Good afternoon EPD Online students and instructors!
Many of you have likely received email from the university regarding the UW-Madison partial campus closure due to the extreme cold weather that is predicted for the Madison, WI area on Wednesday and Thursday (Jan-30 and Jan-31, 2019). Please view the Campus Alert website for up-to-date information. Here is what EPD is recommending for our online courses regarding the partial campus closure. We feel that this is a good compromise to balance access and safety given the partial campus closure.
- Since many of our online students are not impacted by the Madison weather, we feel we should take advantage of the bonus that online learning can take place anytime and anywhere, in this case from the comfort of your home.
- We are advising our online instructors that it is at their discretion whether to cancel scheduled web conference sessions or not during this time. However, we are encouraging them to run any scheduled web conference sessions as long as that does not force them, or any of their online students to subject themselves to extreme cold weather in order to access computing resources or internet access. Safety is our first priority.
- With this in mind students should plan to participate in all scheduled online course activities unless they hear otherwise from their instructor. If a student cannot attend a session or activity during the partial campus closure, they should communicate proactively with their instructor to make arrangements. Students should also remember that all of our scheduled web conferences are always recorded, so they can watch later if needed.
Have a wonderful afternoon, and stay warm out there!
Best,
~Mark
EPD Online Support Team