Present: Ann Adams, Lynn Bain, Rich Bergeman, Beth Camp, Dodi Coreson, Mike Holland, Phil Krolick, Elizabeth Lundy, Marlene Propst, Gary Ruppert, Evonne Rutherford, Paul Snyder, Jackie Turle, Diane Watson, Ed Watson, Peggy Weems, Chuck Wert, Chareane Wimbley-Gouveia
Beth passed out the agenda and circulated a flyer regarding the Syllabus 2001 conference.
Event Reports - DEIT Summer Retreat - Ann Adams. Ann Adams has sent out an e-mail regarding the topics for the summer retreat. About 50 faculty have been invited to the Summer Retreat essentially to develop a long-range plan for technology use at LBCC. The Summer Institute is not open to all faculty (members of the DEIT Committee and other technology users). There will be no staff pay for attending the retreat. Steve Gilbert, a nationally recognized leader in technology planning will come to our campus on September 13 as a follow-up activity during Fall in-service. What is started at the DEIT Summer Retreat will continue at fall in-service and throughout the year to create a long-term vision of distributed learning and technology at LBCC. Ann stressed that Mike's retreat will be useful for the whole college, not just for this committee.
Ann handed out the latest release on EDUCAUSE. There was no timeline given when the U.S. Department of Commerce will take over the .edu domain, but when they do community colleges will be eligible. Ann felt it would probably be 18 months before this happens. Beginning in the fall, full names may be used for e-mail, for example, peggy.weems@linnbenton.edu If we adopt this new format, we'll need to make this change on listservs and business cards. Mike Holland suggested holding off on this change, pending confirmation on whether we can simplify our address to peggy.weems@lbcc.edu
Additionally, Ann announced that Ken Long's contract was approved to go from 11 to 12 months. Ken is a Video and Multimedia Production Specialist in Media. Ann will be speaking at the LBCC Board meeting about the necessity to add another T-1 line. The current one is maxed out.
Committee Reports:
Barriers - Chuck Wert. Chuck went over the subcommittee's progress report. The subcommittee sent out a faculty survey to get a snapshot as to where we are with instructional technology--the problems and successes. Chuck handed out a copy of the survey. The survey, available electronically and as a hard copy, was sent to all faculty. Twenty responses have been received so far.
ITFS/ITV - Paul Snyder for Rich Horton. Paul reported for Rich Horton that the ITFS/ITV subcommittee has met. Paul showed photos of the microwave tower that was installed just outside of Sweet Home on Mark's Ridge. It allows us to get a video signal into Sweet Home. This summer LBCC will be offering WR115 to the centers. The Media Dept. is reviewing cancelled classes to find out which ones would be best to expand to the centers. This year was a test of our capabilities with the ITFS technology; next year, we'll work more on planning with center directors.
Paul said he is going over a list of canceled classes from spring term to see which were applicable and appropriate to instructional TV and expansion to the centers. The students on campus could be supplemented with students from the centers.
Nursing is interested in using ITFS/ITV to link the area hospitals because their students are involved with these hospitals. Fire stations are also interested so their EMT's and paramedics can have access to training programs.
Online Course Management (OCM) Selection - Paul Snyder. Paul gave out the minutes of this newly formed subcommittee's April 9 meeting (a spin-off project of DEIT's Curricular Subcommittee) which has met several times during Winter and Spring term. The subcommittee has reviewed several online course management systems for faculty to use in creating course offerings. Members also include people who haven't done online courses. Attached to the minutes is a table that compares features of different Web-based learning systems. Based on these criteria, the subcommittee decided to review only WebCT and Blackboard. Demos were given by Kate Johnson and Jonathan Pedersen. The subcommittee recommends Blackboard because not only has OSU adopted Blackboard, but Blackboard offers LBCC faculty a way to bring their classes on the web for either distance classes or traditional, face-to-face classes. We have been told that Blackboard is also compatible with Banner and that Blackboard is ahead of other OCMs in being ADA-compliant.
In the coming year, this subcommittee plans to expand the discussion about Blackboard to other areas of campus. If faculty are very interested in acquiring a program like Blackboard, the subcommittee will make its recommendation that the fees for BlackBoard be put into a decision package next year. The Media Department will continue to support ColdFusion.
Most major publishers are offering support materials keyed to their textbooks in multiple formats (Blackboard, Web-CT, E-college). Some offer their textbooks online. This brought up the potential issue of students printing out multiple pages. This issue is being considered in Instructional Council. Peggy said she has a pamphlet on one system and would be willing to share it with the subcommittee. Paul said there are probably 20 available systems but they looked especially at those being used by community colleges. In answer to the question of how do publishers charge, it varies according to the publisher. With some when you buy the textbook, you get the CD and Web site. Sometimes colleges will work with the companies regarding the price.
Faculty can create one course on Blackboard free, but the class stays on their server and you have limited features. Paul said our instructors want it to reside on our server. Beth noted that one advantage of using BlackBoard is that novice faculty don't have to spend a lot of time learning HTML and ColdFusion. These systems provide instructors with resources, such as newsletters, which provide a nice way to get a fast start.
We do not have the staff to support multiple platforms if faculty begin to use different online course management systems. It would be easier if the school settles on one platform to begin with, but this wouldn't preclude us from using something else later. If we don't have a consistent system, faculty may not have sufficient technical support, and students may have navigational difficulties because different sites would have different protocols. The subcommittee didn't want to meet with publishers or Blackboard until our own needs and understanding of the technology side has been worked out. The subcommittee will be working closely with Ann Adams, Jim Crotts, Jonathan Pedersen, and Kate Johnson in evaluating and proposing this project throughout next year.
Student Support - Diane Watson. The subcommittee's strategic plan was handed out at the DEIT Committee's February 23rd meeting. They haven't had their final meeting for this term yet. Diane noted that LBCC is one of three community colleges linked to a statewide online advising system hosted by Chemeketa. Other highlights:
· Cheryl Allison is revising Disability Services Web page. · Financial Aid is doing a pilot project to exchange with OSU. · Kristen Jones is working on links for career guidance as part of a project to develop an online Career Center. · TAOS is now up and running, and the Library now has an online catalog for LBCC's collection and a very effective Student Portal for research as part of its website. · Write course is now in ColdFusion.
At the National Association for Student Personal Administrator's (NASPA) Conference in Seattle a team from Student Services presented a workshop titled "Cutting Through the Red Tape for Students: Enrollment Services in Cyberspace." The presentation was very well received; the team consisted of Diane Watson, Bruce Clemetsen, Lance Popoff, Kristen Jones, and Lynn Bain.
The presentation covered the process used to set our plan to develop our Student Services delivery and highlighted the Admissions, Registration, Financial Aid, Advising and Assessment processes. This presentation was well received by the audience of community colleges, and colleges and universities, both public and private. Comments from the audience indicated that LBCC's Student Services web delivery is truly on the "cutting edge."
The subcommittee will send out an updated strategic plan after their final meeting.
Web Presence - Marlene Propst. This subcommittee has some of the same people as Paul's subcommittee. Media is working on a Regional One Stop center. Regarding ColdFusion, Joe Sherlock would like it converted for use on the Macintosh so he would not have to learn the PC system. Congratulations: The summer schedule was up in six hours. Jim Crotts is rewriting the online schedule code.
Quality/Assessment/Offerings - Paul Snyder for Carol Schaafsma. Two grants have been received from the Distance Learning Council. One for $10,000 was awarded for work on the Humanities 101, 102, and 103 three-term sequence. Another for $14,000 has been awarded to develop online management modules for TBDC. Ed Watson noted that the Council for Instructional Administrators will be reviewing distance learning and curricular issues at the state level in the coming year.
Important Dates: June 28-29, DEIT Summer Retreat, Thursday and Friday, June 28 and 29, O'Callahan's Ramada Inn, Corvallis.
September 13, DEIT Fall Follow-Up - September 13 (during in-service).