FSU Emergency Module: What it is and how to use it

The best way to deal with an emergency is to take proactive action. With this in mind, we designed an "FSU Emergency Module" to help you with both proactive and reactive emergency course management. We strongly recommend importing the FSU Emergency Module from Canvas Commons into your course sites and development sites.

Emergency Module content

Instructor Overview: How to use this module
This page is intended for instructor view only and contains links to all our emergency preparedness, continuity during closure, and post-emergency recovery resources so that you have easy access to these items from directly within your course. It also contains some easily adaptable sample messaging to make quick communication with your students regarding the emergency module items easier.
Emergency Resources Page
This page contains specific FSU emergency resources for both main campus and Panama City locations, as well as local, state, and national emergency resources. This page should be published at the start of the semester and can be used as is, though we encourage you as the instructor to add your own thoughts about managing emergencies.
Pre-Emergency Survey: Contact Information
This survey can be used as is and is intended to give you alternate methods to check in with your students after a disaster if the student does not fill out the Post-Emergency Check-in Survey (below). At a minimum, having your students fill out this survey will allow you to download an Excel file of their responses for easy access to their FSU webmail addresses all in one place. We recommend having students complete this survey during the second week of classes once drop/add has ended.
Post-Emergency Check-in Survey
This survey is intended to be published only after a disaster has been announced. The survey includes questions to help you determine the level of impact the disaster has had on your students' ability to finish the course and to encourage students to reach out to you regarding any concerns they may have about completing coursework.
Post-Emergency Discussion Prompt
This Canvas Discussion item is intended to be published after the disaster has passed to allow students a space to build community together by processing the emergency event and reaching out to each other for support. We recommend keeping participation in this discussion an optional activity for your students.

How do I use the FSU Emergency Module items?

When the semester starts

The module will be imported into your course with the Emergency Resources Page already published, so no action needed beyond importing the Emergency Module it at the start of the semester.

Second week of classes

Have students complete the Pre-Emergency Survey. With drop/add over, you will be collecting contact information only for the students who are in your class.

During an emergency campus closure

The top priority is for all instructors and students to take measures to ensure their health and safety. During closures due to adverse weather events, it is usually not appropriate to try to continue teaching during the university closure. However, some emergency university closures may not be related to infrastructure damage or outages. In these cases, if it is safe and reasonable to do so you can continue to teach your classes online in order to avoid losing valuable class time.

After an emergency campus closure

Publish Emergency Module items
Publish the Post-Emergency Check-in Survey and Post-Emergency Discussion Prompt.
Send out an announcement
Notify students that the Post-Emergency Check-in Survey is now available and ask them to complete it as a mandatory "check in." Also let students know that the Discussion prompt is available as an optional activity.
Review check-in responses
Use SpeedGrader to view individual student responses to the Post-Emergency Check-in Survey, and use Canvas Quiz Statistics to get an overview of how your students are doing in the immediate aftermath of the emergency. This will give an at-a-glance view of how many students may need an alternative way to reach you, such as a phone number.
Try to contact students you have not heard from
If you wish, you can use any alternate contact information your students provided in their original Pre-Emergency Survey responses to check in with them if they have not completed the Post-Emergency Check-in Survey within 48 hours after the emergency has passed.

Whether you wish to use the FSU Emergency Module in its entirety or only use parts of it, we strongly recommend sharing with your students your plan for managing emergencies. Adding this plan and your expectations into your course syllabus will help students to more easily navigate post-emergency communications in your course and may reduce confusion in the wake of a natural disaster or another emergency that causes a campus closure.