Network (VPN). Some resources are blocked from off campus for security reasons. All faculty, staff, and students are able to connect to our VPN. Once you are connected, you are able to access the following resources remotely, although you will have to use our fully qualified domain* while on VPN.
   
   • Raiser’s Edge
   • PowerCampus
   • OWU Fileshares
   • Other protected databases
3. OWU Budget Reports do not require a VPN connection, and may be access through myOWU. If you encounter an error, you may need to add in .owu.edu – example: lynx.owu.edu:4712 instead of just lynx:4712.
4. Blackboard. There are many tools within Blackboard that may be helpful when working remotely, including:
   • Collaborate (Prof. Bob Harmon’s Quick Start Guide)
   • Discussion Forum
   • Online Quiz/Tests
5. Google G Suite / OWU BishopApps.
   • Google Drive 
   • Drive File Stream
   • Hangouts Chat
   • Hangouts Meet (web conferencing)
   • Documents Chat
   • Google Calendar
   • Google Meet (also called Hangouts Meet). This allows you to create zoom-like meetings.
     • If you need to switch an in-person meeting to a virtual meeting, you can easily do so using Google Meet. Instructions here. Make sure you are logged in using your OWU account and not a personal gmail account. 
6. Zoom – OWU has a campus license for this web conferencing platform. Sign in here.
7. Windows Remote Desktop instructions.
8. Adobe Creative Cloud instructions (Acrobat DC, Photoshop, Illustrator, and more)
9. Phone features, including call forwarding to off campus numbers.
10. Remote Computer Control – this feature allows someone in IS to take control of your computer. It does require Google Chrome. Follow these instructions and communicate the code to the appropriate IS staff person via online chat, email, etc. See the instructions under “Share your computer with someone else”.
11. Help Desk Chat: available on our Oh-Woo Help Desk site, our IS Department landing page and in BishopWorks.
12. Library Resources:
    1. Library Chat
    2. LibGuide on Off Campus Access to library resources.
13. Teleconferencing and Online Classroom Hijacking
14. Other Online Collaboration Resources

Additional resources for faculty teaching online:

• The Teaching Online website.
• Prof. Bob Harmon’s Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Quick Start Guide.
• What other faculty are doing (OWU login req.)
• Common Questions (login req.)
• Guide to Resources for Transitioning to Remote Instruction (login req.)

Other non-OWU services:

Additionally, there are tools that may be helpful that are not supplied by OWU. There are many video apps available on smartphones, such as FaceTime, and of course, texting and email services. 

* Our fully qualified domain name is “owu.edu” so you’ll need to use
\\polaris.owu.edu\shared instead of just \\polaris\shared
https://phoenix2.owu.edu/reports instead of just https://phoenix2/reports, and
lynx.owu.edu:4712 instead of just lynx:4712