DE
Committee
Minutes November 13, 2007 Special Planning Meeting
Attendees: Jan Novak (chair), Norman Buchwald, Mary Dermody, Andrew Pierson, Ramona Silver,
Lisa Ulibarri, Minta Winsor.
Developing an Online Course Proposal:
Attendees logged in as a student to the new Developing an Online Course
Proposal course for faculty, reviewed the course, and provided feedback to Jan.
Among the suggestions were to:
- Remove underlining from blue headings (as they look like hyperlinks)
- Clarify that faculty have options when "taking" this course: just
use it as a reference, complete all the reading, or complete all the reading
and the assignments if interested in the training incentive
- Update the "5 Reasons to Teach Online", as the 5th reason is missing
- Fix the broken link to he Online Journal of Distance Learning
Administration
- Change the Blackboard Help link to the faculty help webpage, not the
student webpage
Information about this course will be included in the overall announcement
about incentives and support for new Summer/Fall 08 online courses, which will
be distributed before Thanksgiving.
Online Learning Student Brochure:
The committee brainstormed ideas for information to be included in a new
brochure for potential online students. Ideas included:
- Advantages of online learning
- What to expect in an online course:
- Lots of reading and writing
- A significant time commitment, equal to or possibly greater than an
on-campus course
- Interaction with other students and the instructor
- Need for self-discipline and time management skills
- Need access to a computer, but don't necessarily have to have your own
computer
- Must be comfortable on a computer
- Description of how online classes work
- Discussion of how to get help in an online course
- Quiz on online readiness
- Overview of student success in online courses, transferability, access to
campus resources
This brochure will be developed in Spring 2008.
Introduction to Online Learning:
Attendees logged in as a student to the new Introduction to Online Learning
course for students, reviewed the course, and provided feedback to Mary and
Ramona. Among the suggestions were to:
- Clarify how to check current computer/software configurations and update
to required Bb minimums
- Provide an overview of Blackboard as a course management system
- In "Start Here", provide an overview of the course, and where to find the
information they will need to complete the course
- Add a grading scale to the syllabus
- Make the font types and sizes more consistent
- Insert a clip from the student video into one of the learning modules
The committee also discussed ways to market this course to students.
Ideas were to announce this on the Chabot homepage, send an email to all faculty
to recommend the course to interested students, meet with counselors to explain
the course to them, and to include information about the course in an email to
all online faculty with suggestions for Spring 08 courses.
