DE meeting notes 3-12-15
Members present: Mark Winter, Mark Renner, Amazing Student, Lisa Sayles, Reno Giovannetti, James
Hayes, Liz Carlyle, Wendy Riggs
Absent: Crislyn Parker, Mike Butler
ACTIONS
1. Meeting was called to order at 3:01pm.
2. There were no public comments.
3. 2/24/15 meeting notes will be considered after C. Parker’s return.
4.1- Datatel Printed Comments (Winter). Text has been reworded for clarity and content to keep it
concise and clear. Voted and passed to approve this.
4.2- DE Messaging (Winter, Giovannetti). Changing branding from DE --> CR Online to help will clarify
information. For example, in an email, the “from” will say CR Online (right now it says Distance
Education). It was voted on and approved to change all branding from “Distance Education” to “CR
Online.”
4.3- Course Proposal Form (Winter). DE Course proposal form has been revised to 1 page. There will be
documents associated with the new form. Some improvements include #4, which clarifies DE format
including interactive video based vs online learning based (and hybrid). The next step is to take this to
the curriculum committee. Group voted and approved the motion to continue the processes required
to update this form. It was made clear that if we move quickly, the form might be included on the 3/27
curriculum committee meeting, indicating that this is a time sensitive issue and it is in the best interest
of the college to move it forward quickly.
4.4- Canvas Access Dates (Renner, Giovannetti, Hayes). An email was sent out at the end of February,
because it was discovered that some faculty may have been accepting graded student work before the
start of the semester. The instructional council said, “This can’t happen.” So the institution must now
decide how to standardize the dates when Canvas courses are available to students. Thank you to
James for his work in helping identifying these dates. The solution attempts to give faculty maximal
flexibility by allowing courses to stay open (with read/write access) for 1 year. Another concern is
making sure instructors are WISE and sustainable with our use of Canvas storage space. Thank you to
Reno and James for all their work in figuring out how this works in Canvas. We’d like to pass this
information on to the Senate for discussion. (Note: Individual instructors can OVERRIDE the default
term dates in Settings under Course Details. This is why the DE people will prepare a WHITE PAPER to
explain that instructors are NOT ALLOWED to change the start date.) Instructors must make sure
students CANNOT participate in GRADED things EARLY. We vote to approve sending this thing to
Senate.
DISCUSSION
5.3- Two Proposed New Non-Credit Classes (Liz Carlyle and Reno G). The first course will be a pre-req
for taking an online course and is (currently) called Online Tools Orientation. It will be a face to face noncredit course to make sure all students know how the CR online tools work. It will be up to 9 hours (and
can vary, because it is non-credit). The other course will be a fully online ONLINE orientation. This will
help the institution to NOT overlook those who are underprepared. Someone asks how a student
would know whether or not to take it. The counselors would recommend it for students. The
counselors would also have the RESULTS of the Penn State Readiness Test and could recommend these
non-credit courses for the students who didn’t pass the readiness test. When would it be offered? DE
and NC would decide this (once the curriculum is approved). It might also go with the college
orientation NC course. Selling it like a “workshop” might be more appealing to students. Students can
also get certificates to go with these courses. The group should consider offering the certificate with the
college orientation course (Guidance 214) and the fully online orientation (while being prudent about
requiring students take the super-basic course if they don’t need it). Liz wants feedback on this COR. It
is agreed that there are many students that will benefit from this. Is it possible to put include references
to this course in the Webadvisor comments for all online courses? (Or put it in the online info letter for
each course.)
5.1- CR Online Faculty Handbook Update (Winter). This will be equal to the faculty handbook, just
specifically for online teaching. The goal is to send this to the Senate for a discussion. It will probably be
revised every year. Based on the Mendocino model (which was based on the Pasadena model- they use
Canvas!). Please offer feedback. Group agrees it looks very good. Appendices will be live linked. The
regular effective contact and accessibility pieces need to be out there for all faculty asap. Timeline: in 2
weeks, DEPC will approve this document. Then it goes to senate for approval...then to Keith for posting.
5.2- DE Action Plan (Renner). Lots of colleges were explored to develop this outline and there is a lot of
overlap with the previous document. It is agreed that an action plan should keep you focused on
PLANNING. It must be clarified: Is this an Annual program review or a comprehensive program review
(20-40 pages long)...or an action plan (4 pages long with a focus on operational and concrete tasks). The
group feels there might not be enough time to build a 40 page document in the few months before we
have a new ½ time DE director (and ½ time director of LRC). Keith wants a plan...but more importantly,
the new director needs a GUIDE to help them know what to do. It was suggested that we frame this
year as an “infrastructure” building year...then next year we give them a “this is what we did this year”
document. And then we have a short term action plan, including items like: build in training for
students...find incentives for faculty to teach online courses...and then the new director needs to do a
comprehensive program review. We couldn’t do this comprehensive review this year because we were
doing so much. The action plan for new person should also include a bit of history so new person has
some background. The Marks will revise the approach to the DE Action Plan. The OEI newsletter refers
to several potential training opportunities (including @ONE). These are examples of things that could go
on this action plan. Committee members were given a homework assignment: Come up with some DE
GOALS you have as well as places where you can offer help.
5.4- Evaluation KIT (Renner): It is an LTI that can go into Canvas...but it is expensive. It can be afforded
if it goes into program review. This might help make student evals easier in general! Maybe we can
ALWAYS offer student evals. Something like this might become available through OEI as well.
REPORTS
6.1- Template for New Welcome Letters (Winter). It is going out (because this is the REPORT section!)
Faculty might want to offer input to welcome letter template.
6.2- Online Class Evaluation Training Presentation (Winter). These resources are for people who are
doing EVALS of online classes but don’t have much experience with online courses. There will be a PDF
and narrated PPT to go with this. Timeline: We’re waiting for CRFO input/approval first.
6.3- Online Instructor Evaluation Process and Checklists (Renner). This includes the rest of the online
eval process. This will operationalize this process. This was shared with instructional council, but CRFO
has to sign off on this, and they’ve been absolutely swamped.
6.4- Telepresence
6.5- SKIP
6.6- SKIP
6.7- Respondus lockdown trial (Hayes). Respondus lockdown trial is happening. Renner will use it 4/17
and during finals. IT is deploying this on district workstations ASAP. Bernards says browsers are
outdated, which is causing drama between Respondus and browser on the computers. Browsers need
to be updated!
6.8- OTLT Update (Winter). 14 graduates! 14 happy, wiser students! This is how we GROW a
PROGRAM. Graduates need to have help recording videos...SOON, so we can keep the momentum of
these people.
Meeting adjourned 4:33pm