It’s May and many of us are preparing for the end of the spring term. Within the California Community Colleges (CCC) Online Education Initiative (OEI), we are moving into a whole new phase of activity.
We are evaluating the use of the tutoring and student readiness resources that were deployed in January, preparing for the launch of the Canvas common course management system (CCMS) through the full-launch pilot schools, working on extending resources for the fall, developing new resources and creating Canvas implementation statewide, among other things!
Preparing For Canvas Implementation
A big chunk of our time right now is being spent preparing colleges across our system to implement a new CCMS. Several of our colleges are close to implementing, and many other colleges are involved in the conversations around considering the change of their course management systems to Canvas.
Those of us on the OEI management team have been visiting colleges and answering a multitude of calls and emails about how and when the roll-out will take place. As we finalize the contract pieces with Canvas vendor Instructure, we are also creating implementation timelines and developing conversion processes in order to make the transition to Canvas successful for our colleges. Even though there is a lot of interest and excitement about the new system, we also know the transition has to be fully resourced to be successful. To do that, we need to make careful and intentional preparations.
Conversion resources will come from both Instructure and OEI. The pilot colleges will be the first to have the opportunity to adopt and implement Canvas, and that process will start in the immediate weeks ahead. We hope to continue to increase implementation throughout the fall, spring and beyond, and are asking for your patience and support.
We are also asking for information. Distance Education Coordinators have been asked to provide some timeline information to the folks at the CCC Technology Center, who will help us plan the roll-out based on criteria that includes when current contracts sunset.
There will be a lot more information about the Canvas roll-out coming your way in the next few weeks. We have developed a resource site, located at ccconlineed.instructure.com/courses/90, where information about adopting Canvas can be found, including who to contact. Our steering committee has included some suggestions for how the conversation to adopt can happen at a college. This resource site will be updated with new information as implementation progresses, so keep checking back.
Creating Course Exchange Processes
While the Canvas implementation is no small task, it’s not the only thing we are working on. At the end of April, we held a “Reciprocity Summit,” which allowed teams of admissions and records, financial aid and enrollment management people from the eight full-launch pilot colleges to meet. Their task was to design the agreements and business processes that are needed to accomplish the course exchange component of the initiative.
We had over 50 people in attendance and they did an amazing job of considering and redesigning many of the processes we all use to enroll and register students on our campuses. Those designs are now being refined and will be reviewed by the teams who participated.
The next step will be to create technological solutions to make it reasonable for students to easily enroll in courses across our colleges. Our goal is to give students access to courses they cannot get locally, and thereby increase their ability to complete their educational goals. This access may include adding sections of “bottleneck” courses, sharing sections of hard-to-fill capstone courses and even extending degree patterns across colleges through a large consortium.
Focus On Quality
The OEI is not just about a CCMS or a course exchange. It is generally about making online learning opportunities better and more accessible to our students. While Canvas and the online course exchange program are two very visible and important components of what we hope will be a successful distance education system, they are not the only pieces that we need.
The focus of the OEI is on helping students complete their goals in a timely way. That task involves keeping students engaged in the learning process as they take our courses. It involves dedicated teachers who are willing to improve their online teaching ability and willing to invent new strategies that help students succeed in their online classes. It also involves resources for students, teachers and colleges.
So, even as we are “crazy busy” with two major projects within the initiative, the work on the quality pieces doesn’t stop.
Professional development and course design activities are in full swing with peer review trainings happing throughout spring, and into summer and fall. @ONE plans to release its new online teaching course this summer, and is hiring and training course designers who will connect with and support faculty across the system. Resources for underprepared students and discipline-specific course design strategies for all students are also being created.
TTIP South, @ONE and the OEI are also supporting the Online Teaching Conference in June. As I write this, there are fewer than 100 spaces left at the conference, so register now! For information visit onlineteachingconference.org.
We have also been cultivating partnerships through national initiatives such as the dLrn research project out of University of Texas at Arlington, and working with initiatives at Stanford University regarding learning analytics as well as teaching statistics online.
The resources we are creating are intended for all of California’s community colleges, regardless of the course management systems they use. Colleges may or may not choose to adopt the CCMS or the course exchange component. What will make our online offerings more effective is having all colleges participate in the adoption of the course design rubric and in the professional development and other resource opportunities we can create.
The big win here is that this is our opportunity to work as a system dedicated to student completion and success.
Personally Speaking
It’s hard to believe that my one-year anniversary working with this initiative was in March. This is the most difficult work I have ever tackled. I, along with the other management team members, am rarely at home. We have logged many miles visiting colleges and attending events and meetings, and it sometimes takes a toll! We get tired, and sometimes even get sick (lots of colds in April/May), but our enthusiasm remains strong.
Most days I feel as though my main job is to reassure people that we are working for them and for students. Some of my time is spent defending online education as a viable learning methodology. It amazes me that there are still critics who think the whole story is told by comparing retention rates from regular courses to those of online courses. We know what we need to do and should be given credit for doing those things! Check out my response to a recent article.
Lastly, I want to take a minute to thank the members of the Academic Senate for CCC and the CCC community at-large for their support of us as we do this work. Your positive sprit and words of encouragement certainly keep me going! I am looking forward to seeing many of you at the Online Teaching Conference next month.
I want to thank those who choose to take a deeper look at community colleges and online learning than the authors of some recent articles have done. The California Community Colleges (CCC) is aware of the completion gap, and why it exists.
The CCC Online Education Initiative (OEI) grant specifically calls on us to close this gap between online and traditional classes. But rather than simply throwing more money at increasing online courses as a recent column in the Hechinger Report suggests, we are taking a very different approach. Our approach includes providing the full resources needed to make online learning as effective as possible within our system. We also know that by working with instructional design support, our own faculty is quite capable of creating excellent, rather than “primitive” (where primitive refers to non-publisher created courses, as mentioned in the column) online courses.
A May 2014 report published by the Public Policy Institute of California explored this very problem and found that, while individual online course success rates are low, students who take at least some online courses are more likely to reach their educational goals. The report also highlighted some potential solutions, many of which were already being pursued by the OEI.
Specifically, the OEI is directly addressing students’ needs by:
Access To Resources
Online education programs and colleges in general have been under-resourced since they began. We also know that students who most need access to education are very often community college students.
We also recognize that quality of our online courses has historically been inconsistent, mostly due to lack of sufficient resources. Funding for the Online Education Initiative is used to provide centralized technology resources to both ensure high-quality course offerings and that students are prepared to learn online, while respecting and supporting the significant local-college online education efforts.
Additionally, we are negotiating cost reduction in technology solutions that our colleges have not been able to afford on their own.
Closing The Gap
The reason colleges offer online education is not for our community colleges to look more "attractive" to students, as mentioned in the column. Rather it is to reach our students—many of whom cannot make it to campus or cannot make a needed course fit into an existing schedule, to name just two challenges.
We know how to increase retention and success and we are doing those things in our initiative (providing faculty resources and professional development, student resources and readiness solutions, and appropriately funded technology, among other solutions). If you want to know whether our online programs have "failed" or not, just speak to those students who never would have completed an education if these courses were not available.
This is the 10th month of blog posts from me and, as I look back, it is clear that we at the California Community Colleges (CCC) Online Education Initiative (OEI) have completed a ton of work!
I used to have to use the idea of a pop-up book to convey the development of the initiative. I had to continually remind people that this initiative did not emerge fully formed from the RFA process. Now, though, it is more like a puzzle where, as each piece is fit into place, the others fit more easily and the big picture is beginning to become clear.
To really understand how we think about leading this initiative, you might want to listen to a Ted talk by Linda Hill called “Collective Genius.” She describes the kind of work we are doing as “messy.” I think that, to do this right, it’s going to still be messy for a while!
An Overwhelming, But Exciting Time
On a personal note, I find it interesting that when I travel and meet so many people across the state, I am often greeted with, “Are you OK? Poor dear…” This is a crazy job with so much to keep track of—and it can be overwhelming at times—but for those of you who worry about me, I am fine. I am working with some fantastic people both on our team and at the colleges. We are hearing a lot from you all about how excited you are to see some attention and funding being paid toward our online education efforts.
Earlier this month at the OEI Town Hall, Howard Story said, “This is so great. I have never seen anything like it in our system!” I agree and am so excited to do this work. When I see the pieces start to fit, I know what this will someday mean for students who need access to great education in order to complete their goals. We have long history of focusing on what works for students in our CCC system and a lot of knowledge of how to do online education right. I love working with you all for the benefit of our students.
(For those of you who don’t know Howard, he’s been around distance education in California for as long as I have—which is a long time—and is the DE Coordinator at El Camino College.)
As we have seen throughout the project, as a result of our pilots, some things develop and solidify and other things adapt and change. This month I will be telling you about both types of initiative components.
CCMS Adoption
It has taken many, many months of work by the Common Course Management System (CCMS) Committee members, however, the time has finally come for colleges within our system to consider adopting a CCMS. The OEI will facilitate the use of and subsidize the cost of the Canvas course management system for colleges choosing to adopt it.
Seeing these words in print here causes me to tear up a little! We have thought about doing this since the early days of the California Virtual Campus and I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to get to this moment.
In the Academic Senate for CCC paper, Ensuring Appropriate Use of Technology in Education, the authors (of which I was one) highly recommended that the decision of whether to adopt a CCMS be heavily dependent on what the faculty want to use in their teaching. At the time we wrote the paper, we thought the depth of the tool we were teaching through should be the primary concern. This decision should still rely primarily on the faculty to make, but we also know that ease of use by both the teaching community and the students is a critical component.
Online teaching and learning is a challenge for both teachers and learners if the tool used to accomplish the learning is not intuitive, and it can potentially interfere with the educational process. As the Canvas folks say on their website, “It's not worth much if people don't use it.” Include your students in the conversation wherever it makes sense to do so. We chose Canvas both because we liked it and because our students did, too.
We’ve put together a resource site at tinyurl.com/OEIresource to assist colleges in the decision-making process. Please see this TechEDge article for more information.
Summer Pilots Update
Planning and implementation of resources for the summer pilots are underway.
Tutoring: There are 15 colleges implementing the tutoring resources from Link-Systems International this summer and the work of integrating them is going on now, led by Jory Hadsell and Barbara Illowsky.Fall Pilots Update
Plans for the fall pilots are on target at this time. It’s really busy as we begin migrating courses and providing the resources for students within them. The bulk of the work for the full-launch colleges will be creating the consortium and working through the logistics required for the exchange to begin next January.
Adding Courses To Pilots
Jory Hadsell, Michelle Pilati and the @ONE staff are working hard to do the required steps for adding further C-ID courses to the pilots. The timeline for the application and revision processes will be available at our May 8 Steering Committee meeting, and reported here in my next post.
Professional Development
Peer Online Course Reviewer (POCR) trainings are ongoing with the next two happening on May 1 at Cerritos College, and May 15 at Mt. San Antonio College. These one-day workshops will focus on the OEI Course Design Rubric and are open to anyone from the CCC.
The staff of @ONE has been crazy-busy developing the online teaching modules that will assist faculty in meeting the course design rubric standards. They have also been working with the OEI Professional Development Work Group to pilot and then complete the rubric revisions. Course reviewers who were trained last fall are reviewing the last group of 20 courses submitted by the colleges in the first round. Accessibility review is also underway, but is a very complex activity that is taking a bit longer than we expected. It’s so great to be acting the results of pilot work!
General Updates
On my way to the Reciprocity Summit at Foothill College
The tutoring platform from Link-Systems International is available to all colleges for free and the NetTutor online tutoring services are available for a negotiated cost through the Foundation for CCC.
The Frequently Asked Questions and Milestones lists have been revised and posted on the OEI website.
Whew! Thanks to all of you who have mentioned worrying about me! After reading this, I’m starting to worry, too! I am writing while headed to Foothill College for the Reciprocity Summit, then off to New York City to work with George Siemens and the Digital Learning Research Network (dLrn) grant project. The OEI is one of 10 college/university groups across the nation to participate in this activity funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I’ll tell you all about it next month!
Happy Spring!
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The months are flying by and we are so busy here in Online Education Initiative (OEI) land. I keep thinking that things will slow down as we solidify the initiative components, but it seems they are picking up speed instead! Everyday there is a success that is followed by a new challenge, and so the building of the initiative continues.
We are finding there are many aspects of the California Community Colleges (CCC) culture that allow us to collaborate beautifully across the system. For example, tapping into work that has been done with common identification of core courses across our curriculum has set the stage for clean articulation efforts within the exchange components of the project. Another example is the willingness of Distance Education (DE) Coordinators to share policies and ideas with each other.
Finally, we have some projects within our system that are set up to participate in this kind of effort as though we knew years ago that we would do this some day (i.e. @ONE, CCCConfer, 3CMedia, the Foundation for CCC, and the CCC Technology Center at Butte College). Wait… we did know. The early efforts of the California Virtual College set the stage for us and I will always be grateful to those folks who participated so whole-heartedly then.
Here are updates on a few things the OEI team has been working on:
The Course Exchange
If you have been reading my blog posts over the last nine months (Wow!), you have some idea about the component of the initiative that is lovingly referred to as the “Exchange.” The idea is that students will be able to take online classes across colleges in order to complete their educational goals. That effort will begin in pilot phase in January 2016.
Right now we are figuring out the details of the business processes and agreements that colleges participating in the Exchange will be using. A meeting of the eight full-launch pilot college representatives from instruction, financial aid, student services and enrollment services will take place at Foothill College at the end of April to design the way forward. This is the part of the initiative that CCC Chancellor Brice Harris has referred to as “Herculean,” but I think we may find the work both interesting and fruitful. Stay tuned!
ASCCC DE Regional Meetings
We just attended the DE Regional Meetings hosted by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC), and want to congratulate them on these wonderful summit-like meetings. I attended with Jory Hadsell and Jayme Johnson from the OEI management team, and we were really impressed and hope the ASCCC will continue to host meetings like these.
Traveling OEI Team
Our current travel schedule has increased and we will be out and about a lot in April: Association of Colleges for Tutoring and Learning Assistance (ACTLA) Conference, March 31-April 1; Campus Technology Forum for our Town Hall, April 8; ASCCC Plenary Session, April 9-11; California Association of Community College Registrars and Admissions Officers (CACCRAO), April 26-29; and more! We are also available to visit your campuses as time permits. There are about six of us who live around the state and who are willing to meet with you.
Canvas CCMS Deployment
As I write this we are finalizing details of our plans with Instructure’s Canvas system and hope to have a deployment timeline out to you in the next couple of weeks. I ask for your patience as we ramp up this part of the project. Deploying a statewide common course management system (CCMS) does take some planning and the planning takes time. We really want to get this right and not cause additional burden for colleges as they upgrade to the Canvas CCMS. We are approaching our work with Instructure as a partnership effort. With some collaboration and creativity, we may be able to build the type of learning platform that will take online learning to the next level.
In regard to the deployment, we have some items almost ready to launch, including information that we hope will help you with your decision-making at your local campuses. John Sills, at the CCC Technology Center, is almost finished with a set of online resources that will provide you with some information to share as you have conversations about moving to a new system. We will announce that here and send information to the DE Coordinators for the state when that site is available.
In the meantime, you can visit the Canvas website at www.canvaslms.com for details about the CMS itself. We really look forward to bringing you all on board with Canvas through the OEI contract and will be keeping you up to date as we progress.
Student Readiness
We are working on the student readiness modules, too, and hope to make those available statewide by the end of this year. We have been piloting them and they are now going through a revision and expansion phase. This resource will be really helpful to all of our students as they consider whether online learning is right for them. The modules also address some general study skills.
Online Tutoring
The tutoring solutions are available through the Foundation for CCC and the information about that is in this edition of the TechEDge Newsletter.
Professional Development
Professional development efforts are moving right along. @ONE is leading the effort in collaboration with Michelle Pilati of our OEI management team. They are planning three Peer Online Course Reviewers’ (POCR) trainings for the next few months. While the official course reviewers for the project must be CCC online teaching faculty, these initial trainings are open to everyone in the system. We hope the information gleaned at these trainings will help the college community develop courses that are aligned to the OEI course design standards.
The first three trainings will be held March 27 at Foothill College, May 1 at Cerritos College, and May 15 at Mt. San Antonio College, and are all one-day, no-cost events. Space is limited. To sign up, please visit www.surveymonkey.com/r/SP15POCRapp.
Please feel free to comment here, if you have ideas or questions for us!
Have a great spring.
The California Community Colleges (CCC) Online Education Initiative (OEI) has recently hit some major milestones–most significantly the selection of Instructure’s Canvas as the common course management system (CCMS) for our colleges.
The process actually started last summer at the Distance Education Coordinators’ Retreat in San Diego. It continued in fall, with the formation of the full CCMS Committee comprised of the CCMS Workgroup of the OEI Steering Committee and representatives of the Full Launch Pilot Colleges, and culminated with the selection on Feb. 5, 2015.
I’d like to give a shout-out to OEI staff members Steve Klein, John Sills and Amy Carbonaro for putting together the massive effort around this selection, to Joe Perret who serves as the committee chair from the OEI Steering Committee, and to Phil Hill, an education-technology consultant and analyst who did an excellent job of facilitating the demos and deliberation meeting. I also want to sincerely thank the faculty, staff and especially the students who so whole-heartedly and freely gave of their time.
I was around when we formed regional representation for the California Virtual Campus in the late ‘90s. At that time, we discussed implementing a common system, but instead we allowed schools to get their online courses offered initially in a variety of state-hosted systems. Colleges then began to select and procure their own CMS, and we were off working differently from each other from the beginning.
We wanted courses to be offered to all students across a single system at that time, but we were just starting and certainly not ready for such a concept. The result was a great program for seeding the development of quality online education across the colleges, the beginnings of professional development for online teachers, the testing of resources and the development of a catalog of online courses offered by different colleges. Today, we know so much about our online selves and our online students. We also finally have the ability to create more effective programs and share our knowledge with each other.
What’s Best For Students?
The focus of the CCMS selection committee was on what is best for students. We set aside our individual attachments and looked carefully at the bigger picture. Our student representatives all commented on how meaningful it was for them to see the degree of concern for student success that was displayed by our CCC people during the days of deliberation. It was meaningful to me, too.
I won’t go into describing the entire selection process here. If you want to know about it, there’s a good description at TechEDge. I do want to comment on the amazing ability of the large group of representatives to truly put the students and the bigger picture in the center of their deliberations.
I don’t think I have ever been more proud to be in a group of people or more proud of the people who make up California Community Colleges. The decision was nearly unanimous and the voting was done by each member standing—rather than simply raising their hands—to indicate their decision. I can honestly say that we stood up for the students of California. I was brought to tears from being so overwhelmed with the consideration the group showed for this momentous decision.
OEI Professional Development Summit, Feb. 20-21, 2015
A big part of my consideration was focused on how committed the CMS vendor would be to a partnership. It is incredibly important that we work with someone who understands that it’s the development of a CMS that we are after. No CMS I’ve ever experienced does all of what we need to teach online. This is our opportunity to create something we can use to truly enhance learning and teaching that incorporates what we have learned over the last decade, and also allows us to explore new ground together. Summing up the selection process, I’d like to say strongly that we have put students first and will continue to do so, and together we will develop and create our way into this new era of online education in our colleges.
The ‘Morning After’
So, just like after any big event, there’s a lot of energy around the event, but then what? For us it was moving right to the Professional Development Creative Summit that took place in San Diego on Feb. 20-21. Approximately 90 educators from the 24 pilot colleges met to discuss the future of the OEI and to consider the implications of the more than 70 individual course reviews that have been accomplished over the last several months. The success of this event lies squarely with Julie Adams and her staff of the Academic Senate for CCC (ASCCC). Julie and her staff did a wonderful job setting up the logistics for the event and it was a great experience thanks to them. The Paradise Point staff was also amazing! I also want to thank Michelle Pilati from our management team, who worked tirelessly with Anna Stirling, Lene Whitney-Puz and Micah Orloff, all of @ONE, to plan and execute this event. I’d also like to thank the ASCCC, Mt. San Jacinto College, and Mira Costa College for lending us projection equipment!
There were meetings and workshops and time spent in conversation. I have to say that the energy was incredibly positive and very strong!
Faculty members who had courses reviewed as part of the pilots were able to meet one-on-one with the amazing instructional design staff hired by @ONE to help us. This activity received high praise from the attendees and is something we will continue to offer both online and through regional events that start next month!
There were workshops on accessibility, video use in online courses, and how to increase interactivity. We held meetings to gather information and share plans around the idea of the course exchange, as well as lengthy discussions about deployment of the CCMS, Tutoring, and Readiness solutions. Again, I was overwhelmed most of those two days by the open enthusiasm for working in this new endeavor and the focus on what is good for students.
OEI Pop-Up Book
At the end of the two days, one faculty member (who was also at the CCMS selection meetings) commented that she knew there were many still unanswered questions, but she had confidence in our ability to answer them and to build a successful system. That, for me, was a highlight of my two-day experience! It is so important to me that you all understand that this is about creating something together. I had a pop-up book that stayed on the podium at the front of the general session meetings. It is symbolic for me to show that the OEI is not an idea that was instantaneously fully formed. Instead, it is a combination of dreaming big (Thank you Bonnie Edwards), collaboration and hard work.
Next Steps
CCMS: So, what’s next? Now we really have to jump into the hard work of negotiations with Instructure to determine when and how deployment happens. We know that colleges are considering adoption and will create a package of information that can be shared with faculty as they consider their decisions. We also know that many of you are worried about switching systems, both in the elements of the task and the timing of the deployments. During the next month we will be developing a timeline to address the initial implementation. The members of the management team are also willing to visit colleges, if invited, to discuss adoption and why we selected this particular CMS. Just let us know!
Remember, no one will be mandated to adopt Canvas, but we think you will really want to. It will be a requirement for any courses offered in the exchange component of the OEI. Colleges may choose to adopt Canvas, but not be part of the exchange, and that is totally OK.
Professional Development: Professional development summits will also be scheduled throughout the next few semesters and we will publish dates and locations as soon as they are solidified. The new online teaching course and modules are now in development by @ONE, and should be available this summer! Instructional design support mechanisms are also being developed.
OTC: The Online Teaching Conference is coming up June 18-19 at the San Diego Convention Center and the call for presentations is now open! There will be a DE Coordinators’ retreat on the 17th.
Course Exchange: The details of the course exchange component of the project will continue to be worked out in collaboration with the pilot colleges, the Chancellor’s Office staff, and others across the colleges (for a description of the idea, see earlier blog posts). We plan to develop pilot courses in Canvas through the spring and summer, with faculty teaching these courses with students enrolled in them for Fall 2015. The exchange component is scheduled to begin in Spring 2016 (all things considered).
Resources:
I know there’s more, but those are the highlights for now. Whew! I need a nap…
OEI Executive Director Pat James at WCET Annual Conference
It started with the OEI management team making a visit to the Board of Governors’ (BOG) Meeting, which was held at De Anza College in the OEI host district of Foothill-De Anza. We presented the OEI on Tuesday morning, and were well received. The BOG members had some great questions and we were able to substantively answer all of them.
The highlight, though, came at the end of our presentation, when CCC Chancellor Brice Harris characterized the task we have undertaken as “Herculean”. He also mentioned that the OEI will need continued funding to realize its potential. I want to thank him for those comments, and thank both him and the entire board for understanding what this initiative is and what means for the students of California.
From the BOG meeting in Cupertino, I went directly to the WCET Annual Meeting in Portland, Ore., and was fortunate to have facilitated a student panel as a general session offering. You can view that conversation here. We are hoping to create a similar panel for a general session at the Online Teaching Conference 2015 in June (more about that in a bit). The next stop was the Community College League of California (CCLC) in Rancho Mirage, where we had an opportunity to talk about the initiative with college trustees and presidents from across the system.
That was all in one week!
Earlier this month, John Makevich and Jory Hadsell, both officers in the initiative, connected with their counterparts in the other sectors while at the DET/CHE Conference in Long Beach, and we hope partnerships with CSU and UC online educators will be the result!
What’s Happening In Between Road Trips
So besides our spending a good deal of time on the road, what’s new with the initiative? Well, we are moving solidly through the initial phases of implementation for many of the pieces of the OEI.
Course Review/Re-design/Adjustments: As of this writing, we have reviewed more than 25 courses and have another 35 in the pipeline. We keep running into time crunch issues. We had hoped to get reviews done in early November, but the new process needed some adjusting and we aren’t as far along as we’d hoped. When you are doing something from scratch, you can estimate how long it will take, but until you are in the soup, you can’t predict that all of the flavors will blend. It’s really cool, though, when you realize that what you’ve created is much better than you even imagined!
The example of that happening is that the course submissions came in slowly, which was one of several factors that slowed the review process (which was in need of adjustment, anyway), and we decided to let the first pilots go forward in the spring with no revisions to their courses resulting from completed reviews. Instead we will work with the faculty throughout the spring semester to provide instructional design support.
The readiness and tutoring solutions will be available in all of the classes selected for review. At the end of the semester we will assess the effect of only the solution, not the redesign efforts. In addition, the faculty will have a reasonable amount of time to work with instructional design support to redesign or adjust their courses. Nice!
Readiness: The initial modules that will form the foundation for online student readiness tutorials are done! I saw them a few days ago and they are pretty cool. There are still some edits to do and the testing in spring, of course, but they will be open and available come Fall 2015 for everyone to use, both within the common course management system and from an open web site.
Tutoring support for students: Link Systems will be working with our pilot colleges to provide 24/7 tutoring for online students in the pilot AND a platform for learning centers to use to connect their local tutors to online students. When I was a dean supervising learning centers, connecting our tutors with online students was one of the most difficult things to accomplish. So this effort wasn’t just about 24/7 provision of tutors, it was also about a partnership that will allow our on campus learning centers to assist online students more effectively, and about consideration of tutoring networks. The contract with Link Systems will be available in the fall for colleges outside of the pilot to buy into at a reasonable cost, too!
Professional Development: Beyond the review and revision process, there are plans in the works to bring all the faculty members teaching in the pilot groups together in what we are calling “Creative Summits”. These no-cost professional development workshops will be highly interactive events where online teaching faculty can connect with the course reviewers, instructional designers and each other to share best practices and take online educational design to the next level. If you have not reviewed our course design standards yet, you can do so at the OEI website.
Additionally, the educators within @ONE are designing online teaching courses that will streamline the certification process and provide fully online courses for teachers across our system by next fall, if not before.
Common Course Management System:I can’t say too much here about this, as we are in the process of determining which course management system we will be able to offer to colleges in the CCC. I can say that our selection process includes the participation of a group of more than 50 educators from across our system, is complex, interesting and thorough. I fully trust that we will end up with something better than we have ever had before and I am looking forward to the outcome! We plan to have a selection by the end of February.
The Exchange: We refer to the “exchange” as the piece of this initiative that allows students to take online classes across a group of colleges within a consortium ecosystem that:
Right now we are working on developing those business practices that focus on simplicity for students and effective data transfer for colleges. This is the task that Chancellor Harris called “Herculean”. This will be the most complex work we do, and will take time to do correctly. So please be patient with us as we work through the complexity. We only have one chance to do this right and that is our intention!
As a system, we must put the needs of our students first, but we cannot get around how apportionment is accomplished. The fear of losing students to other colleges through participation in an exchange program is a real fear. However, the potential of gaining full-time equivalencies and gaining completions is also a sure thing.
I truly believe that if anyone can do this it is the California Community Colleges. We have always put student learning and progress at the forefront of our work and this not a time to change that!
In my travels, I have been answering many questions about the exchange idea and one that comes up all of the time is, “Will we have to be a part of the exchange?” The answer is no. As a matter of fact, there are no mandates to be a part of this initiative at all. However, we hope that colleges will want to participate to assist their students in gaining successful completion in reasonable time frames.
Online Teaching Conference 2015: The development of OTC15 has been a little slower this year than in years past, but it is definitely in the pipeline. You should see requests for proposals coming out in January. The location is being worked out, but is likely going to be in the San Diego area. The dates are set as June 17 to June 19 and keynote speakers will be announced soon.
We have completed our first full year of this grant and, I think, have a lot to show for it. It would seem easy to spend $16.9 million in such a short period of time, but it’s not. We are being careful to plan thoughtfully and address the needs of our students.
Have a great holiday season and I’ll see you in the new year!
It’s hard to believe it’s already November. I am wondering where the last two months have gone! It seems like just yesterday we were figuring out the colleges that would make up the pilot groups for the Online Education Initiative (OEI), and that we had time to get things together before spring. Just like when you are teaching, the semester passes before you know it. Allow me to catch you up on what we’ve been doing.
We’ve developed a strong philosophy surrounding this project that is based on a foundation of doing what helps our students. We also want to firmly recognize and honor the decade-plus of work done in creating online courses and programs in the California Community Colleges by its teachers, counselors, staff and administrators. We are committed to working with you in formative activities that help us all do better work in the online environment for our students.
As you consider your choices in becoming a participant in this initiative, remember that our hope is to provide resources, information, encouragement and, when appropriate, direction born out of collaboration and experience. We will not mandate that you join us, but hope that you will want to because what we create is excellence in learning and teaching.
Questions Bring Solutions
The components of the OEI are many and implementation of them is a complex task requiring a good deal of careful consideration for every item. Each time we encounter a question, it usually generates several more. Someday, I hope we have more answers than questions but for now we just have to deal with them as they arise.
Many of the questions we get spring out of fear of centralized systems and I want to assure you that we are aware of the need to answer your most difficult questions about things like confidentiality of the course review process, gain or loss of potential FTE revenue, intellectual property rights, participation in decision making and more. However, those answers become solutions and they must be carefully established, so be patient as we create them.
For me, the consolidation of resources around online education is not something to fear; rather, it is something that allows us to do better together. Economies of scale and sharing of effective practices can help us create better opportunities for our students. We know a great deal about this distance education animal, and we can work together to create something amazing.
Making The Pieces Fit
Every time I try to explain what working on this project is like, I can see a picture of a machine that has never been constructed before. I know there have been other consortia around the country, but we are 112 independent schools with as many diverse organizational structures and opinions. Holy cow!
So, my imaginary picture starts with the building of a machine. We know what we want the thing to do, thank goodness. So, we start building and need to add a piece. When we talk to each other, we find that we all have the next piece. However, the pieces we have are all slightly different. Some pieces have been working really well, but to get them to work for everyone, the pieces we already have in place may need to be adjusted.
Wait! We just built that and now we have to modify? Yep. Trial and rethink… trial and rethink… until it works. I get really excited when we get a piece to fit and the project moves ahead. But it all takes time and, more than time, it takes patience and the willingness to listen to each other.
It became really clear about two years ago at a Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Committee (TTAC) retreat that to get all the pieces we need and to make them work well it would be important to use the same underlying systems, such as a common course management system (CCMS) and common student services procedures. So, that’s what we are creating. I am really encouraged by recent accomplishments like getting the request for proposals out for the CCMS and tutoring solution. I am incredibly impressed by the enthusiasm the course reviewers have for the standards and the review work, and by the willingness of the college community to participate. I am more confident than ever that we can do this.
Out & About
The big questions still come from people who just want to know what the project is about, so our management team members have been out visiting colleges in the pilot groups. I’ve been visiting colleges, too, usually at technology events or other meetings and conferences. If you would like one of us to visit your college to talk to faculty, administration, students or staff, please email me and let me know. We will do whatever we can to talk about the project with you and your colleagues.
Tomorrow, I will be at the CCC Chief Instructional Officers (CCCCIO) conference in San Diego. A college cannot offer additional online classes to provide increased access for students unless they have the resources and teaching staff able to do so. Solving that problem is one of the main goals of the OEI and we will need the help and understanding of the instructional management leaders in the state to accomplish it. I am looking forward to talking with them!
Below are some updates to help answer some of your questions about the current activities of the OEI.
Course Review, Instructional Design Support
We know that a well designed online course is critical to student success. We also know that resources are not always available to help teachers identify course design strategies, much less to implement them. So, one of the main components of the OEI is providing the resources to faculty that are needed to ensure quality course design across the pilots.
As of this writing, 66 of the 72 courses we hoped for have been submitted for design review from the pilot group (a few more are still in the submission process). The large number of submissions doesn’t surprise me. Teachers generally want to know how to create great online courses!
The review process that began about a week ago is intended to provide formative review of the courses that will make up the initial pilots. The reviews will focus on making sure that OEI courses are consistent with the course design standards that were adopted during the summer, and to provide faculty with the design support they may need.
The courses that were submitted are in the initial phases of being reviewed by CCC faculty reviewers from more than 25 colleges in the system. The courses that will be reviewed first were selected according to what has been identified as being in high demand by students. Courses will then be reviewed and prioritized by how closely they meet the standards for first offerings in the pilots. Courses needing instructional design support for accessibility and other items will receive support after the reviews are completed.
Reviews, Intellectual Property Rights
Results of the reviews will be offered to the faculty member only, and are in no way intended or expected to be an evaluation of that member’s performance. Oh, and about those intellectual property rights: The OEI does not intend to own anyone’s course. IP rights are determined through college processes. If we help with instructional design support, that just goes toward making the course work better for our students no matter where it’s taught—which is our goal. Later in the project I anticipate that we will have teams of faculty from across the state designing model classes that can be housed in a clearinghouse for general use by anyone, but that still won’t affect IP rights. Any products developed by the OEI will be Creative Commons licensed.
Student Readiness Resources
The design of the OEI readiness module prototypes will be completed for piloting in spring and will be used in combination with pre-assessment tools that identify what skills students need to ensure their success as online learners. We are planning to have them deployed within the pilot courses as well as available for review and adoption by non-pilot colleges via the web.
Online Tutoring Support
One of the hardest things for a college learning center to set up is 24/7 online tutoring. The request for proposals is now out for an online tutoring platform that allows for local tutoring and 24/7 online vendor support and we hope to solidify that choice by the middle of November. Colleges within the system will be able to buy into low-cost tutoring solutions soon! Pilot colleges will access the resources at no cost.
CCMS, Exchanging Student Enrollments
After a great deal of consideration and collaboration, the request for proposals for a CCMS went out on Monday! The process of selecting a CCMS is itself very complex, and requires a great deal of collaborative work. We hope to have a decision early in February. Stay tuned!
In addition to establishing the CCMS, we have to create reciprocity agreements for those colleges who wish to participate in an exchange of student online enrollments across colleges. We are also working on the technology solutions needed to extend student applications, registration processes and seamless transfer of grades, to name just a few items that have to be worked out. This work will continue through the end of the Spring 2015 semester and beyond.
Ideas
Many new ideas have been generated through our discussions and work within the project. For example, we know we must have a proctoring network combined with digital test proctoring to make any kind of exchange be successful—which we are working on. The network idea has extended to a discussion of “speech events” and shared lab components that can make online speech/communication and lab sciences a statewide hybrid type of activity. We also are planning a series of “creative summits” that bring online teaching faculty together to share effective practices and experiences. It’s clear that we can really benefit from creative, collaborative energy.
These are just a few highlights of what’s going on in the project today. Check the OEI website and TechEDge News for more updates. Please feel free to ask your questions by using the comments feature of this post.
I write this as I am headed to Educause in Orlando, Fla. The days are packed with a myriad of details to be addressed as the Online Education Initiative (OEI) winds up development of requests for proposals (RFPs).
As we near completion of RFPs for the common course management system (CCMS) and pilot tutoring solutions, every moment is a combination of planning, communication, problem solving and learning—not necessarily in that order.
The Big Think
“Ahhh,” you’re thinking, “She meant to write, the big thing.” Nope, I meant the big think that is going on across the management team, steering committee and members of the large CCMS work group. That is, how do we actually create a learning environment that works for the California Community Colleges? The learning environment, as I call it, is the “ecosystem” that has been referred to in the application for the OEI, and it involves the development of more than just a common CMS.
Someone recently asked me, “Why are you calling it a CMS? Isn’t it an LMS?” My answer is that we can call it anything, but what it has to be is outside the box we’ve been in for so many years.
The concerns about management systems forcing a type of teaching practice, and moreover, the need to improve student success in online classes, are the forces driving this project to create differently. Pam Walker, our new Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the CCC Chancellor’s Office, mentioned a quote by Albert Camus to me at the last OEI steering committee meeting. She said that we should “create dangerously.” That comment really expresses the situation well. No matter what we call things, we are creating dangerously, differently, and big!
Informing The Selection Process
Developing an RFP for a CCMS that 112 diversely-minded colleges would want to use cannot be done by “business as usual.” We need tools that grow, adapt, include and work! With that in mind, activities have been going on for the past few weeks that will inform us as we go into the actual selection phase of this adoption process. Some of those activities include, but are not limited to:
Several of my colleagues have talked to me about their concerns that we will do things the way we have always done them and we won’t end up with something new. I want to assure you that our intention, as an OEI team and as the CCC system, is to create a learning environment that will take distance learning to the next level, and the next, and the next, and will continue to advance across the years to come. I also realize that this is no small task, and hope that you will be patient with us as we work.
Incidental Learning: The Course Review Process
We have identified 30 out of more than 160 applicants to serve as course reviewers for the approximately 72 courses that will make up the first pilot implementation. The first phases of the pilots will start in January and continue through summer of 2015. It seems to me that having 30 people who are able to align courses to our standards alone will begin to make some difference in student success across the state! Just having adopted and published commonly supported standards will help us all.
All 30 members of this first cohort of course reviewers are CCC online teaching faculty. The reviewers were selected by representatives of the Academic Senate (ASCCC), the OEI team and the @ONE management team, according to a job description developed and approved within the steering committee. The reviewers will meet and begin preparing to apply the OEI-approved standards to courses that have been submitted by the pilot colleges.
All courses within the pilots will be reviewed prior to launch, for all three pilot groups. The reviewers meet Oct. 3 and Oct. 4 to begin a hybrid training process that includes two days of in-person meetings and a full week of online course participation. (I am really looking forward to being a part of that work!)
Submission of courses for review from the 24 pilot colleges will begin on Oct. 8, with actual review starting on Oct. 15. We hope to have approximately 72 courses reviewed before Spring 2015. Course submission and review will continue throughout Spring 2015, so that we have an inventory staged for addition to the course exchange as the project moves forward.
What’s In It For Me?
I hear this question a lot from my faculty colleagues. If you are wondering what would motivate a teacher to submit a course for review, and to teach in an exchange across the state, here’s what:
De Anza College Opening Convocation, Fall 2014
On A Personal Note
I’ve been running! The new management team met for two days as we came to take part in the Foothill-De Anza Community College District opening convocation. There was a rainbow over the De Anza campus the morning of the convocation and as the FHDA community geared up for a new academic year, so did the OEI team.
We are about implementation now, getting down “into the weeds,” as OEI Launch Team member Anita Crawley would say. I love it! I am maintaining my focus on what’s best for students and looking forward to the year ahead. Over the next few months, I’ll be attending the WCET Connect annual conference (see story), Community College League of California annual convention, the San Diego CCD Technology Summit, the Strengthening Student Success Conference, ASCCC Plenary, and other events where I can meet and hear from you. Please keep in touch!
I am off now to an Educause session to learn the latest about Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). There’s so much more to tell you! I’ll come back here this week and add in comments to keep you up to date. Please feel free to add questions or comments to this post. I want to hear from you!
August was a significant month for the California Community Colleges (CCC) Online Education Iniatiative (OEI) staff. We hired the permanent replacements for the launch team officers. The new peeps start this week. We received the Request for Information (RFI) with initial vendor information for the Common Course Management System (CCMS) work and had the first meeting of the work group that is reviewing those and developing a Request for Proposal (RFP). We are working on the RFI for the tutoring vendor, which should be out within a couple of weeks. On the professional development course approval front, we have received more than 80 applications from folks across the state willing to serve as course reviewers, and that process is advancing rapidly.
However, one of the most interesting things that happened took place in a three-project staff meeting of the OEI, Common Assessment Initiative (CAI) and Education Planning Initiative (EPI).
Managers and steering committee members from all three groups attended a meeting on Aug. 14. The purpose of that meeting was to clarify the goals and progress on all three projects as a way of informing all about possible intersection and integration points that we may need to address and maximize.
Just A Bit About What We Learned
There are items in the CAI that are also of concern to the OEI project team. For example, online proctoring solutions that are developed for the OEI, which will be in pilot mode very soon, may inform those needed for the CAI and vice versa. The EPI has, as part of its work, use of degree audit solutions. The information gained from having an understanding of what courses students may need to complete their goals can inform the OEI about which courses to offer in the exchange.
The result of the meeting was a well-informed group of educators across the projects—and all have a clear understanding that we need to stay in close communication going forward.
Where’s the OEI?
If I were to characterize the condition of the OEI right now, I’d say, “Taking off!” The pilots will start this month with colleges connecting with the project managers and course review processes taking shape and in various phases of implementation. We are currently in the decision-making stage regarding how many courses will be active in all three pilot groups and how the courses will be enrolled for the Full Launch group. We are also actively working on processes for getting the pilots up and running within an aggressive timeline. Tutoring and Student Readiness pilots will go live in Spring 2015 with the CCMS/Full Launch group starting in Summer 2015.
Tutoring and Student Readiness groups will be selecting courses for review and approval, participating in reviewing solutions for those areas, and sharing ideas. Full Launch pilot colleges will be working out business processes and the implementation of the CCMS, as well as participating in course selection and review.
On Friday, our amazing Steering Committee will be looking at the completed work of their work groups and reorganizing their efforts for the shape of the new tasks ahead.
A CCMS, So What?
Almost two years back, I remember a discussion of the Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Committee (TTAC) about what was to become the OEI. We had a retreat in the East Bay Area and the talk centered around ideas to increase and improve our distance education offerings across the state. During that task force meeting, it became clear that a systemwide common course management system would be needed for the seamless deployment of resources for students, faculty and colleges. If we didn’t have to spread our resources and professional development across six-plus separate course management systems, we could really maximize our efforts to improve access and success. Right now, that CCMS is deep in the planning stages. It’s more than just a dream!
With the notion of a CCMS, there’s been a focus on an “exchange” idea that will allow students to take online classes seamlessly from any college in the system that chooses to use it. We have been in planning efforts toward exchanging students so they can get the courses they need to complete their degrees and/or transfer. But we are now also considering the word “exchange” from a broader perspective. In the last few days, we’ve been talking about making the work of the OEI exchange a REAL exchange.
What if the pilot college teachers got together in the next few months to exchange their expertise, strategies, ideas and excitement about online learning and teaching? What if we could have the faculty in the pilot colleges spend some time sharing now, in the beginning? We had a teaching network in the plan for a bit down the line, but it looks like we might be able to start that work now. We have been successfully offering online classes for over a decade within the CCC with not much support. Let’s take that expertise and maximize it as soon as we possibly can. Now that’s a vision I can get behind! Stay tuned.
Some Interesting TED Talks
The OEI management team met to transition our launch team members’ progress information to the new, permanent team. As part of the time we spent comparing notes from December to today, we considered innovative idea generation. We enjoyed inspiration from a series of TED Talks called "Where Do Ideas Come From?" The talks focused on how societies shared their good ideas. I highly recommend the series!
The Title Of This Post: Bolting The Wings On
Our friend and launch team member, Henry Burnett, mentioned that the meeting held between the three projects was like, “bolting the wings on to the project.” His reference was to some comments earlier in the year about building the plane while it is in the air. While I don’t subscribe exactly to that idea because we are building it before we launch it, I do like the reference to finally taking flight.
I think in the past two weeks, the OEI has really begun to soar. Ideas that have been hatching into processes are actually getting off the ground. Thanks so much to Henry, Anita Crawley, Ric Matthews, John Ittelson and Bobbi Kamil, Carol Lashman and Fred Sherman—the folks who will be stepping back now (for the most part), for all of your energy at the front end! Those of us continuing on are in your debt and know that flight just might be possible!
Speaking About Possible…
Phil Hill posted a great overview of what happened with CSU Online. If you are interested, you can find it here. There’s a lot to learn from other attempts to centralize online education across systems. I, for one, am paying attention.
Personally, the job doesn’t get any smaller, but it is getting better! I am still traveling A LOT. But mostly I spend my days in interesting conversations with interesting people about solving problems and considering ideas; all are steeped in innovation.
To name only a few of those people, John Makevich, Bonnie Peters and Jory Hadsell have given up the security of their home colleges to help make this huge dream a reality, and they are “all in” when it comes to passion and devotion to the work. Michelle Pilati and Barbara Illowsky have signed on in a big way to help with some areas they have particular expertise in (training online teachers and basic skills programs, respectively), and they are unstoppable. The support of Joe Moreau, Linda Thor and the Foothill-De Anza community is amazing. Add Steve Klein, Sandoval Chagoya, Jayme Johnson and others including our Chancellor’s Office folks to the mix and it’s quite a team!
Being Executive Director of a project of this magnitude can only be described in one word: crazy! That said, the potential and opportunities are ginormous (to use a professional term) and the good we can collectively do for our students is limitless.
Highlights And Next Steps
Here are a few highlights of the last two weeks, to name only a few:
Please post any questions or comments here. We appreciate your feedback and ideas.
Dear Colleagues,
The OEI project is moving along! We have completed selection of the permanent executive team and announced our pilot colleges.
On the executive team, John Makevich will lead strategic planning and operations, Jory Hadsell will head up academic affairs, and Bonnie Peters will lead the student services efforts. John is from College of the Canyons, Jory is from the Los Rios District and Bonnie is from San Diego City. We are so happy to have them begin on Sept. 1. See the story “OEI Names 3 New Executives” for more information.
We took a big step earlier this month with the announcement of the pilot colleges. (See the story “3 OEI Groups To Pilot Courses And Services” for more information.) It was a difficult process to determine which colleges were ready to be the first to start this work officially as there were so many great colleges offering to participate. One item that we absolutely needed to have each college on board with was the implementation of Open CCCApply. Without their being part of the systemwide application process, we would have a difficult time getting students registered in the OEI Exchange courses. We also know that several districts are not using CCCApply, and we will work to include these districts in resource efforts as the project progresses.
While there have been so many pieces of work completed to allow for the announcement, it does seem like we have taken a huge step into making it “real,” and I want to share some of that with you.
Three Pilot Groups In Place
We have established three pilot groups, which will be working on three distinct aspects of the OEI project. There was a need to keep the full-launch group small (8 colleges) to make sure that the complex processes of enrolling students are tested smoothly. The other two groups are staging courses and testing resource solutions that will be implemented as appropriate, sometime after the initial system “shake down cruise” is completed in Summer 2015.
The selected pilot colleges should expect to hear from me via email during the next two weeks with more information about how they will be starting. The new executive team will be calling the pilot colleges during the first week in September to make connections and get started with the work.
All work by these pilot groups is scheduled to start in September. Here are basic descriptions of the activities they are assigned:
Group 1: Full Launch Colleges
This group will actively participate in the development and implementation of the CCMS and will also assist with development of the many matriculation processes and agreements for launching courses for the OEI Exchange in Summer 2015. This group will also participate in course review and selection activities. Lead: Steve Klein.Group 2: Student Readiness Staging Group
This group will participate in development of online student readiness solutions and will pilot them in their own courses, in their own CMS, with their own students in Spring 2015. Their work will also inform the work of Group 1, which will pilot courses within the new CCMS in Summer 2015. Their courses will be staged to be added into the CCMS in Fall 2015, or earlier as needed. Lead: Bonnie Peters.Group 3: Tutoring Staging Group
This group will participate in development of online tutoring solutions and will pilot them in their own courses, in their own CMS, with their own students in Spring 2015. Their work will also inform the work of Group 1. Their courses will be staged to be added into the CCMS in Fall 2015, or earlier as needed. Lead: Jory Hadsell.
Pulling It All Together
When I came on board as a launch team member in March, the project was just beginning to take some shape. Since then, the pieces have become clearly defined as the steering committee and their work groups continue developing the necessary components in a highly collaborative setting. As I have mentioned before, collaboration takes time, but the resulting outcomes are much better for it.
Also, since the beginning of last Fall, the economic picture for the CCCs has changed. Back in 2012 when the discussions around the OEI began to take shape, we were turning away thousands of students from courses they desperately needed. Many of those students gave up on us and found other colleges or went to work. When colleges have to cut course sections, they lose students. It takes a while for them to come back and for us to put those courses back in the schedule.
So, while access was critical to focus on in 2012, colleges are now seeking to meet their capacity levels. Our big job now really focuses on making student success levels improve in our online courses, resulting in more students completing and making room in classes for our incoming students. Keep in mind as we build this project that the economic environment has caused us to adapt to the current needs of online students, which is both success and access toward completion. The goals are all centered on helping students complete their educational goals by increasing access, improving courses and developing effective and efficient practices.
As you watch this project take shape, please know that there are many, many components that are being thoughtfully ironed out, one small bit at a time. Take a minute to imagine how it would be if you were asked to build the kind of comprehensive system we are creating.
There are instructional pieces around course design and review; many levels of professional development opportunities to be designed and created; collaborative structures to be determined, initiated and implemented; complex matriculation processes to be designed and implemented; sustainability considerations for the grant itself; a multitude of reporting processes; AND a huge technical component that involves integration of two other complex projects (Education Planningand Common Assessment). Include in that list the many stakeholders that have to be part of the development and implementation processes and you will just begin to see the magnitude of what we are doing. (I am sure that I left out some things, even!)
I am continually amazed at the ability of all of our stakeholder members to put aside their personal interests to focus on what’s good for students. At times, there have been some disagreements about exactly what’s needed. These instances have been handled so respectfully and professionally and, more often than not, generated brilliant collaborative moments that go beyond any one person’s ability to visualize. I am sure that this will continue as we keep on developing an online learning environment for our students and ourselves.
Next Steps
To name a few:
Have a great semester start!
Pat
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