About

What is this site?

Many COVID-19 preparedness websites and documents are now available to address the concerns of reopening higher education institutions. Discussions with higher education leaders identified that a main issue is the overwhelming, and unorganized sea of information to consider, much of which is not operationally oriented.

The goal of OpenSmartEdu is to offer a tailored selection of key tools and resources that will allow institutions to quickly and easily access the information most important to them, with a distinctly operational orientation.

Planning Tools

• COVID-19 Planning Guide and Self-Assessment for Higher Education
• COVID-19 Self Assessment Calculator for Higher Education
• Coming Soon: Higher Education Planning Tool (Powered by Smartsheet™)

Resources

• Official Guidelines – This resource provides over 50 of the most relevant and up-to-date federal, state, local, and CDC guidelines for the reopening of higher education institutions.
• Media Reports – This resource provides a curated list of over 125 published media reports covering critical topics and insights for institutions of higher education in various COVID-19 scenarios.
• College and University Fall 2020 Announcement and Action Trackers – This tracker monitors the COVID-19 related actions of over 1,000 colleges and universities for the Fall 2020 semester. Viewers can filter and sort the data by school size, state, and response type to study the response of peer groups to COVID-19. Each university response is linked for quick reference to its direct source. The TSC team works to update this tracker 2-3 times weekly.

Authors

Tuscany Strategy Consulting
David Long, MBA
David Graves, MBA
Jack Burton
Christina Kim

Center for Health Security Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Crystal Watson, DrPh, MPH
Lucia Mullen, MPH
Tom Inglesby, MD

Council for Higher Education Accreditation
Judith Eaton, PhD

Acknowledgements

• We extend our thanks to the dedicated individuals that supported this effort with guidance, consultation, and supporting materials. This guide was created using the collective input from a wide range of industry professionals, institutional leadership, association leadership, and private companies.
• Special thanks to Exclamation Communications, Inc! who provided design services and website development for www.OpenSmartEDU.org and the Planning Guide.
• Select planning statements were adopted from the Johns Hopkins University Return to Campus Instructional Activities guidelines.
• Select planning statements were adopted from Accreditation, Quality and Fall 2020: A Framework For Action, Judith S. Eaton, President, Council for Higher Education Accreditation, Inside Higher Ed, 2020.

Additional Thanks

• Michael Falk PhD, MSE; David Philips, Kevin Frick PhD, Matt Micciche; Marc Haluska, MD, PhD; Michael J. Klag, MD; Alfred Sommer, MD; Stephanie Regenold, MD, MPH; Joshua M Sharfstein, MD, Pam Sheff, PhD; Eric Rice, PhD. Donlin M Long, MD PhD.