SOPs for Online Teaching Course1

These are the standard operating procedures to be undertaken by faculty members for developing
and delivering online courses at FJWU. Amendments to the document will follow as the
semester progresses and based on online teaching feedback/experiential learning of faculty
members.

1. Existing course outlines (used for face-to-face teaching) will be modified as per online
teaching requirements (sample outline attached).
2. The instructor will develop course material such as power point slides, handouts, audio/video
lectures of the slides (where applicable) etc.
3. Once the course outline is finalized, a request from course instructor to three tier Committee
will be sent.
4. The course outline along with relevant course material (books/articles and web links etc.
where applicable) has to be approved by the Three Tier Committee (TTC) comprising of
HOD, Dean/FA and QEC; co-opted expert may be added as required. e.g. if the course
instructor is Dean/FA or HOD, their course outline including material will be reviewed by
senior faculty member of their respective departments or an external expert.
5. The process will be deemed complete on approval of TTC followed by certification by ITC
that faculty member has the capacity to offer online courses.
6. Upon the satisfaction of TTC, and verification by ITC, course material will be sent through
deputy Registrar Academics to Vice Chancellor for information (sample IOM attached).
7. Next instructors will upload their course outlines and web links to their respective Google
Classrooms and share with students and commence online teaching.
8. Faculty members are obligated to use a variety of technological tools (such as Google-
Meet/Hangout, ZOOM, LOOM, Whatsapp etc.) in delivering their lectures and discussion.
The same are to be made available to students. Proactive measures to be undertaken to reach
out to students with special needs.
9. Faculty members are to facilitate and support students in using different technological tools
for ease of use and access to support interactive sessions. However, the main CMS (for the
time being) will be Google Classroom for uploading of course material and for submission of
assignments and quizzes. In case trainings for students need to be arranged, a request to be
sent through proper channel to ITC.
10. It is mandatory to include following liability statement on home page of CMS / Google
Classroom:

1
The following guidelines are prepared while consulting Princeton University USA, Mississippi Valley State
University USA, London University UK, University of Texas USA, AZUSA Pacific University USA, University of
Rhode Island USA, Winthrop University USA, University of Sydney Australia, RMIT University Australia,
University of Tasmania Australia
‘The course material listed here is developed through a rigorous and quality-controlled process,
and we are careful to ensure that all material is prudently reviewed prior to posting. However,
we cannot be responsible for any errors or inaccuracies that may remain. Further, the material
or links provided in the course outline or external links made available through uploaded course
material is from other websites or content belonging to or originating from third parties or links
to websites. Such external links are not investigated, monitored, or checked for accuracy,
adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness by us.

We do not warrant, endorse, guarantee, or assume responsibility for the accuracy or reliability
of any information offered by third-party websites linked through the Google classroom. Under
no circumstances shall we have any liability to you for any loss or damage of any kind incurred
as a result of the use of third-party sites or reliance on any information provided on third party
sites. Your use of the third party sites and your reliance on any information on those sites is
solely at your own risk.

Student uploading their assignments to Google classroom having copyrighted materials will not
be the responsibility of the instructor or the institution. It is the responsibility of the student to
take permission for using any copy righted material extracted from different sources (websites,
articles, books etc.).

11. Technical support to faculty members will be available by ITC during official working days.
12. Faculty members will provide orientation/counseling to their respective students regarding
online teaching and the need of it in current times.
13. Disclaimer/copyrights notice for online teaching
a. It is mandatory for all instructors to insert disclaimer notice on the course materials
they are using (if it is not your own development). This is important to safeguard
against any copyright infringements/violations. Sample disclaimer statement is as
under:
In preparation of these slides, materials have been taken from different online
sources in the shape of books, websites, research papers and presentations etc.
However, the author does not have any intention to take any benefit of these in
her/his own name. This lecture (audio, video, slides etc) is prepared and delivered
only for educational purposes and is not intended to infringe upon the copyrighted
material. Sources have been acknowledged where applicable. The views expressed
are presenter’s alone and do not necessarily represent actual author(s) or the
institution.
b. The disclaimer statement should be inserted on title slides of your presentations and
read out loudly if you are recording your online lecture (audio and video both). This
disclaimer statement has to be embedded in each of your lecture presentations.
c. If the material for making presentation slides is taken from book, articles, pictures etc.
kindly acknowledge the source in your presentation slides.
d. Whenever or wherever copyrighted material is incorporated, it is the faculty
member’s responsibility to secure permission to use the copyrighted work. For
example, some journals and book publishers require specific permissions to use the
material even for educational purposes.
e. If faculty members are providing books, articles etc to their students as course
material, it is strongly suggested that the web links to sites where these materials are
available should be communicated to students either through Google classroom or
through email/Whatsapp group, instead of placing the books/articles or any other
material directly in your classroom that may infringe upon copyrights.
f. This is for faculty member and institutional safety against copyrights
infringements/violations and which may constitute plagiarism case.
g. Following points need to be kept in mind while producing online material for your
course:
i. Books and articles explicitly in the public domain may be freely used
(material having Creative Commons Attribution International License) but
with due acknowledgement.
ii. Material under copyright requires permissions. It is strongly suggested to
provide web links to materials rather than posting on your Google classroom.
iii. Links to other websites: You do not violate any copyrights by linking to
articles and sources on other websites. You may, for instance, link to freely
available content from newspapers. Be careful, however, not to provide
multiple links to a single publication for one course. Many publications allow
only a limited number of free accesses per individual IP per month. If you
only have a few links to a particular publication, it will probably be fine, but
with multiples, the students might eventually hit a pay wall. Also be mindful
that the links might not be durable or that the content might be withdrawn
without notice.
iv. When considering including images in an open, online course, please keep the
following distinctions in mind:
1. Fair use—images that are directly analyzed or used for active
demonstration or illustration are usually considered fair use.
2. Permissively licensed material—material that have Creative Commons
Attributions.
3. Images in licensed digital collections and databases (for which license
has been acquired through payment) can be used for
classroom/educational purposes but may not be used in publications or
for any commercial purpose. If in doubt, look for a link to “terms of
use,” “license terms,” or something similar. (Some of the universities
have purchased licenses for renowned databases and publishers such
as Emerald, EBSCO etc.).
 4. If you are using any kind of image do acknowledge it by providing full
reference and link to where it is taken from.
v. The use of the following materials may involve license fees, which may or
may not be prohibitive:
1. Popular movies, television shows, and songs (sometimes available on
Youtube but may violate copyrights of the maker as they are made
available by individuals and not necessary by the makers of them).
2. Cartoons
3. Trademarks
4. Images distributed by commercial agencies.
5. High resolution, whole images to be shown full screen or in
presentation slides available for download.

In the above scenarios it is up to the best judgment of instructor to use or

not to use them.

14. Policy Awareness

a. The course outline should incorporate a section on Student Support and Accessibility.
This means that faculty member has to provide support to students who are in need of
assistance or refer them to respective technical person for assistance.
b. Course outline should have email and whatsapp number of the instructor. The email
response time should also be provided by the faculty member. For example, emails
by students will be responded within 24 hours on working days. Other expectations of
the faculty from the students should be addressed in a separate section in the course
outline.
15. Google Classroom Structure and Design
a. The classroom should be managed in such a way so as the components are logical,
consistent and efficient to locate. For example, follow the logical sequencing of your
course outline while uploading your course material.
b. Each lecture/topic posted on Google Classroom should have detailed descriptions
attached to it. For example, in description column of the topic/lecture, topic
objectives, activities related to the topic, assignments and resources should be
mentioned. Content related to topic (power point slides, audio/video aides, etc need to
be uploaded). Also clearly explain, from the student perspective, how to meet the
outcomes.
c. If the topic of the week has any quizzes or assignments attached to it, separate
assignment/quiz task is to be separately created. These quizzes and assignments
should have rubrics attached to it, which is embedded within the created assignment
tool of Google Classroom.
d. Clear course instructions should be provided to the students explaining the purpose of
course material and how they are to be used.
 e. The access to Google classroom should be provided to students registered in the
course only. However, access can be given to QEC for monitoring purposes only.
f. For the current semester, material indicated in course outline before the closure of
University or mid-term will be considered delivered in face to face teaching.
16. Instructional/Teaching design
a. It is strongly recommended that different media in multiple formats, relevant to
course content learning outcomes may be provided to students for ease of use and
access in order to address diverse student needs especially undergraduate level
(BS/MSc). For example, lectures should have power point slides (where applicable).
Lectures can be video and audio recorded and uploaded for students or kept for ready
reference for monitoring purposes by QEC. Topic related relevant links to websites,
YouTube meet.google.com/avb-ivrt-amd videos, etc should be shared with students
under each topic/lecture on Google Classroom (even if they are provided in the
course outline).
b. Instructors are advised to keep in touch with their research students either through
Google classroom or through any medium for ease of use and accessibility. However,
recording of meetings with research students/class has to be maintained for
monitoring by QEC.
c. DO NOT use your name, department name and institution affiliation in your material
(slides, etc) shared with students.
d. For interactive sessions, it is recommended that use of Google-Meet/Hangout should
be used (as it has no time bar). Other interactive tools can be used such as Zoom,
Loom, MS Team etc (as per instructor and student ease).
e. All interactive sessions are to be recorded and uploaded on Google Classroom or kept
for ready reference and monitoring by QEC.
f. All assignments/quizzes/projects etc. should have assessment rubrics. These
assessment rubrics are to be shared with students so that they have an understanding
of how marks are to be allocated within each assignment. The assessment rubric
should include the penalty for late submissions or plagiarism as well.
g. The assessment rubrics should be appropriate to the assigned student work and
aligned with the course learning outcomes and resources provided.
h. Time frame for grading and giving feedback on assignment should be clearly stated.
For example, grading and feedback on Assignment 1 will be provided within xx days
of close of submission of assignment. (Google Classroom has the option of
scheduling the assignment as well as submission deadline. After which assignment
will be considered late submission).
i. In case of quiz, use of Google forms is recommended. The quiz can be scheduled for
a particular date and time after which the quiz will not be available to students.
Students have to complete the quiz within stipulated time period. Exceptional cases
(in case of quiz, assignment or projects) can be treated individually by the instructor
 her/himself (relaxation is provided to instructor to use her/his best judgment to allow
or disallow special cases).
j. It is suggested that online Grade Book (feature of Google Classroom) should be
visible to students so that they can see their learning progress. It is similar to
traditional teaching when quiz and assignment marks are shared with students.
However, in Grade Book students can see a score card for each quiz and assignment
graded by instructor.
k. Whatsapp group of course (if required) can be made by faculty members. However,
the group will be used solely for the course related issues only. It is strictly prohibited
to share any personal pictures/videos or posting of any irrelevant material either by
the faculty member or by the student. It is the responsibility of the instructor to make
sure that relevant course related queries are posted and entertained on course
Whatsapp group.

The following policies will be added to each course for students’ ready reference.

17. Attendance Policy for Online Course

a. The success of course depends on student active participation and engagement. As
such, students are required to complete all assignments by the due date, and
to actively participate in class discussions. Students are expected to:
i. Create email address in Gmail. Once email is created on Gmail, join their
respective classes. Gmail account is easy to create and lets you join the class
easily.
ii. Log on to Google Classroom at least three times a week for a particular course
on different days in order to complete weekly assignments, assessments,
discussions and/or other weekly deliverables as directed by the instructor and
outlined in the course outline.
iii. Students need to turn their notifications ON for their respective classes. This
will ensure that students get alerts in their emails.
iv. Participate in the weekly threaded discussions,  this means that, in addition to
posting a response to the thread topic presented, students are expected to
respond to each other, comment on and post questions from the instructor
and/or other students.
v. If a student finds that she cannot meet the class' minimum discussion
requirements due to such a circumstance, she is to contact the instructor as
soon as possible. 
vi. Students will not be marked present for the course in a particular week if they
have not posted on the discussion forum and/or submitted assignment/essay or
completed assessment if administered in that week. 
 vii. Simply logging into Google Classroom for downloading the course material
will not constitute attendance.
viii. For interactive sessions, student attendance will be marked using Google
forms.
ix. For Course related Whatsapp groups, it is strongly recommended that the
group should be used for course related queries or questions. No irrelevant
material should be posted on course Whatsapp group.

18. Students with Special Needs

a. Special considerations have to be given to students with special needs.
i. Test – if you have a student with special needs in your course it is
recommended that the duration of the quiz/assignment/test could be extended.
ii. Tutorial – special tutorials can be made (audio in case of blind students) for
each student.
19. Student Privacy
a. Online student privacy must be maintained at all times.
b. Grades should be secure and must not be viewable to other students of the course. No
student grades or information may be posted outside of secured systems any time
during or after the semester.
c. If external tools (whatsapp, zoom, loom, blogs, etc.) are used, the faculty member
must ensure that students should not be required to post personal information or share
their video/photograph in their chat boxes or during video lecture recordings.
d. Faculty cannot require students to reveal private information to the class and should
respect students’ requests to not post information for class viewing.
e. If a student requests to not share a personal photo or reveal one’s identity, for
example, faculty should not insist on it and respect the privacy of the student.
f. Student should sign a declaration of confidentiality and respect for privacy (form
attached) of other students and faculty when joining the class.
 Declaration of Confidentiality and Privacy

(Faculty, Staff, Students)

All administrative staff, teaching staff and students are bound by professional secrecy and
confidentiality concerning information and personal data (such as email ids of students, mobile
numbers of students) available online through the CMS / Google Classroom for a specific course
either directly or indirectly during their engagement with the FJWU online course delivery and
CMS / Google Classroom or in connection with it.

I, the undersigned: Arishba aftab, holder of CNIC 37405-3945397-6, having the status of
(student/faculty/staff) student confirm that I remain bound by the obligations incumbent upon
administrative/teaching staff/students and in particular the duty of integrity and discretion.
Therefore, I will refrain from any use or disclosure of confidential information obtained during
my engagement at the FJWU online course interaction or in connection with it. I will also fully
respect the obligations of protection of personal information of other students/faculty/staff as
provided for by the applicable rules on data protection of FJWU.

I understand that a breach of confidentiality or misuse of personal information of

students/faculty/staff could result in disciplinary action against me up to and including
cancellation of my student registration or termination of my employment with the university.

Date: April 17, 2020

Signature:

Witness Name: aftab ellahi qureshi

Witness CNIC: 37405-0635710-3

Witness Signature: Date: April 17, 2020