Full meeting transcripts can be found at http://distance.uaf.edu/steeringboard
November 2, 2004
1. Create a Communication Plan for informing and getting feedback from stakeholders

Collect responses about the distance education experience including: programs they want; quality of support; and, others.
2. A student-centered, knowledge-focused approach to course development, scheduling, sequencing and marketing

Compile a state-wide inventory of distance education offerings

Review existing online programs like nursing, Early Childhood and abstract a structure and approach to creating another program, and document lessons learned

Develop a laundry list of BANNER issues and present it to IT for rectification
3. Address quality assurance for course design, delivery, and connectivity

Develop guidelines on appropriate uses of different technologies

Establish distributed work group methods among instructional designers

Establish a minimum set of standards for instructors to follow when teaching a distance course
March 28-29, 2005
1.
Clarify the roles and coordinate the efforts of various distance education committees
2.
Create common definition of distance education concepts across all units
3.
Coordinate course offering sequences and schedules
4.
Provide easy student access to administrative and educational services across MAUs
5.
Address equitable workload for distance education faculty
6.
Address equitable distribution of revenue for units that provide services to students
7.
Design a financial model for tuition and fee sharing
8.
Address tallying of student head count
9.
Investigate issues of academic freedom for distance education faculty
10.
Provide for equitable course development costs and resources
11.
Design a high-quality technical infrastructure
12.
Address selection of curriculum and course development for distance education
13.
Address support for distance education faculty and staff
14.
Address incentives for cooperation among MAUs while allowing for competition that preserves local control and quality
Issues related to Distance Education at the University of Alaska
Identified by the Distance Education Steering Board 2004-2005
Page 1 of 3

15.
Encourage communication across MAUs among distance education faculty for resource sharing and workload sharing
16.
Proceed with articulation agreements among MAUs
October 10-11, 2005
1. Minimum List of Student Services
Issues:

It is the position of the DESB that all distance students should be able to obtain a minimum set of student support services from any University of Alaska campus or learning center.

Some campuses and learning centers are unable to deliver these minimum services because of a lack of resources.

Some campuses, as a matter of policy, only offer some of these services to students who are formally enrolled at the campus where the service is offered.

Many students are unaware of, or do not know how to find these services.
Recommendation:

The following list of services for distance students be adopted as a minimum standard across all campuses and learning centers.
2. Equitably sharing revenues from enrollments
Issues:

With Distance Learners, the campus that delivers a course is often different that the campus that delivers student support services.

Some campuses now find their student support services strained because under the conventional funding model, all tuition and fees collected from the students they support go to the campus that delivers the instruction.
Recommendation:

Divide tuition and distance fees between the campus that teaches a course and the campus that provides support services to a distance student.
3. Metrics for recognizing Faculty Productivity
Issues

Faculty who teach distance courses currently only receive credit for teaching students who are enrolled through the faculty member’s campus.

The work the faculty members do and the revenue generated by teaching students who enroll through other campuses is not taken into account for promotion and tenure, nor for determining faculty work load.
Recommendation

In shared courses, Credit Hour Effort should replace Credit Hours as a measure of faculty productivity.
4. Metric for recognizing the load of delivering student support services to distance education students.
Issues:
Issues related to Distance Education at the University of Alaska
Identified by the Distance Education Steering Board 2004-2005
Page 2 of 3


As distance education has grown, some campuses are finding their student services resources stretched thin by serving people who were not enrolled locally, but are, instead, taking classes originating elsewhere.

With distance learners, the campus that delivers instruction is often different than the campus that delivers student support services.

It would be useful for planning and resource allocation purposes to know the relative student services load of each site, independent of the number of learners enrolled at each site.
Recommendation

Student Support Services Effort should adopted as a measure of campus or learning center productivity. Student Services Effort means the number of students who use each student support service.
Issues related to Distance Education at the University of Alaska
Identified by the Distance Education Steering Board 2004-2005
Page 3 of 3