Teaching Contingencies and Planning

It is recommended that you visit UB’s Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation . The CATT offers faculty a number of strategies for converting live face to face courses to an online instructional environment.

The university has a variety of tools that faculty may utilize to teach students who are off campus including UB Learns (Blackboard), the official learning management system (LMS) of the university.  UB Learns provides faculty with an online environment to create, deliver and manage their course content, as well as monitor participation and assess performance among learners. For more information about setting up and utilizing the UB Learns LMS, please visit and review the Emergency Course Planning page and review the checklist and section on Prepare Instruction For Emergency Delivery. Note: It is understood that some faculty may be using other LMSs other than UB Learns that include Westlaw TWEN or the Lexis LMS. Please refer to the respective publishers’ help pages for information on student collaboration.

For UB Learns course setup please visit:

• UB Learns for Faculty
• Tutorials and Training
• Emergency Preparedness
• UB Learns Login UBlearns.buffalo.edu

UB Learns Support:

• Faculty can setup UB Learns login at UBlearns.buffalo.edu
• Support Hours: Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
• Phone support: 716-645-6188
• Email support: ublearns@buffalo.edu
• Walk-up support: 5 Norton Hall

Panopto is the university’s tool for video recording classes and distributing content to students for asynchronous and synchronous instruction. The tool allows faculty to record, edit and publish academic video and audio content from your computer or mobile device.  Panopto files may be integrated with UB Learns or shared as links. Please note, Panopto recording capability are built into O’Brian classrooms 25, 102, 104, 106, 107, and 108. Faculty may contact Law IT AV services to schedule class recordings for later distribution to students. Additionally, faculty may download the Panopto recorder and record their class sessions for distribution to students through UB Learns or through a share link for each class. See important (how-to) Panopto links below:

• Recording with Panopto
• Download and Install Panopto Recorder
• UBlearns and Panopto
• How-to Videos from Panopto
• Please also contact Law IT for assistance at Law-IT-AVServices@Buffalo.edu.

In addition to email, which is the fastest way to connect to students, UB makes available a number of resources for asynchronous and synchronous collaboration for all faculty staff and students. UB Box provides faculty with the ability to store, share, and collaborate on documents in real time with Microsoft Office 360. UB box also provides faculty and students with a chat (comment) option for communicating by messaging with students. UB Learns features a chat bulletin board that facilitates live communication. For videoconferencing collaboration, the law school prefers the Zoom videoconferencing tool and the university also provides faculty staff and students with Cisco WebEx for videoconferencing.

UB students, faculty and staff can use UBbox to store, share and access academic and university-related documents from anywhere, with people inside and outside of UB.

• UB Box information and login page - this page includes instructions and videos on the specifics of using UB Box for storage and collaboration with students.

• Communicating and Collaborating Via UB Learns - this page includes a number of asynchronous methods to collaborate with students using discussion boards, wikis, blogs, and announcements.

The Zoom video communication application is the preferred videoconferencing tool for live events, conferences and lectures in the law school. Faculty may use Zoom for synchronous distance instruction, conferences, or meetings. All faculty and staff should have received a zoom invitation for the creation of a username and password. If you intend to use Zoom for classroom instruction, please contact Law IT for scheduling. For law school Zoom instruction, please see the Quick Start Guide and  the PowerPoint presentation slides from the March 6th Zoom presentation.

For online exams, the law school offers students the ability to take law exams using personal laptop computers in courses where professors have opted to use the Examplify software provided by ExamSoft. Please visit the Examplify Information & FAQ page for more information on ExamSoft. The ExamSoft application may be used for open or closed book and in off-campus or online situations.

If students require research or course materials, please contact your library liaison or the law library reference department at 716-645-2047. If faculty student and staff require physical or electronic library materials, please utilize Delivery+.   For course reserve, please see Course Reserve Submission for electronic submission of course reserve titles.

• Ask a Law Research Question online at AskLaw or by Chat.
• Law Research Help

For law school IT, visit Law School Information Technology for contact information or submitting a ticket. You may also contact Law IT by email at Law-IT-AVServices@Buffalo.edu or telephone 645-7393 during business hours.

Contact UBIT help online at UBIT Help Center.

Information on the HUB Faculty Center, UB learns, faculty advising, class registration, examinations, grading and policies may be found at the Records and Registration page: Information for Faculty & Staff.

• Zoom Quick Start Guide
• Zoom PowerPoint presentation
• Zoom Password Security Settings
• 03/17 - Law School In-House Training Session