Staff Meeting March 9, 2011 3:30 pm CST

To join the teleconference ------At 3:30 pm CST, dial 866-685-1580. When prompted, enter 0009991812, followed by #

Present: Steve Rheinschmidt, Deb Allen, Steve Ast, Kathy Cornwall, Rebecca Hannum, Ann Jenkins, Jean Kelly, Marni Kelso, Matt Seluk, Tracy Sleep, Theresa Zeigler

Proceedings:

Information and Discussion Items

Theresa Zeigler reported that the Spring Conference preparations are proceeding very well. Over 170 have registered so far. A few session presentation descriptions are still needed from those presenting. A planning telenet between Zeigler, Rebecca Hannum, Ann Jenkins, and Tracy Sleep is scheduled for Thursday. Any questions and answers to be used for the Scavenger Hunt should be submitted now. Zeigler is working with hotel IT staff is ensure adequate bandwidth and other computer needs. A dedicated wireless connection may be set up for exclusive ICCOC use, pending cost. Eddie Dunn and friend will be providing music at the Winery Sunday evening. Steve Rheinschmidt confirmed that students presenting at the conference will be offered a $100 stipend, previously paid with Title III funding.

Staff Winter Workshop follow-up items: • Deans/Directors of Distance Learning participated earlier today in a telenet with eCollege Helpdesk personnel to address issues brought up at the staff workshop. Direct contact information for Helpdesk Director Amy Johnston will be provided to expedite Support issues. An “escalation document” is also being made available to identify each department’s responsibilities to better direct issues to the correct person. Feedback will be shared with the Helpdesk team. Senior Techs, who can be reached by dialing out, will be increased for ICCOC. This will save time by eliminating the routine check-list response when calling in. ICCOC recently purchased nineteen 1-year renewal licenses with eCollege providing iSupport for course design help to designated users. A similar “ways-to-improve” telenet between Mentor/Trainers and Helpdesk personnel is scheduled later this month. • Kathy Cornwall participated with Steve Ast and Carrie Ayers, MylabsPlus Account Services Manager with Pearson eCollege, in a telenet to discuss how best to make MyLab available to students through their bookstores. During the pilot with Steve Holland’s ENG105/106 classes, students paid a fee added to tuition which gave instant access for all students. With the planned expansion of MyLabs to Math and Anatomy & Physiology classes, a different payment method is needed. Ayers will provide the bookstores with an ISBN which bundles the book and MyLab for purchase. MyLab will also be available to purchase separately. MyLab will be embedded in the course, and once purchased, a student will only need to sign in for first- time use. Ayers hopes to provide bookstores with extra copies for exchange, should a student have difficulty with a code. A MyLab session may be offered at Spring Conference to increase interest among instructors for use in more courses this Fall.

Chuck Chrisman and Steve Rheinschmidt will meet with Datatel personnel this Friday morning to approve specs for the Grade Reporting project. Western Iowa Tech has already reviewed and approved the specs with no changes. The project will allow midterm grades to be uploaded directly into the Gradebook.

Southeastern will be closed for Spring Break March 14-18. It is not known if instructors have built the break into their schedules, but ICCOC staff will monitor calls and emails throughout the break. Ann Jenkins and Steve Rheinschmidt will be attending the NROC Advisory meeting in Monterey, CA, March 14 -16.

Round Table

Ann Jenkins – Will participate in the upcoming telenet with eCollege Helpdesk and Mentor/Trainers. Thirty-four instructors have signed up for EDU101A instruction, through Summer 2. All schools and all experience levels are represented.

Kathy Cornwall – Hopes to resume Communication Newsletter beginning this month. Soliciting information to include. Attended a webinar on Respondus along with 160 others. Will demo at Spring Conference to show how easy it is for instructors to create and manage exams with this tool. Thousands of test banks can be accessed at no cost by instructors who adopt a participating textbook.

Theresa Zeigler – is focused on Spring Conference details.

Rebecca Hannum – Spring 8-week-1 End of Course Surveys went out with a good response rate. Midterm grade reports have been sent to Registrars. Missing grades are being tracked down. Attended an Evaluation Kit webinar with Steve Ast. This survey tool has more flexibility and discussions are ongoing about a possible ICCOC pilot.

Steve Ast – A Course Developers session is one of many sessions scheduled for CITE 2011, which this year runs concurrently with ICCOC’s Spring Conference. The Learning Studio platform is now on the portal. Ann Jenkins and Marni Kelso will travel to Denver to attend the Production Advisory Board meeting April 13th.

Marni Kelso - The run/cancel report for 8week2 classes has been sent out. A script error has delayed the removal of syllabi from courses for future terms, but will soon be corrected. The Fall schedule will be out by the end of the week. All confirmed that the most useful enrollment report is being sent.

Tracy Sleep – A new inquiry form has been created for the .org website. It will link to the .com site in mid-April.

Deb Allen – An update to the algorithm for the spell checker in Visual Editor is going out today. Better results can be expected. Please provide feedback.

Steve Rheinschmidt – Fall courses will soon be ready for enrollment. Errors occurred when WITCC began enrolling too soon. Efforts will be made to improve communication between Datatel users and eCollege to prevent such errors. Looking back five years, Common Course Numbering and the distribution matrix were the focus of ICCOC. The Learning Outcome Management project seemed to cause some confusion among the participants of last month’s Oversight Committee meeting attended by Assessment people invited from each partner college. Some seemed to believe that the ICCOC is creating its own way of measuring student learning outcomes, rather than looking for similarities among outcomes the colleges have already identified as important. It is hoped that English faculty and Assessment experts will review what is already there and find similarities to benchmark, if any exist. Questions can be directed to Rheinschmidt. The March 16th Oversight Committee telenet has been pushed back one week to March 23rd because of scheduling conflicts.

Adjourn

Upcoming Events

March 14-16 NROC, Monterey, CA

Wednesday, March 23rd Oversight Committee Telenet 3:30 PM CDT

April 10-12 Spring Conference, Ames, IA

April 11-13 CITE 2011, Denver, CO

Submitted by Jean Kelly

March 21, 2011