Meeting Date: 
December 2, 2016
Date: 
12/02/2016 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: 

Promotion & Tenure Meeting recap (7 minutes):

  • They are in beginning phases of discussing online education. Will support us in whatever way we suggest. Don’t want to overlap with us. 
  • I recommended QM course certification be considered in Promotion & Tenure (P&T). University P&T Committee members should know what goes into QM course certification, we recommend that experienced online educators be part of P&T committees when an online instructor is up for review. No one on their committee knew much about QM and some resisted the idea saying it seemed a little “over the top.”
  • Discussed the upcoming survey from the Online Education Committee (OEC).
  • Course design is considered part of “teaching” and no more value is attached to it than teaching an on-campus course, according to the committee.
  • As far as committee knows, online teaching is considered equal to on-campus teaching in terms of P&T (this is the policy, but attitudes toward online education may come into play, regardless of policy).
  • They don’t know that the recommendations from 2007 ever got “officially” added to the P&T guidelines; they could not find them anywhere in the guidelines.
  • They found the language with #5 of policy to be problematic.
  • The issue of course evaluations not addressing the online environment was discussed.
    • Apparently the P&T Committee only looks at two questions from SET: (1) Rate overall course quality and (2) Rate instructor overall (other questions are for instructor feedback only, but could be worked into the dossier in the narrative provided by the instructor).
    • Could the OEC create a document that recommends some questions instructors can add to the SET’s?
  • Theo Dreher recommended we contact Ginny Lesser from Statistics to help with the survey.
  • They supported the idea of creating a template for online peer reviews and encouraged us to make sure the template goes out to departments, is easy to find and use and actually gets put to use.

Code of Conduct Updates (1 minute): timeline=

Survey (40 minutes):  Working meeting today!

Pending Activities and Next Steps (7 minutes):

  • Scheduling: Raven will send a Doodle poll for the January meeting soon.
  • Survey:  Anything not finished at today’s meeting will be finished via the shared Google document. Draft will be turned in to Faculty Senate by the end of December. (Projected distribution in winter term after Faculty Senate approval, edits, feedback).  Ask Vickie about funding for someone in statistics to help with survey. (email sent to Vickie 11/11) 
  • January Meeting: We had previously planned on a working meeting to draft recommendations for Student Code of Conduct. Do we want to postpone this until later in the year given that any edits we suggest won’t be considered until closer to summer? We could work on drafting the online course review recommendation document (see below).
  • OEC Policy Revisions:  Change wording of “distance education” and exclusion of hybrid education in “Scope of Committee” policy.  
  • Questions of Promotion & Tenure: seek answers as to how online course teaching and, especially, online course development is considered and evaluated for P&T (still need clarification on this!)
  • Online Course Reviews Recommendations: Draft a how-to document with recommendations and examples of how to carry out online course reviews; piggy back off Shannon’s document and Raven’s presentation from Forum. (Keep promotion and tenure requirements in mind and thinking about how this review can be documented; be productive; be meaningful, etc.) For working meeting in January?
  • Intellectual Property: Host someone from the Office of General Counsel at one of our meetings to discuss intellectual property. February meeting? Invite Brian Tilt and others that are interested?
  • Standing Rules Changes: Remove Budgets & Fiscal Planning Committee and Curriculum Council ex-officio members from Standing Rules (?); Add ex-officio member from Center for Teaching and Learning (?) Waiting to hear what Vickie heard from the Chairs of Budget and Curriculum committees. Have not looked into adding member from Center for Teaching and Learning.

 

Minutes: 

Recap of Promotion & Tenure Meeting

  • They are in beginning phases of discussing online education. Will support us in whatever way we suggest. Don’t want to overlap with us. 
  • Discussed recommendation that Quality Matters (QM) course certification be considered in Promotion & Tenure (P&T). University P&T Committee members should know what goes into QM course certification. Also discussed importance of having experienced online educators as part of P&T committees when online instructors are up for review. No one on their committee knew much about QM, and some resisted the idea saying it seemed a little “over the top.”
    • In general, there is resistance to QM because it tends to focus on design rather than facilitation or content of the course.
    • Resistance could also be attributed to the time it takes, in addition to other faculty duties.
    • Finding external reviewers is difficult when online instructors are up for review.
      • Setting up a system, or support for it, could be very beneficial to instructors.
  • Discussed the upcoming faculty survey from the Online Education Committee (OEC).
  • Course design is considered part of “teaching” and no more value is attached to it than teaching an on-campus course, according to the committee.
  • As far as the committee knows, online teaching is considered equal to on-campus teaching in terms of P&T (this is the policy, but attitudes toward online education may come into play, regardless of the policy).
    • When the online course is first being developed, there is more focus on course design.
    • There is a work imbalance between Ecampus and on-campus courses.
      • Materials need to be considered differently.
      • Prepping is different, as well.
  • They don’t know that the recommendations from 2007 ever got “officially” added to the P&T guidelines; they could not find them anywhere in the guidelines.
    • Who decided to add them in and who was responsible for adding them in?
  • They found the language with #5 of the policy to be problematic.
    • What was the issue?
      • No details on what the exact problem was.
      • How do you define novel course development?
  • The issue of course evaluations not addressing the online environment was discussed.
    • Apparently, the P&T Committee only looks at two questions from the SET: (1) Rate overall course quality and (2) Rate instructor overall (other questions are for instructor feedback only, but could be worked into the dossier in the narrative provided by the instructor).
    • ESET is, on average, a point lower for online than on campus (in Chemistry courses).
      • How can we make sure that instructors are not penalized for taking the chance to teach a hybrid of an Ecampus course?
  • They only look at the first two questions.
    • Could the OEC create a document that recommends some questions instructors can add to the SET’s?
    • There are ways to look at ESETS for online and hybrid courses that don’t compare to on-site courses.
      • They are different and should be evaluated differently.
      • May want to change some of the language to make it more specific.
      • Observation of the online courses; facilitation vs. course design­­­.
        • It’s more complicated than other people realize.
  • Theo Dreher recommended we contact Ginny Lesser from Statistics to help with the survey.
  • They supported the idea of creating a template for online peer reviews, and encouraged us to make sure the template goes out to departments, is easy to find and use and actually gets put to use.

 

Survey

  • Goal of the survey
    • Reach out to Faculty and determine what the primary issues are with online education and determine what the committee should focus on.
  • First thing to do
    • Determine the broad dimensions of the survey:
      • Content delivery
      • Handling interactions
      • Feedback
        • How does this information help the committee?
          • Determine what support faculty may need.
          • Determine what are the more popular and effective means of delivery.
          • Cast a broad net to get an idea of how faculty who don’t teach online view the Ecampus process and its support services.
        • Try to avoid open-ended questions
  • Give a list of options and leave a comment field.
    • Identify issues that could prevent faculty from teaching online courses.
  • Things that concern faculty in regard to Ecampus courses, or things they like about Ecampus courses.
    • Please describe three things that concern you about online education in your department or program, or about online education in general, and explain why they are a concern.
    • Slider bar to rate 15-30 aspects of Ecampus; text box – Is there anything you’d like to share? Any concerns you have and why they explain?
    • Add a definition of online/hybrid at the beginning of the survey to avoid any confusion on the faculty’s part.
      • Rewrite the opening paragraph of the survey to be more clear on the purpose of the survey and better explain why they are asking for feedback.
      • Can we determine which departments do or do not use online or hybrid courses?
  • Questions:
    • Trying to measure topics we should focus on or explore.
      • A scale can be used for each topic to determine what people think is most important:
        • Intellectual Property Ownership
        • QM Certification
      • Too specific
      • A lot of people won’t know what it means
    • Course Development Support
    • Course Facilitation Training
      • There is a difference between developing a course and facilitating a course.
      • Are people even aware of this support?
  • Advertise it better
    • Organization Support
    • Additional Incentives/Support
    • Academic Integrity
    • External Accreditation
    • Promotion & Tenure
    • Academic Rigor
    • Isolation
  • Faculty who prefer the face-to-face interaction with students and colleagues.
    • But what can we do to help faculty who would feel isolated, if it is a major problem?
      • Emotional Support?
      • Online teaching communities?
      • Formal review of courses (PT)
  • Have teachers taken any training yet?
  • Why are we asking for gender?
  • Gender was brought up as an issue.
  • Is it inappropriate though?
    • Executive Committee suggested it.
    • Why is it needed? How does gender affect?
      • It could shut down some people.
      • Action: Moved to remove gender question from survey, seconded, and passed.
  • Can any questions be cut from the survey draft to make it more concise?

 

Can we get this survey out before January?

  • Determine how many questions we want and then base questions on that.
    • There are worries about quality if we block ourselves in with a number.
  • Should we have another in-person meeting?
    • Have a small subcommittee meet to go over and revise draft to be presented to group for feedback.
      • Subcommittee will meet Wednesday, December 7.