Permitting Student Enrollment in Courses Offered by a Sister CSU as a Means of
Facilitating Progress to the Degree:
Topics, Issues and Perspectives
Notes and Extensions from a Meeting of the Academic
Technology Advisory Committee, April 24, 2008
Issue / Topic
Quality of the
Course:
assurance of a
meaningful
student
learning
experience
Student Technical Skills:
ability to
access and use
online learning
materials
Student
Maturity
Level / ability
to be selfdirected to
acquire and
learn from
online
materials and
exercises
Student
Perspective
How can I be
assured that this
course is of
equivalent quality
to a traditional or
on-line course
taught on my home
campus?
Can I succeed in
this class / get a
good grade /
prepare for next
class / move on to
graduation?
Maintaining the
necessary time on
tasks to ensure a
good course
learning
experience. How
do I allocate course
time effectively
with other
commitments such
as family, job, and
recreation?
Faculty
Perspective
How can I be assured
that students have a
realistic view of the
teaching
approach/learning
style/on-line
methodology used in
this course?
What student skills can
I presume? How shall I
craft my teaching &
learning strategies? At
what level should I
proceed?
Time on learning tasks
should promote student
success. How can I
require home work or
exercises without
devoting inappropriate
time on evaluating the
work or answering email queries that result
from the student not
reading the course
material? How do I
ensure that the students
being accepted into the
course have the
maturity level to do
well?
Administrator
Perspective
What methods are in place for
assessment of the course
being delivered? What is
meant by a quality course
experience?
When and how can we assess
skills of a student not at my
own campus? With minimal
or no assessment, can we rely
on student skills to move them
efficiently to graduation?
How can we assess maturity
for e-learning of a student not
at my own campus? Do we
do a good job locally that can
“scale” to this further deployment? Time on learning tasks
should promote student
success – move students
through with fewer attempts at
a particular class, fewer
repeats. That lowers costs.
Issue / Topic
Computer
Resources/
Technical
Support :
hardware;
software;
Internet speed
Student
Perspective
If I need a PC for a
class from a
campus other than
my own, how can I
know what the
specs are? Can I get
by using computer
labs on campus?
What will the
equipment,
software, and
Internet
connections cost
me? What support
is available to me if
I run into
problems?
Discovery of
the Opportunity for elearning
How can I find out
if a class I need /
want is offered
online?
Issue / Topic
Student
Perspective
Can I, a student at
CSU A take an
online course from
CSU B without a lot
of hassle?
Ease of
Enrollment
Fit with
Graduation
Requirements
Faculty
Perspective
Do students have the
right resources to
enable them to learn
the material I assign?
Do I have to keep
assignments at a level
demanding of lower
speeds or more usual
software – or can I use
learning approaches
that I believe
areoptimal? Will there
be help desk support
when I or my students
run into problems?
How long will it take to
resolve such problems?
Administrator
Perspective
Consistent with different
campus principles, philosophies and policies, stemming
in part from differences in students served by various campuses: can we rely on a
student from a campus other
than my own to have the right
computer resources? Can we
justifiably make enrollment
conditional on having good
resources? How does this
mesh with my own campus
policies? Can we provide
access short of mandating
individual PC ownership?
Who is responsible for
providing technical support
and from whose budget will
the cost of this be funded?
Can we provide 24/7 support
economically? Can we share
resources among campuses –
allowing CSU A to serve B, C,
D, …n
If I offer an online
How can we make it easy for
section of a course, will the right students at campuses
it attract sufficient
other than my own to discover
enrollment?
the right opportunities for elearning?
Faculty
Perspective
Enrolling some CSU B
students can fill out the
roster for my class,
making it less likely
that it will be cancelled
for low enrollment.
I have to take a par- For accepting a student
ticular class, and I
from another CSU to
need it at hours that my class: sufficient
Administrator
Perspective
Global costs may be reduced
if CSU B students can take
some classes conveniently
from CSU A. CSU A may
avoid a need to put on a class.
What is the impact of course
enrollment (traditional and
distance) on the home
campus?
How can we articulate the
required classes at CSU A
with those at CSU B, C, D …
will accommodate
my work and
family needs. Is
online from a CSU
campus other than
my own an option?
student enrollment is
more likely for a
required class than for
an elective. For
accepting for credit to
my degree the work
done at another CSU:
how can I ensure
comparable learning?
Can I imaginatively
arrange for a distance
student to fulfill activity requirements for my
course? Will it achieve
learning results that are
up to my standards?
Identity management:
how can I ensure that
the person fulfilling the
requirement is the right
person?
n?
Community
Service or
other activity
requirement
How can I fulfill –
in a clear and
convenient way –
activity
requirements for
this course? How
will I do group
projects with
students who live a
great distance from
me?
Feedback &
Student
Evaluations of
the course
If it’s a hassle to
evaluate the class, I
probably won’t
bother.
How can I demonstrate
from student
evaluations the good
job that I have done?
Are there differences in
evaluations from
students who come
from other campuses?
Do distance learning
courses generally have
lower evaluations that
might affect
promotion/Transfer
decisions?
RTP policies require student
evaluations, and they should
be reliable and valid. Can we
persuade the faculty union to
work in innovative ways to
secure student evaluations
even from campuses other
than our own? Can we ensure
that student evaluations are
done in a way that is fair to
faculty and will ask questions
that will give them the
knowledge necessary to
improve their performance.
Issue / Topic
Student
Perspective
Who is available to
help me figure out
degree requirements, course
materials that I
need help in
understanding, etc.?
Faculty
Perspective
Will students expect
24/7 availability for my
“office hours”? I have
scholarship, other
course teaching, and
committee work to do.
Administrator
Perspective
What policies and
administrative work can make
this easier and convenient for
students, while keeping
workload manageable for
faculty? Do we have local
policies that will “scale” to
take care of students
Advising and
Counseling
If both activity requirements
and online learning are
priorities, how can policies
and administrative
arrangement make this
possible and simple? Do we
arrange for this at our own
campus? Will this “scale” to
serve students from other
campuses?
Registration
Priority
Consistency of
Interface (note
different
LMS’s)
Class Sze /
Faculty Work
load
Intellectual
Property
Rights
Can I get the right
priority for
registration even
though I’m a CSU
B student taking a
CSU A class?
It would increase
the hassle by a lot if
I have to use an
unfamiliar LMS in
order to take a class
from a CSU other
than my own.
Will faculty take
the right amount of
time to work with
me?
How do I ensure that
students from the home
campus will have
adequate access to the
course?
matriculated at a sister CSU?
How can we manage demand
for required courses across
more than one campus?
I have a lot invested in Can we move toward
the materials and work commonality in LMS choices
I have developed for
in CSU, consistent with
use with my local
reasonable work load
LMS. I would not
requirements for faculty, and
want to reconfigure a
reasonable accommodation of
lot of things in order to faculty preferences?
attract a relative
handful of students
from other CSU’s.
Work load requirements have to be reasonable.
I need a fair deal that
recognizes suitable
compensation for
intellectual products.
Who owns revisions?
Do we need systemwide
policies on intellectual
property rights?
Student
Perspective
Is the online
Instructional
environment
Design
attractive and built
in a way to ensure
reasonable work
Currency /
Customization paying off in solid
learning?
of Materials
Issue / Topic
Essential
Satisfaction
Faculty
Skepticism
Libraries and
Other
Support
Services
Do I like this
approach? Am I
getting a “real”
college experience?
Faculty
Perspective
Can I get help in
designing the online
approach? Is it
sufficient? Can I get
professional development / learning to help
me to do a good and
efficient job at this?
Can I teach using my
preferred approaches
and materials? Will I
have enough time to
learn the necessary
software skills? Who
will pay for the
software and the
needed training?
Do I like this
approach? Is this why
I chose to be a
professor?
Administrator
Perspective
How can we support faculty in
doing a very good job on
behalf of student learning?
Can we persuade faculty to
adopt materials and approaches
already in the “bank,” thus
lowering some development
costs? Will our local policies
and practices “scale” to support
work done on behalf of
students from a sister CSU?
Are there non-traditional
avenues open for course
development (e.g. Emeriti,
graduate students)?
How can we provide this kind
of learning to those who find it
satisfying and effective, while
keeping the right proportions
of in vivo instruction?
I worry that this is just How can we demonstrate
not the equivalent of
equivalencies / comparisons of
learning that is done in learning in different
my classroom.
approaches and environments?
How can I learn
Faculty can be general Can we supply sufficient and
more about how my guides and resources
appropriate resources via
major supports a
for various of these
online library collections?
career? How can I
concerns – but should
gain good “conot have to take the
Do our local practices in
curricular”
place of student
supplying student services to
experiences as part services or library
distance students “scale” to
of my learning?
professionals.
assist enrollees from a sister
How do I get access
CSU?
to library
materials?
Issue / Topic
Costs
Student
Perspective
If I am registered at
CSU A and have
paid fees there, I do
not want to pay a
second time to take
a CSU B course.
Faculty
Perspective
Administrator
Perspective
Revenues to support
instruction begin with marginal
cost support, but we need good
work on budgeting to figure
out whether student fees should
wholly remain with the campus
of the student’s matriculation.
Are there fee models that
might be used to ensure
adequate funding flows to the
department offering the
course?
080425 ATAC Notes Refined