DE

Minutes April 3, 2007

Attendees: Jan, Novak (chair), Norman Buchwald, Tom Clark, Gene Groppetti, Scott Hildreth, Michael Langdon, Andrew Pierson, Ramona Silver, Lisa Ulibarri, Lani Wilson

Jan began the meeting by providing committee members with a recap of the focus of the March 21st Planning Meeting: The Online Course Curriculum and Flex Day.

Online Course Curriculum:
Jan distributed a document to the committee that contained draft topic outlines for the four courses in the online teaching curriculum, and asked for feedback. The discussion focused on:

• If all four courses could be completed in one semester. We?d like faculty to be able to get through this curriculum quickly if they?re willing to invest the time, so we shouldn?t make it too onerous.
• If the courses substitute for the current approval process, and if new instructors do not take the courses, what the approval process is for them.

The next step is to develop course outlines for the Online Pedagogy and Developing a Proposal courses for review by the committee, Curriculum, and the Faculty Senate.

Convocation/Flex Day:
We discussed several approaches to Convocation/Flex Day and concluded we should conduct workshops versus a major ?mandatory? presentation. Dennis suggested we promote these in advance to maximize participation. Our goal is to announce these workshops in a second edition of the DE Newsletter to be issued before the end of the semester.

LPC/Chabot Joint DE Committee Meeting:
On March 30th, our committee participated in a productive meeting with LPC?s Distance Education committee. Both parties agree it would be worthwhile to continue these meetings. The focus of the meeting was primarily technical, with discussion of Blackboard upgrades, building blocks, and online course evaluation survey technology.

This led to a discussion of Vista/Blackboard 6.3 compatibility issues and concerns that problem will continue to grow as students convert to Vista. We need to address these issues by fall at the latest. Tom agreed to explore our options.

Fast Track Proposals:
Jan advised the committee that most of the fast-track proposals have been approved; however, the committee is going to ask that one set of proposals be revised to more fully explore and deliver the specific content of each course.

New Course Proposals:
The committee agreed to identify examples of exemplary proposals and exemplary feedback on proposals to be shared with committee members and faculty developing new course proposals. As we approach course demonstrations for new summer and fall courses, we agreed that the Formative Evaluation and LPC Best Practices document will be the common standard we all use to evaluate courses. The committee also brainstormed additional ideas for questions to be asked during the demonstrations, and Jan agreed to prepare a summary of guidelines/focus areas for course demonstrations to the committee.

Other Topics:
Jan asked if members would be available for limited summer work to review the online teaching courses and student survey, for a small stipend.

Jan provided more information on the content of the recent DE Newsletter, specifically the details behind the business online course cannibalization study.

The committee agreed that we need to work on how online/hybrid classes are described on Class-Web and in the printed class schedule.


Handouts:
Cannibalization Study
Online Course CEMC Data
Online Teaching Curriculum Draft