Policies

December 11, 2023

Policy Owner: Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost

Responsible Office: CUNY Academic & Faculty Affairs

Contact Information: Academic Program Review & Policy

Approved By

Effective Date: By campus concurrent with transition to D2L Brightspace.

Constituencies: Faculty, instructional staff, and administrators

Policy Statement

All Online Synchronous and Online Asynchronous classes must be delivered via a learning management system (LMS) that meets:

• CUNY’s cybersecurity policies;
• applicable data privacy laws including FERPA, GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, PIPEDA, ISO 27018, Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), and Security Trust and Assurance Registry (STAR); and
• any other relevant University policies and guidelines.

A course is “delivered” in an LMS for purposes of this policy when an instructor, at a minimum, posts a course syllabus and uses the gradebook and announcements functions for the duration of the course.

Use of the CUNY-supported LMS is strongly recommended. A college/academic unit may choose to allow use of an LMS other than the University-supported LMS when it meets the following conditions:

• The LMS is verified by the college CIO as meeting cybersecurity and data privacy policies as specified above.
• The college/academic unit assumes costs and liabilities associated with use of an alternative LMS. All procurement rules must be followed.
• The college/academic unit is responsible for course enrollment and ensures their data follows University Registrar enrollment and grades guidelines.
• The college/academic unit is responsible for LMS integration with CUNYfirst, CUNY SSO, and all other technologies as needed (third-party e-learning tools) to ensure reporting compliance for IPEDS, ADA, homeland security/visa status, and NC-SARA.
• The college/academic unit is responsible for training and support as well as ongoing maintenance and security vulnerability updates of the environment.

Source: Policy-for-Use-of-a-Learning-Management-System-for-Online-Classes-Policy-1.6.pdf (cuny.edu)