AGENDA ITEM BACKGROUND
TO: GOVERNING BOARD
DATE
October 5, 2015
FROM: PRESIDENT
SUBJECT:
Distance Education 2014/2015 Annual Report
REASON FOR BOARD CONSIDERATION
ITEM NUMBER
INFORMATION
ENCLOSURE(S)
Page 1 of 3
BACKGROUND: Districts are required to make an annual report of their distance education activity to their local
governing boards, and then forward a copy to the State Chancellor’s Office. Goal 2.4 of the College Strategic Plan states
that the College will “Provide for the growth of distance education courses/sections as determined by student demand.”
Distance Education has been one of the few areas of growth in student enrollment for the past few years, and demand for
online instruction remains strong. The distance education option also provides program flexibility in scheduling and facility
use.
The Distance Education Committee continues to focus on how to improve pedagogy, technology, and services to support
student success. Quality instruction includes frequent faculty-student interaction, a requirement under Title 5 of the
Education Code. Quality instruction is also the leading factor affecting a student’s level of satisfaction with a course,
which is a strong predictor of success and retention. In order to improve the quality of instruction and student success with
online courses, continuous improvements are made to course design as well as in the technological support for online
courses, and services for online students.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office statewide Online Education Initiative (OEI) has been a leader in
the effort to improve the quality of online education and the success of online students by providing all California
Community Colleges with access to a new and improved course management system, continuous online tutoring support
for students, and online modules to better prepare students for success in an online course environment. The OEI hosts a
statewide exchange open to all students with a common application and assessment tool, offering online courses which
have been vetted through a rigorous selection and review process for optimum quality. Cabrillo was selected as one of 24
colleges statewide to launch the initiative; we are one of 8 colleges to pilot the Student Readiness component, which
includes the 24/7 tutoring support and readiness modules. Three of our online courses are now listed in the OEI statewide
exchange that students from anywhere can access.
Enrollment in online courses: FTES in online courses increased to 1,103.31 in 2014-15, up by 86.72 FTES or 8.53% over
the total FTES of 1,016.59 in 2013-141. The number of hybrid and web-enhanced courses continues to increase, with the
use of mobile technologies soon to surpass computers as the primary point of access to the Internet. Students have the
additional opportunity to accelerate their educational progress through Cybersession, online courses offered during the last
eight weeks of the semester. Cabrillo offered a total of 3,341 sections in 2014-15, and online courses represented 9% of
that total at 301 sections.
Online degrees available at Cabrillo: As outlined on the Distance Education website, Cabrillo currently offers seven
AA/AS online degrees or certificates of achievement, in addition to the 50+ General Education courses that students can
1
California Community College Chancellor’s Office DataMart, http://datamart.cccco.edu/Students/FTES_Summary_DE.aspx
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use to complete GE requirements for any degree. Courses are offered on a predictable schedule so that students can plan
for the sequence of courses needed to reach their educational goal in the timeliest manner.
Support for Distance Education students, faculty, and professional development: Cabrillo’s distance learning focus is on
improving success and retention rates through faculty development and smarter course design. Technology competency
and teaching effectiveness are directly related to online course quality and student achievement. In addition, online courses
must include activities for different learning styles and accommodate disabled distance learners. The Teaching and
Learning Center (TLC) staff (director and support assistant) provides support for several hundred student accounts each
semester, supporting all the online, web-enhanced and hybrid courses offered by the college. (Hybrid courses are either
mostly online with a few in-person class sessions, or structured so that a course that would normally meet twice a week
meets in person weekly and online for the other half of instruction and participation.) In July 2015, the college began a
transition from Blackboard to Canvas, a new and improved course management system piloted by the Online Education
Initiative and provided to the California community colleges to increase course success and completion in all online
courses. The DE Faculty Handbook, a supplement to Cabrillo’s Faculty Handbook to inform faculty of best practices,
policies and procedures related to distance education, is also updated by TLC staff annually. The TLC Director assists
faculty with instructional design services for developing web-based materials in support of both online and on-campus
classes, including training in distance learning pedagogy, accessible web design (includes design for mobile delivery),
effective course design, student authentication strategies, student performance reporting, and the use of plagiarism
detection software. Strategies to engage students through regular effective contact can include the use of webinars,
discussion forums, and various assessment techniques. The two-day Blackboard Academy (now Canvas Academy) offered
during Flex week trains both new and experienced online instructors in the latest best practices for all of these areas.
Instructors also have access to regular desktop seminars and instructor-led online courses through the @ONE project,
where they can immerse themselves in learning best practices for online course development and teaching while
participating as an online student.
Professional development for online instructors: The College is seeking to increase the number of faculty prepared to
offer quality online instruction. In addition to the professional development opportunities offered through the Teaching and
Learning Center, faculty is being encouraged to take advantage of professional development offered statewide for online
instruction. Five faculty members were funded to attend the Online Teaching Conference this past summer to prepare for
teaching online or to incorporate student success modules into existing online courses, and the College will fund more
faculty to attend the 2016 conference. In addition, funding is available to support faculty enrollment into the @ONE
Online Teaching Certificate program, which will improve online course design and the usage of course management tools.
Finally, experienced online faculty are encouraged to participate in training to become peer online course reviewers, which
will enhance their knowledge of the latest best practices in online teaching excellence.
Distance Education Success and Completion: Statewide, a gap exists in completion and retention rates between distance
education and traditional instruction. This gap is being addressed through the Online Education Initiative, and at Cabrillo
through training for distance instructors by the Teaching and Learning Center Director. Student success in online courses
is directly related to sound instructional design and increased student familiarity with the technology. By engaging
students early in the course, this builds a positive faculty-student relationship. Regular assessment of student progress and
early alert mechanisms that steer students towards needed learning resources also improves student achievement, both in
classes using traditional delivery methods and for online classes. The achievement gap between online courses and those
using traditional delivery can be seen in Table 1 on the next page. The achievement gap statewide between basic skills and
non-basic skills classes presented in a traditional format is 7.28 percentage points, and Cabrillo slightly trails the statewide
average for basic skills retention and success and slightly exceeds the statewide average for non-basic skills retention and
success. This produces a larger achievement gap between basic skills and non-basic skills classes of 12.38 percentage
points.
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TABLE 1: 2014-15 RETENTION AND SUCCESS RATES STATEWIDE AND FOR CABRILLO, NON-DE
Term data collected for SU14, FA14, SP15
Basic Skills
Statewide
Cabrillo
86.27%
84.58%
Retention
63.06%
61.34%
Success
Non-Basic Skills
86.77%
88.13%
Retention
70.34%
73.72%
Success
Students enrolled in Basic Skills level DE courses demonstrate lower success and completion rates than students taking
degree applicable, transferable, or vocational courses. 2 Table 2 below reflects retention and success rates in DE sections
for summer, fall and spring terms for 2014-15, both statewide and at Cabrillo.
TABLE 2: 2014-15 DE RETENTION AND SUCCESS RATES STATEWIDE AND FOR CABRILLO
Term data collected for SU14, FA14, SP15
Basic Skills
Statewide
Cabrillo
79.06%
87.5%
Retention
49.36%
50.00%
Success
Non-Basic Skills
80.52%
84.51%
Retention
60.85%
63.34%
Success
Statewide, less than half of the students in online basic skills classes are successful, and the achievement gap as compared
to non-basic skills success is 11.49 percentage points. Cabrillo is slightly ahead of the statewide average in both retention
and success, both for basic skills and non-basic skills classes. Nonetheless, the achievement gap is still notable at 13.34
percentage points. Online educators are addressing this achievement gap by embedding basic skills support in online
course material, even in non-basic skills online courses, because many students enrolled in these courses still are
struggling with basic skills issues. Examples of embedding this support include providing links to word definitions or
pronunciation alongside vocabulary lists or reading texts, or providing links to explanations of formulas or YouTube
instructional videos for classes in the sciences or social sciences.
NEXT STEPS: The Distance Education Committee will analyze potential areas of growth in DE offerings that will enable
more students to complete degree and general education requirements, as well as ways in which to increase the success of
students taking DE classes and to decrease the achievement gap that is evident for certain groups of students such as
Latinos. There will also be a focus on developing more hybrid transfer level classes over the next five years through the
support of a recently funded Title V Hispanic Serving Institution grant. The DE committee is interested in providing a
forum for the exchange of best practices among Cabrillo DE instructors, in monitoring the information provided through
the College’s participation in the Online Exchange Initiative, and in increasing the number of faculty members prepared to
teach quality online and hybrid classes. While Distance Education is the sector experiencing the most rapid growth among
instructional delivery methods, the quality of instruction and success of students in this mode are critical to its expansion
and development.
2
California Community College Chancellor’s Office DataMart, http://datamart.cccco.edu/Outcomes/Course_Ret_Success.aspx
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