Districtwide Distance Education Steering Committee

Districtwide Distance Education Steering Committee Minutes for Monday, May 11, 2009 12:00-1:30 p.m. Miramar College W-248

Attendees

Hank Beaver, Gwyn Enright, Dave Giberson, Andrea Henne, Mary Kingsley, Joe McGerald, Paula Miranda, Rechelle Mojica, Sandra Pesce, Mary Prine, Michael Reese, Susan Schwarz, Leslie Shimazaki, Brian Sos, Mary Strobbe and Jim Wales.

Andrea introduced new Steering Committee member, Dean Leslie Shimazaki. Leslie has recently been assigned to oversee Distance Education for Continuing Education as part of her regular duties.

Minutes

The Committee reviewed the minutes for the April 13, 2009, meeting. Rechelle motioned to accept the minutes and Mary P. seconded. All minutes are posted to http://www.sdccdonline.net/handbook/minutes.htm.

Review of 2008-2009

Andrea provided “Semester Comparison Number of Fully and Partially Online Course Sections Offered” handout. She noted that in Spring 2009 there was over 8% growth in number of sections offered, but current projected numbers for Summer 2009 show over a 7% decline. The group discussed the ways that unfunded FTES may affect growth in District course offerings. Jim shared that Mesa College will not be offering 4-week early summer online courses this year.

Andrea reported on faculty training efforts. Paula’s analysis showed SDCCD Online Learning Pathways had trained 135 faculty members in ‘08-’09. Also, there have been over 50 faculty members in attendance at various workshops provided throughout the year.

Andrea reported that there were approximately 525 oncampus course sections using Blackboard in ’08-’09. The number of oncampus courses using Blackboard is nearly the same as for online courses. Brian asked if the instructors using Blackboard for oncampus courses are the same instructors that are teaching online. Dave estimated that 1/2- 2/3 of the oncampus instructors using Blackboard to enhance their courses also teach online. He reminded the group that the instructors who currently use Blackboard for their oncampus courses are our best candidates for online instructors in the future.

Andrea shared that the once hot topic of online student authentication appears to have cooled off from both legislators and accreditation teams. Andrea is confident that SDCCD is in compliance with current requirements. Another challenge this year was the technical issue of incompatibility with Blackboard Vista and the proxy servers at the colleges and Continuing Education. Mesa IT is reviewing the proxy server setup to help solve the problem.

Among this year’s highlights was having online instruction at the SDCCD featured in the District’s December 2008 issue of WE Magazine.

Online Faculty Mentors’ Final Reports for 2008-09

Joe shared his enthusiasm for Continuing Education’s appointment of administrator, Leslie Shimazaki to oversee Distance Education at CE. Joe welcomed her support and leadership. Joe reported that the challenges have continued. Some of the challenges and positives he noted 1) Hardware/Proxy issues; 2) Problems with web-enhanced courses because the classroom facilities are out-of-date; 3) Continuing Education (CE) does not have an online student registration system. In the current plan, the student will not receive a CSID until several weeks after registration; 4) Because CE calculates student attendance differently, they are interested in a different model using more hybrid web-based courses; 5) Joe noted that it is not just the Business Information Technology courses that are interested in web-based technology as demonstrated by Mary P. and other current instructors; and 6) Leslie confirmed that there will be 7 online courses offered for Summer 2009. Leslie is currently working through the curriculum approval process for current CE distance education courses.

Crystal was not present, but did submit a year-end report to Andrea. Crystal reported that she encountered negativity towards distance education. She reported that the Counseling Department at Miramar had advised students to not take online courses. Rechelle responded by sharing that she had been informed that the Counselors had provided sound advice to students who in the past had not fared well with online learning or had trouble with the particular course subject stating “For certain students online courses are not a good idea.” Rechelle also reported that the Department Chair of Counseling at Miramar College as of July 1, David Navarro, will attend a meeting of the Miramar College Distance Education Committee. Crystal reported that Math instructors at Miramar are leaning towards offering no fully online courses. Susan reminds the group that neither City, nor Mesa have offered fully online Mathematics courses. Crystal would also like to see online courses be offered as their own college entity. She also expressed interest in the return of the Online Teaching Excellence Symposium. Mary S. shared that online learning is effectively highlighted at least once a year at her department meetings. Susan stated that there has been significant and positive progress at Miramar. She also announced that she has sent out a request-for-application for ‘09-‘10 Miramar College Online Faculty Mentor.

Gwyn reported success with the J.O.T. (Just One Thing) brownbag workshops. So far, several faculty members have been spotlighted; faculty shared their successful techniques with 30 of their peers across departments. Ten different areas including English, Health, Math, Graphic Arts, History, Black Studies, CBTE, District Online, Counseling, and Nursing participated. Gwyn’s goal has been to persuade online instructors to teach smarter, not harder. Gwyn applauded Katie’s work with the instructors helping them to design and manage their courses. Gwyn shared that budgetary constraints have made adding new online course sections to City College’s schedule very challenging. Andrea announced that Mary Benard has reassigned Gwyn for 2009-2010 City College Online Faculty Mentor.

Hank thanked Dave for introducing him to Camtasia over a year ago. Since then, Hank has started to implement some of the various uses of video for Mesa online courses. Hank explained several ways video can add dimension to online courses while he provided a demonstration to the group. Some uses for video include instructor introductions, lectures, explaining difficult concepts, guest speaker appearances, tutorial videos, and giving added life to a course. While demonstrating, Hank shared a website from France that has hundreds of music scores as mp3 downloads available, after permission, to use in video work www.free-scores.com. He reports that Katie’s presence at Mesa has been wonderful and the video tutorials made by Dave and Katie have been very helpful. Hank is planning to expand the use of captioned video to all oncampus instructors in the Fall.

All of the Online Faculty Mentors in attendance were awarded a well-deserved Certificate of Appreciation for their service in 2008-2009.

Plans for 2009-2010

Andrea announced some upcoming projects that may come into fruition next year. 1) Vocational Nursing at City College has received Perkins Grant funds to create online courses; 2) Miramar College Online Counseling will be moving out of its pilot stage and into full student use; 3) Online Tutoring at City College will be changing from the NetTutor platform onto Blackboard Vista; 4) Miramar has received approval to offer degrees and certificates online; and 5) The District has received Perkins Grant funding to purchase hardware and software for a Portable Multimedia Studio that will provide opportunities to instructors who could borrow the equipment or work with staff to create multimedia learning objects for their online courses in the Career-Technical areas. If the Portable Multimedia Studio shows high demand there may be opportunities for further expansion in the future.

Jim shared that Mesa College will be moving all matriculation services online next year.

Susan reported that The PLACe will be offering online tutoring for Miramar College; Diana Fink is currently working on the proposal.

Status of Safe Assign Rollout

Andrea reported that the rollout of SafeAssign is currently on hold. Otto Lee had requested campus feedback be received before Districtwide implementation. Mesa College suggested a minor change to suggested syllabus wording. Brian shared that City College’s Academic Senate recommended referring to Policy 3100. The Miramar Academic Senate discussed that academic integrity and honesty are the fundamental issues. Mary S. feels that the wording does not go far enough; she added that the penalty for cheating should be clearly defined in each course syllabus. Andrea thanked the Committee for their input and suggested the syllabus wording can evolve over time. SafeAssign will most likely be activated for summer. It will be up to individual instructors if they choose to use it. The staff will offer training and instructor support. Meeting Schedule for Fall and Spring

Andrea presented the results from the survey she had sent to all Steering Committee members for their vote on Steering Committee meeting days and times. She received fifteen responses. The majority choose to keep the meeting day Monday and meeting time from 12:00-1:30 p.m.

Open Forum

Joe asked that everyone that includes him on a distribution list to please add him again as his email address has undergone some changes and he is not receiving important emails.

Next Meeting: September 14, 2009, 12:00-1:30 p.m., location TBA.

Respectfully Submitted By Mary Kingsley