Districtwide Distance Education Steering Committee
Minutes for
Monday, September 13, 2010
12:00-1:30 p.m.
Continuing Education – North City Center Rm. 112
Attendees
Elizabeth Barrington, Hank Beaver, Mary Burns Prine, Gail Conrad, Bill Craft, Rob Ewell, Fred Garces, Roger Gee, Dave Giberson, Aileen Gum, Andrea Henne, Mary Kingsley, Paula Miranda, Rechelle Mojica, Jane Newcomb, Karen Owen, Katie Palacios, Sandra Pesce, Angela Romero, Susan Schwarz, Leslie Shimazaki, Alison Steinberg
Minutes
The Committee reviewed the minutes from the May 10, 2010, meeting. Susan moved to approve the minutes and Gail seconded. The minutes were voted approved. All minutes are posted to http://www.sdccdonline.net/handbook/minutes.htm.
Introduction of Committee Members and Online Faculty Mentors for Fall 2010
Each member of the Committee introduced themselves:
Elizabeth Barrington, Mesa College instructor teaching Health online; Elizabeth would like to address Student Authenticity practices this coming year.
Hank Beaver, Mesa College instructor teaching CBTE online and Mesa College’s Online Faculty Mentor.
Mary Burns Prine, Continuing Education instructor teaching Older Adult Education online and Continuing Education’s Academic Senate Representative.
Gail Conrad, District Office Director of DSPS.
Bill Craft, Mesa College instructor teaching Web Design online and Dean of Learning Resources/Instructional Support; Bill would like to see more avenues for streaming video made available for students and faculty.
Rob Ewell, City College’s Dean of Information and Learning Technology.
Fred Garces, Miramar College instructor teaching Chemistry lecture and lab online and Miramar College’s Online Faculty Mentor.
Roger Gee, Mesa College instructor teaching Accounting online and sits as a charter member of the Committee.
Dave Giberson, Instructional Design Coordinator for SDCCD Online Learning Pathways with an emphasis on CMS management.
Aileen Gum, City College instructor teaching English online and City College’s Online Faculty Mentor.
Andrea Henne, SDCCD’s Dean of Online and Distributed Learning.
Mary Kingsley, Senior Secretary for Online and Distributed Learning.
Paula Miranda, SDCCD Online Learning Pathways Curriculum Technician
Rechelle Mojica, Miramar College’s Access Technology Specialist and instructor teaching Personal Growth online.
Jane Newcomb, Continuing Education instructor teaching multimedia online and Continuing Education’s Online Faculty Mentor.
Karen Owen, Mesa College Department Chair for CBTE, Multimedia, Web Design and GIS.
Katie Palacios, Instructional Design Coordinator for SDCCD Online Learning Pathways with an emphasis on faculty training/course development and City College instructor teaching Web Page Creation online.
Sandra Pesce, City College Electronic Resource Librarian and City College’s Academic Senate Representative.
Angela Romero, Miramar College instructor teaching Political Science online and Miramar College’s Academic Senate Representative.
Susan Schwarz, Miramar College’s Dean of Library and Technology.
Leslie Shimazaki, Continuing Education’s Dean of Parenting & Emeritus Programs and Distance Education.
Alison Steinberg, Mesa College’s Online Services Librarian.
Updates: EduStream, iTunes, Turnitin, Blackboard Learn
EduStream: SDCCD is a member of California Community College’s EduStream project, which provides access to captioned ADA- compliant educational video which can be linked within Blackboard Vista. Faculty can contact their Institutional Site Administrator for creating new accounts. SDCCD EduStream Institutional Site Administrators are: Mary Burns Prine for Continuing Education, Fred Garces for Miramar College, Sandra Pesce for City College and Hank Beaver for Mesa College. Gail shared that EduStream will be partnering with the Distance Education Captioning and Transcription (DECT) Grant Program. The Distance Education Captioning and Transcription Grant provides CCCs with funding for captioning and transcription as a means of enhancing the access of all students to distance education courses and courses that use digital instructional content. Andrea presented SDCCD Online Learning Pathways’ Faculty Resource page at http://www.sdccdonline.net/faculty/resources/edustream/ that highlights Edustream’s ‘Terms of Service,’ ‘User Manual,’ Training Introduction,’ and ‘Troubleshooting Guide.’
iTunesU: Andrea introduced the iTunesU website at http://itunes.sdccd.edu and thanked Roger Gee and Fred Garces (also David Kater) for their participation in the initial pilot of SDCCD’s iTunes and providing good examples of using iTunes for Accounting, Chemistry and Math . Faculty who attended the September 1 "iTunes at the SDCCD Workshop" were set up with iTunesU "shells" and learned how to use the site, which requires that iTunes be installed on the workstation. Andrea is the contact person for new iTunes account creation and support during this second stage of the iTunesU pilot project, which will run through Fall 2010.
Turnitin: Andrea presented SDCCD Online Learning Pathways faculty resource page ‘Turnitin Tips & Tutorials’ page at http://www.sdccdonline.net/faculty/resources/turnitin/. This resource page has a link to the archive of the August 11 Turnitin workshop, FAQs, ‘How to create a Turnitin Assignment,’ ‘What to tell students about Turnitin,’ and more. Andrea reminded the group that the Turnitin software license was purchased by the District based on online student FTES. The Turnitin link is available in all Blackboard Vista course shells regardless of delivery mode. If it is found that oncampus sections are pushing the usage above that which was agreed upon in the software license contract, future contracts widening the scope of usage of Turnitin will need to be negotiated at the campus level. The group asked if Andrea could provide information on Fall 2010 usage of Turnitin at the next meeting.
Blackboard Learn 9.1: Andrea reported that the District’s Director of IT, Kent Keyser, has been making progress on contract negotiations with Blackboard to upgrade to the new Blackboard Learn 9.1 CMS. She said the next step is to plan the technical configuration of the new CMS, including ISIS integration. Andrea requested volunteers to participate in a Blackboard Learn Implementation Team which will work closely with IT on the technology set-up phase expected to start in October. This phase will be followed with a small pilot of course migration and student population in Spring 2010. Volunteers to serve on the Blackboard Learn Implementation Team are Bill Craft, Hank Beaver, Karen Owen, Roger Gee, Rob Ewell, Rechelle Mojica, Elizabeth Barrington, and Fred Garces. A representative from Continuing Education is TBA.
Fall 2010 Status Report
Andrea distributed the ‘Semester Comparison’ handout that tracks the number of online course sections offered Fall 2001 to present. She also provided a handout ‘Update on SDCCD Online Learning Pathways,’ which she reviewed with the Committee. SDCCD Online Learning Pathways supports 11 different start dates this semester, so the course preparation is ongoing. Online course sections for Fall 2010, including Continuing Education amount to 585 at present, a 22% increase over Fall 2009. She reported that the number of oncampus course sections as of 9/07 for Fall 2010, with more being added daily, add up to 799 sections, a 25% increase over Fall 2009. She also provided the group with session start information on Blackboard usage for 8/23. On 8/23 there were 18,326 oncampus enrollments, 17,590 online enrollments, totaling 35,826 "seats" in courses. Andrea reviewed the Fall 2010 instructional technology workshop schedule with the Committee.
Andrea addressed the concern posed by Miramar College that City College courses are listed first on the District schedule, which could lead to City’s courses filling faster. Andrea shared information with the group that was distributed at Chancellor’s Cabinet on 9/7/10. The information showed that Miramar had a 94% fill rate, Mesa College had a 91% fill rate, and City College had an 88% fill rate.
@One OnlineTeaching Certification Program
Andrea provided a flyer describing the @One Online Teaching Certification Program. Each of the five core online classes is four weeks long and requires approximately ten hours each week. After completion of the online enrollment form, the 45-minute online orientation, and the five core classes, participants will receive a Certificate from the @One Program that they have successfully completed the program’s curriculum which has been designed to fulfill iNACOL’s National Standards for Quality Online Teaching. More information can be found at http://www.onefortraining.org/certification.
Spring 2010 Student Feedback Survey
Andrea distributed copies for the Colleges and Continuing Education to share of the 92-pages of results of the District’s ‘Spring 2010 Student Feedback Survey for Online Students.' The Committee reviewed the results and although most comments were positive, some student comments that are of concern include ‘CMS is clunky and difficult to navigate,’ ‘Teacher feedback was not forthcoming or too slow,’ ‘More video within the course would be helpful,’ ‘Publisher websites that charge access fees are undesirable,’ and ‘No feedback on exams is difficult for students.’ Susan suggested addressing the Student Feedback concerns by using Blackboard’s announcement feature to let students know that their concerns are being considered. Andrea added that one of the student concerns is that Blackboard Vista is clunky and that concern is already being met with the upgrade to Blackboard Learn. Rob suggested including what recourse online students have if they are having a problem with either the technology or the curriculum in an online course (before the student falters.) Karen would like to see the survey hone in on the most popular response regarding instructor communication, by breaking down the question into several specific questions. Aileen would like to see the CBTE 160A ‘Introduction to Online Learning’ course brought back for better student preparation. Although two-thirds of the students responding to the survey report taking a previous online course, this course could include how to meet the varied expectations of different online instructors.
Next Meeting: Monday, October 18, 12:00-1:30pm, Mesa College LRC 435
Respectfully Submitted By Mary Kingsley