Update on remote teaching, Zoom license, UROPs

March 13, 2020
Ian A. Waitz, Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education |

To: All faculty and instructors
cc: Undergraduate and graduate administrators and officers, academic officers, deans, assistant deans, and department heads

Dear Colleagues,

Here's a timely update on remote teaching resources, a Zoom site license, and the status of UROPs. Thanks.

Ian A. Waitz
Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education


As you are preparing to begin teaching remotely on March 30:

  • The first place for faculty and instructors to turn to for orientation, advice, and resources is: http://teachremote.mit.edu/ a carefully curated set of resources provided by the Teaching & Learning Lab, IS&T, and Open Learning.
  • We are delighted to report that MIT now has a Zoom site license; many kudos to Mark Silis and his IS&T team, VPF and their procurement team, and a special thanks to Wes Esser and his Sloan Technology Services team for their partnership in this effort. Members of the MIT community can access Zoom Many thanks also to IS&T for setting up 24/7 support, which you can access either by emailing teachremote@mit.edu or by phoning 617-32-HELP-U.
  • On Wednesday morning, Krishna provided a 10-minute briefing to department heads and deans summarizing our strategy and key messages as we prepare for, and then launch into, the remote teaching of 1251 courses for our students. Now for all of you, here is the video recorded within Zoom. Let me add here that it is important for all of us to use the coming two weeks effectively to prepare, and get ahead.
  • We very much want to both collect and leverage the myriad good ideas pouring in from across MIT. We invite you — and anyone — to post your ideas, as well as resources that you have developed or found, to this site It is moderated by John Liu and Jessica Sandland, members of our Digital Learning Lab in Courses 2 and 3, as well as Aaron Kessler from Open Learning. Your contributions are welcome; please post via the “compose” button (red + in a circle) in the upper left hand corner of the page, and please upvote resources and posts that you find useful. This will be a way for individuals, and departments, to share what worked for them, without curation; it already includes slides and notes from workshops done in the past few days in some departments.
  • Finally, to help cut down on the number of e-mails, we wanted to share a related academic continuity update on behalf of our colleagues in the Office of the Vice Chancellor. All in-person UROPs must end on Sunday, March 15, 2020. This includes UROPs taking place in on-campus labs, at the Whitehead Institute, Broad Institute, Lincoln Lab, area hospitals, other IMES/HST/Harvard facilities, or other research settings and collaborative spaces. Only remote or virtual UROP projects that are mutually agreed upon by faculty and their UROP students may continue for the duration of the spring term (through May 31, 2020). A complete FAQ is available.

Best wishes, and keep well,

Krishna Rajagopal
Dean for Digital Learning, MIT Open Learning
krishna@mit.edu