• Classes will be online for the first two weeks, Monday, Jan. 10 through Sunday, Jan. 23. Exceptions will be made for the health sciences colleges, labs, clinics, internships and other classes that cannot be offered virtually, including those that start before Jan. 10. These are being handled on a case-by-case basis and are listed here.
• In-person classes will resume Monday, Jan. 24. Social distancing in the classroom will not be necessary because face masks, which will remain required indoors on campus, and vaccines (96% of the UIC community is vaccinated) continue to be the best forms of defense against COVID-19 transmission. In addition, an updated tool and protocols for contract tracing will be shared separately in a following email message.
• Students are expected to read the syllabus for each of their courses and take note of the expectations that faculty have for attendance and the guidelines they offer for missing classes due to illness, emergency circumstances beyond the student’s control (i.e., hospitalization), in cases of bereavement, or other highly sensitive matters.

Campus Re-entry Testing

Prior to or upon returning to campus, re-entry testing will be required for all members of the UIC community, including those who are vaccinated and boosted. Given the limited availability of testing in the Chicago area and across the country at this time, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of on-campus saliva testing within 72 hours of your first visit to campus for work or study to fulfill your re-entry testing requirement. 

Exception: If you have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last 90 days you should report this if you have not done so already using the UIC COVID-19 reporting tool you will not be required to test before returning to campus for the spring semester.

Vaccination and Ongoing Testing Requirements

• Students coming to campus or engaging in academic and clinical activities or field placements off-campus, are required to be vaccinated and to obtain a COVID-19 booster shot once they are eligible.
• In the interest of the health and safety of our entire UIC community, COVID-19 vaccination exemptions are limited to specific medical conditions with physician documentation and religious exemptions. You may request an exemption online.
• A vaccination exemption is not the same as an accommodation to attend an on-campus class remotely. Students may request this type of accommodation by contacting the Disability Resource Center.
• All students in residential housing and performing arts are required to test once per 7-day period. Student athletes will continue to follow testing directives from UIC Athletics.
• All students are strongly encouraged to participate in UIC’s surveillance testing. Specific units and departments will be contacted via email throughout the semester on a rotating basis to participate in on-campus saliva testing. This surveillance testing initiative will help to inform current and future health and safety measures on campus.
• All students are encouraged to utilize on-campus saliva testingat any time.
• To be on campus, students who have received vaccine exemptions or have received one vaccine dose and are scheduled for their second dose must do the UIC Healthcheck daily and are required to saliva test twice per 7-day period, 48 or more hours apart.
  • Healthcheck App
  • Locations for testing
  • Students should plan their saliva testing carefully and get it done at the beginning of their day before they go to classes.
  • Students should request a receipt at the testing site in the event they are asked to demonstrate that they have tested that day.
• Attendance at in-person events on campus will require proof of a negative COVID-19 test (PCR or antigen) within 72 hours of the gathering. If you test on campus, COVID-19 testing results are available in your MyChart account.

We will continue to closely monitor the prevalence of infection in our community and report the data on the Covid Dashboard.

Students who attend IN PERSON courses or events on campus must:

• Have received a full COVID-19 vaccination series.
  OR
• Have received a vaccine exemption and are saliva testing two times per week and completing their daily Healthcheck.
  OR
• Are partially vaccinated and are saliva testing two times per week and completing the daily Healthcheck.

Students are expected to read the syllabus for each of their courses and take note of the expectations that faculty have for attendance and the guidelines they offer for missing classes due to illness, emergency circumstances beyond the student’s control (i.e., hospitalization), in cases of bereavement, or other highly sensitive matters.

This semester, some UIC classes will be using the Acadly app for attendance tracking to aid in contact tracing efforts.

The Acadly platform is also available on the website, but you must use the mobile app for the automatic attendance feature of the product to work and allow it the appropriate permissions.

• App link for iOS users
• App link for Android users

Instructors will provide information on how to sign up for the platform.

To learn more, please refer to the Acadly student guide for attendance.

Our goal is to offer the majority of UIC courses face-to-face on campus during the spring 2022 semester. We also want to effectively and flexibly handle Covid surges so that our students, faculty, and staff are successful.

• The UIC contract tracing team, using data from the classroom attendance tracking app Acadly and the HealthCheck app, as well as following the guidance provided by Dr. Bleasdale, chief quality officer and assistant vice chancellor for quality & patient safety, and Dr. Barish, vice chancellor for health affairs, will be able to identify courses with high numbers of students or faculty who cannot attend in person because they tested positive or because of exposure to individuals that have tested positive.
• For cases of high COVID-19 incidences in a class during spring 2022, using data provided by the contact tracing team, faculty may decide that it could be beneficial for specific face-to-face courses to be moved to online or hybrid modalities for a short period of time to allow the surge of COVID-19-related incidents to subside.
• Decisions for faculty requests to temporarily modify course delivery modalities should be done expediently and preferably within 24 hours, but in no more than 48 hours. Decisions should be made using the guidelines provided by deans and department chairs and the information provided by the contact tracing team or other sources of information, such as direct communication between students and faculty.
• It will be important for faculty to effectively inform students of these temporary changes in instructional modalities, the specific expectations associated with them, and the dates in which the modifications will occur.

Students who need to log into synchronous online courses while on campus can do so from one of the indoor study spaces on campus. A list of study spaces within the Student Centers is also available.

These students must submit a negative test result before coming to campus and should also complete the UIC Healthcheck. Given the limited availability of testing in the Chicago area and across the country at this time, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of on-campus saliva testing. Testing must be completed not earlier than 48 hours and not more than 72 hours ahead of the exam date, so that the test result is available (and negative) by the date of the examination. For example, if you have an in-person exam at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, you must complete your saliva testing no later than 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday but no earlier than 3:00 p.m. on Monday. Students must be prepared to present their UIC Daily Pass at the examination site. Note that the Testing Badge AND the Healthcheck Badge must be “green” to sit for the examination.

• Students who are not wearing a mask will be asked to get a mask before returning to class. If the student refuses, then they will be asked by the instructor to immediately leave class and will be reported to the Dean of Students using the COVID-19 Non-Compliance Report.
• If a student refuses to wear a mask and refuses to leave the classroom, this is considered student misconduct and will be reported to the Dean of Students using the Student Misconduct Incident Report Form.
• Students who are on campus and unvaccinated (without a vaccine exemption) OR who are in groups required to saliva test and do the daily Healthcheck and do not comply with these requirements will be reported to the Dean of Students via the campus monitoring system.
• In these cases, the Dean of Students will proceed as described in the Student Disciplinary Policy.

• Classes will be online for the first two weeks, Monday, Jan. 10 through Sunday, Jan. 23. Exceptions will be made for the health sciences colleges, labs, clinics, internships and other classes that cannot be offered virtually, including those that start before Jan. 10. These are being handled on a case-by-case basis and are listed here.

• In-person classes will resume Monday, Jan. 24. Social distancing in the classroom will not be necessary because face masks, which will remain required indoors on campus, and vaccines (96% of the UIC community is vaccinated) continue to be the best forms of defense against COVID-19 transmission. In addition, an updated tool and protocols for contract tracing will be shared separately in a following message.

Campus Re-entry Testing

Prior to or upon returning to campus, re-entry testing will be required for all members of the UIC community, including those who are vaccinated and boosted. Given the limited availability of testing in the Chicago area and across the country at this time, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of on-campus saliva testing  within 72 hours of your first visit to campus for work or study to fulfill your re-entry testing requirement. 

Exception: If you have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last 90 days you should report this if you have not done so already using the UIC COVID-19 reporting tool you will not be required to test before returning to campus for the spring semester.

Vaccination and Ongoing Testing Requirements

• Faculty and staff coming to campus or engaging in academic and clinical activities or field placements off-campus, are required to be vaccinated and to obtain a COVID-19 booster shot once they are eligible. This guidance will be implemented consistent with the legal rights of unionized employees.
• In the interest of the health and safety of our entire UIC community, COVID-19 vaccination exemptions are limited to specific medical conditions with physician documentation and religious exemptions. You may request an exemption online.
• A vaccination exemption is not the same as an accommodation to work and teach remotely. Faculty and staff may request this type of accommodation by contacting the Office for Access and Equity.
• All faculty and staff are strongly encouraged to participate in UIC’s surveillance testing. Specific units and departments will be contacted via email throughout the semester on a rotating basis to participate in on-campus saliva testing. This surveillance testing initiative will help to inform current and future health and safety measures on campus.
• All faculty and staff are encouraged to utilize  on-campus saliva testing at any time.
• To be on campus, faculty and staff who have received vaccine exemptions or have received one vaccine dose and are scheduled for their second dose must do the UIC Healthcheck daily and are required to saliva test twice per 7-day period, 48 or more hours apart.
  • Healthcheck App
  • Locations for testing
  • Faculty and staff should plan their saliva testing carefully and get it done at the beginning of their day.
  • Faculty and staff should request a receipt at the testing site in the event they are asked to demonstrate that they have tested that day.
• Attendance at  in-person events on campus will require proof of a negative COVID-19 test (PCR or antigen) within 72 hours of the gathering. If you test on campus, COVID-19 testing results are available in your MyChart account.

We will continue to closely monitor the prevalence of infection in our community and report the data on the Covid Dashboard.

• Everyone is required to wear masks indoors, including in the classrooms, hallways, offices, conference rooms, etc.
• At this point, there is no social distancing requirement in classrooms, but this may change if infection rates increase or as public health guidance dictates. Note the “sit here” and capacity signage for six-foot spacing has been left in place or newly applied in classrooms in the event we need to reinstate social distancing at any time during the semester.
• Even in situations where no social distancing is required, some students may want to stay physically distant from others and this should be allowed when feasible.
• Please encourage students NOT to come to class if they have COVID symptoms (see Healthcheck app for these symptoms).
• Students are being asked to read the syllabus for each of their courses and take note of the expectations that faculty have for attendance and the guidelines they offer for missing classes due to illness, emergency circumstances beyond the student’s control (i.e., hospitalization), in cases of bereavement, or other highly sensitive matters. Please make sure that you include specific instructions and guidelines in your syllabus such that students have a clear understanding of your expectations and the ways they can communicate with you if any of these circumstances arise.
• You are not required to monitor vaccination or testing status or vaccination exemption status of the students in your classroom. UIC will monitor with regular Healthcheck reports to the Dean of Students who is responsible for taking the appropriate disciplinary actions.
• Please make sure that students wear masks and stay masked during your class. It is essential that you address this classroom policy on the first day of class and include language in your syllabus as follows:

Face Masks Requirements

Masks covering both the mouth and nose must be worn at all times by all students, faculty, and staff while inside any campus building regardless of vaccination status. If you do not wear a mask, you will be asked to leave the classroom and will not be allowed back in class unless or until you wear a mask. If you have forgotten your mask, you may pick one up from one of the student information desks on campus during the first two weeks of classes. Students who do not comply with the mask-wearing policy will be reported to the Dean of Students. Eating and drinking are not allowed in classrooms.

If a student refuses to wear a mask, ask them to leave the classroom and inform them that they will be reported to the Dean of Students and file a COVID-19 Non-Compliance Report.

If a student refuses to wear a mask and refuses to leave the classroom, try to deescalate the situation by taking the discussion outside the classroom or even dismissing the class. This is considered student misconduct and should be reported to the Dean of Students using the Student Misconduct Incident Report Form.

If the student refuses to leave the classroom and is disruptive and the instructor considers this a nonemergency situation, then they should contact the Dean of Students Office at 312-996-4857. For an emergency situation, where the student threatens violence or poses an urgent safety threat, please call the UIC Police at 312-355-5555.

Read the Student Disciplinary Policy for details, including process.

Links to these guidelines (provost.uic.edu) and the Responding to Student Behavior guidelines from the Dean of Student’s Office are included as information on the Blackboard site.

Instructors are not asked to check students’ daily passes. However, if you do find that a student is not compliant with the daily Healthcheck or saliva testing, please ask them to immediately fill out the Healthcheck questionnaire and get their saliva test. Their non-compliance will be reported to the Dean of Students via other pathways.

After consulting with UIC faculty and reviewing best practices at comparable institutions, UIC has selected a classroom interactivity tool called Acadly to simplify the process of recording attendance for on campus and hybrid courses. Instructors are strongly encouraged to use Acadly. The tool allows instructors to take attendance in any size class within seconds using a smartphone app. Acadly also captures additional detail of proximity between students, which together with attendance data can be made available immediately to the UIC contact tracing team. Instructors who use Acadly will no longer need to manually maintain seating charts in their classes for the purpose of contact tracing. Moreover, Acadly does much more than take attendance. This educational technology tool brings an improved experience to classes for both students and instructors by making it possible to use quizzes, polls, discussions, word cloud questions, videos, files, and more – all in one application.

You can now visit https://uic.acadly.com to learn more about Acadly and to begin integrating it into your plans for next semester. Support from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence (CATE) will be available in the following ways:

• In-class: Get help from UIC’s Classroom Tech Support team
• In-app: Use the in-app feedback option to reach out to the Acadly team. Mean response time: 6 hours.
• Email: Email support+uic@acadly.com with any questions. Mean response time: 6 hours.
• Acadly Help Center: Available at help.acadly.com. Please note the chat is not manned for instant support, but the team responds to all messages received, just like emails.

Our goal is to offer the majority of UIC courses face-to-face on campus during the Spring 2022 semester. We also want to effectively and flexibly handle Covid surges so that our students, faculty, and staff are successful.

Given the current dynamics of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, we anticipate situations where larger numbers of students will miss classes and/or where faculty will not be able to teach face-to-face for short periods of time due to COVID-19-related circumstances.

Our contact tracing team, using data from the classroom attendance tracking app Acadly and the HealthCheck app, as well as following the guidance provided by Dr. Bleasdale, chief quality officer and assistant vice chancellor for quality & patient safety, and Dr. Barish, vice chancellor for health affairs, will be able to identify courses with high numbers of students or faculty who cannot attend in person because they tested positive or because of exposure to individuals that have tested positive.

For cases of high COVID-19 incidences in a class during Spring 2022, using data provided by the contact tracing team about the duration of the course specific surge, it could be beneficial for specific face-to-face courses to be moved to online or hybrid modalities for a short period of time to allow the surge of COVID-19-related incidents to subside.

By January 24, deans should work with department chairs, with input from faculty and elected faculty advisory committees, to develop and communicate specific guidelines, communication protocols, and processes for faculty to request changing teaching modalities for their course(s) for specified, short periods of time when these situations emerge. Faculty are best positioned to propose modifications and changes in teaching modalities that would serve their students better as circumstances around high incidences of COVID-19 evolve in their classes.

Decisions for faculty requests to temporarily modify course delivery modalities should be done expediently and preferably within 24 hours, but in no more than 48 hours. Decisions should be made using the guidelines provided by deans and department chairs and the information provided by the contact tracing team or other sources of information, such as direct communication between students and faculty.

It will be important for faculty to effectively inform students of these temporary changes in instructional modalities, the specific expectations associated with them, and the dates in which the modifications will occur. We ask faculty to (a) coordinate with their department chairs when changes in course modality are made and (b) share communications sent to students with their department chairs. Department chairs should provide this information to their dean’s office, which in turn will inform the provost’s office.

The goal for this spring semester is to offer the majority of our courses face to face on campus. Yet, there are students that will still have accommodations from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) that permit them based on ADA guidance to take on-campus or hybrid courses remotely. It is also expected that we will see more students missing courses due to COVID-19 related circumstances. We want to help every student, whether or not they can come to campus, complete course requirements when feasible.

Instructors should strive to provide course content to students not able to come to campus by live streaming or video recording the on-campus sessions or providing course content in another equitable way.

Students are being asked to read the syllabus for each of their courses and take note of the expectations that faculty have for attendance and the guidelines they offer for missing classes due to illness, emergency circumstances beyond the student’s control (i.e., hospitalization), in cases of bereavement, or other highly sensitive matters.

Please make sure that you include specific instructions and guidelines in your syllabus such that students have a clear understanding of your expectations and the ways they can communicate with you if any of these circumstances arise.

It is understood that:

1. Some courses require in-person components (e.g., labs, clinical experiences) and will not be available for off-campus students.
2. Not all courses can be effectively livestreamed or video recorded because of delivery method or technology challenges.

Representatives from the DRC will work with course instructors to determine the best way forward with students with approved DRC accommodations. If there is no reasonable way for the student to obtain course content and complete course requirements remotely, they will go back to the student and recommend another academic plan for the semester.

These students must submit a negative test result before coming to campus and should also complete the UIC Healthcheck. Given the limited availability of testing in the Chicago area and across the country at this time, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of on-campus saliva testing. Testing must be completed not earlier than 48 hours and not more than 72 hours ahead of the exam date, so that the test result is available (and negative) by the date of the examination. Students must be prepared to present their UIC Daily Pass at the examination site. Note that the Testing Badge AND the Healthcheck Badge must be “green” to sit for the examination.

It is essential that you address this testing requirement on the first day of class and include language in your syllabus to communicate this requirement. For example:

On-Campus Exams: This course will require students to be on campus for in-person exams on (dates). If you are a student who is not coming to campus to attend classes, you will be required to adhere to the campus COVID-19 testing requirements and have a saliva test prior to coming to campus to take the exam. Testing must be completed not earlier than 48 hours and not more than 72 hours ahead of the exam date, so that the test result is available (and negative) by the date of the examination. For example, if you have an in-person exam at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, you must complete your saliva testing no later than 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday but no earlier than 3:00 p.m. on Monday. You must be prepared to present your UIC Daily Pass at the examination site. Note that the Testing Badge AND the Healthcheck Badge must be “green” to sit for the examination. A process for validation of these badges prior to in-person exams is under development and will be communicated via an email announcement through our Blackboard course site as well as an announcement during class. All students are responsible for monitoring the Blackboard course announcements to ensure such messages do not get missed.

On-campus exams for online courses: We want to discourage faculty from mandating that students registered for online classes take exams in person unless it is absolutely necessary. If an instructor does hold an in-person exam, they are asked to accommodate any students who cannot come to campus with an alternate mode of testing.

Instructional Design Consultations 

• CATE Instructional Designers are available to help identify opportunities to improve the skills and academic performance outcomes of your students using evidence-based pedagogical research and instructional practices from the field. For information about instructional design and how can an instructional design help you, visit the CATE Instructional Designers webpage.
• For consultations about Blackboard or other educational technologies supported centrally, please schedule a consultation.

Learning Technologies Support

• CATE’s academic technologists with expertise in learning systems and classroom technologies are ready to help ensure that the learning process goes as smoothly as possible for instructors and students.
  • Spring 2022 hours:
    • January 6 and 7^th, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
    • Regular hours starting January 10, 2022, Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
• To discover answers for popular questions visit the UIC Help Center for Teaching and Learning.
• For more information visit the CATE Learning Technologies Support webpage.

Video Tours of Centrally Managed Classrooms

• Classrooms Database: To support on campus instruction, CATE continues to update UIC’s classrooms database containing over 180 learning spaces that can be used to understand the features in centrally managed UIC classrooms. You can search for the classrooms you will use next semester and discover general room information, such as capacity and a multimedia tab indicating exactly what technology is available in the classroom.
• Integrated Multimedia Lectern (IML) classrooms: These classrooms are equipped to allow instructors to show up, log into the existing system, and begin lecturing immediately. Watch a video of the technical walkthrough of the Basic IML classrooms or the technical walkthrough of the Advance IML classrooms.
• Plug & Play classrooms: These classrooms are streamlined to only have an input panel as its source. Instructors must bring their own device (laptop, tablet, etc.) to show through the projection system. Watch a video of the technical walkthrough of the Plug & Play classrooms.

In-Classroom Tech Support

• In the spring semester, CATE will continue to offer several levels of support to make sure classroom technical problems can be resolved as quickly as possible. Keep an eye out for students wearing the blue CATE shirts on campus — they are the In-Classroom Support team available to help if teaching technology is not working in your classroom. For more information visit the CATE classroom tech support webpage.

Automated Attendance and Contact Tracing with Acadly

• After consulting with a UIC faculty committee, and reviewing best practices at comparable institutions, UIC has selected a classroom interactivity tool called Acadly to simplify the process of recording attendance for on campus and hybrid courses. Acadly allows instructors to take attendance in any size class within seconds, using a smartphone app. Acadly also captures additional detail of proximity between students, which together with attendance data can be made available immediately to the UIC contact tracing team. The advantage of this feature pairing within Acadly is that instructors who use this tool will no longer need to manually maintain seating charts in their classes for the purpose of contact tracing.
• In addition to taking attendance, Acadly also brings an improved experience to classes for both students and instructors by making it possible to use quizzes, polls, discussions, word cloud questions, videos, files, and more—all in one application. Thus, Acadly’s student engagement features provide instructional benefits while its proximity and attendance data support timely information essential to the contact tracing process required to keep our university safe.
• Support for Acadly will be available in the following ways:
  • In-class: Get help from UIC’s the Classroom Tech Support team
  • In-app: Use the in-app feedback option to reach out to the Acadly team. Mean response time: 6 hours.
  • Email: Email support+uic@acadly.com with any questions. Mean response time: 6 hours.
  • Acadly Help Center: Available at help.acadly.com. Please note the chat is not manned for instant support, but the team responds to all messages received, just like emails.

Blackboard Requests

• If you missed the deadline to submit a request to have your previous Blackboard course copied, remember that you can perform your own course copies by following the instructions to copy your own Blackboard course.
• If you are teaching in a classroom equipped with Echo360, you can also request lecture capture to be scheduled and linked to your Blackboard course. That’s the easiest way for your students to get access to videos recorded in the classroom.
• For other Blackboard requests, visit the Blackboard requests service page. 

Equipment Loan

• UIC has made available a limited quantity of COVID-19 related University-owned laptops and cellular hotspots for temporary loan to students who do not have reliable access to a computer and/or internet. We have extended the equipment loan program for the spring 2022 semester — supplies are limited, so advise your students in need of laptops or hotspots to submit their requests early. The only requirement is to be a UIC student enrolled in the spring 2022 semester.
• CATE also provides short-term loans of various equipment to support the academic needs of instructors.

For more information on both short-term and long-term equipment loans visit the CATE equipment lending webpage.