A teaching method that uses online learning resources to facilitate learning. In using Moodle, lectures are not required to be online at the time students are online. Therefore, students can work at their convenience. Lectures use technology (e.g. Moodle, forums, wikis, blogs, videos, etc.) to deliver instructional content such as lectures and exams that can be accessed at any time. Students are provided deadlines and specific timeframes to complete their course different assignments.

There are instances where an advisee’s academic performance may not meet the University’s expectation of satisfactory academic progress. This is when an advisee’s CGPA is below the minimal accepted CGPA. In such circumstances, the academic advisor shall advise the student to repeat courses of low performance grades in order to improve the cGPA. At the beginning of each regular semester the College Dean prepares a list of students names whose cGPA has declined or is below minimal accepted CGPA. The following steps shall be followed:

• The Dean will distribute the list to the academic advisors.
• Academic advisors guide students and document advising process, any problems/suggestions or learning needs.
• The Dean/program chair follows-up to assess the academic advisor’s performance and the process of advising.

In addition, each academic advisor shall engage in the following actions:

• Holding regular individual meetings with students with cGPA lower than the minimal accepted performance level.
• Advising such students to repeat courses with low grades prior to registering in any further courses.
• Request such students to visit instructors frequently during office hours.
• Provide such students (after their consent) with peer-mentoring from senior students.
• Request such students to meet their peer mentor on regular basis.

It remains the responsibility of the academic advisor and the department in which the student is registered, to follow up each student case. The department and/or college council shall discuss the progress of students with cGPA less than the minimal accepted performance level.

Academic supervisor will label the cGPA of his allocated students to advise as following:

1. GREEN, student is on solid grounds and appears to know what he is doing.
2. YELLOW, student is generally fine but will be advised to take certain actions to avoid going into red.
3. RED, student needs focused attention and actions.

Faculty Training is conducted by either the IT Center and/or Professional Development Unit through online workshops throughout the academic year.

Information Technology Center (ITC) supports faculty instructional efforts to utilize Moodle for delivering online activities. ITC staff administers Moodle, provides technical support, offers instructional services, and delivers training to faculty members in best practices of online course. The ITC also intends to improve student success by ensuring optimal performance of the LMS by overseeing system access authorizations, managing account creations, maintaining system operations, training users, and providing technical support.

Learning Management System (LMS) is a software application (Moodle) or web-based technology used to administer, deliver, and assess courses electronically.

Professional Development (PD) Office at Al Falah University offers various sessions after exploring and identifying the professional needs and requirements of the academic members and the administrative staff, and the office aims to implement professional programs in line with the changes in the educational process, and these programs include the most important modern teaching skills, education, recent trends in scientific research, as well as practical and scientific experiences, where the office implements various sessions/courses to meet different needs.

The office also evaluates the offered sessions/courses for the purpose of following up on needs, constantly update the requirements of members of the academic members and the administrative staff, review these, and design the assistance training programs that enhance these requirements. The office also seeks to cooperate with the relevant authorities by nominating external sessions/courses that meet the needs of university employees to enhance the educational process and improve the performance of employees.

Al Falah University (AFU) develops and implements an e-learning strategy that:

• identifies the role of e-learning in the institution’s short-term strategic plans, and its alignment with the educational mission.
• identifies responsibility for the oversight, development, evaluation, and support of an institution’s e-learning program (if applicable).
• is developed with the participation of relevant stakeholders.
• is approved by the governing body.
• is reviewed by program leadership, informed by direct and indirect measures of performance that result in a process of continuous improvement.

AL FALAH UNIVERSITY (AFU):

• Develops and maintains an e-learning environment, consisting of a learning or course management platform, related communications tools (e.G., For e-mail, videoconferences, or blogs), and support resources/services (e.G.,Electronic library resources), which is adequate to meet the demands of its e-learning programs and courses, and of the faculty members and students involved in e-learning.
• Maintains sufficient internet bandwidth, server capacity and staff to support the operation of the e-learning environment.
• Provides training to faculty, staff and students involved with e-learning programs and courses in the operation of the e-learning platform.
• Ensures that faculty members teaching in e-learning courses have the necessary equipment, software, communications tools and internet connectivity and bandwidth to develop and deliver the courses they teach, and to communicate with students.
• Provides sufficient technical support to students and faculty to ensure the effective delivery of e-learning programs and courses.
• Ensures that all e-learning students have access at all times to the e-learning environment, and to library and other learning resources accessible through it.

AL FALAH UNIVERSITY (AFU):

• Demonstrates that it has short- and long-range plans for the evaluation of performance, upgrading and enhancement of the e-learning environment.
• Provides an equipment and software replacement plan and associated budget for the e-learning environment.

The institution clearly specifies in its budget the financial arrangements relating to e-learning programs and courses, including anticipated revenues and expenditures attributable to its e-learning operations.

• Ensures that programs and courses delivered face-to-face or through e-learning/blended learning have the same learning outcomes and require equivalent rigor and quality of student performance.
• Designs its e-learning programs and courses to facilitate interaction among students and between students and faculty, in either asynchronous or synchronous modes as appropriate, and maintains an effective and reliable e-learning environment to support this interaction.
• Ensures that all students enrolled in e-learning courses, regardless of their geographical location, benefit from effective access to student support, including academic advising and tutors.
• Assures the integrity of student work in the e-learning environment by demonstrating the steps taken to limit the possibility of fraud and academic dishonesty, including, where appropriate, limited residency requirements, proctored examinations, and effective means of authenticating student work.
• Ensures that sites used as examination centres have rigorous measures in place to:
  • Ensure the authenticity of the test taker.
  • Maintain the security of the test.
  • Employ up-to-date administrative measures and technological advances to prevent fraud and cheating.
  • Maintains appropriate class sizes (student/faculty ratios) in e-learning courses that ensure the effective participation of all students, and for interaction among students and between students and faculty.
  • Evaluates the effectiveness of e-learning programs and courses according to its program of institutional research.
  • Assumes responsibility for the quality of e-learning courses provided by partner institutions or other organisations (if applicable) and has procedures in place for the evaluation and review of such courses.

The institution:

• ensures that full-time and part-time faculty teaching in e-learning programs meet the requirements in relation to their qualifications, training, and experience.
• ensures that a program delivered by e-learning has core faculty and support staff who are resident full-time employees.
• ensures that decisions concerning e-learning curricula and program oversight involve faculty who are qualified both academically, to teach the subject, and technically, through e-learning skills.
• clearly specifies to faculty the expectations for faculty engagement relating to online teaching and student support.

AFU offers remedial instruction or training programs to enrolled students who lack sufficient information technology skills to succeed in a course.

AFU documents that it has appropriate security measures to protect the integrity and confidentiality of student data and all course data and analytics within the e-learning platform, and of student information maintained within the comprehensive e-learning environment.

As part of its dedication to academic success, AFU is committed to providing high quality academic advising to assist students in the development and pursuit of academic objectives consistent with their life goals. Academic advising is an ongoing process that connects students to the University.  AFU is committed to providing appropriate guidance to newly enrolled students and begins the process of orientation where each newly enrolled student is allocated and academic advisor, and is introduced to all departments and units, to services, facilities, and the ways to communicate with the University’s faculty members and staff.  Academic advising is as follows:

• All students shall be informed of the advising policy and advising process during the initial orientation and be directed to an academic advisor.
• Each registered student shall be assigned an academic advisor from his College.
• All students on probation must be given regular close advising each semester.
• Advising by faculty for all incoming and continuing students shall be made available at least three times each semester.
• Academic advising shall be assessed and reviewed every year by the Quality Assurance Office in AFU.

Academic Advising at AFU is shaped and guided by the following goals:

• Assist students in making their own decisions in choosing an appropriate course of study commensurate with their interests, abilities and meet their academic and life objectives.
• Answer questions raised by students and to make them aware of the possible short- and long-range consequences of their choices.
• Ensure that all students are aware of resources, services and educational opportunities at the University that may be pertinent to the student's educational objectives.
• Provide students with relevant and up-to-date information regarding policies and procedures.
• Facilitate resolution of academic problem, conflict, and concern, as appropriate.
• Refer students as necessary to required resources.
• Collect and disseminate information on student needs, wants, and perceptions in order to enhance the general university’s effectiveness.

e-learning academic learning support is an online service and all regularly matriculated AFU students receiving instruction through e-Learning and they are provided equivalent access to the basic student support services offered on this campus. These include admission, course registration services, academic advising and orientation, textbook purchasing, finance, career development and other special program accommodations as applicable. The academic advisor has a particular role and responsibility towards students with learning support needs. It is important to bear in mind the following points when e-learning academic learning support is needed:

• Online consultation must be done by the academic advisor prior to a student registration in the semester and during the semester.  
• The history of the individual student’s case must be well established.
• Documentation must be complete and up to date. 
• The academic advisor is the signatory for all documentation, even if it is collated by others.
• The academic advisor can cooperate with other units in the university to provide the required academic learning support such as cooperation with student affairs. 
• The effectiveness of academic learning support process is evaluated by the Center for Quality Assurance and Institutional Effectiveness (QAIEC).

The academic advisor remains in contact with students either face-to-face, or remotely to provide academic advising service. The academic advisor creates a group on Microsoft Teams program under the name of Academic Advising. Each student can communicate with the academic advisor through the Microsoft Teams program, whether by requesting a remote meeting with the academic advisor or by sending messages through the program, and it is also important to note that communication with the advisor is to be via official AFU address e-mail for documentation purposes. The academic advisor schedules meetings with students periodically, and these meetings may be individual with each student, and they may be group meeting if students have the same needs considering that when it is group meeting, privacy is considered, and student information is kept confidential and not shared with others. It is the responsibility of the academic advisor to document these meetings and keep records of each student to follow up on his/her academic progress.

Evaluation of e-Learning undergoes both direct and Indirect measures to assess educational outcomes.

LockDown Browser® is a custom browser that locks down the testing environment within a learning management system.  Respondus Lockdown browser is available for desktop (Windows and Mac).

• The evaluation form: It is distributed at the end of each semester by the Center for Quality Assurance and Institutional Effectiveness, as the form includes clear and sufficient items to measure the effectiveness of the e-learning process from the student's point of view. 
• The comprehensive review form for the course: the faculty member writes all elements of evaluation and feedback about e-learning in this form and suggests steps and procedures for developing the e-learning process.
• Academic Advising Guide: Each faculty member follows up on academic advising by adhering to the academic advising guide, and through the notes written in this guide, a clear feedback can be obtained about e-learning.
• Achieving the course learning outcomes: One of the indicators about the effectiveness of e-learning at the university is the level of achieving the course’s learning outcomes. 
• Formal and informal meetings with all individuals related to the e-learning process: Through the feedback that are raised during the formal and informal meetings with all parties related to e-learning, a lot of information is gathered about the effectiveness of this process and proposing solutions for development.
• Employee roles and responsibilities in the development and implementation of e-learning programmes and courses: The Professional Development (PD) Unit will be involved into providing teaching methods including e-Learning pedagogies.
• 
  Qualifications, training, and experience requirements for faculty teaching e-learning programmes and courses: Any faculty who is to teach using an e-learning method whether it was a blended, or fully online must comply with all Full Time Faculty requirements as per AFU Employment Policy, in addition to having a certificate in eLearning.

Respondus Monitor¨ is - Fully-automated proctoring for online exams and is built upon the power of LockDown Browser, using a studentÕs webcam and industry-leading video analytics to prevent cheating during non-proctored exams.  Respondus Monitor is a fully automated proctoring solution that enables students to take online exams at any time of the day or night, without pre-scheduling.

Students use a webcam to record themselves during an exam. A Òstartup sequenceÓ guides them through requirements selected by the instructor, such as showing identification or making a short video of the exam environment. Only the instructor can review video recordings and the results of the proctoring session.

Powerful analytics are used to detect suspicious behaviors during an exam session. Video segments with potential exam violations are flagged for the instructor, with an overall risk level assigned to the exam session.

Review Priority is a patent-pending method for ranking proctoring results according to the risk that exam violations have occurred. In short, it provides instructors with simple, meaningful results that help them know whether an exam session warrants deeper scrutiny. If wanted, instructors can view the data contributing to the Review Priority result on a video timeline, such as flagged events and key milestones. Review Priority is elegant, functional, powerful.

LockDown Browser is the Ògold standardÓ for locking down a studentÕs computer during an online exam. That is why 1500 universities rely on it to prevent cheating on 120 million exams each year. Respondus Monitor builds upon the LockDown Browser technology to ensure the computing device is not used to cheat during a non-proctored exam.

Further details can be found in AFUÕs Appropriate Use of Technology Resources Policy.

• Online exams should consist of different types of questions.
• If the exam contains Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQ), no more than 50% of the questions can be multiple choice, including True/False questions.
• Online exams must cover all specified CLOs in a course.
• If a course is taught by two or more lecturers, the coordinator of the exam has to take the responsibility of conducting the online exam properly.
• All online exams related activities must go through the peer-review process according to the adopted form across all the colleges. 
• Conducting online assessments (mid-term, …etc.) must be scheduled in coordination with the Information Technology Center and Central Examination Committee at least one week prior to conducting the exam.
• Online Final Exam must be scheduled in coordination with the Central Examination Committee and Information Technology Center at least three weeks prior to conducting the exams.
• Any online exam which requires special software should be communicated to the Information Technology Center prior to the exam. ITC will be responsible for operating this in full integrity according to the online exam.
• Information Technology Center is not responsible for uploading online exams. It is the sole responsibility of the faculty.

The Originality Report is NOT a plagiarism report.  An Originality (or Similarity) Report is merely an indication of similarities between a piece of work submitted by a student and a database of previously submitted work, websites, and other sources. If a match between a submitted piece of work and an existing work is found, Turnitin will highlight the matching text and provide a summary in the Originality Report. This means that the accuracy of the Originality Report depends largely on the repository of resources against which the submitted work is compared.  The matching text found is not an assessment of whether work has or has not been plagiarized. Originality Reports can help tutors to locate potential sources of plagiarism. The decision to deem any work plagiarized should be made only after careful examination of both the submitted paper and the suspect sources.

The Originality (Similarity) Report produced by Turnitin can be used as a tool for students to improve their academic writing and as a tool for faculty to help them decide on plagiarism.

• As a guide, a returned percentage of below 15% would probably indicate that plagiarism has not occurred. A high percentage would probably be anything over 25%.  The Al-Falah University (AFU) is to consider the percentage of 24% as a cut-off range. 

• The default assignment setting should be adjusted to exclude quoted material, references/bibliography and small matches up to 5 words (or percent) in order to gain a more accurate overall percentage.
• For the students to see the report, faculty should make the Originality Report available to students once the student uploads his/her submission.
• If the student submits the assignment in good time (days) prior to the submission deadline, the instructor may ask the student to resubmit another version pointing out to the student that he/she has to ensure that his/her work is authentic. This can be done through submission settings, where the instructor can revert the submission manually to the student after the submission. In that case students may access, edit and reload their submitted file without any need for faculty intervention as it is still in Draft form.  Following is an example:
  
  • The instructor has to setup the Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings as following:

• • The instructor is to exclude small sources (measured by word number of percentage) in TurnitIn.  Instructor can exclude sources in the source list that are below the threshold set by himself. For example, if the threshold is set at 5%, any 4% or 3% match would be removed from the current report mode's source list.
  • The instructor is to exclude quotes and bibliography in TurnitIn.  Quotes and bibliography items are widely reused and generally fail to demonstrate original writing. Instructor may wish to exclude quotes, bibliographies, and items of a similar nature from influencing his students' similarity scores.

• • The instructor is to exclude full sources in TurnitIn.  The source exclusion feature is generally used when a paper has been submitted more than once to Turnitin (possibly as draft submissions). Sources may also be excluded when an instructor agrees that students use a certain source for their writing.
  • If the instructor asks the student to resubmit, this can be done through Submission settings, where the instructor can revert the submission manually to the student after the submission: