Distance Learning Council Meeting Notes

February 18, 2016

Attendees: Mark Bernhard, Megan Linos. Ann White, Shelly Blunt, Kat Draughon, Andrew Wright, Mayola Rowser, Dawn Stoneking, ChadMilewicz, Erin Reynolds, Joyce Gulley, RichardToeniskoetter, Marna Hostetler, Susanna Hoeness-Krupsaw, Susanna Amy Chan Hilton

Progress Review and State Updates

  • Kat Draughon confirms that all distance learning related information for the HLC visit is now received. Currently, it is in the final editing stage.
  • Mark Bernhard provided a brief report of the task status since July 2015.
  • Kat Draughon and Shelly Blunt indicated minimum progress has been made for the course evaluation modification due to the number of items on the faculty senate meeting agenda last semester. Megan Linos mentioned that a group of department chairs and instructional designers (16 people) co-join an EDUCAUSE/ELI workshop regarding effective online teaching evaluation for the whole campus. This can be extremely helpful when redesigning the course evaluation for distance learning.
  • Shelly Blunt asked for a status update of the Equivalent Instructional Activity (EIA) guideline that was discussed last semester. Megan Linos indicated that there were conflicted opinions from the council members regarding if USI needs to develop its own version of EIA policy/guideline, so the task was pending after samples from peer institutions were presented. The conclusion from last semester was using the samples from peer institutions as reference when needed. Shelly Blunt expressed a need to further developing the USI’s EIA policy to fulfill HLC’s requirements, and the Distance Learning Council agreed that USI should form a small task force team and develop a USI version of the EIA guideline as a recommendation (best practice) for academic departments and faculty when developing and/or evaluating online courses. Thus, Megan Linos will work with Lori Saxby to form a small task force team to work on this task.
  • Mark Bernhard mentioned about the issue that Susanna Hoeness-Krupsaw raised recently regarding how to define online attendance for the mid-term evaluation/grade report. Susanna confirmed that the email provided by Megan Linos answered her questions. However, the university’s policy for grade reporting may not be suitable for online courses. The same taskforce that Megan will form with Lori above can address this issue.
  • Mark Bernhard gave a quick update about the AP Partnerships. MBA will be the first AP program (plan to be launched in August 2016), then nursing and teacher education will be developed afterwards.
  • Mark Bernhard opened a discussion regarding developing the next Distance Learning strategic plan (2016 – 2020).
  • Shelly Blunt inquired about the accomplishment report from the previous strategic plan (2012 – 2015) and thought this can be valuable when developing the next plan. Megan Linos indicated that although the result was extremely positive and the report is in progress to be developed, it will take more time to complete due to limited staffing resources in her team.
  • Megan Linos introduced the idea of starting a “self-study” process while waiting for the university’s strategic plan to be announced.
  • OLC published a Quality Scorecard (QSC) that assesses 9 areas in higher education institutions in terms of campus readiness in distance learning development. OLC’s QSC can be a tool to help USI conduct the self-study and truly assess where USI is at in terms of its readiness level in developing distance learning.
  • Chad Milewicz suggested to review the QSC rubrics in closer detail to make sure the items aligns with the strategic plan development. Shelly Blunt and Kat Draughon thought there is a valuable point to Chad’s suggestion, but it can still be important for USI to complete the full QSC evaluation to not only provide the council ideas for strategic plan development but also allow us to understand if what we have accomplished is aligned with the standards and where the gaps still exist. Megan Linos indicated the self-study result can also be viewed as evidence for the HLC visit, which shows the commitment of USI devoted to improve distance learning.
  • Megan Linos opened a discussion on what should be accomplished from this self-study. Who should be involved? What are the appropriate milestones and timeline?
  • Megan proposed a rough timeline/milestones for group discussion, which the council agreed that we may only be able to form a small group retreat scheduled in May due to faculty’s availability in summer team. Mark Bernhard suggested that Megan reach out to some experts at other universities to discuss how they’ve successfully implemented similar processes – this could include speaking with University of Illinois-Springfield (Ray Schroeder or Vicki Cook), UCF (Tom Cavanaugh), or others. Megan should report out her findings at the March meeting.
  • Feb. – Mar.Forming the Task Force Team
  • Mar. – Apr.USI’s Self-Study using OLC’s QSC
  • MayDistance Learning Retreat
  • Jun. – Jul.External Consultation
  • Aug. – SepInitial Strategic Plan Draft
  • Mid-OctoberFinalized the Strategic Plan (2016 – 2020)
  • A small task forced team for the self-study was formed at the end of this council meeting, and Megan Linos will serve as the team lead. The 7 members are Mark Bernhard (O&E), Dawn Stoneking (O&E), Phil Orr (Library), Amy Chan-Hilton (CETL). Chad Milewicz (faculty), Greg Johnson (OPRA), and a student from the adult learning scholarship.Megan recommends adding a dean and a department chair.