SDCCD Online Steering Committee
Minutes for
Friday, March 10, 2006
9:00am-10:30am
City College D-121A
Attendees:
Andrea Henne, Mary Kingsley, Otto Lee, Cassie Morton, Karen Owen, Hank Beaver, Debra Wright, Pete Miles, Jim Wales, Eric Nunes, Mary Lewis, Mary Meiners, Wahid Hamidy, Elizabeth Barrington, and Rechelle Mojica,
Minutes
The minutes for the February 10, 2006 SDCCD Online Steering Committee meeting were reviewed for approval. Minutes can be accessed at www.sdccdonline.net/handbook. Andrea handed out the meeting schedule for the rest of the academic year. The last two meetings this year will be held May 12th – Miramar College, and June 9th -City College
Announcements
Andrea announced that Bob Fritsch, Miramar College would take the SC Member seat left open by Leslie Klipper. Bob Fritsch is a faculty member from Miramar College and has taught online Art 100 for several years. Bob is also the president of Miramar College’s Academic Senate.
Andrea announced that Sergio Aunn has resigned from SDCCD Online. Sergio was a productive staff member and his services will be missed. Faculty leaders have been notified that Sergio’s absence from SDCCD Online will exclude Sergio from performing authorized trainings and course design work.
Andrea reported that she has hired Khoa Lam to fill Sergio’s position. Khoa is an SDSU student and has been completing training under Pete Miles. Khoa has picked up WebCT very quickly and has a very positive attitude toward his position.
Andrea also reported that in order to support an increase in workload, she has hired Patrick Salami. Patrick is an SDSU student with heavy IT background. Andrea feels with his programming experience Patrick will be helpful with SDCCD Online’s current and future ISD needs. Patrick is available Monday-Friday late hours and possibly weekends. His maximum workload would be 40 hours per week.
It has recently been announced that the District will hold an Early Summer session; the session will run June 6 – June 30. An early estimate of courses to be delivered online is City College-12 courses, Miramar College-20 courses, and Mesa College will participate with hybrid courses. Andrea reported that the Chancellor has approved more support for online faculty teaching this session and has allocated monies for each college to have SDCCD Online staff IDC work 25 hours per week, for three months from March 2006 to June 2006. This position will support faculty by appointments and by delivering specific support has requested by each campus. Andrea asked the group for suggestions for applicants, Community College students will not be considered.
Faculty Training - WebCT CE Levels 1-5
Andrea handed out the SDCCD Online Spring Training Schedule.
Cherie Blut remains productive with SDCCD Online and will be facilitating the online faculty trainings in WebCT CE. Following the 16-hour online workshops there will be 4-hour face-to-face workshops that will overview the online session and wrap up the 20-hour trainings. Certificates are available for those who complete both the online and on-campus portions of the training. Pete has scheduled five rounds of WebCT CE trainings, three starting in March and two starting in April. Debra will be holding one of these trainings at the SDCCD Online lab (W-222) all her training workshops will be held face-to-face.
Vista 4 trainings will begin this summer for the selected Vista 4 pilot instructors. SDCCD Online will provide training for approximately 20 instructors who will be teaching on Vista 4 platform in Fall 2006. There will be mass Vista 4 trainings in the Fall for instructors preparing to teach with Vista 4 in Spring 2007. Discussion took place on who will be selected to teach these pilot courses. Vista 4 support and training budget is in the Business Plan, no plan, no money.
Vista 4 Strategic Planning
Andrea asked for guidelines in the selection of the Vista 4 pilot courses; she has met with the college VPIs and been instructed that Wahid, Rose, and Hank would be the college representatives that work closest with online faculty and would be best to select participants. The options are 1) Selecting the Power Users of WebCt to create Master courses, 2) Select Departments to team-participate of the building of Master courses, 3) Select sections that are in constant high demand to have Master Courses ready for delivery, 4) Select less popular courses for pilot Master Courses, or 5) Brand new courses with no conversion problems, just course design from bottom up.
Much discussion took place about IPR, Compensation for building courses, contract agreements for course delivery, Elizabeth reported that she has applied for a sabbatical in the Fall to build a Master Course for the Health Department at Mesa . Karen told the group that Mesa CBTE has a long history of team teaching and collaborative efforts. Andrea suggested that Rose, Wahid, Hank and Elizabeth meet with her to come up with some guidelines for selection, perhaps a list of criteria that could be provided to the Deans. Each college will need their own master course for each course taught.
Presentations
Andrea provided handout “Assuring that the Online Course is Ready for Primetime” checklist. Andrea will have the checklist posted on our website and provide copies to all VPIs, School Deans, and Department Chairs. Andrea will be presenting on “Template Design and Development of Online Courses” at the upcoming 2006 TechED conference in Pasadena later this month.
Business Plan Presentations to Academic Senates
Andrea and Dr. Ingle presented the Business Plan to Faculty Leadership at Miramar and City campuses (Presentation to Mesa Leaders scheduled.) Andrea provided Power Point handout of the presentation. Overall, they received a positive response. Some concerns from faculty were that SDCCD Online would not aspire to be like the University of Phoenix. Andrea shared that the District has many needs to staff positions and purchase equipment. She explained that when drafting the Business Plan she was asked to interpret growth and describe the current and future needs of SDCCD Online. She detailed the needs, costs, and what it would take to continue to support current growth trends in online delivery. It is not determined whether the Business Plan as is will have District wide support. If the Plan is not supported, Andrea will look at alternatives in existing resources.
IT Support
Karen reminded the group that IT services are required to install the $30k server, currently sitting in storage. When installed, the server would reside in the District’s Computer Distribution Center’s District Data Where house. Mary Lewis reported that the server was purchased through a grant to enhance distance education and make it accessible. If the server is not installed by June 30th we will lose our opportunity for trainings through Adobe. Andrea will provide Karen with a Computer Service Request form and both Karen and Mary Lewis will work on this submittal. Rechelle recommended that the streaming server also be installed. Andrea also reported that IT’s Blair Gibb has taken a position out of the District and another IT representative will be assigned to SDCCD Online.
Best Practices Showcase and Expo
The Best Practices Showcase and Expo Planning Group has been meeting regularly. Andrea received an adequate response from her Call for Exemplary courses. The group will be meeting today to review submittals. Each member was provided event flyers and asked to distribute to interested parties. All faculty will be invited via e-mail, event postcard, and faculty mentor encouragements.
DSPS support
Mary Lewis reported that there are still 170 hours available for live captioning. The group feels that the announcement of this availability has been too stale and perhaps an announcement with examples of varied uses would receive a better response. There are also funds available for live synchronous chats. This opportunity will end June 30.
Early Access to Wait Lists
Andrea has resolved that early access to waitlist is not available. Lynn Neault represents that the roster for each course does not belong to the instructor until the first day of the session, as it is dynamic in nature. Many group members disagreed with this notion and believe that they are better prepared to begin class on the first day of the session if they have access to waitlists before the session starts.
Open Forum
Mary Meiners asked for clarification on the 30-45 day Course Readiness guideline. Mary is in support of this effort and would like the guideline approved by Academic Senates and College Online Committees.
City College has formed an Online Committee, both Mesa and Miramar Colleges have Online Committee development in the works. Andrea is an invited member of the City College Online Committee and expressed availability to serve on Mesa and Miramar Committees as well.
Elizabeth promoted the creation of an audio-free video advertising Online Courses that could be played in places around campus (cafeteria, admissions office, counseling offices) to expose students to the benefits of online learning.
Next Meeting
The next meeting will be held Friday, May 12, 9:00am-10:30am at Miramar CDC W-248