Meeting Date: 
October 7, 2016
Date: 
10/07/2016 11:00 am to 12:00 pm
Location: 
109 Gilkey Hall
Event Description: 

A PDF of the agenda can be found here.

A PDF of the minutes can be found here.

Agenda: 
  • Establish volunteer to take notes and type up minutes
  • Announcements: Quality Matters Conference (Portland: October 30th-November 2nd), Open Education Day (October 13th 9-3 CHZM Hill Alumni Center), others?
  • Brief introductions: who are we, connections to online education, goals/ideas for committee, etc.
  • Review 2016-17 Committee Membership 
  • Review standing rules (as per website):

Standing Rules: 

The Online Education Committee considers and provides recommendations to the Faculty Senate on a wide range of philosophical and technical issues considered important to faculty and students related to the role of online education in meeting the academic mission of Oregon State University. 
The Committee consists of six Faculty, at least three of whom shall be from units or programs with existing or developing distance education courses, and two Students (preferably with distance education experience), one of whom shall be a graduate student, ideally to provide a broad representation of academic disciplines. In addition, ex-officio, non-voting members shall include one representative from each of the following: Budgets and Fiscal Planning Committee, Curriculum Council, Graduate Council, Valley Library, and the Associate Provost of OSU Extended Campus, or designee.

  • Proposed changes? In need of clarification?  Ok as is?
  • How to best achieve goals of committee

 

 

Distance education, for the purposes of this committee, is the learning that occurs when instructor and student are separated by space or time and communicate primarily via the application of technologies.  Excluded from this definition is asynchronous course delivery for the on-campus environment.

 

  • Do we like this definition of “Distance” Ed?  Changes?  Change “online education” for consistency?
  • Review guidelines (see attachment)

 

  • 2015-2016 Recap, pending business from last year:
  • year-end report (posted online): OER’s, Program Management and Review, Compensation and Intellectual Property
  • Bryan Tilt (Anthropology)-brought his concerns about intellectual property and compensation to the committee las year-encourages us to keep this discussion on the table this year
  • modules in Canvas ORG site: (1) intellectual property and compensation (2) OER  (3) Retention in Online Education (4) online program management and planning  (5) Technologies (6) accessibility  
  1. What other modules/topics do we need to focus on/collect information about?
  • Faculty survey: build and distribute (clarification on student/faculty focus)
  • New business:
  • Forum: when? Where?  Who is willing to help facilitate? How to include e-campus distance faculty (Focus: Faculty perceptions of online education at OSU.  What is working?  What is not?  What are your issues?  Do online instructors feel like part of the OSU community?  What is the relationship like between e-campus and individual departments?  What is the relationship like with other instructors? What else?)
  • Article/information share?  (establish topic for meetings, several people per meeting share findings on an article/topic of interest, maybe also have guest speaker on topic, establish recommendations based on findings as appropriate)
  • Guest speakers? 
    • Alfonso Bradoch’s suggestion to present on e-campus success initiatives: student mentoring, coaching, academic counseling, community building, e-campus orientation, online learning readiness assessment tool etc.) Amy Riley (E-campus Student Success Manager) and Kyle Whitehouse (Assistant Director of Learner Services) are available.
    • Maura Valentino: OER information and resources from the Valley Library???
    • Amy Hofer: Amy Hofer, Coordinator, Statewide Open Education Library Services, (openoregon.org) (working on free open textbooks and materials for Oregon. Based at Portland Community College)???
    • E-campus representative on Intellectual Property and Compensation (invite Bryan Tilt to observe)
    • Other ideas?
  • What do you want to see on the “new business” list?
  • To do list:
  • Establish date/location for forum, create and distribute poster
  • article/information share volunteers for next meeting?
  • Invite guest speaker for next meeting?
  • establish day/time for next meeting
  • double check on status of our two student participants
  • clean up website: 
    • remove extra/irrelevant wording on Standing Rules and Guidelines tab
    • link to policy documents instead (Scope of Committee, Administration Related to E-Campus, Policy on Promotion and Tenure)
    • Policy on Course Assessment and Review??
    • Remove dead links from Committee Resource Materials tab
    • Additions to the list??
Minutes: 

Members present: Cheridy Aduviri, Nancy Allen, Vipin Arora, Marita Barth, Raven Chakerian, Stephen Redfield, Jason Sarkozi-Forfinski

Ex-officio member present: University Libraries – Stefanie Buck

 

The chair announced upcoming events: Quality Matters Conference and Open Education Day.

 

Standing Rules Agenda Item

  • Existing standing rules and committee guidelines and policies were reviewed by all.
  • General agreement was reached that both standing rules and committee guidelines and policies are inadequate, out-of-date and generally ambiguous.
  • Proposal to change the definition of online education presented in the committee guidelines.
  • Agreement that “distance education” should be changed to “online education”
  • Discussion as to whether definition should include reference to hybrid/blended education:
  • Discussion of the meaning of hybrid.
  • Overall agreement to include hybrid classes as part of the scope of the committee.
  • Suggestion that Cheridy reword and work on the definition of distance education to include hybrid, uploading it to Canvas for committee’s review (Cheridy has most experience with hybrid education).
  • For reference, Raven will email Lisa Templeton regarding the definition that Ecampus has for distance education.
  • Stephen – hybrid and online can be way different
  • Vipin – hybrid is more of a flavor of online & not the other way around

 

Goals for the Committee

  • Discussion about reaching out to departments for feedback that can guide our committee’s efforts:
    • Stefanie – provide equitable services; ask for feedback from Lisa Templeton? How can our committee be of service to Ecampus? How can we support students?
    • Stephen – talk to the departments, not just Ecampus
    • Suggestions from last year:
      • Hold a forum to listen to faculty about issues related to Ecampus from their perspective.
        • Avoid turning into a complaint session; find a way to make conversation productive.
        • Consider breaking the forum into groups that would bring different issues to the table: instructors, GTA’s, Professors/Research Faculty/Administrators, etc.
    • Suggestions for doing a survey to individual departments rather than generic widespread survey (emailed from respective chairs or unit leadership).
      • Nancy – find baseline data so we don’t recreate the wheel
        • Does it already exist out there?
          • Ask Lisa Templeton.
        • What is the purpose of the survey? à what are the issues? à focus on 1 or 2 things à implementation of finding à assess whether it worked
      • How to distribute survey?
        • Discussion that more streamlined distribution yields higher participation.
        • Who will be responsible in units? Dean? Program coordinators?
        • Approach person in charge of online education for individual units?
  • Discussion about future meetings
    • Pick topics and have guest speakers.
    • Focus on setting up guidelines for the committee as primary goal before moving forward.
    • Recognition that committee needs clearly outlined, task-focused policies in order to be productive and successful.
    • Agreement that meetings should be working-meetings with tasks to be completed.
    • Nancy—should there be a voting member from Ecampus?
    • Raven will meet with Lisa, or at least contact her, to see if she prefers meeting with us (if not in person, via WebEx).
    • Figure out if WebEx can be used in our next meeting room for those that can’t attend.
    • General agreement that face-to-face meetings are more productive.
    • Committee agreed that monthly, as opposed to quarterly, meetings would help facilitate maximum productivity and continuity (excluding December and summer months when teaching faculty are generally off campus).
    • Raven will send out a doodle pool for the November meeting.
    • Will try to vary meeting days and times each month so everyone has an opportunity to participate.
    • Faculty Senate website needs to be updated (Raven will contact office specialist, Caitlin).

 

Meeting adjourned about 11:55 AM.

 

Respectfully,

Jason Sarkozi-Forfinski (note taker)