Sierra Pacific Community College
District
Purpose Of This Plan
The Online Learning Task Force was formed in February 2005
to develop an Online Learning Strategic Plan for the Sierra Pacific Community
College District. This plan incorporates the work done by a district-wide group
over the last two years regarding the future of online learning within the three-college
district and lays a foundation forthe future of OL at Sierra Pacific.
Definition Of Online Learning Modes
All OL modes offered at Sierra Pacific will be considered in
the plan. Currently, these include the following: online, hybrid, and television
or tele-web.
Online course—An online course is a course that is
offered over the Internet. Typically, content is presented through web pages
and class discussions using a combination of email, mailing lists, bulletin
boards, chat rooms, or newsgroups. All class meetings, assignments, lectures,
and assessments are online (with the exception of orientation meetings or other
face-to-face examinations as determined by the professor).
Hybrid course—A
hybrid course is a course that is taught online using similar web-based tools
and activities as an online class. Some portion of the course meeting time is
conducted online, and the remaining percentage of the class is conducted in a
traditional classroom.
Television or Tele-Web course—This type of course uses cable TV to deliver some or all of the
course content. A tele-web course merges online and TV delivery. Typically,
only a limited number of face-to-face meetings are held, and the remainder of
the course is conducted using television delivery of content, web-based
activities, communication, and discussion.
Web-Enhanced course—This type of course is taught face-to-face for 100 percent of the
course meeting time, but classroom assignments and materials are supplemented
with web-based activities. Examples are: online projects, handouts and
materials, online discussion, or online testing.
Planning Process
A
broadly constituted OL Task Force has been working since February 2005. The
Task Force has produced a draft OL Strategic Plan and forwarded it to the
Planning Coordination Council (PCC). The recommendations of the OL Task Force
were forwarded to the Academic Senate, Classified Senate, IT Committee, Budget
Committee and the Curriculum Committee, and these groups were asked to respond
to the draft document. This input was then reviewed by the PCC. The Draft
Strategic Plan was sent back to the Task Force which has now revised the draft
based on feedback, updated it with current information, and prioritized the
recommendations.
How are Courses and Programs Selected for Online Learning
Delivery?
The
Sierra Pacific Curriculum Committee has a stringent approval process for
requests to teach OL courses. The decisions about which courses to present to
the Curriculum Committee are made by departments/divisions based on their own
criteria and procedures. It is common that this decision is based solely on the
enthusiasm of an individual faculty member who has an interest in teaching a
particular course online, as a hybrid or via TV. Despite a large increase in OL
offerings, this method of selecting courses has not helped to ensure that
entire degrees or certificates are available by distance modes. Departments and
divisions are now beginning to think more intentionally about how to increase
their distance offerings.
Leadership/Management of Online Learning
The
responsibility for OL is becoming more focused at Sierra Pacific. Lines of
communication about OL courses and programs begin at the department and area
level, with department chairs and deans sharing different portions of
decision-making about OL issues. Specific funding allocated to OL and resources
used to support OL come now through IT and Professional Development funds.
Currently there are other funding sources that could be utilized to support OL,
but there has been no strategic planning in the past to include OL in resource
distribution.
Where Are We Now With Online Learning?
Sierra
Pacific was a pioneer in online education and was one of the first community
colleges in California to offer fully online courses in 1997. However, over the
next few years there was limited growth in online offerings and only 15 course
sections were taught online during Fall 2000. The adoption of alearning
management system (LMS) in Spring 2001, the availability of training to teach
online, and recruitment of new faculty interested in teaching online resulted
in a rapid increase in online offerings.
Online Learning Offerings and Programs
In Fall
2012, Sierra Pacific had 565 fully-online course sections. This represents a
growth rate of 796 percent over the last six years.There have also been
televised courses offered at Sierra Pacific. However, these have decreased over
the last five years.In Fall 2012, there were only three TV course sections
offered at Sierra Pacific.However, it is important to note that OL courses now
only account for approximately12 percent of all course sections at Sierra
Pacific.There has also beenintense growth in web-enhanced classes and these are
likely to be a robust source for OL courses over the next few years. There are
currently over 1200 courses sections using LMS each semester (combined online,
hybrid, and web-enhanced).
Sierra
Pacific Community College District currently has no complete degree programs
being offered entirely by distance methods, but there are several certificate
programs which are available online. At least one course in each General
Education area has been approved for online learning delivery, but not all of
these courses are currently being offered. There are other graduation
requirements that cannot currently be met through online learning methods.
What student support services are currently available to online
learning students?
The OL
Task Force developed a matrix of services that are currently available by
email, online or by phone so that they can be utilized by OL students. However,
this matrix is incomplete and will need to be updated before it can be used to
determine which additional services will be needed to support students as our OL
offerings increase in the future.
How are faculty members trained to teach online, hybrid
or web-enhanced courses?
In the
absence of any district-wide guidelines or standards, Sierra Pacific developed
its own standards for online instructors in 2006. The current Guidelines for
Online Instruction require that instructors complete the Sierra Pacific Online
Teaching Institute offered at the Instructional Technology Center or an
equivalent program of preparation before teaching a fully-online course. Over
390 faculty members have attended the Online Teaching Institute offered at the
ITC. A few faculty members have completed similar programs at other colleges.
Others have completed the one unit online course offered at Sierra Pacific (Online
Studies 300—Teaching Online) which is also recommended as part of the Online
Teaching Institute certificate in order to gain experience as an online student.
What tech support services are available for faculty,
staff and students?
The ITC
has trained and supported over 240 instructors to teach online courses or
web-enhance their courses in the past five years. This has resulted in very
rapid growth in online, hybrid and web-enhanced courses at Sierra Pacific. Each
semester course sites need to be created or copied. The ITC supports over 760
courses per semester. Within the district, this is almost twice as many courses
and instructors as other colleges. In addition to faculty support, over 18,000
students need to be linked to these sites. Many of these students come in, call
or email the ITC for help and support. The ITC has created the district-wide LMS
Help website which includes written instructions, tutorials, and video
demonstrations.
Although
this support site is available district-wide, it has been updated and maintained
solely by the ITC for the last five years. The district does provide a general
Help Desk which provides support for students Monday through Friday from 7:30
am to 5:30 pm. However, most OL students are active in their courses during
evenings and weekends when there is no technical support available. Also, the district
Help Desk does not provide support to faculty. In June 2006, the district
purchased 24/7 Help Desk services from a vendor. However, the staff who provide
these services for the vendor are often inadequately trained so many items get
escalated to the college support staff, especially faculty support questions.
What research is there about how our online students
compare with in-class students?
A
report generated by Sierra Pacific Research Office in February 2012 provides
some interesting information on our online courses and the students enrolled in
them over the last five years.
þ Online courses have 26 percent
more female students than male students.
þ All ethnic groups appear to be
represented in the Sierra Pacific online student population.
þ The online student population
has a higher proportion of returning students and the 18-20 year olds are
under-represented.
þ The number of part-time students
taking online courses has increased relative to full-time students over the
last five years. Over one-third of OL students are now taking six units or
less.
þ Over 90 percent of the courses
offered in the last six years were transfer level courses and 55 percent of
online students taking online courses stated transfer to a four-year college
was their goal.
þ In the last six years, the
largest proportion of OL courses was offered through CIS, English, and
Library/Learning Resource Center. However, over 25 disciplines currently offer
online courses.
þ The overall success rate for
online classes is 72 percent compared to 69.5 percent for traditional classes, which
is not a significant difference.
þ Grade distributions in online
courses are only slightly different from traditional classes. There are more A
grades and slightly higher withdrawals. Additional analysis shows that students
who do well online are also achieving similar grades in their face-to-face
classes.
þ When post-course assessments for
all modes of delivery are available, it will be possible to confirm whether
equivalent learning has occurred.
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