eLearning Advisory Council
Minutes
February 27, 2008
The February meeting of the E-Learning Advisory Council was held in the President’s Room of the Student Union at 3:00pm.
Members attending:
Tara Gallien
Emily Perritt
Tom Hall
Lisa Abney
Cynthia Lindsey
Bill Housel
Mike Matthews
Karen McFerrin
Paula Christensen
Darlene Williams
1. eLearning Advisory Council Membership Guideline Change
Tara Gallien informed the committee that a change in the eLearning Advisory Council membership guidelines to include a three-year rotation of membership had been submitted to the Faculty Senate. However, she had not yet been informed if the change had been approved at the last meeting.
Gallien raised the question: If we begin a three-year rotation, where do we begin the three years? The council is now in its third year. Do we begin the rotation this year? Or do we wait three more years?
Discussion arose regarding who makes decisions about how faculty members are assigned to the committee in the first place and what the best way would be for faculty members to be chosen for the eLearning Advisory Council. Tom Hall suggested that the committee should be set up in a way that allows it to control membership on its own. Karen McFerrin volunteered to look at how membership for the Council is currently described in the faculty handbook and send it to Tara. Paula Christensen volunteered to look at how the different committees were set up according to the handbook and report back to the group. Tara said that she will look back at the old minutes to see who was originally on the Council and who has already stopped attending.
2. Project Muse License
Emily Perritt reported to the group that Darlene has forwarded the information on Project Muse to Dr. Hanson and is still awaiting a response regarding whether he thinks the university should purchase a license for Project Muse.
Mike Matthews reminded the group that Project Muse is a database that includes current journals in different disciplines.
3. Moodle Update
Emily Perritt reported that the Moodle pilot is going well. ECE plans to add more instructors to the pilot group in the summer. Tara Gallien and Bill Housel discussed features that they particularly like in Moodle. Tara said that her students seem more responsive on Moodle than on Blackboard.
4. Tegrity Software Update
Emily Perritt told the group that one instructor has been successful with recording lectures in Tegrity. Originally there were three instructors who were part of the pilot group. Two of the instructors had planned to record lectures in a compressed video classroom. There have been technical difficulties with getting the software to work in the compressed video rooms. One of the instructors will try using a PC in a face to face classroom. The other instructor does all of her teaching in compressed video rooms; therefore, ECE is currently searching for an alternate to participate in the Tegrity pilot. Tara Gallien said that she would check with faculty in the Health and Human Performance Department to see if any of them would be willing to participate.
5. Syllabus Subcommittee
At the March 2006 meeting, the eLearning Advisory Council decided that a subcommittee should be formed to discuss the creation of a standard syllabus format that could be used for all courses and displayed on the ECE web site with the listings of electronic courses. The committee discussed this issue at the November 2007 meeting. The names of the original volunteers were redistributed to the members. Debra Shelton volunteered to serve as the chair of the subcommittee and sent a draft list of fields to be included in the syllabus to Tara.
Tom Hall stressed the need for a central place for all syllabus information to be stored, where faculty could input the required information one time and be able to pull out different versions of syllabi needed for different applications.
Paula Christensen suggested that the classroom civility statement be modified to better fit online course syllabi. Several other members of the Council agreed that this was a good idea.
Bill Housel and Karen McFerrin volunteered to serve on the syllabus subcommittee. Tara will contact Joe Morris, one of the original volunteers, to find out if he would still like to serve.
6. Registration of Electronic Courses
Several committee members reported that there was confusion about due dates for electronic courses to be included in the schedule of classes for the fall. Darlene Williams explained that the Registrar’s deadlines were earlier than the deadlines for Electronic and Continuing Education’s electronic submission. She said that in the future, ECE would work to align due dates for electronic submission more closely with the Registrar’s due dates for submission.
The meeting adjourned at 4:00pm.