Report on Distance Education at Mission - FrontPage

 

1. Distance Education Committee - Under Article 40 of the AFT Contract 2005-2008 effective 7/01/05, each college is to have a "Distance Education Committee. Mission College organized its DE Committee in October of 2005, and had its first meeting on 10/14/05 - See agenda and minutes from 10-14-05 to 3-14-06 and agenda and minutes from 4-07-06 to present.

 

Our DE Committee meets every 2nd Friday, through "Meet and Confer". Our Committee includes faculty, administration, Information Technology, Student Services, and Counseling.

 

2. Accreditation Questions for Distance Education - The DE committee has attempted to answer a number of questions for our Accreditation Self-Study regarding Distance Education.

They include the following:

1. What is the role of the Distance Learning Committee in helping our students succeed?

2. Has the college increased its efforts to provide access to information technology and to assist students in developing their technological competence with considerable success?

3. Have any new computer labs been added?

4. How many online courses have been offered?

In, 2003 - 19 online courses

In, 2004 - 51 online courses

In, 2005 - 72 online courses

In, 2006 - 30 Spring 2006 (etudes) - 27 Fall 2006 (etudes) - 6 Winter 2006(etudes), 13 Summer 2006(etudes) = 76 online classes

In 2007 - 10 - Winter 2007(etudes) - 34 - Spring 2007(etudes, coursecompass, etudes ng)

5. Summary of DE progress since the last accreditation.

 

Answer : Article 40 of the AFT Labor Contract 2005 - 2008 - see http://lamission.edu/de/article40.htm

provided for the creation of a Distributive and Distance Learning Committee which is to report its work, activities, plans to an Education Planning Committee (EPC) - which has not been created at Mission.

 

a. The DDL Committee was organized in the Fall Semester of 2005 - see charter at http://lamission.edu/de/charter.htm and the Committee constituted with its membership.

Its statement of purpose is as follows: A D/DL Committee or its equivalent will serve the function of communicating and advising the college in its decision-making regarding D/DL issues. It should report to the college’s Educational Planning Committee or its equivalent and should include D/DL faculty, information technology staff and administrators involved in D/DL course development and delivery. The college Curriculum Committee and the D/DL Committee or equivalent should address D/DL efficacy as it relates to the total instructional program. The D/DL Committee is under the purview of the Academic Senate. The Committee voted to change its name from DDL to DE - Distance Education Committee as it better communicated its purpose to the college as a whole. Distributive Learning is not very well understood by a majority of faculty and staff.

 

3. The Committee started to meet, and the agenda and minutes are located at:

http://hyper.vcsun.org/HyperNews/djordan/get/ddlagenda.html?inline=-1 also at http://lamc-ddl.pbwiki.com/Minutes . The DE Committee has been meeting two times a months since 10-05, and the following progress has been made:

 

• DDL established a Distance Education Online Faculty Seniority List - see http://profj.us/ddl/ddl.pdf

 

• Updated the online faculty email and phone numbers at http://lamission.edu/online

 

• Wrote a History of Online Education at Mission College - http://lamission.edu/de/online%2Dhistory/

 

• Developed the "Application to Teach Online" and the certification process for new online faculty - see click here

 

• Developed a form - "Are you ready to take an online class" for new prospective online students - see http://profj.us/ddl/forms/ready.htm

 

• Worked on an"Online Student Evaluation" form for students to fill in upon completion of their online class - http://profj.us/ddl/forms/studentsurvey.htm along with a Student Satisfaction Survey - http://profj.us/ddl/forms/satisfaction.htm

 

• Passed the following motions in the DDL Committee - http://lamc-ddl.pbwiki.com/Approved%20Motions

 

• Developed an "Initiative to Develop Online and Hybrid Classes" - http://idhop.pbwiki.com/

 

• 3 persons have been trained to deliver "Etudes NG" training at Mission - and delivered a number of etudes ng workshops - see http://missionetudes.pbwiki.com . Faculty using the etudes classic course management platform will transition all of their online classes to the newer etudes ng course management system by Summer of 2007.

 

• Assisted in handling the paperwork to get etudes clasic and etudes ng course management system paid for the 2006-2007 Academic year.

 

• Deveoped the information to place under "Online Classes" for the Fall 2006 - for students, faculty and staff at Mission - http://missiononline.pbwiki.com/

 

• Colabroated with the District Distance Education Committee -DDE http://lamission.edu/de/dde/ and see DDE minutes at http://laccd-dde.pbwiki.com/

The DDE and DDL have similar purpose to promote and support Distance Education.

 

• Discussed developing an online orientation for online students similar to Foothill - http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/main/how_to_begin.htm - here is the current link for "description of Self-Study - Standard 2 - http://www.lamission.edu/accreditation/docs/standard2.pdf

 

• DE and Curriculum have collaborated in developing the process the add new online classes through curriculum and de policies and procedures.

 

• discussed the content required on faculty websites - http://lamc-ddl.pbwiki.com/instructor-pages

 

• developed forms for use by DE Instructors - http://lamission.edu/de/forms/

 

• in the process of developing instructor evaluation guidelines - http://lamc-ddl.pbwiki.com/instructor-evaluation

 

• collaborated with LA Trade Tech to develop a comprehensive student survey - http://wellness.lattc.edu/online/evals/LAMCeval.html

 

• in the process of developing online resources for faculty and students similar to the University of Illinois Online Network - see http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/institutes/presentations/templates/index.htm

 

• developed guidelines on 10-11-06 for evaluation of online DE instructors at Mission College - http://lamc-ddl.pbwiki.com/evaluation

 

• in the process of developing a content review rubric for instructor pages - http://lamc-ddl.pbwiki.com/f/contentreview.htm

 

• developing a process for late - adds for online students - guidelines and best practices

 

• in the process of developing a policy on "hybrid classes" - http://lamc-ddl.pbwiki.com/draft-hybrid

 

• in the process of developing online advising and counseling

 

• in the process of developing online library resources with LAMC library including EBSO, and other online research tools - see http://lamission.edu/library/resources.html

 

• developed on campus orientation for online students at the beginning of each semester, including summer and winter sessions.

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Issues and Concerns regarding Distance Education at Mission :

 

 

 

1. Student success : Mission College needs to organize a Student Success Committee and to develop success initiatives related to our online students.

 

2. Student Satisfaction Sureys - Online faculty need to be encouraged to provide a Student Satisfaction Survey at the end of each online class, and the results should be one of the factors in the instructor evaluation of online faculty.

 

3. Instructor Evaluation by Department Chairs - A schedule needs to be established by Department Chairs of their online faculty. DE will assist in this evaluation at the request of the Department Chairs.

 

4. Content review of new online classes - DE and Department Chairs, and Curriculum need to develop policies and procedures for content reivew of new online classes.

 

5. New Online Classes - develop a policy to select and encourage certain faculty to develop online classes, and ensure their training and mentoring.

 

6. New Instructor Mentoring Program - Develop a mentoring program of experienced online faculty who will mentor new online faculty.

 

7. Course Management Platforms - Test the etudes ng, coursecompass, and moodle course management systems, and determine long term stability and develop a set of guidelines, and a feasability study for each current CMS platform and for adopting new CMS systems and new technology in the future.

 

8. Section 508 Compliance - Adopt accverify program and implement it in each online course to ensure Section 508 compliance.

 

9. Orientation to online classes - Investigate the possibility of an orientation to online classes as a prerequisite for online students

 

10. User Groups - Start user groups, and resources for each CMS in use by Mission online faculty (etudes ng, coursecompass and moodle)

 

11. Long term agreements with CMS Providers - work with the LACCD to acquire long term agreements with one or more CMS providers.

 

12. DE Coordinator Release Time - As our online programs and classes grow, more time is required by the DE Coordinator to coordinate the DE classes at Mission and also attend the District DE meetings. The DE Coordinator should receive release time for this job in the future.

 

updated: 3/04/07