Distance Learning Subcommittee

Distance Learning Subcommittee Friday, April 30, 2004, 2 p.m. North Campus– room G204 Minutes

In Attendance: Susan Basile, Carol Baker, Susan Ballard, Joe Lundin, Diane Zych, John Birks, Samuel Lebron, Bob Germony, Cathy Laberta, Judy Matheisz, Mary Beth Orrange, Jason Steinitz

1. Distance Learning Steering Committee – J. L. Steinitz The Steering Committee meeting was changed to May 6th. The committee intends to reformat the plan designed this year to reflect mission, goals, objectives and tasks with a revised mission statement. A budget was submitted to be included in the college budget package. The budget proposal includes a re-alignment of staffing (such as inclusion of John Birks and Carol Baker in the Distance Learning budget), money specifically designated for staff development including professional development in the form of conference attendance and workshops, as well as money for marketing the program.

There have been several problems with the designation of "D" as a section code, therefore the "D" section code for courses where the instructor receives a development stipend is eliminated. The stipend will be paid to the faculty member based on a field in Datatel and reflected in the FLAF. If a stipend is expected, the individual faculty member must contact the AAD for Alternative Course Delivery directly so a list can be created for the registrar. The same processes must be followed for SLN courses as is followed for all other online courses. No stipend currently exists for project connect courses.

2. Faculty Development – M.B. Orrange

ANGEL 6.0 is being piloted in the spring 2004 semester, ANGEL 6.1 will be released for the fall semester. ECC has offered to be a beta-test site for ANGEL 6.1. The old ANGEL 5.6 server is being used for the beta-testing. The address will be http://ANGEL-dev.ecc.edu. It should be functional by the end of the first week in May. A generic login account will be created. All are encouraged to review and send feedback to Jason Steinitz. Changes include: a more stable equation editor and improved communication tools.

The Summer Institute is scheduled for the mornings of June 9, 10 and 11. The distance learning training includes seven workshops: the four ANGEL workshops, Creating and Posting Academic WebPages, a new course design workshop and a faculty "Show and Tell" session.

Further discussion included: how faculty teaching online use ANGEL for course management; use of the dlteaching listserv; how to save email on the U:drive from outlook. An individual can increase their capacity on the U: drive by opening a helpdesk ticket.

3. Long Range Plan Items The LRP was discussed. The following items have a completion date of April or May 2004. Progress is indicated below.

 Register distance learning programs with SED (April 2004) By the end of the semester four programs will be registered: Business Administration, Humanities, Social Science and Office Technology. 1  Update the faculty information package (May 2004) Joe Lundin has offered to write an online faculty page similar to the online student handbook as part of his Master's Thesis project.  Faculty mentoring program (May 2004) It was felt that individuals would offer to serve as mentors for new online faculty if asked. New faculty should be paired up with experienced faculty.  Develop a pilot online tutoring program (May 2004) There was no support to complete this item.  Establish online course selection advisement system (May 2004) This is implemented with WebAdvisor  Department checklist for online programs (May 2004) This was created earlier. Susan Ballard and Judy Matheisz offered to find and forward to Mary Beth Orrange.  Perkins assessment (May 2004) The college got a late start on the Perkins Grant Assessment of the distance learning program, but it is being worked on at this time.

4. Telecourses The survey data collected from the telecourses has been limited. It was decided to use a scantron form for this semester to improve response rate. The telecourse student satisfaction is part of the Perkins grant so a better response rate is needed.

Alternative options for telecourse delivery (such as DVD format ) are increasing at this time, faculty are encouraged to increase options where appropriate yet asked to continue to provide VCR tape options for courses.

5. Surveys and Assessment The results of the spring 2004 Demographic survey for online courses was distributed with the agenda. (south.ecc.edu/dl) The only major change is that only 30% of the students reported using telephone modem for their internet connection.

The “DL student self check” (south.ecc.edu/dl) was discussed as an alternative to the Are you Ready questions available on dl.ecc.edu. It was decided that the revised self-check would be sent in the fall to online faculty and perhaps included on the dl faculty webpage as an optional component of their orientation.

The Student Skills Assessment designed as part of the Perkins Assessment will be included as part of the student satisfaction survey. Bob Germony will include the questions.

6. Reports  Blackboard and ANGEL Systems Administrator – Carol Baker o There are currently 521 users on ANGEL, including 79 faculty. The ANGEL fall course sites for online and hybrid courses have been created.

7. Other Two meetings will be scheduled in the Fall 2004, one at North and the other at South.