eLearning Advisory Council

Minutes

November 17, 2008

The November meeting of the E-Learning Advisory Council was held in Room 221 of the Student Union at 3:00pm.

Members attending:

Tara Gallien

Emily Perritt

Paula Christensen

Phillip Gillis

Tracy Brown

Michael Matthews

Tom Hanson

Debra Shelton

Bill Housel

Darlene Williams

Cynthia Lindsey

1. Approval of 2/27 Minutes

The minutes of the February 2007 meeting were approved via email and have been posted to the E-Learning Advisory Council web site.

2. ELAC Membership Guideline Update

Paula Christensen reported on the E-Learning Advisory Council membership guidelines issues.  A recommendation had been made previously to develop a three-year rotation of faculty membership.  Tara reported that she had submitted the recommendation to the Faculty Senate but had not received a response. She said that she would follow up on that. 

Paula Christensen and Karen McFerrin had researched the current practices at NSU for forming and populating committees.  Paula shared their findings.  Originally, ELAC had been formed as an ad-hoc committee. Dr. Christensen asked if the E-Learning Advisory Council should become a standing committee and be added to the handbook.

Discussion followed about the number of faculty members currently on the committee.  Five faculty members were in attendance at the meeting. It was determined that 8 would be an adequate number of faculty representatives.  

Dr. Hanson recommended that Tara submit the E-Learning Advisory Council to Jim Cruise in the Faculty Senate to be added to the handbook and that we ask for 8 faculty members to be rotated every three years as overseen by the Committee on Committees.  The sustaining members from Information Systems, Electronic and Continuing Education, Provost, should remain on the committee.  Some changes to the official guidelines need to be made to ensure that those members are listed appropriately.  Tara suggested that we could either list those by positions or by department (i.e. Director of Electronic and Continuing Education, or one representative from Electronic and Continuing Education.  Dr. Christensen moved that we change the guidelines to say that there will be 8 faculty members on the committee appointed on a rotating schedule, and that the sustaining members should remain on the committee. The motion passed unanimously.

3. Registration of Electronic Courses

Emily Perritt explained that in a past meeting, the committee had brought up an issue with ECE deadlines for course submission not aligning with the Registrar’s dates for course submission. Emily reported that she now gets the Registrar’s dates prior to opening the ECE database for course submission, and that she uses the Registrar’s deadlines, which are earlier than ECE’s deadlines for submitting to the SREB, when publicizing the availability of the database. 

4. Moodle Pilot Update

Emily reported that the Moodle pilot will be over at the end of the current semester.  Though most of the faculty who participated in the pilot were pleased with Moodle, it is not feasible at this time to continue running two systems, due to the number of high priority projects under way in Information Systems.  Also, the installation of the load balancing system should alleviate many of the current problems with overloads on Blackboard.  ECE plans to survey faculty once the load balancing is in place to determine overall satisfaction with Blackboard and assess needs that might be met by exploring other course management solutions.

5. Blackboard Load Balancing System

As mentioned above, the Blackboard load balancing system should greatly reduce the problems with Blackboard that result from overload during peak periods, such as mid-term and final exams. The load balancing system will be installed over the Christmas break. 

6. Tegrity Software Update

Emily reported that the Tegrity pilot was over.  In the face to face classroom where it was implemented, it worked well. However, it did not meet expectations in the compressed video environment.  It was also determined to be too expensive.  However, Emily mentioned that other systems may be put into place in smart classrooms in the near future to enable faculty to record their classroom teaching and make the recordings available to their students.  

7. Title III Update

Emily reported that Year Three was very successful for the Title III grant. For the first time, Title III had 100% completion of Levels One and Two of training.  All but one participant successfully completed a course.  For Year Four, Title III has 23 participants.

8. Course Submission Database Syllabus Issue/Syllabus Subcommittee Update

Emily told the group that because the course submission dates are so early, faculty members often submit syllabi to the course submission database that have not yet been updated for the upcoming semester.  This is a problem because the information is posted on the ECE web page for prospective students to view. 

Dr. Lindsey commented that in the psychology department, each course has a standard syllabus and a separate “course administration” sheet that contains detailed assignments and other information that changes from semester to semester.

Dr. Hanson told the group that every course syllabus at NSU was going to be required to include measurable learning outcomes and that he was pushing for there to be a standard syllabus for every course that would not change unless the course was redesigned.  He said that he would like for there to be a standard format that was required to be used for all syllabi.

Dr. Christensen reminded the group that different departments had different requirements for syllabi as set forth by accrediting agencies, such as the College of Education’s NCATE requirements. 

Tara Gallien suggested that we devise a set of fields that can be filled out in a database that will then produce a master syllabus for a course. 

Darlene Williams explained that currently, the ECE web page and the SACS syllabus display page are accessing the same repository.  Because the syllabi submitted to ECE during the course submission process have not always been the most updated versions of the syllabi, this arrangement has not been beneficial for SACS purposes.  The SACS office often ends up having to collect syllabi for the same courses twice in order to ensure they have up to date information.  Darlene said that ECE and SACS had discussed separating their processes, but by the time discussion was underway in the late summer, it was too late to make a big change in the process for the fall.  She stated that she would like for ECE to have information in a database that is relevant and up to date. 

Dr. Hanson pointed out that if there were a standard syllabus for each course, only one repository would be required, and both SACS and ECE could pull information as needed from the repository.  This would also make it unnecessary for faculty to submit new syllabi each semester. 

Tara asked what the E-Learning Advisory Council, as a group, needed to do to help resolve these issues.

Dr. Hanson suggested that Tara draft a recommendation that each course have a standard syllabus, and that a single syllabus repository be created that ECE, SACS, and others can pull information from as needed.  Each course syllabus should contain goals, objectives, and expected learning outcomes that are standard to the class.  Tara said that she would draft the recommendation and send it to the committee for approval.  Once Dr. Hanson receives the recommendation from the committee, he will work to get it implemented. 

Paula Christensen suggested that some items, such as the civility statement, needed to be different for online and face to face classes.  Dr. Hanson suggested that revision be made to the civility statement so that it can be applicable in both face to face and online classes. 

Debra Shelton asked if we should establish a format for syllabi. Dr. Hanson agreed that we should. Debra reminded the group that the E-Learning Advisory Council had formed a syllabus subcommittee. Dr. Hanson suggested that ELAC take the lead in the development of this standard syllabus format, but that ELAC needed to be sure to get a representative from each college to serve on the syllabus committee.  Bill Housel moved that the syllabus subcommittee regroup and begin work on the syllabus format.  Dr. Lindsey seconded the motion. It was unanimously passed.  Dr. Shelton agreed to email the other syllabus subcommittee members and begin soliciting representation from departments not already represented.

9. Library Services and Collections

Mike Matthews informed the council that he was currently working on four online tutorials for students on how to use library resources.  Two are complete.  He said that he would like to put the tutorials on DVDs for distribution to students with low bandwidth Internet connections. 

He also informed the committee that he has submitted proposals totaling $250,000 for e-book reference materials to Student Tech Fee. If funding is approved, this will give students on and off campus access to a large number of online reference materials.

10. Instruction Through Cell Phone (LCTCS Online)

Mike Matthews distributed a copy of an article about the Louisiana Community and Technical College System offering courses via cell phone, and asked if ECE was planning to do something similar.

Darlene informed the group that NSU’s online courses are already accessible via smart phones, such as iPhones and Blackberries, but that NSU just has not specifically promoted the accessibility.  Paula Christensen reported that many of her students are accessing her classes via Blackberry.

11. Technical Services of IS Update

Tracy Brown gave an update on current technical services initiatives underway in Information Systems. He mentioned:

• Blackboard Load Balancer will be installed over the Christmas holiday, which should alleviate many of the current problems related to overloading the current servers.
• IS is working with the Dell Image Direct program to develop a custom software configuration for each department.  This will allow Information Systems to order computers for departments with all of their commonly used software already installed, and will eliminate the need for computers ordered by departments to be delivered first to Information Systems for configuration. 
• IS is planning to implement server virtualization, which will allow multiple instances of operating systems to run on one machine. This will enable IS to run the all of the programs it is currently running with fewer actual servers.  This initiative is necessary because the server room is running out of space, available power, and cooling capacity. 
• The implementation of server virtualization and LONI will enable Information Systems to move the servers and storage in place for disaster recovery out of St. Denis and up to the Shreveport campus. 
• Information Systems is planning the migration to Exchange 2007. Along with the software upgrade, instructors should be getting additional email storage space. 
• NSU will connect to LONI over the Christmas holiday. This will provide a much faster in-state Internet connection. 
• The wireless network is being upgraded.  The upgrades will enable users to move around campus without losing their connections.  Wireless connections will be available “fence to fence.”  Departments will be able to assign temporary accounts to visitors as necessary. 
• On December 9, there will be an Apple representative on campus to discuss their media digitization solution and iTunesU.

12. Academic Services of IS Update

Phillip Gillis said that the Academic Services division of Information Systems is currently working on redesigning everything web-related at Northwestern.  Right now the focus is on core data in use by the university and marketing.

13. Transfer of Online Course Shells to Different Instructors – Do we need a policy?

Tara mentioned that there has been some controversy over the transfer of online course shells from one instructor to another, but that since we were running out of time, this issue would be tabled until the next meeting. The next meeting should be held in February.

The meeting adjourned at 4:30pm.