Online Projects

The Assignments tool within Courses is a powerful vehicle for assigning, receiving, grading, and providing feedback on such projects—not least because the Assignments tool gathers all of those functions into a single convenient space. The Assignments tool has been designed specifically for this purpose, complies with FERPA, provides for accessibility, and offers a range of pedagogical options, including student group submissions and Turnitin. If you need any assistance setting up assignments to be gathered through the Assignments tool, Pepperdine's Technology and Learning team or your division's Technology Liaison can provide individual support.

If you prefer a less structured approach and just want to exchange files with students individually, the Drop Box tool within Courses provides a simpler alternative to the Assignments tool. (Please note that the Drop Box tool within Courses has nothing to do with the commercial file-sharing service called Dropbox, except for similar functionality.) The Drop Box tool creates a folder for each student, which the instructor can also access. Unlike the Assignments tool, the Drop Box tool does not support due dates, Gradebook integration, commenting, student groups, and the like. The Drop Box tool is recommended for casual or occasional file sharing; the Assignments tool is recommended for assessments that will be graded.

A Google Drive folder can provide similar functionality to the Courses Drop Box tool, but if you choose to use this method, make very sure that you do not inadvertently violate FERPA by giving students inappropriate access to each others' information. Setting this up usually requires significantly more work than simply using the Courses Drop Box tool. You could also use a Google Form as a channel for students to submit their work (but not for you to return feedback, since Google Forms flow only one direction), though the Courses Assignments tool will be a better choice in most cases.

Of course, you can always ask students simply to attach their files to an email, or a message composed using the Messages tool within Courses, although this will usually put a larger file management burden on you than using the Assignments or Drop Box tool.

If the learning objectives for the assignment can be met with a recorded (asynchronous) performance, invite students to record their performance in an appropriate format. Most Seaver College students will have access to a laptop computer or mobile device capable of recording fairly good quality audio and video. Depending on the particulars of the assignment, you might ask students to record audio only, an audio voiceover to a slideshow, a video, or some variation on these formats. Students can then upload the recording using the Assignments or Drop Box tool in Courses, or one of the other tools already described.

If the learning objectives for the assignment are best met with a real-time (synchronous) performance, Zoom would be the preferred University-supported tool. Admittedly, the audio and video fidelity of a Zoom transmission will not be as good as a direct personal experience in a face-to-face context, especially for the subtleties of a musical or dramatic performance, but may be the best we can achieve under the circumstances.

If the performance you need to assess requires access to specialized tools (such as laboratory equipment) or facilities (such as a dance floor), it may be necessary to arrange for additional support local to the student. Please consult with your Program Coordinator, Divisional Dean, or Seaver Dean's office personnel as appropriate for help arranging an appropriate partnership. Your division's Technology Liaison and the TechLearn team can offer guidance and some assistance with the technical aspects of recording and transmitting such performances. The CTE can assist with designing alternative assignments if necessary.

Students who receive accommodations for onsite testing must receive equivalent accommodations for projects that will be conducted or delivered online. Please consult the OSA for policy guidance and the CTE, the TechLearn team, or your divisional Technology Liaison for help with implementation.

For projects that might ordinarily be submitted as physical, printed documents, the same word or page counts and other such limits apply equally well to digital rather than physical versions of the documents. The same applies to time limits for presentations delivered asynchronously. For online presentations or performances delivered synchronously in a group session, such as a Zoom meeting for the whole class, you may wish to consider shortening the time limits slightly in case it takes more time to transition between students or groups using Zoom than it would on-site. However, such additional delays should be minimal.

For most projects of the types discussed here, the same practices around academic integrity apply whether the student submits the project on-site or online. For example, if you would normally have students scan papers using Turnitin, continue to do so for remote submissions; if you would not normally use Turnitin, the physical distance between instructor and student does not increase the service's value.

Some types of assignments will be particularly challenging to adapt for remote instruction. The most obvious assignments in this category are those where the college provides specialized tools and facilities (such as laboratories and art studios) to which the student may not otherwise have access, and those where physical proximity to other students (as in a musical ensemble) is integral to desired activities. If your course includes such activities and you must transition to remote instruction, remember that course activities should advance students toward, and measure their progress toward, course learning outcomes. Undoubtedly you chose certain course activities because you found them to be particularly apt tools for this purpose, but consider whether alternate activities might also serve the same functions, even if in a less satisfying manner. For example:

• If students must produce a physical object (like a painting or sculpture) and students would have the necessary tools and facilities to produce the object in their remote locations, consider whether still pictures or video recordings of the object, along with appropriate metadata (such as dimensions, materials used, and so forth), could provide a sufficient basis for your assessment of student progress toward the learning outcomes.
• If students would have produced a physical object on-site, but would not have the necessary tools and facilities to produce the object in their remote locations, consider whether digital artwork, a model for 3D printing, or something similar would suffice to demonstrate achievement of the learning outcomes.
• If students would have visited sites that they can no longer access, such as museums local to Pepperdine but not to the students' remote locations, consider whether virtual tours of the same or other locations might suffice to demonstrate achievement of the learning outcomes.

It may be very difficult to conceive of appropriate alternatives that students can reasonably complete in their individual spaces. The Center for Teaching Excellence can serve as a conversation partner to help you think through such adaptations.