Author: Lindsey Downs

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WCET 34th Annual Meeting: Together again with so much to celebrate!

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date August 11, 2022
illustrated mountains with the night sky and "denver" written across

In November 2019, the WCET community of higher education digital learning leaders and practitioners met in Denver for one of our largest and most successful Annual Meetings. At the end of the event, we were excited to see everyone the following year for our first Annual Meeting in Indiana in fall 2020. Little did we know that we’d instead be planning a fully virtual event.

Flash forward to two very long years later, we are eager to be together in Denver once again. We planned for a smaller, more intimate event as we know networking and connecting with people is something we are all craving. We have missed you! We’ve also missed interactive sessions, endless cups of strong coffee, hallway conversations, and more, which I highlight below.

What We’ve Planned for 2022: A Timely, Interactive, and Distinctive Program

Our main goal for each year’s WCET Annual Meeting program is to showcase the incredible people in our field who join us to share their expertise, lessons learned, and good practices in advancing digital learning. This year is no exception, the conference program is a unique blend of unconference sessions, workshops, loosely organized conversations, and more. All sessions will be interactive and include key take-a-ways. This year’s topics include:

  • Microcredentials.
  • Equitable access for digital learners.
  • Strategic planning and change management.
  • Academic integrity.
  • Rubrics for evaluating technology and accessibility.
  • Student-centered learning.
  • OPMs (the good, the bad, and the caveats).
  • Cultivating community across the institution and despite the modality.
View the Full
Program

2022 General Sessions

This year’s general sessions feature inspiring speakers that are truly impacting learners. Our closing keynote is Dr. Mordecai Brownlee, who will share about Utilizing Technology to Create Mission-Driven and Equity-Centered Academic Pathways and his journey as a Community College President in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Policy sessions

WCET is known for bringing regulatory and policy updates to the community and translating key policy issues. We highlight what you need to know and how each issue will impact your day-today, so you don’t have to! This year’s policy related sessions include topics like:

  • Regular and Substantive Interaction.
  • Compliance Management for Out-of-State Activities.
  • Emerging Challenges in Distance and Digital Education Accreditation.
  • What’s next with Negotiated Rulemaking.
  • Professional Licensure.

2022 Speakers

Beyond the topics, it’s the people. We have an all-star roster of speakers and can’t wait for you to connect with them. Here are a few of the speakers for this year, but there are many more – check out the 2022 Speakers page.

Collage of photos of 2022 speakers. full list of speakers can be found on the conference website. https://bit.ly/wcet2022speakers

Exciting Additions to the Program

WCET + ASWE

Announced earlier this week, USDLA has handed the IFWE torch off to WCET. IFWE was the International Forum for Women in E-Learning and has been rebranded as ASWE, the Annual Summit for Women in eLearning. The 2022 WCET Annual Meeting will include an open house reception and book club for ASWE alumni and those interested in participating in future ASWE events. In odd years, the full ASWE summit will occur in conjunction with the WCET Annual Meeting. The first WCET + ASWE event will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana in October 2023.

2022 WCET Awards

The pomp and circumstances of awards is not quite the same on a virtual platform so we are ecstatic that we will be back in person to applaud and stand collectively to recognize our esteemed awardees during lunch on October 20. Another benefit of being on our home turf is that those named for two of our highest honors, the Dick Jonsen and Mollie McGill award and the Sally M. Johnstone awards will be present to bestow honors on the awardees who will be announced in-person.

The WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Awards honor institutions or individuals who are advancing learner access and success through postsecondary digital learning for a more equitable world. Awardees will be highlighted in the WCET Frontiers Blog, Frontiers Podcast, and invited to attend the WCET Annual Meeting at a significantly discounted rate.

The Dick Jonsen & Mollie McGill Award is given each year to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the digital learning community and WCET during his or her career.

The Sally M. Johnstone Award recognizes a professional who has made an outsized contribution for their ‘rank’ to the digital teaching and learning community with the intention of recognizing thought leadership, excellence in practice, and demonstrated leadership capabilities.

The SANsational Award recognizes outstanding efforts by SAN member institutions and organizations in developing a high-quality, comprehensive solution to a challenging state authorization issue.

Networking Events

Register before the early bird
rate expires on August 24

We know that connection is vital and that we have all been craving the opportunity to chat with our peers and build our networks in a face-to-face environment. Zoom has been an incredible asset over the past few years, but the WCET Annual Meeting is exclusively in-person because we know attendees aren’t traveling to view a screen, more so now than ever, they want to connect and share their stories. We have built in numerous opportunities for meeting and greeting including a welcome reception, group dinners, young professionals meet-up, and our popular 5K run/walk.  

Heading Back to Denver

See You In…

How fitting that we are back at the Mile High City, after a two-year break from in-person conferences? Our host hotel, the Denver Downtown Hilton, is located near fantastic restaurants, shopping, and culture. Hockey fan? We’ll be planning a group outing to watch the 2022 Stanley Cup winners, the Colorado Avalanche, play on their home ice. And Denver International Airport has made numerous improvements to increase efficiencies and traveler experience. We hope you are excited to come back to Denver too!

I could go on and on about all the reasons I’m thrilled to be back in-person for our 34th Annual Meeting, but the most important reason for me, is the people. The WCET Community is the most generous, smart, and dedicated group of digital learning postsecondary education professionals around. I constantly learn from our members and the WCET community and look forward to learning more about you and the work you are doing for students when we connect in Denver, October 19-21. Book your hotel room while rooms remain and make sure to register before the early-bird rate expires on August 24. See you soon friends! It’s been way too long!

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Practice

Lessons Learned from Listening to Learners: an online program’s early days

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date August 4, 2022

Whenever we hear of intriguingly innovative programs happening in the digital learning space, we hasten to share the details with you. That’s why we’re excited to help showcase a new online program focused in on the lifelong learning space that we found exciting!

In today’s post, ReadyTrack, a pilot program run in association with Western Governors University, shares some lessons learned from working with adult learners in the continuing education space.

Enjoy the read,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

Addressing The Complexity of Learning

Creating a new course offers sobering reminders of the complexity of learning. It is the ever-invigorating quest of the educator to spark intrinsic motivation and identify the dose of struggle that generates productive friction without discouraging the learner. Fostering that experience for an individual learner is already a daunting challenge—scaling that experience can be downright flummoxing.

“It is the ever-invigorating quest of the educator to spark intrinsic motivation and identify the dose of struggle that generates productive friction without discouraging the learner.“

Juggling those demands has been my daily challenge this past year as the Head of Learning for ReadyTrack, a pilot program run in association with Western Governors University. ReadyTrack is still in its nascent launch stage, but the team has already experienced several victories and taken its lumps. In the spirit of reframing lumps as learnings, below we share three lessons learned from our first year, lessons which have boosted student participant retention rates from 40% to 56%.

But first, what is ReadyTrack?

ReadyTrack’s mission is to equip aspiring talent—focusing on women and people of color making under $35,000 annually—with the skills and relationships needed to launch front-end and back-end engineering careers. ReadyTrack assumes no prior technical training beyond basic familiarity with a computer and relative comfort navigating a web-based experience, and the program is currently provided at no cost to learners, whose tuition is covered via sponsors, grants, government assistance, and other collaborations with community-based organizations.

Readytrack yellow logo over a photo of two people working on a computer

The model entails partnering with workforce boards and community-based organizations who identify program candidates and support them holistically during the learning experience. ReadyTrack learners, also known as Track Stars, who complete the training portion of the program seek out paid work-based learning experiences with ReadyTrack partners, typically in the form of mentor-guided apprenticeships. The entire experience is designed to last 13 months, with 30 weeks of technical training followed by six months of apprenticeship. In that time, ReadyTrack seeks to connect Track Stars with the resources they need to learn confidently and progress toward their goals.

The Training Experience

ReadyTrack courses consist of a combination of live online sessions and asynchronous work hosted in D2L’s Brightspace LMS. The sessions are guided by Practitioner Mentors (PMs), who are subject matter experts that monitor learner progress and assist Track Stars as needed. In addition to encouraging collaborative work and providing just-in-time support during the live sessions, PMs hold office hours and make themselves available for 1-on-1 time. There are also weekly sessions dedicated to cultivating “soft skills”—which we refer to as Power Skills—led by ReadyTrack’s Career Coach and Strategist.

A laptop sitting on a desk showing a screen from the readytrack program.

Progression through coursework is bounded asynchronous—Track Stars do not have to progress in lockstep on a day-to-day or even week-to-week basis. Instead, they complete tasks within each of the three 10-week courses, and they must complete at least 80% of assigned coursework to progress to the next one. Along the way, Track Stars that fall one-to-two weeks behind receive personalized outreach to discover if they are stuck, discouraged, or putting out fires in other areas of their life. The outreach includes targeted interventions. Some key projects have deadlines that are common to all learners to facilitate group efforts and to create opportunities for peer review and feedback. The flexibility of the Brightspace LMS allows us to capture these various use-cases.

Track Stars Hit the Finish Line

Our first pilot cohort saw 40% of onboarded learners complete the 30-week training program. The second pilot cohort benefited from adjustments that ReadyTrack made based on the first cohort, such that 56% completed the training portion. ReadyTrack recently enrolled its first non-pilot, fully externally sponsored cohort, and has 66% retention with four weeks left.

A graph showing the "building blocks" of readytrack. Technical skills - front end focus with a broad introduction to a backend Power skills - Soft skills required by employers to contribute to a productive work environment. Peer-Peer - Weekly live learning team sessions with fellow learners and a practitioner mentor. Career Prep - Services to assist learners with resume writing, interview skills, employer matching.

Three Early Lessons

The first two pilot cohorts of Track Stars have already revealed some interesting challenges and tensions. We believe that such tensions point to potentially transformative opportunities for any educational provider working with adult learners.

1 – The tension between asynchronous learning and cohort dynamics is challenging—but it has thankfully pushed us toward the power of peer learning.

The typical Track Star has a lot on their plate. They juggle work, childcare, and other community responsibilities. Studying full-time isn’t an option and nailing down a regular daily study schedule isn’t a given. ReadyTrack’s training experience accounts for this by heavily weighing work that can be done asynchronously.

On the flip side, cohort structures provide significant benefits that can supercharge learning, including social capital building and opportunities to simulate workplace team dynamics. Harnessing those benefits requires Track Stars to not be too spread out in the material relative to each other. Unfortunately, Track Stars have consistently drifted far apart within each 10-week course, making group projects slated for the back end of the courses difficult to execute.

While we are bolstering mentorship and establishing more frequent checkpoints to reduce that spread, we are finding that helping Track Stars teach each other is key. Peer learning converts individual learning into individual mastery plus collective learning. Helping learners actively invest in the cohort’s collective progress is transforming our pacing tension from a bug to a program feature.

2 – A pocket of learners wants more rigidity in course structure and grading—we believe that what they really want is more compelling assignments.

While several learners have expressed appreciation for a more flexible experience, both in scheduling and in favoring formative knowledge checks and ungraded coding projects, a handful of Track Stars say that they prefer more regimented live sessions with lectures and stricter grading. One Track Star surprised himself in expressing this preference, given that he disliked that aspect of his K-12 experience. They also cited a concern that the lack of grades made the program feel less legitimate and motivating.

It is still unclear why some learners prefer a more traditional structure. It may partially be a matter of gravitating towards the familiar. But more likely, ReadyTrack needs more of its assignments to honor learner autonomy—helping learners apply their new skills to what they most care about—and to clearly demonstrate to them their growing competence. In other words, learners’ desires for extrinsic motivators can reflect that a program is insufficiently nourishing intrinsic motivation, and/or that the program needs to better help learners see their own growth.

3 – Learners have most consistently voiced appreciation for the “soft skills” portion of the program—so it’s time to double down.

Beyond the technical training, ReadyTrack holds sessions to encourage a success-oriented mindset via the development of Power Skills. We cover topics such as building self-confidence, identifying and leading with strengths, learning how to tell your story, and even learning how to ask for help. One topic that particularly drives interest is recognizing Impostor Syndrome. Many Track Stars begin pinpointing feelings of inadequacy as an obstacle to their learning or for their transition into the tech workforce.

Learners consistently gush about how helpful and affirming these sessions have been. We suspect that incorporating explicit Power Skills lessons starting with the second pilot cohort accounts for a considerable portion of ReadyTrack’s improved retention numbers. Beyond learners being hungry for these skills, employers demand and appreciate them. Education and training providers of all stripes should consider explicitly covering Power Skills, regardless of discipline.

As ReadyTrack has pressed forward, the above learnings have coalesced into a hypothesis that taking traditional course offerings and simply layering on …wraparound supports is inadequate. That approach presupposes that traditional learning environments and practices in the tech space have been inclusive on all axes minus socioeconomic status, which we already know to be dubious given the lack of diversity that continues to plague the tech industry.

Incorporating our Track Stars’ voices and embracing the fullness of their complex learning needs will thus be at the frontier of our course building. ReadyTrack is eager to work with our Track Stars to create the expansive and rigorous learning environment they need to launch their careers.

About D2L

Personalize learning, increase engagement, and help learners achieve more than they imagined possible. D2L Brightspace offers flexible and robust learning solutions for every stage of life, from the earliest days of school to higher education and the working world.

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Policy

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Time to Review Proposed Regulations & Consider Public Comment

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date August 3, 2022

July brought us the next chapter chronicling the U.S. Department of Education rulemaking process. WCET and the State Authorization Network (SAN) have been following the rulemaking process, which began with the preview of the second Biden administration negotiated rulemaking committee, the Institutional Programmatic Eligibility Committee, in January 2022. Since then, we have shared news and analysis primarily as the rulemaking addressed digital learning. In late June, we shared an update  regarding the rulemaking as it addressed issues of licensed professions and reciprocity.

Today, we will highlight the most recent news: the release of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for two sets of proposed regulations subject to public comment. We will address some specific issues found in the most recent NPRM and share how and where you may provide public comments pertaining to the proposed regulations.

Status Update

There have been several releases of proposed regulations for public comment in recent weeks including:

  • From the Fall 2020 Affordability and Student Loan Committee, Borrower Defense related proposed regulations were released on July 13, 2022 with a comment period through August 12, 2022.
  • Regulations for Pell Grants for incarcerated students addressed during the Fall 2020 rulemaking were released July 28, 2022, along with 90/10 Rule and Changes in (Institution) Ownership regulations with a comment period through August 26, 2022.
  • Although the Department submitted proposed regulations regarding Income Driven Repayment (IDR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review in April 2022, the Department has delayed the release of the proposal of these regulations for later this summer.
  • As we reported in June, the OMB website posted updates of the expected release timeframe of April 2023 for proposed regulations for the remaining issues that were raised in the Winter 2022 rulemaking meetings. These issues include Gainful Employment and Certification Procedures. As you may recall, the Certification Procedure issue included proposed increased requirements for programs leading to a professional license or certification and as well as agreements for state authorization reciprocity. So, we likely will not hear more about them until next year.

Changes in Ownership – Modification of Definitions found in 34 CFR 600.2

For many economic and regulatory reasons, there has been a recent increase in changes of ownership or control of institutions. Of particular interest to the Department is the uptick in forprofit institutions seeking to change their status to that of nonprofit institutions. The Department clarified its expectations and processes on these transactions.

Included in their actions are changes to several definitions. While these changes were proposed with the “changes in ownership” issue in mind, the definitions are universal and could have far-ranging impact.

The proposed changes include:

a computer keyboard
Photo by Marta Branco from Pexels
  • Main Campus – Oddly, there was no official definition of “main campus” until now. Among other factors, it is the “the primary physical location where the institution offers programs.”
  • Branch Campus – The Department continued the  requirement that a branch campus be a separate location and that it has certain operations that are independent from the main campus. Newly added requirements are that the branch campus be part of the same ownership structure and be approved as a branch campus by the Department.
  • Additional Location – The Department continued the requirement that the location be separated geographically and that it offers at least 50% of a program. Newly added requirements include that they be part of the same ownership structure and participate in Title IV disbursement through the main campus.
  • Distance Education – The provisions that went into effect just last year remain unchanged. The Department proposes adding:
    • For institutions offering both on-campus and distance programs, the distance programs are “associated with” the main campus.
    • For institutions offering only distance programs, the institution is located where its administrative offices are located and approved by its accrediting agency.
    • *Note these additions will not impact locations at a correctional institution.
  • Non-profit Institution – Additional provisions regarding who and how a former owner may profit and the setting of a “fair market” value.

Current versions of these regulations can be found in 600.2.

Potential Impacts Outside of “change of ownership”

Look for more analysis from us on these definitions as we have some worries that these rules may have unintended impact outside of the “change of ownership” framework. For example, the “associated with” concept for distance education was introduced with the following reasoning: “This addition clarifies how an institution’s programs offered through distance education or correspondence courses should be considered in the context of reporting students’ locations…” We worry it will have the opposite result without careful and comprehensive guidance.

The big concern is that the definition of distance education additional language, by supposedly clarifying reporting of students’ locations, addresses location differently than what is required for purposes of state authorization required by 34 CFR 600.9(c).

photo of college campus
Photo by Casey Olsen on Unsplash

As we know, the institution is required by 600.9(c) to meet state requirements for it to be legally offering postsecondary distance education or correspondence courses in that State where the student is located or to participate in a reciprocity agreement. The institution is responsible for the determination of student location and to share the process of determination with the Secretary upon request. The purpose of these requirmentsis to ensure student consumer protection where the student is physically located. This language about determining location is repeated in the context of professional licensure notifications in 34 CFR 668.43(c)(3)(ii). This is troubling and confusing with potential conflicts with state oversight! Again, watch for more analysis from us.

90/10 Rule

For years, forprofit institutions have been responsible (by law) for obtaining at least 10% of their revenue from sources other than Title IV Federal Financial Aid. However, the fact that other forms of federal student aid counted in the 10% was seen as a loophole that made for-profit institutions excessively dependent on aid that is financed by taxpayers.

The proposed 90/10 regulations amend 34 CFR 668.28, Non-title IV revenue (90/10), in order to implement recently enacted Federal law through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The newly enacted Federal law expands the sources of revenue to include more than just Title IV aid. The new regulations are developed as proposed to implement the new Federal law by identifying other sources that cannot be included in the 10% including veterans and service member tuition benefits.

The regulations, as proposed, reached consensus by the negotiators in the rulemaking committee in March 2022. Therefore, the language as voted upon was released as the proposed regulations. The intention of the regulations is to change how for-profit institutions calculate and report the percentage of the revenue that comes from other sources. New sources are to include all federal education assistance including grants for tuition and fees including GI Bill aid as well as other Federal military benefits. The Department will communicate the list of programs required for inclusion in the Federal Register and update that list as needed.

Pell Grants for Incarcerated Individuals

Congress established eligibility for Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals enrolled in qualifying programs through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. The language for the regulations negotiated in Fall 2021 came to consensus by the negotiators and thus are moving forward as proposed regulations to implement Federal law.

Specific to issues we have recently discussed affecting programs leading to a license or certification (such as in the delayed Certification Procedures regulations), we think the Department is expressing their view of the importance of regulatory direction addressing programs leading to a license or certification. We note that the proposed language also includes adding “make available” notifications, that we commonly describe as public notifications, to current regulations for Institutional Information, 34 CFR 668.43, regarding whether there are state prohibitions to licensure or certifications for formerly incarcerated individuals.

Proposed regulation 34 CFR 668.236 Eligible prison education program indicates that:

 An eligible prison education program means an education or training program that –

(g) Satisfies any applicable education requirements for professional licensure or certification….. in the State in which the correctional facility is located or, in the case of a Federal correctional facility, in the State in which most of the individuals confined or incarcerated in such facility will reside upon release as determined by the institution not less than annually based on information provided by the oversight entity.

Proposed regulation 34 CFR 668.43 (a)(5)(vi) Institutional Information

(vi) If a prison education program, as defined in 34 CFR 668.236, is designed to meet educational requirements for a specific professional license or certification that is required for employment in an occupation (as described in § 668.236(g) and (h)), information regarding whether that occupation typically involves State or Federal prohibitions on the licensure or employment of formerly incarcerated individuals in any other State for which the institution has made a determination about State prohibitions on the licensure or certification of formerly incarcerated individuals;

Public Comment on Proposed Regulations

a comment box

Timeframe:

Who should comment?

Your voice matters!

Institutional personnel, program personnel, or individuals may comment. For an institutional or programmatic comment, you need to navigate the proper government relations channels at your institution. Issues that receive a greater volume of content tend to receive more attention.

Submit Comments

How do I comment?

Each NPRM announcement provides directions on how to comment in the “Summary” section of each notice. You are directed to submit comments via that Federal eRulemaking Portal at regulations.gov. At regulations.gov under “FAQ,” you will find the instructions for finding a rule on the site and submitting comments.

Please note that the Department will not accept comments submitted by fax or by email or submitted after the comment period deadline. You are advised to include the Docket ID at the top of the comments and submit your comments or attachments in Microsoft Word format.

What should I say?

Here is your opportunity to ask clarifying questions, show support for the language, express challenges that could have unintentional consequences on students, or raise other concerns. We suggest comments that are positive and provide helpful suggestions.

Next Steps

As previously shared, the comment periods will end on August 12 and August 26 depending on the regulations that you plan to address. The Department must review and respond to the submitted comments. The announcement of the final regulations will include the Department’s responses to the comments in the preamble of the Federal Register announcement. Final regulations that are released by November 1, 2022, will be effective July 1, 2023.

You can follow the progress of the rulemaking here:

Watch for more from WCET and the State Authorization Network (SAN)!

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Practice

A Closer Look Back – Working with WCET

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date July 26, 2022

Today on Frontiers, we’re happy and also sad to welcome Dr. Elaine Villanueva Bernal, who, for the past several months, has served as the STEM, Digital Learning Strategist for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, here at WCET. Elaine’s post looks back on the time spent creating content with WCET, with particular attention to how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their personal and professional life and the continued impact the pandemic has on students. Elaine outlines important themes and lessons taken from the content she created, including podcasts, blog posts, and other outstanding resources.

Thank you, Elaine, for working with us and best wishes with your future projects – I’m pretty sure we have a few interview spots saved for you for some Frontiers Pod episodes!

Enjoy the read,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

After over two years into the pandemic, my household contracted COVID-19. I have always been prepared and have been able to adapt when students and colleagues get sick. However, when COVID hits home, it is certainly a different experience.

All in all, my family and I were ill for about two weeks. We isolated, rested, healed, and are currently recovering. Our children missed school and my spouse, who is currently in a teaching credential program, missed two class meetings for a summer course. Fortunately, I scheduled my CHEM 100 summer class to be completely online.

Young woman looking away while typing on laptop near university
Photo by Charlotte May from Pexels

To various extents, we all tried to keep up – I kept up with my teaching obligations for wrapping up the end of the semester and the first week of summer school, my spouse diligently made-up work from missing class, and our children did what they could for their online assignments that were available. As we informed family and friends that we contracted COVID-19, we were very fortunate to have folks support us with having meals and groceries delivered to our home and regularly checking in on us if we needed anything. When my spouse and I informed our campus institution and I informed our children’s schools about contracting COVID, I found the response to be for the most part transactional and logistically focused – we were instructed on how long to isolate, when we could return, and testing requirements. Further, for my spouse and our children, they were simply instructed to somehow keep up with the work as much as they could online – and my spouse expressed that while they were not necessarily expecting sympathy, the response from their instructors came off cold. Our recent COVID experience made me think about the how we should all be responding to the continued presence of COVID-19 – how do we navigate digital learning not only as a response to the pandemic itself, but also in a way that honors people’s experiences with COVID? How can we use such strategies to continue to develop engaging and sustainable digital learning that serves everyone?

A Closer Look Back

As of a few weeks ago, the United States surpassed over one million COVID-19 deaths, which, in the last 20 years, is more than the number of deaths from car crashes or on battlefields in all of the country’s wars combined. Despite the tragic and significant loss of life, researchers argue that the pandemic has, and will continue, to have the longest-lasting impact on education. The United Nations estimated that 1.6 billion learners in 190 countries in all continents and all continents have been affected, with an average school closure of 4.5 months. Much of the resources we produced at WCET explored educational leaders’ experiences with and responses to the pandemic. We produced podcasts and published blogs on the following topics:

The following are important lessons and themes that emerged from conversations throughout the past year:

Contextualization

young woman working on a computer
Photo by Monstera from Pexels

Contextualizing teaching strategies that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM education include the use of digital platforms to understand the relationships between STEM and society.

In the podcast with Dr. Lisa Martin, she discussed how her science education students were able to use electronic databases and mapping tools to see how marginalized communities were impacted the most by environmental and climate injustices.

Dr. Joni Oddie-Ricks’ podcast episode showed the importance of learning digital and scientific literacy and its relationship with communication and messaging, especially in light of the general public regularly seeking COVID-19 updates through social media platforms. Dr. Oddie-Ricks also emphasized that it is crucial to stay connected to local issues, as many scientific and public health decisions are made through local governance.

Connection

Contextualizing learning can create a sense of connection for learners. For example, in Dr. Martin-Hansen’s science education courses, students make the connections between STEM and the communities in which they live. Students have expressed a sense of empowerment in using what they learn to advocate for a safer and healthier environment in their cities. Connection can also take place in personalized learning. In Dr. Patrice Prusko’s podcast episode, much of the conversation revolved around connecting with students through their unique contexts and identities. Course design and instruction were built with a trauma informed framework focused on care, support, and compassion.

Dr. Prusko’s discussion showed the importance of collaborating with different campus units such as the accessibility office and student services to meet students wherever they are at and create safe online spaces where learners are free to share their thoughts and their whole selves.

Community

student working on a laptop with others, virtually
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

Contextualization and connection allow learners to find a common ground and build community. In Dr. Prusko’s podcast episode, we learned that when faculty and instructional teams build online courses with their learners in mind and consistently and authentically show students that they are there to support their learning, students will feel a sense of belonging in a virtual and remote environment. This was conducive to building communities based on time zones, research projects, and different disciplines. In the podcast episode with Drs. Manke and Trimble, the Photovoice project demonstrated how students were able to build an online community through sharing their unique experiences throughout the pandemic.

Guiding Questions & Resources

Based on the themes above, here are guiding questions that educators and administrators can use to facilitate conversations and discussions on creating a responsive and engaging course design and teaching strategy.

  1. What are tools and resources available via your institution to help you explore learners’ contexts? Are there professional development opportunities available via your institution or community-based organizations that are partnered with your campus that address the needs of the existing student demographic?
  2. Do faculty have professional development resources and opportunities on how to facilitate meaningful and authentic interactions with students? Topics include inclusive mentoring, communication, education on microaggressions, and being mindful of students’ health and well-being. Are there working relationships with student services such as student life and development and psychological services?
  3. What professional development opportunities do faculty have in building online community spaces? As highlighted in the podcast episodes, communication is key as is a strong sense of students’ context. Below are articles that include good starting points and considerations on how to build online communities.
  4. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-student-engagement/five-ways-to-build-community-in-online-classrooms/
  5. https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57241/six-ways-to-build-community-in-online-classrooms
  6. https://tatp.utoronto.ca/teaching-toolkit/teaching-with-technology-teaching-online/community-online/
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Practice

Mental Health Awareness and Care in Higher Education

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date July 21, 2022
scrabble tiles read mental health matters

Today I’m thankful to welcome, again, Kara Monroe, President and Founder of Monarch Strategies LLC to continue her Frontiers series on leadership in higher education digital learning.

This post, a reflection on mental health, especially as it pertains to caring for ourselves when facing mental health challenges, is the fifth in this series. Don’t forget to check out the previous posts: “Shifting from Covid-normal to New Normal,” “The ‘New Normal’ and Reflections on Accessibility,” “Before and After Moments,” and “It’s Not All Bad.”

A special thank you to Kara for sharing her story this week and for the advice she includes in the post.

Enjoy the read,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

Please note that this article discusses topics that may be triggers for some readers. Please take care of yourself and read this only if you are able to do so in a safe environment. Put your self-care first. 

My experience with anxiety and panic

scrabble tiles read "anxiety"
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood. Downloaded from Pexels.com 7/20/2022

My dad had a stroke in March of 2017. About a week after my dad’s stroke, I started feeling a tingling sensation on the right side of my face. It would come and go so I did my best to simply ignore it. I had my first panic attack about a month after dad’s stroke. It was also becoming hard to ignore the tingling sensation in my face, which also sometimes extended down my right side to my fingertips. I made an appointment with my doctor and she diagnosed me with mild anxiety and a panic disorder. She prescribed medication, which helped alleviate the symptoms, but also encouraged me to work with a therapist. I began therapy about two weeks later and have been talking with a therapist regularly ever since. 

This is a simple story – yet it is one that many leaders in higher education do not feel comfortable sharing. Every person has to live their own life and make their own decisions about what information they disclose and in what circumstances. I kept my struggles with anxiety and panic quiet within my family – not wanting to worry my dad who needed to focus on his own recovery at the time.    

Let’s Have Open Conversations about Mental Health

Why do I share this with you today? First, it’s to make sure you know that you aren’t alone if you also have a mental health disorder/diagnosis. Second, it’s to do my tiny part in destigmatizing conversations about mental health. I’ve seen first hand the dangers of the judgment surrounding conversations about practicing self care for mental health. A supervisor once told me that I should be careful talking about my mental health and seeing a therapist because others might see me as weak. While I see acceptance, authenticity, and honesty as strengths, that supervisor didn’t and still doesn’t. That leader is not alone. According to the winter 2021 Health Minds survey, 45% of students surveyed nationally agree with the statement “Most people would think less of someone who had received mental health treatment.”

I am not alone in struggling with my mental health. While my battle is easily managed with medication and therapy, many others face far more challenging situations than mine. Even before COVID, institutions were taking a serious look at the mental health needs of their students – and in some cases the mental health of their faculty and staff. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for individuals aged 10 – 14 and aged 25 – 34 and it is the third leading cause of death among individuals aged 15 – 24. If you work with students – from elementary aged to the average adult age student population in community colleges, suicide is a very real issue that needs to be talked about on campus. According to the winter 2021 Healthy Minds survey, 23% of students nationally reported non-suicidal self-injury in the past year and 13% reported suicidal ideation. The Healthy Minds survey does skew to a generally younger student age and the degree program data shows that community college students are likely underrepresented in the survey data. 

The State of Workforce Mental Health

Photo by Anna Tarazevich: Downloaded from Pexels.com on 7/20/2022.

The mental health and wellbeing of faculty and staff is at just as critical a point as that of students. Lyra Health recently published their 2022 State of Workforce Mental Health Report which opens with 7 insights – a few of which I’ve chosen to highlight or elaborate on here:

  1. Just as in the Healthy Minds survey, mental health care needs, willingness to seek support, and whether or not mental health benefits are important to job seekers varies greatly by age range.
  2. Employer and employee beliefs vary regarding whether current benefits effectively address employee mental health needs. 76% of employers think needs are met, while only 44% of employees would say that needs are met. 
  3. When employees do have dedicated mental health coverage, 82% believe their managers and leaders model mentally healthy behaviors and 72% of those same employers believe it is important that managers and leaders model mentally healthy behaviors.
  4. Working caregivers – both those of children and of aging parents – have a higher probability of facing mental health challenges than their non-caregiving peers.

As leaders, we must build institutions where mental wellbeing is paramount. Most importantly, emotional safety must be an expectation. In a vast oversimplification of the research of Dr. Stephen Porges, when humans sense a threat, our nervous system’s first defense mechanism is fight or flight. We cannot interact effectively with others when we sense any sort of threat – including emotional threat. 

What can you do? A few personal actions

I have tried to end the articles in this series with some actionable items. I’ve divided the actions associated with this article into two areas – personal actions and institutional actions. 

  • Care for your own mental health and wellbeing. Work with appropriate medical and mental health professionals to care for your personal wellbeing. Additionally, examine your own emotional safety which may include areas such as setting boundaries, building capacity and strategies for exiting stressful situations, and more. 
  • Examine your own beliefs about those who seek mental health treatment. Mental health is simply an element of overall health and wellbeing for each of us. Consider how you react to hearing that someone sees a therapist, takes medication for a mental health issue, and/or is experiencing anxiety. Examine your own beliefs and reactions and work to make these, at the very least, neutral.

What can you do? A few institutional actions

The following actions may require personal effort on your part. Additionally, if you are in a position of power or have leadership authority at your institution, you may be able to take specific action on these elements immediately. If not, advocate in spaces where you can keep these issues top of mind within your organization.

  • Advocate for and provide role clarity. Role clarity provides an element of emotional safety. If I know what is expected of me and where my boundaries are in doing my job, I can execute those requirements safely. I love the question from Brene Brown in Dare to Lead – “What does done look like?”. This is a great question to start a conversation with a team member when you’re delegating a project to them. Let them respond and then make sure your expectations are aligned. This could also be a personal action. Remember that “Clear is Kind” – also a Brene Brown quote. Be sure that you are being clear in your expectations and actions. 
  • Model and encourage rests and breaks. The following is taken directly from the Lyra Health report, “Encourage and respect regular breaks, paid time off, and boundaries around workdays.” For some very interesting takes on this issue, I’ve been enjoying the current season, entitled @Work, of the NPR podcast Rough Translation. 
  • Learn about your employee assistance program when you don’t need it. Make yourself aware of the mental health benefits available through your employee benefits program now. This can include your medical plan, employee assistance programs (EAP), and even some mental health specific plans. I’ll quote a dear friend here who had to avail herself of the EAP at her workplace. “The time you want to figure out what’s available in your EAP is when you DON’T need it. When you do need it, there is a crisis and you don’t have time to figure out what’s available.” This can also lead to a solid personal action which is to make sure colleagues who are benefits eligible are reminded of these types of benefits when they need them most. They may not think of these programs when they are in crisis and you can help them with nothing but a simple reminder. 
  • Include mental health in your diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Ensure that there are mental health professionals and those who care deeply about the mental wellbeing of your entire campus community who are engaged in the diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy teams of your campus community. This can include everything from those who care about neurodivergence among students, faculty, and staff to mental health professionals. 
  • Include Trauma Informed, Culture of Care, and other relevant pedagogy in your professional learning opportunities. As you have the opportunity, advocate for and/or add trauma informed pedagogy, culture of care, and pedagogy for inclusive classrooms and inclusive teaching to the catalog of professional learning opportunities at your institution. While we are starting to see more and more higher education institutions embrace inclusive classroom strategies, my opinion remains that trauma informed pedagogy is being left to our K12 partners when trauma does not stop informing the life of the student simply because they graduated high school.
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Reconnecting via RioConnect: Putting Research into Practice and Building Virtual Communities for Online Students

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date July 14, 2022

While it seems we have an increasing number of options when it comes to virtual services and activities – anything from banking, to food delivery to scavenger hunts – the virtual world can be lacking when it comes to social interaction. This is an important challenge for higher education institutions offering partial or fully online courses.

This is why we’re thrilled to learn about virtual community strategies from Nicole Barbaro, College Innovation Network at WGU Labs, and Janelle Elias, Rio Salado College. Nicole and Janelle highlight how Rio faced the above-mentioned challenge and how their solution benefits their students. Thank you Nicole and Janelle!

Enjoy the read,

– Lindsey Downs, WCET

Online higher education is becoming increasingly common and more widely accepted, in large part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that in 2020, 75% students enrolled in at least one online course in college, and 44% of students were enrolled exclusively in online courses – increases of 97% and 186% compared to 2019, respectively.

While online education offers greater flexibility and broader accessibility for students, there is an important trade-off: students may be missing out on the social learning experiences that are inherent to in-person learning.

The importance of the social side to higher education for students was highlighted as a result of the near universal shift to online learning that began in 2020. A 2021 Inside Higher Ed survey showed that 71% of students report that the lack of connection with peers and faculty is a significant challenge posed by online learning. Similar results were found by a 2021 College Innovation Network survey that showed 69% of students feel less connected to their peers in online learning environments.

Building RioConnect at Rio Salado College

Given the importance of peer community and belonging for student success, it’s vital that online education creates new ways for students to connect. This means building what are referred to as “virtual communities” that give students a dedicated space to learn from others, get support, socialize, and boost belonging.

A nice case study of the impact that virtual communities can have on students is the recently launched RioConnect community (powered by InScribe) at Rio Salado College – a primarily online community college in Tempe, Arizona.

screen capture of rioconnect platform
Screen capture of RioConnect platform

In our research, we followed over 200 Rio Salado students across six weeks to evaluate how engaging (or not) with the virtual RioConnect community changed their sense of belongingness and peer connectedness.

What we found was encouraging:

  • Students who engaged with the virtual community had a significantly higher reported sense of belonging and peer connectedness compared to students who did not participate.
  • Over the six-week study period, engaging in the community was associated with an increase in belonging and connectedness for students. In fact, one student shared that “we now have engagement with other students so online learning doesn’t feel so isolated.”

It’s clear that virtual communities are an effective way for online students to get to know each other and promote belonging, but how can college leaders get it right? Throughout the process of building the RioConnect community and working with the student users, we’ve learned a few things that college leaders should know about building online communities.

1 – Make the space “for and by students”

It takes more than deciding to make a space for students, but to ensure that the space is really what students want and need (see next point), the virtual community must also be created by students. When building RioConnect, student leaders were recruited to be part of the team.

By involving students in the community creation and getting conversations off the ground, it fostered the sense of a true student space that felt comfortable to participate in, and the leaders set a positive example of engagement for other students, in addition to encouraging participation from other students.

2 – Students want value-add

By involving students in the building of the community, the space is more likely to provide what students really need –
support, connection, and information.

Students have a lot of responsibilities and commitments, so it’s vital that a new tool and space offers clear value for students. By involving students in the building of the community, the space is more likely to provide what students really need – support, connection, and information.

The value-add came through in our research when speaking with students. As one student shared, “I like that the forum provides a general space for questions, strategy, and peer-offered assistance.” Students also desire practical information about classes, too, as another student said, “I think the discussions that start up on RioConnect are very interesting and provide good advice on future classes I may take.”

3 – Virtual spaces are more inclusive

Online learning offers flexibility for many, but the shift to online has been particularly beneficial for increasing inclusivity for all students. In-person networking and social clubs are a staple of college, but online options allow for a greater range of engagement that make many students more comfortable socially. As one student shared, “I like that you can choose whether or not you want to feel included and it doesn’t have to be in person because I have social anxiety.”

4 – Continue to iterate

people on a video call
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

A community takes nurturing and development. And within higher education, students’ needs are continuously changing and evolving. Your virtual community must evolve, too! Iteration can be achieved in a couple ways. One is to do continuous research to ensure the community has the desired impact over time, and to gather formal feedback from users. Another strategy is to have a student committee to ensure a continuous pulse on the needs of the student community. Belonging is an ongoing process – be sure to integrate checks into your strategy to keep the community vibrant.

Virtual communities are a great way to engage online students and help boost belonging at your institution. With online and tech-enabled learning becoming more ubiquitous in higher ed, our collective learnings and lessons will help ensure that our online students stay socially connected and supported in their peer communities.

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Potato/Potahto, Microcredential/Micro-credential…Finding and Providing Clarity in Defining Microcredentials

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date June 30, 2022
a newspaper

What is a microcredential? A certificate? Bootcamp? If you are confused, you are not alone. Currently, there are no industry-wide standard definitions for microcredentials. There are several national initiatives coalescing around developing standard terms to provide cohesion and clarity. While this is incredibly promising and exciting, your organization may need taxonomies prior to national standards being adopted. Digital Promise defines a microcredential as “A competency or skills-based recognition that allows a learner to demonstrate mastery and learning in a particular area (Digital Promise).”

Establishing a common understanding of terms across your organization is critical to any microcredential initiative. To help you navigate this murky sea, we compiled several recommended resources (see box 1) and called on several experts within the WCET community to share their advice.

Recommended Resources for Definitions and Key Terms:

1EdTech

AACRAO

Credential As You Go

EdDesign Lab

UNESCO Towards a Common Definition of Micro-credentials

But first, read the previous blog in WCET’s microcredential series, Considering Your “Why”- How Developing a Microcredential Strategy Will Help Your Students (and Your University) Thrive. The blog concludes where this one begins, “At the root of your why should be definitions and metrics that are authentic to the overall strategy and mission of your institution.”

Q&A With Experts

Please note, some responses have been edited for space and clarity.

Q: Who was involved in this initiative for your institution? Were there others that should have been involved earlier?

Anissa Vega, Kennesaw State University:

Several interested units were invited by the Provost to join a task force charged with designing a cohesive and inclusive institutional microcredential initiative.

The unit representatives came from many different areas:

  • professional education,
  • digital learning,
  • registration,
  • career services,
  • curriculum,
  • strategic communications,
  • information technology services,
  • student affairs.

We should have engaged our student affairs group earlier to learn about how they were documenting student engagement on campus; however, once we did loop them in, they helped refine the institutional plan and have embraced the initiative.    

Michelle Alvarez, Southern New Hampshire University:

We took a unique approach to launching microcredentials.

First, we identified key roles that were needed and pulled together a team from across the university. SNHU reassigned these employees to a full-time job on the newly formed Digital Credentials Lab (DCL) team. This team was responsible for learning about microcredentials through market research, feasibility studies, and pilots to develop requirements for a minimum viable product.

The group collaborated with others across the university for a year and a half to lay the foundation for offering microcredentials at SNHU.

Erica Vonk, Northwestern College:

When the Center for Innovation & Leadership at Northwestern College began in the Fall of 2020, microcredentials were not one of the top five programs under consideration; however, within a few months external organizations provided strong feedback requesting training and development needs.

So, the journey was motivated by external organizations. From there, the Director of the Center for Innovation & Leadership, the VPAA, and the office of Graduate School & Adult Learning came together to conduct deeper research.

Looking back, we should have provided an opportunity for our undergraduate and graduate students to be involved earlier.

Q: How did your microcredential journey start?

Kennesaw: To start our journey, members of the microcredentials task force read available literature in the field and reviewed microcredential initiatives at other institutions. We then consulted with our campus regional accreditation liaison. The early research helped us understand the larger context, lessons learned from other institutions, and the boundaries of our innovation efforts. Then we set out to design our taxonomy of microcredentials, which took several drafts as we tested it classifying many possible scenarios. The taxonomy helped us define activities or products that would qualify as a microcredential. As the taxonomy solidified, we gathered our work in the KSU Microcredential Guidebook. After many iterations, this guidebook now serves as a central point of communication about the initiative.

Northwestern College: We began with some modeling learned from other higher education examples and an agreement with Credly for the hosting and delivery of our digital badges. We also made an agreement with Franklin Covey learning content, a regional training and consulting company, and a few other conference events. These provided a foundation of valuable credentials that we marketed through a new website. Marketing then included internal face-to-face meetings with every department, and we marketed externally through radio, social media, and local newspapers. 

Q: Where did you go to look for terms and definitions about microcredentials?

SNHU: One of the first tasks of the DCL team at SNHU was to create a shared taxonomy around microcredentials. Note how microcredentials is spelled. We had to start at the basic level of how we will spell the word. The team looked internally and externally for definitions that made sense for the context of SNHU. Our definitions came from our Learning Science team and our accreditation team, as well as the U.S. Department of Education, Lumina Foundation, CAEL, ACE, SUNY, Colorado Community College System, National Association of Workforce Development, UPCEA, 1EdTech, WCET, Alamo Community College, and NCES.

The SNHU DCL team used the following definition of microcredentials. “Microcredentials are units of learning, short of a degree, that attest to learners’ knowledge, skills, and abilities” (SNHU, DCL, 2019).

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Kennesaw: The Report of The International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Working Group on The Present and Future of Alternative Digital Credentials (2019) was especially helpful and much of our language started from their document.

However, we adjusted some terms because our campus community expressed terminology preferences. For example, initially the initiative was called Alternative Digital Credentials, but the campus was more familiar with the term micro-credential. To help with ease of communication and community adoption of the initiative, we decided to adjust our initiative name to be KSU Micro-credentials. From the beginning, we remained flexible and listened to campus stakeholders when they repeatedly needed clarification or expressed preferences in terminology.

Q: How do you define the differences between certificates, microcredentials, bootcamps, badges, etc.?

Kennesaw:

  • Microcredentials are digital records of a learner’s successful practice of or mastery of professional skills and competencies that are not reflected on an academic transcript.
  • Both badges and digital certificates appear in our taxonomy; however, digital certificates represent a collection of skills or competencies, while a badge represents one skill or competency. In our taxonomy, badges can stack into a certificate, but a certificate does not currently stack into any higher credential at this time.
  • Badges serve as digital documentation of the practice of or mastery of a skill or competency that has professional or career value.
  • Digital Certificates represent that an earner is qualified and capable of employing a collection of competencies or industry standards in professional environments.
  • We do not define bootcamps but consider them as one pathway option in which an earner may learn, practice, and demonstrate professional skills or competencies.

Northwestern College: We do not currently offer certificates or bootcamps, instead we focus on microcredentials with a digital badge to showcase learning. Microcredentials are defined as a mini-qualification or training that occurs over a shortened time frame that a specific focus on demonstrating proficiency in a skill, knowledge, capability, or experience. 

We categorize each microcredential using NACE competency categories of Career & Self-Development, Communication, Critical Thinking, Equity & Inclusion, Leadership, Professionalism, Teamwork, Technology, and Other. A digital badge is a visual representation of the learning accomplished in a microcredential. The digital badge can be shared on social media, displayed on resumes, and added to Credly’s digital badge wallet. Users find the digital badge valuable in marketing themselves to stand out in hiring and promotion processes. Organization’s human resource departments love the ability to digitally track employee’s learning. 

Q: Why is there so much confusion about what a microcredential is?

SNHU: Microcredentials is such a broad term that it can be confusing to learners and employers. It is both credit-bearing and non-credit. It is a stand-alone experience or a course-based experience. There is no standard time to complete. Because it can take so many shapes and sizes, and there is no consistency across providers.

Q: What lessons would you share with someone starting a microcredential journey at their institution?

SNHU:

1 – Governance and guiding policies are essential to the success of microcredentials.

“Institutions will need to efficiently create overarching strategies for the governance and guiding policies around micro-credentials and badging that allow for both disruptive innovation and centralized oversight. Clarity in an institution of how and where microcredentials, and likewise digital badges, fall inside or outside the curriculum is important. This clarity will help ensure that neither become commonplace nor lose their perceived value for accomplishments” (Alvarez, et al, 2022, p. 38).

2 – We owe learners and employers’ transparency regarding microcredential value.

“Learners who earned a single credit for a learning experience did not value it unless it was matched with an option to earn two more credits, so that it could align to a 3-credit course. The average undergraduate student at SNHU transfers in 30 credits, limiting room for elective credits in their degree program. Assessing a micro learning experience as an elective credit is not useful to a typical learner at SNHU…” (Alvarez, et al, 2022, p. 38).

Kennesaw: Microcredential champions should look for existing campus areas with substantial momentum and borrow that for the new initiative. For example, our faculty are especially active in curriculum innovation and improvement. Where fitting, we mimicked our curriculum design and review processes, employed some of the software tools used by the system, and established a similar level of campus representative review. Faculty and community members can apply their knowledge and experience with the institutional curriculum process to conceptualize how the new microcredential initiative works.

Northwestern College: Know your capabilities. This has taken more time and financial resources than initially estimated. Make sure you have campus “by-in” from departments such as Graduate & Adult Learning, Marketing & Communication, and your IT/Website team. They will be great supporters. You need a support person with great organizational skills for details with website, Credly, and training providers. Overall, be careful with your “yes, start small, and make sure you do not outgrow your capabilities.

Focus On the End Goal – Serving Students

The semantics of microcredentials can be overwhelming, but do not let that derail your institution’s strategy. At the heart of any microcredential initiative is the goal of serving students, the language used must be student friendly. Focusing on this end goal, utilizing existing definitions such as those referenced in this blog, and collaborating across the institution from the start will help ensure a strong framework.

We would like to thank the following people who generously helped with this blog:

  • Michelle Alvarez, Assistant Vice President of Product and Program Councils, Southern New Hampshire University
  • Anissa Lokey-Vega, Assistant Vice President for Curriculum and Academic Innovation, Kennesaw State University
  • Erica Vonk, Erica Vonk, Director of Center for Innovation & Leadership, Instructor of Business & Economics, Northwestern College
  • Holly Zanville, Research Professor and Co-Director of Program on Skills, Credentials and Workforce Policy in the Institute of Public Policy, George Washington University

Recommended Resources:

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Practice

A Higher Education Overview of Cybersecurity as it is Relevant to You: Introduction

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date June 28, 2022

Recently, a friend texted me to complain about the cybersecurity training she had to do for work, and then asked, jokingly, how I can bear to follow and study the subject matter. I completely understand her complaint.

Photo by Patrick Amoy on Unsplash

Cybersecurity can be extremely interesting, in my opinion, but unfortunately that is never quite conveyed in workplace cybersecurity trainings and resources. I suspect that some of the issues crop up because cybersecurity is a very technical topic that is rarely explained meaningfully in plain speech, meanwhile, much of the cybersecurity information that reaches employees comes from HR trainings (much like the one my friend was doing) which give over simplified direct instructions to employees regarding their expected behaviors to meet insurance requirements. Neither the technical explanation nor the HR explanation succeeds very often in conveying the specifics, complexities, strangeness, or even excitement of cybersecurity.

Although I would hardly consider myself a subject matter expert in cybersecurity (the topic is so massive that it no body is really an expert in the whole thing), I can provide some introduction. Coming from a background in non-technical higher education, the introduction I can provide is relevant to our non-technical higher ed audience.

The ABCs of Cybersecurity

To begin with, let’s talk about language. While “cybersecurity” is a frequently used word that can refer to a wide range of important security topics, this word is often beyond the scope of what higher education institutions need to concentrate on. In higher education, we’re not trying to secure all of cyberspace. Most often, we’re securing data and information. Therefore, language such as “information security” or “privacy and data protection” are more apt descriptions of the same topic.

As “cybersecurity” remains the most frequently used and established word for this subject, WCET still uses this word sometimes but it’s also useful to understand what we really mean.

The CIA Triad

Cybersecurity is summed up by three primary concepts: confidentiality, integrity, and availability (known as the CIA Triad). Each of these concepts is broad, and often overlaps with one or both other concepts, and all cybersecurity threats fall somewhere within the CIA Triad. While each of these topics can be breached by an outside actor with ill intentions, they can also be caused by internal errors and accidents that have no actual perpetrator but are still problematic, regardless of how they occur.

Confidentiality

Photo by fran innocenti on Unsplash

Confidentiality is perhaps the most frequently thought of element of the triad when most people think of cybersecurity. Confidentiality is, as one might have guessed from the word, about keeping data and information confidential. The contents of my bank account are, for example, kept confidential from you. Student academic records may be recorded within a student portal and select people may have limited access to seeing those records when appropriate, but overall, those student academic records are kept confidential from most other people at the institution.

Often when confidentiality is lost it is because someone intentionally breached the protective measures of a website or server such as through phishing or other types of hacking. However, if while getting cash at the ATM I accidentally leave the receipt in the machine when I leave, the next person to walk up might be able to take the receipt and see how much money I have remaining in my account. Without any perpetrator or ill-will, my current bank balance has been displayed to a random stranger and loses some level of confidentiality. Confidentiality is ultimately about only certain people having access to data.

Integrity

The integrity of information refers to the legitimacy and authenticity of information. Data and information that lack integrity are data and information that have been tampered with or recorded incorrectly. If I log on to my Facebook account on a computer in the library and leave before logging off and someone else shares a goofy post as me on my Facebook page, that is a breach of integrity. Other people may see the post on my Facebook page thinking that I posted it, but in fact, it was not me. While this example doesn’t present a very big threat, there are other versions of the same threat that are more concerning: in 2013 for example, a Syrian hacker group hacked into the Twitter account for the Associated Press and posted a fake tweet claiming that there had been explosions at the White House. In the short time that the tweet was believed to be accurate, it was re-tweeted thousands of times and caused a short term drop in the stock market. The accuracy of information is immensely important, especially when it comes to information from trusted sources. Information integrity is also of great importance when it comes to the accuracy of an individual’s information.

Similar to confidentiality issues, issues of integrity can crop up without any perpetrator. If a grade or a research data point is entered into the computer incorrectly, it would reflect inaccurate results. Regardless of the involvement of a perpetrator or not, the incorrect data point can cause confusion to those viewing the data who may recognize that the information seems incorrect, or if nobody is looking very closely, it may not be second guessed at all.

Availability

The last element of the triad is availability, which centers around information or data being available (you probably guessed that from the word!). If WCET stopped paying to have our website hosted on external servers, our website would eventually go down, and would become unavailable to our users. Additionally, if a hacking group flooded the servers of a university website with fake traffic in what is known as a denial-of-service attack, the website at hand could become temporarily unavailable as well. There are, of course, actions that universities can take to prevent such events, but it is a real risk, especially for smaller institutions with fewer technological resources.

Insecurities Within the Triad

You can easily begin to see how these topics could overlap. If I write down my banking password on a piece of paper that I keep in my wallet and my wallet gets stolen, then someone might be able to log into my account (breach of confidentiality) and then make a bank deposit from my account to theirs (breach of availability). Similarly, I could fall for a phishing attempt on my work computer, which could give administrative access to the WCET website to a hacker (breach of confidentiality), and the hacker could make significant alterations to the contents of the WCET website that mislead users about who we are (breach of integrity).

Higher Education is an Easy Target

As you can see, cybersecurity plays an important role in our own personal lives as well as in the whole of the higher education industry today. While it is true that any business regardless of industry can be vulnerable to cyberattacks, causing each of them to need to put time and money into securing themselves from outside threats, higher education does experience several unique vulnerabilities.

The Attack Surface

One central way that institutions of higher education can be extra vulnerable to attack is that they are “open” by design. A private company might have many internal management systems that can only be accessed on site or when connected through a VPN. Access is limited to certain users, which minimizes some potential points of entry and points of attack. Even without limited access, a regular workplace that doesn’t have many security procedures in place will only give logins (for email clients, for company software, for websites, etc.) to employees. However, a higher education institution functions differently by design. Certain systems such as learning management systems and student portals must be available to all students, in addition to many faculty and staff. Faculty and staff meanwhile have administrator logins to some of these accounts as well. Everyone connected to an institution likely has access to institutional email. Each department might have their own login to the institution’s website so that each department has real-time control over their content and doesn’t need to go through a centralized web department. The list goes on. There are a lot of platforms in use and a lot of people who have access to them. Each unique account will likely have its own unique login credentials, which can be more or less secure based on how they are set up. All of these logins and all of these people with varying degrees of access to institutional software and systems creates a very large attack surface.

Data at Risk

There are several more security vulnerabilities in higher education that make institutions especially at risk. For example, institutions have a lot of data, which is vulnerable to being viewed (confidentiality), changed (integrity), or deleted (availability). Such data includes:

  • Personally identifiable information for all students, faculty, and staff.
  • Student records from the past and present.
  • Student financial records.
  • Employment records, including financial employment information.
  • Research data from past and current research projects at the institution.
  • Health data that has either been provided by students or collected at the institution itself when there are on-campus health services.

The list goes on. With all this data at risk, plus all these attack vectors into institutional systems, it is no surprise that higher education institutions are such a frequent target of cyberattacks and with such dire consequences.

Securing Higher Education

It is often said that all employees, not just the IT department, must play a role in security. To better understand how to do this, all employees need better information on what role they play in security. Although security policies will be different from one institution to the next, I hope to continue to provide a few more posts about information security, which explains this topic in an approachable way that is meaningful to the higher education industry.

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Policy

What’s Happened to Those Federal Regs on Professional Licensure and Reciprocity?

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date June 24, 2022

Publication of the Department of Education’s proposed professional licensure and reciprocity rules will be delayed until 2023.

In March we alerted you to two proposed changes to U.S. Department of Education regulations from its Negotiated Rulemaking process earlier this year. These proposals would have a great impact on the digital / distance learning world, if implemented. The proposed changes were:

  • Professional Licensure – Currently, institutions are required to notify students if its program meets, does not meet, or the institution has not determined that it meets the educational requirements for the state in which the student is located. The proposed rule would require the program to “ensure” that the program meets the state educational requirements, if any. To “ensure” that the program meets the requirements would protect students but is a standard that is difficult to achieve for some states and programs.
  • State Authorization Reciprocity – Institutions could still use a reciprocity agreement to obtain institutional approval to serve students in a participating state. However, the institution would be eligible to disburse Federal (Title IV) financial aid to students in a state only if that reciprocity agreement complies “with all State consumer protection laws, including both generally applicable State laws and those specific to educational institutions…”
    This adds the requirement for institutions to meet laws specific to educational institutions, which will increase student protections is some states. On the other hand, it could negate reciprocity and will likely increase the work and costs for institutions to serve students in many states.

The Breaking News

Unlike cable news networks “breaking news,” this is actually big news that we learned on Wednesday of this week. The above rules were part of proposed updates to the “Certification Procedures.” These are rules contained in the Program Participation Agreement that institutions must sign to be eligible to disburse federal financial aid.

On Wednesday, the Office of Management and Budget website posted updates on the status of the proposed regulations.

On the bottom line you can see that the NPRM (Notice for Proposed Rulemaking, where the Department seeks public comment) is scheduled for April of 2023.

In her post last week, Cheryl Dowd said that there were so many rules in the queue that is was hard to imagine they would get to all of them this year. She was prescient.

What this means is that they will not release the proposed rules for public comment until next Spring. If they publish the final rule by November 1, 2023, the regulations will go into effect on July 1, 2024.

We will continue to follow these rules and update you.

What Have We Been Doing About Professional Licensure?

  • SAN logo

Lots.

We have been working on the behalf of WCET and State Authorization Network members …often behind the scenes.

Rulemaking

During the negotiated rulemaking sessions, we were working with two of the negotiators representing consumer protection groups. We sought to create a compromise that would work for all. Cheryl Dowd (Senior Director, State Authorization Network and WCET Policy Innovations) and I advocated for the following principles in this compromise:

  • If the profession in a state has clear laws or regulations regarding the educational requirements for entering the profession, the institution must meet those expectations.
  • The determination of whether the laws or regulations for a profession are met is made at the time of “initial enrollment” of the student.
  • An institution should not be held to meet the requirements where it is unable to do so. There are some states without rules or without the staff to make a determination for an institution. An institution should not be held to rules that are not there or to which the state will not engage in discussion about whether the institution is in compliance.
  • Students should be allowed to opt into a program. Given today’s mobile society or populations located on state borders, there are many reasons why a student may wish to enroll in a program that is unable to “ensure” that it meet the educational requirements where the student is currently located.

Engaging Professional Licensure Associations, State Licensing Agencies, and Professional Accrediting Agencies

a nurse holding a tablet
Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Cheryl Dowd, has contacted many associations of state licensing agencies for different professions. She has also talked to individuals at some specific state agencies. Many of them were unaware of the proposed rules or the possible impact that it could have on their agencies.

Cheryl’s persistence helped several organizations within a health profession to coordinate with each other. Eventually, they gained a meeting with Education Department leadership.

Engaging Other Organizations

Several of the higher education presidential and leadership organizations are assembling a series of recommendations to the Department regarding the proposed rules. We contributed extensively to the wording in that letter regarding the anticipated professional licensure language.

Cheryl just returned from a meeting of the Council of State Governments and the National Council of State Legislators regarding licensure compacts that provide portability of a license to other compact member states for individuals who already possess a license from a state agency. She continually raised the issue about the need for increased communication between state licensing boards and postsecondary institutions to address portability of the education at the pre-licensure stage. We are already strategizing next steps about who else needs to be engaged.

We have presented on these issues several times, including at NASASPS – the state regulator organization. We also have talked to several other organizations. Next week, Kathryn Kerensky, Director Digital Learning Policy & Compliance and Cheryl are presenting at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) and then we are presenting at the Online Teaching Conference for the California Community Colleges and we will certainly raise this issue.

If you are getting the idea that Cheryl has been a bulldog on this issue, you are reading that correctly.

What Have We Been Doing About Reciprocity?

NC-SARA and the four regional higher education compacts (MHEC, NEBHE, SREB, & WICHE) have led the charge on this issue. Especially for WICHE and the compacts, we have provided input and advice.

Rulemaking

During the negotiated rulemaking sessions, we provided background information and suggestions to several of the institutional negotiators. None of them had any background on this issue.

Engaging Other Organizations

We were asked to contribute to the higher education presidential and leadership organizations’ recommendations to the Department. Again, we provided extensive suggested language for that letter regarding the anticipated reciprocity language.

We have presented on these issues several times and have talked to several organizations.

Our Take on Reciprocity

Our take has been that the proposed regulation would improve consumer protection in a few states, but will make SARA a less valuable option for several states and institutions. If states drop out, consumer protection could actually lessen. We are also sure that underfunded and low-in-personnel state agencies will be ill-prepared to handle the resulting onslaught of requests from hundreds (thousands?) of institutions.

We also wonder how the Department might enforce this rule if it were to go into effect. Let’s say that a reciprocity agreement does not comply. Will they deny aid to the students from institutions in the 40+ states participating in the agreement? We are unclear how this rule could be enforced. Due to the limitations on what the Department can regulate, it is focused on institutions but the intent seems to actually be to regulate states.

NC-SARA will soon update its policy process. And they need improved policies. Our recommendation is for the Department to work with states, the compacts, and NC-SARA to improve consumer protections through reciprocity. By doing that, protections will reach nearly every corner of the country. And that’s a better option than improving protections in just a few states.

The Department now has ample time to work with states on both these issues.

And we’re happy to help.

graphic of a bulldog

Our Message to Members

We’re doing lots of work behind the scenes. It’s not flashy. It’s not in the press.

We’re working to improve consumer protections for students.

And we’re working for you…our members.

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Policy

Juneteenth: Freedom and Educational Equity

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date June 21, 2022

WCET + Every Learner Everywhere Celebrate Juneteenth

Juneteenth, or “Freedom Day” is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth not only celebrates the freedom of African Americans from slavery, but it also is a time when our achievements are noted, and continuous self-development is encouraged. WCET and Every Learner Everywhere sought to make a Juneteenth commemorative post showcasing the strength in the American spirit to recognize wrong and set about making it right.

Juneteenth offers an opportunity to talk about this complex history and here we share reflections from WCET Executive Leadership and Every Learner Equity Advisory Board and Staff on our ideas of freedom and educational equity and how freedom has shaped our educational experiences.

To me, educational equity means creating learning environments that enable all learners to achieve their fullest potential. In order to experience true liberation, we will need to dismantle systemic racism and classism, decenter whiteness in teaching and learning, and remove structural barriers in our educational policies and practices.

Working towards equity in Higher Ed is personal for me because my hope is that we will ultimately create a more equitable and fair learning experience for the future generation of students which includes my own children.

  • Jessica Rowland Williams, Ph.D., Director, Every Learner Everywhere

As a first-generation college student, woman of color, and daughter of an immigrant, I lead California Competes: Higher Education for a Strong Economy with the perspective that higher education can be a vehicle to prosperity for individuals and the communities they serve. Dismantling systems that do not serve today’s students equitably is our professional (and my personal) mission. My parents did not have the opportunity to go to college. They ended up in California after leaving challenging circumstances and had to carve their own pathways to success around the systematic barriers that kept them out. For me and my brother though, my parents emphasized that college was key, and it was instilled in me that higher education opens doors, creating the freedom of choices to turn one’s dreams and aspirations into reality. They were right. The benefits of higher education have profoundly impacted my life, and I want all Californians to have this opportunity—this freedom of choice on what trajectory to take—to reach their full potential, regardless of backgrounds and circumstances. The ultimate goal for us at California Competes is one where every individual can access higher education to bolster both personal and community development, engagement, and success.

  • Su Jin Jez, Ph.D., Executive Director, California Competes + Every Learner Equity Advisory Board Member
Jenni Atwood headshot.

When thinking about freedom and educational equity, I go to this quote from former US Secretary of Education and current managing partner at Emerson Collective Arne Duncan: “By becoming a champion country, we are answering a global call to action to focus the world’s attention on the cause of education and equal opportunity for all. A good education is one of the most powerful ways for nations to reduce poverty, become competitive and grow the economic pie for all. It’s better for individuals, for the country, and for the world when countries invest in education.” By promoting educational equity, we are positively impacting every aspect of society.

  • Jenni Atwood, Grants Manager, Every Learner Everywhere

As a native South Texan, I learned that Juneteenth or “Freedom Day” is a part of the state’s history. Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, with the news that the Civil War was over and slavery in the United States was abolished. In 1979, the Texas Legislature passed a bill to mark Juneteenth as a state holiday. Forty-two years later, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act that establishes June 19 as a national holiday that commemorates the end of slavery and honors the culture and achievements of African Americans.

Educational equity, to me, is the foundational practices, policies, and procedures of academic fairness and inclusion. Every child/student deserves access to the necessary tools and resources that will provide an opportunity to be successful in their educational journey, K-12 and post-secondary. Yet, here we are in 2022, still met with challenges every day across the digital landscape of America. 

As an administrative leader at an institution of higher education that primarily serves a Hispanic student population, my role is to provide educational technology services and resources to all students regardless of race, color, or economic class. My educational experiences differed from my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, but we lived through the challenges and persevered. Every generation experiences educational equity, and our role is to pay it forward as leaders to make a difference for every child/student.

  • Rolando R. Garza, Ed.D., Director of the Center for Academic Technology, Texas A&M University-Kingsville + Every Learner Everywhere Equity Advisory Board Member

Observing Juneteenth reminds me to celebrate how far Black Americans have come since the 1860’s, but also to reflect on the work that still needs to be done. I believe that education – specifically public education – is essential for the advancement of diversity, equity, inclusion, and freedom. Furthermore, I believe that online public education helps to expand access to educational opportunity, especially for students who can’t afford to pause family, home and work responsibilities for a traditional four-year, on-campus experience.

For me, Juneteenth inspires empathy for underserved student populations, and reminds me that the onus is on institutions of higher education to better serve underserved student groups and to narrow the equity gap in higher ed. I am proud to devote my career to improving educational access and am grateful for how Juneteenth challenges me.

  • Shannon Riggs, Executive Director, Academic Programs & Learning Innovation, Oregon State University + WCET Steering Committee Chair, WCET Executive Council

On June 19, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two and a half months after the end of the Civil War, Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order Number Three in Galveston, Texas announcing the end of slavery and proclaiming, “This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” This proclamation, though, was not enough to end discrimination and inequality. In fact, racial discrimination became the law of the land when in 1896 the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that separate but equal facilities, including schools, were legal. This doctrine of separate but equal wasn’t struck down until almost sixty years later in Brown v. Board of Education. Yet, even then, educational discrimination remained and continues in 2022.

What does Juneteenth mean to me? For me, Juneteenth represents a powerful promise that has gone unfulfilled. Even the landmark Brown v. Board of Education has not been enough to ensure equitable education for all learners. Juneteenth teaches us that proclaiming something is not enough; we must actively work to make the promises of Juneteenth and Brown v. Board of Education a reality. Educational inequity isn’t a thing of the past; it persists. But it doesn’t have to. We have the ability to call out educational inequity when we see it and work to eradicate it. We can create an educational system where all learners have access to the resources they need to be successful. We can fulfill Juneteenth’s promise.

  • Van Davis, Ph.D., Service Design and Strategy Officer, Every Learner Everywhere + Chief Strategy Officer, WCET

On Juneteenth, the truth about the end of slavery in the United States was finally proclaimed in Galveston, Texas. As Van outlines above, that did not immediately end inequality. But the truth was out there and they acted on that truth.
Distance and digital learning in higher education has evolved over the years to allow students to overcome the barriers of geographic and temporal separation. A truth that emerged in stark relief during the pandemic was that the digital divide barrier was much wider than we ever imagined. In particular, Black, Indigenous, LatinX, and poverty-affected students often found themselves on the outside looking in.
We, in the digital learning field, have been at the forefront of knocking down barriers for years. The new truth is out there about the digital divide. It is time for us to keep acting on that truth.

  • Russ Poulin, Executive Director, WCET & Vice President for Technology-Enhanced Education, WICHE

Juneteenth is more than an observance of freedom. It’s also a time to share the experiences of those who fought to seek true freedom for future generations. The celebration of Juneteenth acknowledges hard history while also empowering students to be advocates for change. Together we’ll continue to celebrate the freedom of African Americans, honor our achievements, and catalyze change in dismantling systemic racism and removing structural barriers to educational equity for every learner, everywhere.

Thank you to those featured in this post for sharing your reflections on this day.

To learn more about Juneteenth, we recommend visiting the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture’s Juneteenth webpage for more information and resources.

— WCET and ELE Staff

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