OLAC Notes
March 19, 2015
A. Reviewed progress on updating the accessibility standard in our course review rubric:
 Sub-committee of Michelle, Ronda, and Christina are continuing to work on the revisions. They are
pulling ideas and resources from Open SUNY’s rubric version, OSCQR (Open SUNY COTE Quality
Review), please see
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ICwNCdRQTw7thRKCMLonrVaoyIin584gjUcu96YGzS8/ed
it#gid=637842929
 Discussed closed-captioning options to help meet accessibility requirements of the rubric.
i. Sub-committee to flush out information about different services for closed-captioning
and present to Teaching and Learning Technology Committee (TLTC)
Options
Camtasia
software
You Tube
Dept. of
Education
Service (Auto
sync)
Pros
Cons
Cost
Free
$70 for low
use course,
working on
approx. costs
for high use
course
Implementation
Faculty to create
and upload
Service transcribes
for faculty;
uploaded via our
Ensemble videostreaming server
Others?
Note: The Library must consider closed –captioning when acquiring media; they chose media
that is already close-captioned
Open SUNY is interested in negotiating a SUNY-wide contact with a vendor that can provide
captioning services.
B. Update on Open SUNY Wave II resources:
 Smart-Measure: Molly is participating this week in a demonstration on Smart-Measure, an online
readiness tool for online students. Currently, Buffalo State is using this tool and will share feedback
on its use and value after the semester ends.
- Net-Tutor: http://www.nettutor.com/
Johanna Lee, Director of Tutoring, is participating in a demo; she will share feedback
- Proctoring
Data base of proctoring sites is now available, see attachment to this email
Molly receiving updates on a service on this next week from SUNY
- Identity verification
Molly receiving updates on this next week from SUNY
- Starfish Retention Solution: Early Alert and Monitoring (Starfish)
o A 3rd party student tracking and early warning system
o Provides an automatic analysis of students’ activity (analytics)
o Provides a holistic approach to student activity (currently, we are doing this manually by
pulling together MTS warnings, emailing faculty, reaching out to offices, etc.)
o Current SUNY campuses using Starfish:
 Finger Lakes Community College
 Monroe Community College-currently implementing
o
Implementation:
 Requires IT involvement to merge SIS (Banner) data and LMS data
 Requires faculty and staff training
o Current Pricing- Approx. $11,000 -22,000/ year 1 based on numbers
o SUNY currently negotiating university wide pricing with the vendor (the vendor has just
been bought out by another company, which may slow down the contractual process)
Committee discussed the value of such software, yet agreed that there is a lot going in at the College right
now (Bb transition, Task-stream and course assessment, etc. ) and this is not the best time to advocate for
the Retention System. Jan encouraged Molly to reiterate to the administration that the Bb transition is a
priority and that other initiatives would benefit from a phased-in approach. There is concern that time spent
on other initiatives will take away from faculty participating in the Bb training.
C. Molly reminded the Committee that SUNY will be coming to the campus on March 20th, 2015 for the 1st
part (overview0 of our Institutional Visit. Molly encouraged the Committee to have a voice in upcoming
discussion.