Committee on Online Learning

Minutes for Meeting: March 30, 2010

(Attendees: Ramona Silver(chair), Kathleen Allen, Norman Buchwald, Bob Buell, Desmond Chun, Richard Dinwiddie, Aldrian Estepa, Michael Langdon, Jan Novak, Lisa Ulibarri, Lani Wilson Minta Winsor and Wanda Wong.)

1). The committee discussed the status of the proposal reviews for Spring 2010 including approval of written proposals from Zarir Marawar, Donna Gibson, Bob Buell and Ricky Hurtado.  Since not all members of all review teams were present, the Chair determined that she would send messages to each review team to be sure that all members approved the current proposals. (Note: The chair sent these messages and all written proposals and fast track proposals were approved with the exception of Film-60 online which requires the proposer to respond to feedback.

2). Kathryn Linzmeyer, Financial Aid Director for Chabot College, presented some important information regarding financial aid and how distribution of money to students is directly affected by when they are officially dropped from the course, given a W, or finish the course with an F, or a D/  Basically, as long as a student is officially enrolled in a course, he/she still receives financial aid even if he/she fails to attend classes. If a student is on the official roster they receive money. Thus one of the main questions that Kathy had for the COOL members was how they knew when a student was not "attending" the class anymore.  Michael Langdon mentioned that he had two deadlines per week so that if a student missed those it indicated that the student was "not attending".  Lisa Ulibarri stated that faculty can track when the student last logged in for a test.  Additionally most online courses require regular discussion participation up to 5 times per week and if a student does not post responses on the discussion board it is clear that the student is not "attending" class. 

a). Kathy also informed the COOL members that Financial Aid must calculate the actual last day of attendence to determine when the finacial support should stop.  If instructors do not make sure to drop students, students will still be receiving funds.  Thus, the "last date of attendance" is crucial to how money is distributed.  Lisa Ulibarri stated that the data remains on each student in the Course Statistics section of each course site. The Financial Aid office will send a letter to the instructor to ask when the student last attended.  This determination is done by the hour; six hours, two weeks of class time. 

b). Kathy wanted to emphasize to the COOL how important it was to let our fellow online and hybrid colleagues know that it is much better to drop a student then to have them receiving financial funds without actually attending classes. 

3). Updates and information on Online Evaluation Training. Jan Novak has graciously offered to train faculty to do online evaluations. She will offer training on Tuesday 4/13 and Thursday 4/15 at College hour to all faculty who need to evaluate, First-time online instructors (at Chabot, regardless of whether they've taught online elsewhere, Tenure-track faculty if one or more of the courses included in their tenure evaluation is taught online, Adjunct faculty if the course chosen to be evaluated is taught online and Tenured faculty as part of their regular professional review if the course chosen to be evaluated is taught online.

4). The chair presented to the COOL members present a copy of the Online Student Satisfaction Survey that Carolyn Arnold composed and distributed to face-to-face classes.  Her aim is to have an online version in place in the Fall 2010 semester.  Carolyn asked the committee to review the face-to-face survey and to offer suggestions as to how to adapt it to online courses.

a). One of the suggestions is that the survey be shortened to accommodate an online environment.  In a face-to-face class the students are a captive audience but in an online class, too long a survey will not encourage them to finish it.

b). Another suggestion offered is that the survey questions may be better to coincide with SLO's. 

c). The first part of the survey where it discusses their overall experience may need to be altered to indicate both online and face-to-face experiences.  For example the Physical conditions may or may not apply.  We suggest rewording that section including Campus Climate.

Next Meeting Scheduled for Tuesday April 20, 2010 at Noon in the IOB 405!