April 8, 2004
The President’s Ad Hoc Committee on Distance Education (PACDE) is currently
engaged in the following projects:
1. Distance Prerequisite Science Courses for UA Health Programs
PACDE is funding a competitive call within the University of Alaska for the
development of two gateway courses needed as prerequisites to enter the health and
nursing programs referenced above. These courses have been identified jointly by
Karen Perdue’s team and by PACDE. Faculty whose proposals are selected will
receive a budget providing compensation and funding for materials and instructional
design assistance. They will be required to:
 Develop the courses
 Deliver them,
 Contribute to a scholarly article in the field of teaching science online
 Identify resources to appear on a web site dedicated to teaching science online
 Present the process of developing the course to peers
 Serve as a mentor to others within UA who wish to become involved in similar
activities.
Lead(s):
Project Budget:
Donna Schaad, Curt Madison and Jason Ohler,
$30,000
2. Distance Courses for UA Health Programs
Karen Perdue, the School of Nursing and the Allied Health deans have identified 50100 distance courses for development or modification in the near term to support
nursing, allied health and behavioral health programs. In some cases students have
already enrolled in these programs that are presently in need of quality distance
courses. PACDE is working directly with the health group to plan and develop course
work and to identify resources for the project. PACDE expects to be involved with this
project in a detailed and on-going manner. In particular, PACDE is commissioning the
development of nursing program prerequisite courses (see below) and is assisting in
course development for the high profile AAS in Nursing.
Lead:
Project Budget:
Jason Ohler
To be identified
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3. Distance Student Service Gap Assessment
Many of the issues PACDE addresses fall into the larger category of “student services”
for distance education students. Students who only attend UA through a single
campus tend to receive consistent services. This is not the case for distance students
who typically take courses from a number of campuses. Instead, student services are
not coordinated or easy to navigate, creating frustration in an area that is a fairly lowlevel service expectation from the student perspective. It has become paramount that
UA identify and resolve the differences among campuses that currently impede
students from receiving effective services, enabling completion of distance degree
programs. PACDE is working with the Student Services Council (SSC) to identify
these issues. The two groups are sharing resources to hire a consultant to conduct
interviews with advisors and student service personnel at all 15 campuses and collect
and categorize distance services and procedures currently in place.
The deliverables from this project include:
 Comprehensive listing of student services in tabular and narrative form
 In depth scenarios of trouble cases that currently exist within the UA system,
especially those cases that span multiple campuses.
 An easily searchable electronic document arranged by location and service
function providing step-by-step procedures.
 Descriptive document comparing current practice with “best practice” norms to
highlight areas requiring attention of student services personnel in the UA
system for distance students.
 A presentation to the Student Services Council about findings
Following the report, PACDE and the SSC will identify solutions through policy
creation, BANNER development or other means. As solutions are implemented
PACDE will assist in the creation of handbooks for distance students, teachers and
advisors as described below.
Lead:
Project Budget:
Curt Madison
$7,000
4. Creation of Distance Education Handbooks
As mentioned above, the Student Services Gap Analysis will require PACDE and the
SSC to recommend solutions to address problems. The two committees will jointly
complete distance education handbooks for faculty, students and advisors. This project
was begun a few months ago but suspended because it was premature, given that there
was on-going research and possible modification of current UA practices.
Lead:
Project Budget:
Donna Schaad
$5,000
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5. Maintain, Update and Improve the Distance Education Gateway
PACDE has assumed responsibility for maintaining all program listings on the
University of Alaska Gateway. PACDE assessed all links; many were found to be
inaccurate. It then solicited input from all deans, directors and others potentially
interested about the accuracy of their programs listed on the Gateway. All reported
corrections have been made and the website’s information has been redesigned.
While PACDE was updating the Gateway, it also performed an informal assessment of
each of the degree program web sites referenced on the Gateway based on two criteria:
1) Is it clear that that this is a distance program?
2) Is it clear what to do next if I am interested in the program?
The following rating scale was used:
1 = not clear 2 = somewhat clear 3 = fairly clear 4 = clear
For question 1, "Is it clear it is a distance program?" the results were:
 Not clear = 30 links
 Somewhat clear = 12 links
 Fairly clear = 4 links
 Clear = 7 links
For question 2, "Is it clear what to do next?" the results are:
 Not clear = 11 links
 Somewhat clear = 6 links
 Fairly clear = 13 links
 Clear = 18 links
Based on this informal review it is evident significant work needs to be done to
effectively serve UA distance students.
Lead:
Project Budget:
Jason Ohler
$1,000
6. Creation of PACDE Distance Education Historical Document Site
Because there is no centralized function for distance education at UA, institutional
history in this area is easily lost. Anecdotally, there is the perception that UA is often
“going back to square one” with distance education given the lack of knowledge of its
evolution at UA.
Therefore, PACDE collected numerous recent documents related to distance education
and made these accessible through a website it created titled, “The UA Distance
Education Historical Document Site.” The web address for this is:
http://uashome.alaska.edu/~jfjbo/UA-disted-history/
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Lead:
Project Budget:
Jason Ohler
$0
7. A Comparative Study of Distance Education Between UA and Peers
Unlike many other institutions of higher education, there is no centralized function for
distance education at UA. Because of this, it is difficult to formulate overall next steps
for UA in terms of developing a sustainable distance delivery component within the
UA structure. Therefore PACDE has contracted with Sally Johnstone from WCET to
develop models based on comparable institutions. PACDE and WCET will develop a
report based on their findings that will describe different paths for UA to take.
Lead:
Project Budget:
Jason Ohler
$5,000
8. Work force Development with Alyeska
PACDE, in partnership with UA Corporate Programs, is working to develop distance
learning materials for Alyeska’s Regulatory Online Training Project. The Regulatory
Online Training Project is meant to address the routine annual training for Alyeska
personnel. Currently the training is done seminar style with onsite presenters. This
project seeks to gain flexibility and efficiencies by allowing employees to meet their
regulatory requirements on their own schedule from their own workplaces through
online modules. The University of Alaska will take the lead in organizing the design of
online modules using the most current tools and problem-base learning theory.
Lead:
Project Budget:
UA Corporate Programs
to be determined
9. Hiring a Virtual Campus Web-Site Manager
Currently no one is assigned to the task of maintaining UA’s virtual campus (the
gateway and UAOnline), a fact that frustrates many current PACDE efforts and
impedes inter-MAU distance education progress. PACDE will remedy this situation
starting July 1, 2004, by hiring a person to maintain UA’s virtual campus. PACDE will
oversee the maintenance of this site. The site will include many of the items currently
found on the gateway and UAOnline, as well as a number of new items such as news,
services and functions associated with distance education.
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