Committee Meetings and Minutes

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Distance Education Committee

Meeting Minutes

Current Status of Minutes: Final
Date	March 21, 2014
Time	1:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Location	HBC 410

Members Present
No member attendance has been recorded.
Guests Present
No guest attendance has been recorded.

Item # 1:	Introductions
Presenter
Discussion	16 members out of 24 in attendance

Item # 2:	Approval of minutes from October 2013 meeting
Presenter
Discussion	Approved

Item # 3:	Address the committee charge and membership as suggested by Mike Midgley from the Shared Governance Review Council in October 2013
Presenter
Discussion	Per Mike Midgley’s fall 2013 request for the Shared Governance Council, an online vote was taken in February to make alterations to the DLC membership and functions. The Distance Learning Counselor was approved to be added as an Ex-Officio member. Function number four (Provides input on distance learning faculty and student handbooks) was removed from committee functions. There was additional discussion on the remaining functions and it was suggested that a small group begin to examine them and work on refinements and developing processes to address each.

Item # 4:	Update on Faculty Evaluations – Kirk Kelly’s response to the DLC’s request from October 2013 – discussion
Presenter
Discussion	Kirk Kelly’s response to Robert Bermea’s inquiries as to the status of the improved DL evaluation instrument was discussed. Essentially there has been no change. DL students are still utilizing the previous version. Kirk indicated issues with approval from ACAC as well as some technological matters, utilizing Class Climate. No one in attendance that had attended ACAC meetings recalled the issue being brought forth. Clark indicated that he would follow up with Kirk regarding any change.

Item # 5:	Update on DLC Student Service motions sent to Kathleen Christensen – discussion
Presenter
Discussion	In the October DLC meeting, a motion was made to prioritize the completion and implementation of DL orientation modules. An update was presented that the modules were nearing completion and testing would begin by summer and likely made available by fall. In direct reply to questions about Student Services representation on the DLC, the DL Counselor was approved as an added Ex-Officio member through a vote in February. In response to concerns about “too many Distance Learning committees” at ACC, a discussion was had with Kathleen Christensen. It was determined that each committee, taskforce or workgroup could be valuable to success, but that we could hopefully cultivate closer relationships between them.

Item # 6:	DL Taskforce update – discussion, next steps?
Presenter
Discussion	The Distance Learning Taskforce was created by Mike Midgley from the Distance Learning Committee in 2012. The focus was to address high withdrawal rates and discrepancy between DL and face to face classes. Literary reviews were completed in summer 2013 and focus groups for students and faculty were accomplished in November 2013. Currently, all data is being assembled to analyze. Later in 2014 a report and recommendations should be presented to DLC and ACC Administration.

Item # 7:	Robert Bermea’s Status Report on DL – discussion, suggestions, implementations, moving forward, etc.
Presenter
Discussion	Robert expressed concern that though ACC has an Administrative Rule for Best Practices, there are no processes or procedures to document how ACC is complying which could have serious impacts from SACSCOC or the Dept of Ed. Distance Testing was approved by the DLC as an option for all online courses in March 2012. Though there has been discussion in various committees and even a meeting to visit WGU to see how they handled this issue, there has been no further action on this resolution. The group did have some suggestions for making Distance Testing more acceptable: allowing only a certain number from each class, making clear the student’s responsibilities in the process, etc. There was also discussion of trying out ProctorU as a possible option.

Item # 8:	Robert Bermea’s Status Report on DL – discussion, suggestions, implementations, moving forward, etc.
Presenter
Discussion

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