Author: WCET Frontiers

CTDLC: Collaborating to Offer eTutoring

By WCET Frontiers

March 28, 2013

2 Comments

In this Frontiers blog, we welcome back the 2007 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award winning eTutoring program from the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium. A long running program by any standards, this WOW Award winner has continued to grow and improve over the past six years. Speaking of WOW Awards, don’t forget to nominate your or a colleague’s outstanding work in applying an innovative, technology-based solution to a challenging educational need. Nominations are open until April 22 to all WCET members.

When the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium was created back in 1998, it’s doubtful our founders imagined we would someday be providers of online tutoring to over 130 institutions of higher education across North America. But that’s exactly where we find ourselves today.

The Origins of the eTutoring Collaborative Idea

As a membership organization, created by our state’s legislature to help Connecticut’s colleges and universities develop and deliver high quality online courses to its students, the notion of collaboration between and among colleges and universities was at the core of our efforts from the start. In the process of one of these projects, the eTutoring program and platform emerged. Diane Goldsmith, Director of Learning, Assessment and Online Education at the University of Rhode Island, and Executive Director Emerita of CTDLC, tells the story:

“It was 2000 and the colleges and universities in Connecticut were beginning to offer online classes, however, no one was thinking about how to provide academic support to those students. I was new to CTDLC, but thought that a collaboration might provide an answer even though I didn’t really know how. So I wrote a grant with 7 institutions and we were funded to build collaborative online student support services, despite having no real idea how to do that in a state where each institution saw itself as its own universe. We began to focus on tutoring and listened to myriads of concerns, from a blanket, “you can’t tutor online,” to the specific, “all our tutors have to be familiar with the textbook for each class.” Then one day, a Distance Learning Director said, “But if my institution provides a writing tutor and yours a math tutor, we can cover more subjects, serve more students, and provide more tutoring hours than if we each go it alone.”

Expanding the Model to Other States…and Another Country

That was the break-through that led to a larger conversation and a firm commitment to the collaborative process, where a plan to share tutors from participating institutions across one common online schedule and meeting place developed into our eTutoring initiative. Today, utilizing the tools in our synchronous and asynchronous eTutoring.org platform, we manage the Northeast eTutoring Consortium supporting 36 colleges and universities in six states, while providing the technology, hosting, and support to two other consortia: the Washington State Board for Community and Technical College’s Western eTutoring Consortium, currently serving 41 colleges and universities in 6 states, and the Ohio eTutoring Collaborative, supported by the Ohio Board of Regents and open to all colleges and universities in the state.

Just recently, the eTutoring program has expanded into Canada as the province of British Columbia through BCcampus has adopted the platform in support of their WriteAway program. To ensure national and provincial privacy, Simon Fraser University – a member of BCCampus, has partnered with us to host the eTutoring platform in their Vancouver location. This hosting arrangement may enable other Canadian institutions to utilize the eTutoring program while keeping Canadian student data on Canadian soil.

The Benefits of Collaboration and Community

While it’s gratifying to see our collaborative model and platform reach such a broad audience, the most satisfying aspect of this work by far has been the collaborative nature of our practice, which brings together learning center and elearning experts to design all aspects of service delivery and to assure excellence in program quality. One of our Northeast Advisory Council members captures this notion best:

“… the ongoing sharing of ideas and resources contributes to even greater benefits. What you have done is create a forum for the sharing of new ideas in teaching and learning and, remarkably, a platform for the realization and testing of these ideas.” Greg Fallon, Assistant Dean for Learning Resources, Passaic County Community College.

So as we’ve grown from a local consortium to a community of consortia, we continue to seek and identify opportunities to facilitate the sharing of ideas and expertise crossing institutional, state, and consortial boundaries, a process further enriched by the Ohio Board of Regent’s bold eTutoring expansion. Ohio eTutoring Coordinator, Karen D. Boyd, shares their story:

“When Ohio’s institutions of higher education looked for an online tutoring platform, the group looked for affordability, flexibility, and autonomy. What we discovered in Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium’s eTutoring program were all three components. Working with the group, we identified five pilot schools in Fall 2009, and grew to 15 schools, then 20, and now 40 schools participate in the Ohio eTutoring Collaborative. By establishing the collaborative, we saved institutions start-up, training, and monitoring costs – funds that have been recycled into institutions’ tutoring programs.

Building a platform that addressed Ohio’s students’ needs and specific learning styles rather than making a canned approach fit has been the most rewarding aspect of the experience. While CTDLC established protocols and initial training modules, it encouraged us to meet with campus coordinators and tutors to build on that foundation. Our group meets virtually three times a year, and face-to-face annually to discuss changes, additions and best practices. What sets eTutoring apart from vendor-style platforms is that educators, administrators, tutors and students are stakeholders who influence how to respond to today’s student needs affordably and effectively.”

Much of the eTutoring program’s expansion is a direct result of being actively involved in the WCET community. Professional relationships fostered over the years have led to the creation of these tutoring collaborations in Ohio, Washington, and British Columbia as well as the use of our platform to support local online tutoring at institutions like the University of Hawaii.

We are always looking for new partners and new suggestions for improving or growing our eTutoring community. We think this approach to solving shared challenges makes compelling sense and we hope it to see it applied in new arenas.

Kevin Corcoran
Executive Director, CTDLC
kcorcoran@ctdlc.org

Carolyn Rogers
Director of Academic Services, CTDLC
crogers@ctdlc.org

Assessment, Consortia, Outcomes, Student Success, Teaching

Practice

California Switches Driver on Road to Future of Higher Education

By WCET Frontiers

January 15, 2013

7 Comments

In dealing with tight budgets, limited access to courses, growing costs to students, and concerns about educational quality, we’re noticing that governors and legislators in states and provinces are asking tough questions. Many see technology as part of the answer and they are engaging their higher education leaders in designing ways to better serve their citizens’ needs. Florida and California recently held statewide meetings addressing these issues. We’ll soon have a blog post on the Florida meeting. Covering the discussion in California in today’s guest blog, we welcome Phil Hill, co-founder of MindWires Consulting, as a guest blogger. Phil is a consultant and industry analyst covering the educational technology market primarily for higher education. Catch Phil on twitter @PhilonEdTech.

In past years the primary role of state government was to take the lead on funding while working with statewide systems on enrollment policies to serve workforce and general educational needs. Last week in California we witnessed the state government, both from the governor’s office and the legislature, become the driving force of change for determining the role of educational technology and online education to transform the public systems. State officials are no longer content with encouraging and hoping that postsecondary institutions will develop a strategy for systemic change on their own.

Three interdependent events are emerging that clarify this trend.

After the passage of Prop 30, a tax increase in California directly sold to improve education, the governor’s office has actively pushed two of the three state systems (University of California and California State University) that solely relying on tuition and fee increases to manage budgets is no longer acceptable. The systems are being pressured to use technology as a primary tool to reduce the cost of education.
The 20 Million Minds Foundation sponsored Re:Booting CA Higher Education conference, bringing together national leaders in online education, statewide system administrators, students and faculty leaders to discuss the key issues involved in expanding online education within a public system. (Full disclosure – I gave advice on the organization of the event and acted as moderator).
The governor’s office released the 2013-14 budget proposal that increased funding for higher education while strongly pushing the systems to apply educational technologies and online education in a strategic sense.

The common theme was captured by 20 Million Minds leading up to their conference:

“As a first approximation, the state should focus its attention on arresting the growth of the cost of education while maintaining or even increasing access and quality, not by simply urging educators to “do more with less,” but by enlisting their active participation in and contribution to innovative approaches. [snip]

[The state should] take a leadership role and accelerate our efforts to take advantage of the cost-saving potential inherent in online education.”

New Role of State Government

Re:boot CA panelists — Scaling Education, Maintaining Quality Panelists: Jeff Selingo, Editor-at-Large, Chronicle of Higher Ed; Candace Thille, Carnegie Mellon; Mo Qayoumi, San Jose State University; Michael Feldstein, Educational Technology Consultant & Analyst; and Ping Hsu, also of San Jose State University.

What is new in this discussion is the role that the governor’s office and legislature are taking in forcing these issues.

Governor Jerry Brown kick-started the discussion in November in his meetings with the University of California board of regents and California State University board of trustees as described in the LA Times article.

“In order to meet the needs going forward without constant large tuition increases, there will have to be different ways in which people learn and people teach,” Brown said [snip]

Brown said he wanted those talks to be “not in the gilded tones of academia but in the harsh reality of the marketplace and technologies.”

These ideas are central themes of the governor’s proposed budget, as described in this story from CBS Los Angeles.

“Brown proposed a plan to steadily increase funding for the three systems over the next four years, but only if they freeze fees at current levels, noting that UC and CSU tuition has nearly doubled over the past five years. [snip]

“The people in the university are going to have to find a way to do the same thing with fewer growing resources than they’re used to,” Brown told reporters Thursday. “Can we turn down this relentless increase in spending that is so much higher than the cost of living?”

Brown wants colleges and universities to expand the number of online courses they offer to reduce costs and allow more students to get the classes they need to graduate.

His budget plan calls for UC and CSU to each spend $10 million to develop digital versions of high-demand courses — and $17 million for the community college system to develop a “virtual campus” of 250 new online courses.”

In his welcoming remarks to the Re:Booting California Higher Education conference, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg called for an expanded view of public education to move beyond “teaching to the tests”.

“The question, in my view, isn’t how we replace UCLA or other fine institutions or how we supplant what is going on. The question is how we broaden the definition of public education, with all the academic rigor we currently have, but to bring in more career and workplace application. Take more of our educational experience outside of the classroom, and then use the web and use the technology that we have supplementing real-life experiences for students.”

Jeff Selingo (who gave the keynote at the conference) offered his perspective on the lieutenant governor’s involvement in the conference.

“You won’t often find the lieutenant governor of a state at a higher-ed conference, but there was Gavin Newsom of California sitting next to me on Tuesday at UCLA for a discussion about how online learning might help the state’s cash-starved public colleges increase access. He wasn’t there just for a photo-op. He stayed basically the entire day and took notes. A lot of them, and on the subject (I looked). He rarely glanced down at his phone.”

Of the three public systems, only the Community College system has aggressively expanded online offerings as a strategy for managing costs. Currently 17% of CA community college courses are offered online.

The next major events in this saga will be the follow-up meeting at the UC Board of Regents (Jan 15-17) and the CSU Board of Trustees (Jan 22-23). These meetings will be crucial in seeing how the systems respond to the calls from Brown, Newsom, and Steinberg. As pointed out in the Sacramento Bee, the “university system is administered independently by the regents and subject to only limited legislative oversight” – there will be a give-and-take of hard and soft influence required for state officials to prompt significant changes in system strategy.

But for now, the simple fact that the state government leaders have taken over the driver’s seat in the discussion about the role of online education, with system leaders being pulled along, is a significant change in California higher education.

Phil Hill 20mm — Phil Hill, co-founder of MindWires Consulting. @PhilonEdTech

Cost of Instruction, Innovation, Legislation, Online Learning, Technology, Tuition and Fees

Uncategorized

Faculty Development for Blended Learning: A Survey of Practices

By WCET Frontiers

December 5, 2012

WCET is pleased to welcome Liz Ciabocchi and Amy Ginsberg of Long Island University as guest bloggers in sharing their research on faculty development. Thank you to WCET members who responded to their survey on training opportunities for blended learning faculty. Liz and Amy share highlights of their results in this posting.

Like so many of our colleagues in higher education, we are constantly researching best practices and evaluating models employed by others to improve our faculty development practices and meet our faculty’s needs in the most effective and cost-efficient way possible. Over the past several years, we have been compelled to expand faculty development opportunities in blended and online teaching and learning, in particular, as these instructional formats begin to take hold at our institution.

Long Island University is a private, comprehensive, multi-campus university in New York that offers an array of degree and certificate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, health professions, business, visual and performing arts, education and library/information sciences. With the exception of a well established, fully online master’s degree in Homeland Security Management and a handful of certificate programs, the vast majority of academic programs at LIU are currently offered in a traditional, face-to-face format. In the past several years, a small but growing portfolio of blended graduate and professional degree programs has been developed, and a sizeable number of faculty are now teaching (or soon will be) in a blended format.

Faculty development strategies for the ever-increasing number of faculty teaching blended or online at LIU have been expanded from exclusively face-to-face workshops to include internally- and externally-run online courses. An internally-developed certification program is also currently under discussion.

Literature Review and Survey on Blended Learning Faculty Development

Our personal involvement and research interest in this area of faculty development prompted us to explore in greater detail the current state of faculty training for blended course instruction in traditional higher education institutions.

A review of the literature in this area revealed that, despite the rapid proliferation of blended learning programs in U.S. higher education and the undeniable reality that faculty development is critical to this effort, the research to date about faculty development specifically for blended instruction within traditional higher education institutions like ours—where much of this growth is taking place—is scarce.

As a next step, we decided to undertake a pilot survey research project aimed at traditional, not-for-profit traditional higher education institutions and focused on 1) the design, structure, and implementation of faculty development programs for blended teaching and learning, 2) the perceptions of the most and least successful elements of the programs, and, 3) the philosophical underpinnings of program design. In light of the steady and growing trend toward an increase in online and blended learning at institutions of higher education, including LIU, the survey was designed to generate information to facilitate discussion among decision-makers at our institution and others regarding faculty development for blended course instruction.

The Survey Results

Types of Institutions Responding & Faculty Requirements

Our sample included 70 public and 39 private institutions. Overall, whereas only 25% of these institutions required faculty development for blended instruction, 51% recommended such faculty development. Interestingly, public institutions were found to be far more likely than private institutions to recommend (vs. require) faculty development for blended instruction. On the other hand, private institutions were more likely than public institutions to require faculty development when it was offered, but they were also more likely not to offer faculty development for blended instruction at all. Most institutions, both public and private, offered blended courses in primarily face-to-face programs. Public institutions were more likely than private institutions to offer online programs including blended courses.

Modes of Training Offered

Delivery Mode_LIU — Figure 1: Delivery Mode of Faculty Development for Blended Instruction

Internal training courses and informal mentoring were the most common types of faculty development for blended instruction. Only 15% or so of the sample offered an internal certification program, and an even smaller number (about 10%) utilized external training courses. Surprisingly, face-to-face was the most common delivery mode for faculty development, followed by asynchronous online instruction, blended instruction, and synchronous online instruction.

Office Responsible for Faculty Development

We found that Academic Affairs was the office most often responsible for faculty development for blended instruction, followed by Information Technology or Distance Education. At some institutions, the academic department, division, school or college holds this responsibility. At even fewer institutions, faculty development is housed in an office of instructional technology, continuing education or the library.

Faculty Incentives

We were surprised to find that over half of the institutions in the sample did not provide any incentives for faculty to engage in development for blended instruction. When incentives were offered, financial compensation was most common. Institutional representatives attributed the success of their faculty development to the design of the program, the quality of instruction, the convenience of the delivery format, and faculty development/buy-in. When asked how faculty development for blended instruction could be improved, institutional representatives suggested providing incentives and requiring the training.

Strategic Importance

Figure 3: Importance of Development for Blended Instruction in Institution’s Strategic Plan

This study also tapped into another area of significant interest to us, which was the importance of faculty development in blended instruction to institutional strategic planning. The preliminary data suggest that faculty development is viewed as more important in strategic planning in public institutions vs. private institutions.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In sum, our findings are consistent with the literature in terms of the most common types of faculty development programs (i.e., internally offered programs, informal mentoring and formal mentoring), the variability of institutional practices and faculty development models for blended instruction, and the perception that the variety of training opportunities and delivery formats created convenience and flexibility that were critical to success of the effort.

Recommendations from this study provide significant food for thought:

Require training
Provide incentives
Offer flexibility and convenience
Allocate sufficient human, financial and technical resources
Ensure that the faculty development program has a strong pedagogical design.

We look forward to continued productive discussion in consideration of these and a host of other issues to advance initiatives to train faculty for blended and online instruction.

Note: The full research study will appear in a forthcoming book publication, Research Perspectives in Blended Learning, Routledge/Taylor and Francis Publishers (C. Dziuban, C. Graham & A. G. Picciano, editors) in late 2013. Additionally, we would like to thank WCET for their assistance with this project.

Liz Ciabocchi, Ed.D. Associate Vice President for Instructional Technology & Faculty Development, Long Island University — Liz Ciabocchi, Ed.D.
Associate Vice President for Instructional Technology
& Faculty Development, Long Island University

Amy Ginsberg, Ph.D. Associate Dean, School of Education Long Island University, Brooklyn — Amy Ginsberg, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, School of Education
Long Island University, Brooklyn

Blended/Hybrid Learning, Faculty, Professional Development, Teaching

Uncategorized

Partnering to Better Serve Adults

By WCET Frontiers

November 15, 2012

Our colleague from across the building, Patrick Lane, joins the Frontiers blog today to share the resources from the recent meeting of the Adult College Completion (ACC) Network. The ACC Network aims to unite organizations and agencies working to increase college completion by adults with prior college credits but no degree in a collaborative learning network. We welcome your comments about the ways your institution or state is reaching out to adult students.

A manufacturing CEO, a community college representative, a state higher ed staffer, and a non-profit leader walk into a room. Beginning of a joke only higher education folks might get? No…but it was the starting point of the recent meeting of the Adult College Completion Network as these panelists focused on the importance of adult degree and certificate completion and identified numerous barriers and promising strategies, bringing their diverse perspectives to bear on the issue.

Selected members of WICHE’s Adult College Completion (ACC) Network gathered in Chicago last month to discuss progress in reaching and reengaging adults with prior college credit. Funded by Lumina Foundation, the ACC Network launched two years ago to bring together higher education agencies, institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, workforce agencies, and others who are focused on helping these students return to postsecondary education to complete a certificate or degree.

The opening panel, bringing together a diverse set of leaders focusing on the importance of adult degree completion and cooperation between various sectors in Illinois, established an underlying theme for the meeting: developing and maintaining effective partnerships is a crucial component of increasing adult certificate and degree completion.

Partnering to Better Serve Adults

As Network members delved into promising strategies for serving adults with prior college credit in a number of areas—prior learning assessment, the usability of web portals, stackable certificates, just to name a few—the partnership theme came up quite often. Building these partnerships is easier said than done, but they are still feasible. No matter if an institution focuses on online learning or bricks-and-mortar classes, Network members emphasized that partnerships are crucial at every step of the path from reaching out to an adult with prior college credit to seeing him or her complete a credential.

As an “outsider” to postsecondary education who had little involvement in adult completion efforts until last year, Warren Young, CEO of the manufacturing company Acme Industries, stressed that building partnerships starts with a simple invitation. After being invited to discuss the workforce needs of the industry in and around Chicago, he has become involved in providing employment linkages across the sector for students completing programs at area colleges.

Other notable examples of the importance of partnerships came up throughout the meeting on a wide range of issues:

The Rutgers Center for Women and Work and the National Association of Workforce Boards have been working to expand degree completion in five states—Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Oklahoma, and New Jersey—by strengthening relationships between workforce and higher education systems. Their goal is to expand collaboration by identifying individuals entering the workforce training system who are a small number of credits away from a credential, and making it possible for them to use workforce funding and support systems to complete that certificate or degree.
The National League of Cities is working with cities across the country on efforts to increase local degree attainment rates. Part of this includes a focus on how cities and mayors’ offices can partner with higher education institutions and others to provide clearer pathways for adults with prior college credit return to complete their degrees or certificates.
The Graduate! Network has expanded from its beginnings in Philadelphia to include partner organizations in Chicago, Memphis, Greensboro, and Connecticut all focused on working with institutions of higher education, the business community, diverse government agencies, organized labor, faith-based organizations, and others to identify and remove barriers that prevent adults with prior college credit from returning to complete credentials.
The University of Maryland University College has expanded learning options available to veterans and military students by partnering with the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the military. Efforts including providing courses on military bases overseas and providing options to transfer military credits to UMUC degree programs.
The University of Wisconsin System is working to develop a system-wide program for granting credit through the assessment of prior learning. Rather than simply implementing a wide-ranging policy, however, system staff are working hand-in-hand with faculty at institutions to gather input and build support for the new program.

These are just a few of the many different projects highlighted at the meeting.

Serving Adults Has Special Challenges

With families, work, life experience, academic history, and financial needs, adults face additional hurdles in reaching their educational goals. This is especially true when colleges, non-profit organizations, and financial aid structures often focus on the post-high school populations. Network members also focused on some of the ongoing challenges in serving this population.

These include:

Identifying appropriate marketing and outreach messages and techniques. Those working to attract adults with prior college credit back to postsecondary education have found different levels of success in their marketing and outreach efforts. Some data suggest that a broad marketing campaign by the Georgia Adult Learning Consortium may be helping to increase the number of adult students there, while the Graduate! Network found that traditional marketing was not effective and testimonials and news stories about graduates were proving more effective. The ACC Network will continue to work on identifying promising practices and which types of outreach may be most effective in different contexts.
Providing appropriate services and support to all segments of the adult learner population. Network members identified many sub-groups within the population of adults with previous college credit. Individuals in these groups may require different support structures and academic opportunities to reengage them. The subgroups include those who are currently employed but seeking a better job, the unemployed, low-income adults, veterans and those currently in the military, and older individuals who may need to re-skill to compete in today’s workforce. There must be a variety of strategies, programs, and new policies to reach and effectively serve these diverse groups.
Developing reliable data sources about adults with prior college credit.As more institutions, states, cities, organizations, and others focus on adults with prior college credit, more data are becoming available that can help improve services to these students. Projects employing outreach efforts are gathering data on response rates to communications campaigns; institutions are collecting data on completion and persistence rates for these students; and some efforts are even collecting employment and workforce data for adults who return and complete certificates and degrees. It is difficult to use these data, however, to draw general conclusions about the types of programs and services that are most effective. With greater attention being paid to this population, data must be shared and used broadly to inform policy and provide more efficient services to returning adults.

The Sharing Continues

These are just a few of the lessons and issues covered at the recent ACC Network meeting. In the coming weeks, the ACC Network will be detailing other conclusions from the meeting and continuing to disseminate promising strategies being developed and implemented across the country by those working to increase credential completion by adults with prior college credit. For more information about the network, or to join, please visit www.adultcollegecompletion.org or contact Patrick Lane at plane@wiche.edu or 303.541.0266.

Patrick Lane

Project Coordinator

WICHE Policy Analysis and Research

Access, Assessment, Completion, Data and Analytics, Marketing, Prior Learning Assessment, Student Success, Workforce/Employment

Practice

WCET12 Wrap-Up Dispatch

By WCET Frontiers

November 5, 2012

Now that you’ve unpacked your bags, fallen back with that extra hour of sleep and as you begin looking through your notes, we want to be sure you know just where you can find all of the great resources from WCET12.

Did you miss a general session or the WCET Smackdown, powered by Pecha Kucha or want to share the learning with your colleagues?

Have no fear! Our sponsor, Mediasite by Sonic Foundry, has captured all of these sessions and has them archived on the 2012 WCET Annual Meeting Page. Be sure to share Jane Bozarth’s Toys to Tools with any social media naysayers in your organization so they too can learn that twitter, Facebook and YouTube are NOT just for cats, cookies and knitting.

And speaking of social media, did you follow the twitter stream? Search #WCET12 on twitter to find what the learning nuggets your colleagues broadcast through that channel. Just for fun, we made a wordle of the tweets and tweeters from #WCET12.

We’d also like to invite you to connect with your cooperative on Facebook. We have a page for the cooperative and for the WCET Annual Meeting.

Presentation materials provided by our speakers can be found on our WCET Slideshare Page. If you have slides you’d like added, it’s not too late! Please email wcetconference at wiche.edu (@ replaced to avoid spam bots!).

What are your “AHA!” moments from WCET12? We’d love to hear them in our comments, on our Facebook or via email. And if you blogged about your experiences, please share the link in the comments or email it to Cali Morrison (cmorrison at wiche.edu). While you’re in a sharing mood, please be sure to fill out the WCET 2012 Annual Meeting survey, if you haven’t already. We really do consider your comments in planning for future annual meetings.

And last but not least, don’t forget to update your calendars for the 25th WCET Annual Meeting November 13-16, 2013 in Denver, CO. We hope to see all of you there as we reminisce over a productive 25 years and set forth toward the future of your cooperative, WCET, over the next 5, 10, 25 years!

WCET, WCET Annual Conference

Practice

Dispatch from WCET12: November 2, 2012

By WCET Frontiers

November 2, 2012

We enjoyed another great day in San Antonio for the WCET Annual Meeting. We’re happy to share some highlights with you.

Equity: The Answer to National Completion Goals

David Longanecker, WICHE President, introduced Deborah Santiago, Excelencia in Education, who gave evidence that we cannot reach our national completion goals without vast improvements in the completion rates for Latinos. After providing statistics (many of which can be found in a related publication) on the problem she gave some insights on differences in technology usage among different populations.

Some key observations from Deborah:

“So few discussions in higher education are about who the students are.”
“A large part of my job is ‘ignorance abatement.’ If you are ignorant, then you just don’t know. On the other hand, for stupidity, I can’t help.”
In looking at the coming demographic changes, why are so many natural disaster metaphors used. Terms like “tidal wave,” “tsunami,” and “fault line” all have an ominous tone.
Degree attainment for Latinos is 21% as compared to 30% for blacks, 44% for whites, and 57% for Asians. When increasing Latino collegiate participation, we need to remember that many of them will be the first in their family to attend college.

The percentage of populations using the following technologies:

	Latinos	Whites	Blacks
Internet	65%	77%	66%
Home Broadband	45%	65%	52%
Cell Phone	76%	85%	79%

Deborah said that she recently visited a public institution in Texas and found that many Latino students taking online classes need to come to campus to use the computer. This brought us back to one of her first points: if you are planning to use technologies to reach underserved, we need to know who those students are.

Bits of Wit and Wisdom

On the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement, the Presidents Forum and the four regional higher education compacts are working together on one final agreement. At the same time they are getting input from the Commission on Regulation of Postsecondary Education, which is supposed to release its final report in February. In 2013 the agreement will be finalized and states will be recruited.

On state authorization reciprocity, Sharyl Thompson said that “everybody has to give up something” and acknowledged that is difficult for some people. Deb Gearhart echos the importance of accessibility and reciprocity. “Thanks to a small group, Dakota State University is making great strides in making courses accessible, F2F and online, and are willing to help faculty discover how easy this can be. We all need to work through our institutions and states to move forward with SARA. It only makes sense. We had great sessions today.”

There was great energy about WCET’s “Who’s Got Class?” sandbox project in badges and game-based learning. WCET was encouraged to obtain feedback from players about what they got out of the experience and plans to share more about what was learned from the experience. Speaking of Who’s Got Class?, we would be remiss if we didn’t share with you the winners of the game. A special congratulations goes out to Ed Bowen and the entire team from Dallas County Community College District as our top player and team in Who’s Got Class? We also want to give a shout out to our Who’s Got Class? WCET Rockstars – Mike Abbiatti, Christy Boggs, Ed Bowen, and Ritchie Boyd. Their contributions to the game and to WCET are immeasurable and we’re lucky to have them among our members.

The Awards

Each year WCET recognizes exceptional efforts by WCET members in implementing technology in higher education, especially in outstanding innovation, quality improvement, or achievements in using educational technology tools, techniques, or services. This year’s WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) are:

Monterey Institute for Technology and Education for the NROC Developmental Math – An Open Program.
NJEDge.Net (New Jersey Research and Education Network) for NJVID.
Tennessee Board of Regents for the TBR Mobile App Education and Workforce Resource Center.

For more in-depth information, check out our press release or connect directly thorough our winners websites.

The final award given each year during the awards ceremony is our Richard Jonsen award, is given each year to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the e-learning community and WCET during his or her career. With great pride we honored Rhonda Epper, Assistant Provost at the Colorado Community College System, as this year’s award recipient. An official announcement will come out next week but we wanted to bring our community ‘into the know.’

A strong close to the day

luc comeau 11-2-12 — Luc Comeau, during the WCET Smackdown.

In front of a large and lively Friday afternoon audience, our Smackdown, powered by Pecha Kucha, featured 8 brave souls who presented 20 slides, for 20 seconds each with no pausing, no going over time allowed. All of our speakers got our wheels turning and kept us on our toes. They addressed issues from engaging adjunct faculty to free range learning and the motivation for improving learning – the next generation. And with that, we’ll leave you with the quote that’s echoing throughout the twitterverse – “I’m trying to learn like I’m four.” From Luc Comeau in reference to his learning inspiration, 4 year old Maya.

Thank you to the Program Committee and all you participated!!!
We learned, we had fun, we ate Southwestern food.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR:

WCET’s 25th Anniversary Annual Meeting
November 13-16, 2013
Denver, CO

Completion, Game-based/Gamification, SARA, State Authorization, WCET, WCET Annual Conference, WOW Award

Practice

Dispatch from WCET12: November 1, 2012

By WCET Frontiers

November 2, 2012

2 Comments

Greetings from San Antonio and the WCET Annual Meeting!! Here are some highlights Thursday’s activities.

Keynote Speaker Jane Bozarth on social media toys for tools.

Self-proclaimed “world’s oldest millennial,” Jane Bozarth, helped us move beyond the social media hype to ways that these “toys” can be utilized as important tools for learning. Assuring us that these tools are not just for talking about what your cat had for breakfast, she gave practical examples on several social media tools:

In addressing the “what your cat had for breakfast” objection that some have, she said that you should get past how others use the tool and find out how you can use it for learning.
On Facebook, she said that 97% of the people on the planet had heard of this tool.
Kindred spirits, Ellen Wagner & Jane Bozarth built their learning network with each other on Twitter.

Farmville has more players than the population of France. If so many people are on Facebook, you should consider meeting them where they are…each login and password is a barrier to getting through to them.
In chiding school administrators who wish to ban cell phones in the classroom, she quoted one administrator who saw the wisdom of allowing their use: “There are classroom computers you can make calls on…and parents are paying for them.”
For Skype, she cited a class that had a video conversation with a survivor of the “Night of Broken Glass” in which Jews were rounded up in Nazi Germany. You can bring subject matter experts to the learning experience who would never travel to your site.
Jane is a huge fan of Twitter (@JaneBozarth), claiming that “Google give me links, Twitter gives me answers.” But, it works only if you build relationships and develop meaningful contacts. It is an investment that pays off. She cited Ace Hardware as using it to share specialized expertise across a dispersed workforce in its stores throughout the country.

Jane finished with advice about the futility of trying to control the use of social media: “Your employees already have their own social media policy. If you’re lucky, they will tell you about it.” Jane has authored the book Social Media for Trainers.

A Lesson on All Things Texas

Darcy Hardy, Rob Robinson, and Michael Anderson (long-time friends of WCET) gave us all a few lessons on how to make the most of our time in Texas. Of the items they covered:

Language: “Y’all” is a preferred pronoun and “All Y’all” is the plural perspective.”
Regionalism: “Texas is neither southern nor western. Texas is Texas.” – Senator William Blakely
Naming places: “Iraan” is a city that is not pronounced like the country. It was found by Ira and Ann, so it is pronounced like those two names put together (“Eye-ruh-ann”).
Famous San Antonio landmarks: The house made of beer cans, Buc-ee’s “Big Ass Gas Station”, and San Antonio has the last remaining “Pig Stand” (the drive in restaurant that originated the idea of the “car hop”).

Bits of Wit and Wisdom

The hot ticket of the day was the chance to talk with Robbie Melton of the Tennessee Board of Regents and try out all of the newest gadgets at her table. A very astute observation from Tim Tirrell, “Conference attendees crowded around Robbie Melton all day oohing and ahhing about mobile apps….will they realize that is how they could/should be oohing and ahhing their students?”

robbiemelton_appergy — Robbie Melton’s ‘app’ergy is contagious.

“My “aha” moment today was at a poster session where I saw how I might resolve a strategic question at my institution. The session was offered by the University of Utah. One of the things I love about WCET is that you get great ideas and your colleagues are willing to share their success with you. And thanks to Donna and Qin for talking to me and helping me see the lightbulb glow above my head on a problem that has been keeping me awake at night.” – Deb Gearhart

On trends that come and go: “We’re all going to be tracking Second Life again, this time in the form of MOOCs.”

The federal negotiated rulemaking process for new regulations is much like Star Wars: There are lots of aliens and it always has a great bar scene.

The Department of Education does not embrace elearning. It may take a generation before people who are experienced in taking elearning courses fill those positions. The same is probably true of those in Congress, their staff, and many state leaders.

Wisdom from “the Twittah”

In case you’re not subscribed, we’re using the hashtag #WCET12 to track tweets from the Annual Meeting. Here are just a few from today:

@kuriousmind : Twitter, like anywhere in life, is only as useful/unsubscribe as those you hang with (ie follow) #wcet12 @JaneBozarth

‏@tjbliss : @JaneBozarth Productive time on Twitter is an investment. You have to filter carefully to get the most out of it. #wcet12

@ULLafayette_ON : “It is up to us as educators to get better examples [educational tools] in front of people.” #wcet12 Bozarth on getting past objections.

@wcet_info : Don’t commit random acts of social media! Start small, build wisely. @JaneBozarth #WCET12

‏ @codyconnor: Best resource of the day http://emergingtech.tbr.edu/ #WCET12

@TTdolan : #WCET12 Richard Hezel: How do we know this innovation is worth our #highered time? Revenue? Nat’l status? Quality of content? Enrollment?

Stay tuned tomorrow to learn more about our WCET Outstanding Work Award winners and who won “Who’s Got Class?”!

WCET, WCET Annual Conference

Uncategorized

Colorado Study finds “No Significant Difference” in Online Science Courses

By WCET Frontiers

October 18, 2012

30 Comments

A big thank you to our guest blogger, Rhonda Epper, Assistant Provost at the Colorado Community College System and past chair of the WCET Executive Council, who shares with us today a new study of online science course outcomes in Colorado.

Just when we thought it was safe to move beyond the “no significant difference” phenomenon[i], knowing that scarcely any college class today is untouched by technology – we find ourselves in 2012 still engaged in debates about “online” versus “traditional” instruction. We don’t find this debate at conferences or annual meetings like WCET where conversations are centered on innovation and change. But within most colleges and universities, there are influential faculty members and groups who hold onto deeply held doubts about the quality of online learning. There is perhaps no discipline with more misgivings about online learning than Science.

Most of the genuinely held concerns among science faculty are rooted in the laboratory experience for students. The “hands-on” use of real lab equipment to gather and analyze real data is perceived as necessary for students in lab-based science courses such as Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. In the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), the lab portion of online science courses has been delivered since 2001 primarily through the use of commercially designed and assembled “kits” that are sent to the student’s home. The kits typically contain a lab manual along with the equipment and supplies needed to perform experiments, though often on a smaller scale or with lower-capability instrumentation than one might find in a traditional campus science lab.

Our online science faculty, many of whom teach both online and in the classroom, have worked with the kit manufacturer over the years to refine the lab experiments, and have continually improved the quality of the course content to ensure that students are mastering the statewide course objectives and competencies for lower division science courses.

Yet questions have persisted from traditional science faculty, and from within articulation committees considering whether students who have taken introductory science courses online are truly prepared to move into and be successful in science courses at the four-year level. Until now, we have not been able to refute these arguments.

In September 2012, the Colorado Department of Higher Education released a comparison study of CCCS students who took science courses online versus in traditional classrooms, and then tracked those students who transferred into four-year institutions in Colorado. The data set included students enrolled in first year Biology, Chemistry, and Physics for majors.[ii] Data were pulled for academic years Fall 2007 to Fall 2009. The sample of CCCS students totaled 4,585 (2,395 taking science courses online and 2,190 taking traditional science courses in the classroom). The study examined cumulative GPA, cumulative credit hours, and science-only GPA.

The first part of the study looked at online and traditional students only within the community college system. The greatest difference between students in the online versus traditional science courses were with grades earned in those specific science courses. Students in traditional Biology and Chemistry classes received, on average, higher course grades than students in online classes. Grades earned in Physics were similar for both online and traditional students. In spite of lower grades in Biology and Chemistry classes, the online students had either very similar or slightly higher overall GPAs than students completing these courses in traditional classrooms. Furthermore, the online students in all three science disciplines had similar or higher cumulative credit hours earned than their traditional counterparts. While the interpretations of these findings can be wide ranging, it is suggested that the higher GPAs and higher cumulative credit hours completed by online students could be the result of more experienced and academically prepared students self selecting online courses. It is also interesting to note that a widely held rumor that faculty in online courses have “easier” grading practices appears not to be the case.

The second part of the study tracked students who transferred and took science classes at one of four four-year public institutions in Colorado (CU-Boulder, CU-Denver, CU-Colorado Springs, and Colorado State University- Fort Collins). An average science GPA at the four-year institution was calculated for each student, along with Biology, Chemistry, and Physics GPAs. The bottom line: there were no statistically significant differences in students’ science GPAs based on the community college instructional delivery method (online versus traditional). The study suggests that students who took online science courses at the community college level perform just as well in science classes at four-year institutions as students who took traditional on-campus science classes.

In the CCCS, we believe it is part of our mission to address barriers that prevent underrepresented, low-income college students from completing their degrees due to challenges such as work and family obligations or living in rural areas that limit their access to traditional lab-based science courses (critical courses for many of our allied health and science programs that lead to lucrative jobs). Toward that end, we are continuing to push the envelope on innovative science education delivery by serving as a lead partner in the international NANSLO project — North American Network of Science Labs Online.[iii] In partnership with WICHE, BC Campus, North Island College, the Colorado School of Mines, and numerous colleges and universities throughout the western United States, we are implementing and developing remote web-based access to sophisticated lab equipment for science and allied health students. Through NANSLO, our online science students are able to use real lab equipment (e.g., high powered digital microscopes) to collect and analyze real data while working collaboratively in real time with their fellow students in a lab group. NANSLO is openly licensing how-to manuals and curricular materials for introductory science courses using remote labs. We are researching the pedagogical value and optimal combination of remote labs and lab kits mapped directly to scientific principles and laboratory skills. This work has been supported by the Next Generation Learning Challenges Program and a recently awarded U.S. Department of Labor TAACCCT grant.

Increasingly, the work of scientists is carried out via remote technology and robotics (think of engineering, space exploration, deep sea submersibles, and even medical procedures). But our educational model lags behind. As the Colorado study has shown, research once again supports the efficacy of online delivery, even in science courses. Now we must work together to ensure that the science education we are delivering is relevant, high quality, and accessible.

Rhonda M. Epper, Ph.D.

Assistant Provost
Colorado Community College System

[i] Thomas L. Russell, “The No Significant Difference Phenomenon.” 2001, IDECC, fifth edition.

[ii] The study is currently being expanded to include both Algebra-based and Calculus-based Physics courses. Only the Algebra-based courses were included in the current study.

[iii] See June 2012 blog post on the NANSLO project.

Data and Analytics, Lab Courses, Outcomes, Research, STEM

Uncategorized

SHEEO State Authorization Survey: Updates and Trends

By WCET Frontiers

October 12, 2012

Thank you to our guest bloggers Marianne Boeke of NCHEMS and Sharmila Basu Mann of SHEEO. Both of their organizations share the same building as WCET, and we have enjoyed working together with them on the state authorization issue. With funding from WCET’s State Authorization Network, we’ve been able to support Marianne’s work in helping to produce some of the reports announced below that are off-shoots of the state-by-state surveys conducted by Sharmila.

In late 2010, as the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) announced their intentions to more closely regulate state approval of postsecondary institutions, those institutions lacked even an up-to-date, widely available, comprehensive directory of state approval agencies, much less descriptions of such agencies’ authorization practices. To address this need, SHEEO, in collaboration with NCHEMS, developed and distributed the SHEEO State Authorization Survey to all 78 agencies responsible for authorizing providers of postsecondary education in the 50 states and 9 territories of the US.

First Data Collection

Last October, we completed the first data collection using this survey, and were able to publish on our website a set of core information on state authorization practices and processes as provided by the agencies themselves. This in itself has proved to be a valuable resource to the community. In addition, we created and published three directories across all agencies: one containing contact information; the second, student complaint processes; and the third, a summary of fees charged for authorization. We also completed an analysis of selected data elements for the agencies in the 50 US states and Washington, DC, which we presented in a webinar in April 2012 (which was archived).

Second Data Collection

In June 2012, we completed a second data collection, and posted updated surveys for each agency on our website. Recently, we have also completed updated directories of contact information, complaint processes, and fees for all agencies. While the information in these directories was primarily based on the June 2012 data, web searches, follow-up emails, and telephone calls with state agency staff were utilized to ensure that the information was up to date as of September 2012. These updated directories are now available online.

Complaint Process Report. The SHEEO Complaint Process Report is a compilation of web links and/or explanations, for all agencies within the US (including Puerto Rico and Washington, DC), of the existing process(es) that students can follow in order to lodge a complaint against an institution authorized by that agency.

In its July 2012 ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, the USDOE, made a change in the requirement to provide both current and prospective students with contact information for third-party complaint processes. Institutions may now post a link from their web site directly to the SHEEO Complaint Process Report and WILL BE IN COMPLIANCE with the requirement inform the student of the complaint processes in the state in which the student is receiving the education.

Fee Summary Report. The SHEEO Fee Summary Report is a compilation of authorization fee structures and possible exemptions for all agencies within the US (including Puerto Rico and Washington, DC). This list is only meant to be a guide; for exact costs and possible associated fees for authorization, please see each agency’s web site.

New Reports and Trends Across State Agencies

peggy-reading-regulations — Keeping up with new reports.

In addition to updating all surveys and directories, we have completed an analysis of selected elements of the June 2012 data, from the 50 US states and Washington, DC, that is comparable to the analysis we presented of the October 2011 data in our April 2012 webinar. We will be publishing the results of this analysis next week on our website in a side-by-side comparison report between the two data collections.

In all of the areas we examined – number and scope of agencies, external program approval requirements, accreditation requirements, physical presence triggers, exemptions – we found no shifts in the data trends, and almost no changes in the data itself, across all agencies between October 2011 and June 2012. Thus, while a few individual agencies may have decided to, say, add regional accreditation as a requirement for authorization, or stop using recruiting as a physical presence trigger, overall, state agencies are not changing much in terms of their authorization practices.

Over the past year, we have received numerous requests for an agency-by-agency report of physical presence triggers. With the June 2012 data, we have created this report, listing agencies by their use of the top six physical presence triggers – instructional activities; property in the state; recruiting activities; third-party contracts; advertising in the state; and employing faculty in the state – as well as a list of those agencies that require authorization without regard to physical presence. This report will also be published next week on the SHEEO State Authorization website.

Changes Within State Agencies

While our data shows that authorization practices have not shifted much across agencies over the last year, we have seen some important – and positive – changes in the business practices within state authorization agencies during the same time period. For example:

Due to the heightened awareness resulting from the changes to proposed USDOE regulations, state authorization agencies have been striving more diligently to maintain the currency of information on their websites. These websites are now easier to find, more user friendly, and have contact information prominently displayed.

In a related trend, state authorization agencies are providing more transparency with regard to the policies and regulations surrounding state authorization. State agencies are increasingly using their state authorization web sites to post the rules and regulations of state authorization, the particular triggers for physical presence for their state agency, their specific fee schedules, frequently asked questions documents, and/or steps to authorization.

Finally, we have observed better consistency in responses from state agencies to institutions in regards to questions concerning state authorization, easing the burden for institutions seeking to become authorized in those states.

While it is true that some state authorization agencies have enacted more complex or expensive procedures for authorization, other agencies have concurrently simplified their procedures or eliminated certain complex elements. We have fielded a few questions from institutional representatives about states that have shifted their state authorization agencies to the offices of the Secretary of State. In reality, only two states have done so – New Jersey and South Dakota – and in both of these states, multiple agencies are responsible for state authorization depending on the type of institution or type of programs offered. A third state, Alabama, has always included the Secretary of State as one of three agencies responsible for state authorization. Overall, our sense is that the balance across agencies – in terms of complexity of the authorization process, level of fees, number of agencies per state, and authority to authorize — has remained relatively the same.

We are currently gearing up for our third data collection, to be completed in December 2012. We look forward to providing you another update in early 2013.

marianne_boeke — Marianne Boeke
National Center for Higher Education Management Systems

sharmila2 — Sharmila Basu Mann,
State Higher Education Executive Officers

Complaint Process, Data and Analytics, Physical Presence, Regulation, State Authorization, U.S. Department of Education

Uncategorized

Visualizing Assessment

By WCET Frontiers

July 26, 2012

1 Comment

Sharing his vision with us today is Dr. Mark Sarver, the CEO of eduKan, a consortium of colleges delivering online education.

Do you ever look at something and know it doesn’t look right, but you just cannot figure out why? Perhaps more troubling than not knowing what is wrong, is not knowing how to make it right. Over the last ten years, I have poured over tons of assessment data from several different institutions and have yet to be inspired. The most recent reports I read contained an inordinate amount of information- standard deviations, n values, means and modes- a veritable testament to the art and beauty of technical writing. As an academic administrator, however, I need assessment data that proves unequivocally, that we are providing academic excellence. Sure, there was an executive summary that highlighted a handful of revelations, but I also knew that I would have to delve into the hundreds of pages of statistical analysis and data to get the whole picture. If only those compiling assessment reports could remember a picture is worth a 1,000 words…..or numbers!

I concede that revolutionizing the assessment process is not nearly as provocative as being a disruptor or as rewarding as flipping your classroom, but it can be. What if we flipped the assessment process and started with the governing boards instead of starting with the students?

Currently, we start with the student and assess their level of achievement and engagement. We then ask them to assess the performance of their professor. Then, the professors are assessed by the Department Chairs, who are then evaluated by the Dean, and depending on the organizational structure of the institution, there could be a few more layers, but ultimately, this information is delivered to the President who then must present it to the Board. And the irony of it all is that the Board must then decipher large amounts of very granular data and interpret it in a way that will have very real outcomes for faculty, staff and students, and will shape the public’s perception of the institution itself.

In my experience, when institutional financial data was presented to the board, it was not volumes of budget line items, variations, and department codes. Instead, it was a set of simplified financials that included a profit and loss statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flows. Although there were massive amounts of data required to produce those few pages, we were able to give our Board a cogent analysis that enabled them to do their job. What if we gave our boards a visual representation of how well the institution is performing academically, based on assessment data the institution deemed important; with success defined as moving more classes to the upper-right-hand coordinate?

Current technology allows us to create visual representations of assessment data, in real time, not just financial data. Although having the results of a data query on student achievement as measured by professor engagement may not be on the agenda at the next Board meeting, having the ability not only to access the information but also to interpret it in a way that provides the board with an accurate measurement of the academic operations of the institution. When assessment data is presented in a way that allows meaningful comparisons, whether it is regarding financial data or student retention data, it allows the Board to truly hold administrators accountable for the assessment of the overall academic health of the institution.

Am I saying that Boards should hold the President accountable for the academic success of the institution? ABSOLUTELY. And they already, do, in theory. But here is what I mean about flipping the model. The data is available and should be used at all levels to ensure academic excellence. A Board that can utilize assessment data quickly to identify a potential problem in one department must hold the president accountable for its solution, as visualized in chart 1. The President should then hold the Academic Vice President and department chair accountable for investigating and resolving the issue. That might be a comparison of departments based on more granular data, say by department or division as shown in this chart. It is at this level that the value of the assessment data increases as it becomes more granular.

Once we have identified the courses or courses, technology allows us to look at student performance in individual courses, individual learning assets, and student engagement with each other, the professors and the content also provides a sophisticated picture of the localized problem and commands accountability at all levels. This is where flipping the model becomes very exciting. The chart to the right shows how students are engaging with the content of a particular course. We can use this information to know which content items the students are actually using to acquire knowledge and the frequency in which they were used. A professor can now visually identify the areas of his or her course that are not as successful at conveying the desired knowledge to students and replace that learning asset with an asset they believe will better empower the transfer of knowledge.

Just as I assert that Boards should hold the President accountable for the overall academic success, the President should hold his faculty accountable for student success. This is the apex of academic freedom. The professor, as the subject matter expert, is responsible for the successful transfer of knowledge to the student, and through assessment data, can see what teaching asset, technique or engagement styles is the most effective at transferring this knowledge. With freedom, however, comes accountability and professors must be willing to change the way they teach based on assessments, change the learning assets of a course and must utilize the available technology. Department chairs must be willing to hold professors accountable for student success. Presidents must be willing to hold academic administrators accountable and boards must, therefore, hold presidents accountable for overall institutional academic performance. This will require a bold new level of accountability that can be easily achieved once we flip the way we currently view and use assessment data. Picture that.

Dr. Mark Sarver

CEO, eduKan

marks@edukan.org

Assessment, Data and Analytics, Outcomes, Student Success