Lectures and seminars will be held remotely using Zoom and Blackboard between Wednesday and Friday, USC announced late Friday. This will serve as a test run to prepare for potential disruptions as the novel coronavirus outbreak evolves. Students will not attend class in-person but will be expected to attend lectures using the technology.
Provost Charles Zukoski told Annenberg Media in an interview there are no cases of COVID-19 at USC. He said, to his knowledge, no one from the USC community is currently being tested.
“Our university must be nimble and flexible in the event that we need to make any further changes to the semester,” Zukoski wrote in a community-wide email. “We need to test our technical capabilities to ensure academic continuity in an online environment should there be a disruption.”
USC has about 7,000 lecture classes this spring, the email said. Zukoski told Annenberg Media that this drill is a “pressure testing” to the system.
“We need a test run,” he said in the interview. “What’s our physical infrastructure? How does Zoom work under those conditions? What’s the relationship between Zoom and Blackboard? What did faculty learn when they are putting classes together?”
The university — including student residential colleges, dining halls, offices, libraries, health centers and recreation and athletics facilities — will be open and functional, according to Zukoski. Campus events are scheduled to take place as planned, and employees are expected to be at work. In-person courses are expected to resume when students return from Spring Break on March 23.
Lectures and seminars will be held online from March 11 through March 13. Lab and production courses are not addressed by this university experiment. Each professor will individually need to determine how to administer exams, midterms and presentations during this time, according to Zukoski.
Zukoski stressed this is only a test run and is not permanent.
“We have the week of Spring Break to learn from the test and what we’ve done,” Zukoski told Annenberg Media. “Should the situation erode, we’ll have to take stronger measures.”
While students who travel internationally during Spring Break may be tested upon returning to campus, Zukoski said there is currently no protocol in place for students who are traveling to affected areas within the United States.
“We are using public health authority direction in helping us understand when it is unsafe to travel in the United States,” said Zukoski. “We do, of course, want people to be cautious and to think about what they’re doing, but right now travel around the United States is open.”
USC’s decision is being called a drill by the administration, but the University of Washington (UW) has canceled classes for the remainder of their Winter Quarter, which is scheduled to end March 20.
“In the state of Washington right now, the University of Washington is closed for three weeks,” said Zukoski. “What we’re interested in is continuity of education. Should a public health emergency arise we want to be able to keep educating our students.”
UW announced the news earlier Friday, the same day a staff member at UW became the first university community member to receive a presumptive positive test for the novel coronavirus.
Their policy will go into effect on Monday. The more than 46,000 students at UW’s three campuses will also complete their finals online.
As of Friday night, there are 13 confirmed coronavirus cases in Los Angeles County, according to NBC Los Angeles. All 13 patients are under isolation.
Additionally, three students at UCLA are currently being tested for the virus and are in self-isolation off campus.
All USC students have access to a free USC Zoom video conferencing account, according to a Feb. 27 email from Information Technology Services. USC also told all faculty and staff via email on March 2 to prepare the possibility of using Zoom.
Zukoski said there are resources available to students to learn how to use Zoom.