Table of Contents

Weekly Faculty Status Emails

Jason Carroll Updated by Jason Carroll

Overview

Once a week, IDs send all faculty participating in course development a status update of the overall project. The purpose is to ensure a consistent and shared understanding of the status of the key components of the project and to clearly state the immediate “to do’s.”

Timing

Ideally, reports should be sent weekly (Monday or Friday). Once you pick a day, be as consistent as possible.

Content

Status Reports Should

Status Reports Are Not

  • Inform faculty of immediate critical tasks and their due dates
  • Provide IDD, VP Curriculum Development, Product Managers general sense of project progress
  • Be concise, accurate, relevant
  • Vehicles for rosy pictures
  • Vehicles for course-correcting faculty

See your IDD for help with this

  • A Long, Detailed Accounting
    • Long descriptions of completed work, next steps are not necessary (very short bullet points are preferred)
    • Include links to asset trackers and other materials as needed to provide supporting details
    • Long discussions and specific guidance should occur via separate emails or meetings
    • Detailed, asset-specific comments or revision work should occur via collab docs or meetings

Status Reports Should Always Include

  • Completed Last Week
  • Faculty Next Steps (with due dates for each task)
  • eCornell Next Steps
  • Key Milestone Dates*

* see below for more detail

Process Tips

  • Consider maintaining a single Google document that contains each week’s report. You can save time by copying one report to the next week, making edits, then copying/pasting the content into the email body. If you choose to keep a single Google document:
    • Keep it at the root of the certificate folder as a single file.
    • Add notes to the Google document as you make progress through the week.
  • If you haven’t updated Wrike in a few days, completing this report is a good reminder to do so. Go through the full project and roll-up dates where needed, and ensure the individual tasks are current and that the final milestone dates are accurate.
  • Always paste the exact same email content into the top-level project card of a certificate in Wrike. @ mention the same people you cc’d in the email. This helps us keep consistent records. 

Writing Style Example

Here is an example of updates in a bullet style. The bullets are easier for the faculty to read and digest than paragraphs of text.

Example Dates Section

Include the following information at the end of your email. It helps the faculty understand the overall status of the project as well as their immediate next steps. It also keeps the “done” goal in front of them. You may want to have a discussion about what these statuses mean during one of your early meetings with the faculty, as they are unlikely to understand our jargon. These dates can also be used to show what happens when faculty are late with deliverables or delay key milestones like recording video, which may inspire them to minimize these occurrences.

How did we do?

Sending Faculty Sign-Off Forms in Adobe Sign

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