Monday, December 22, 2008

eLCC Conference (Formerly TELECOOP)

The 20th annual eLCC technology conference, "Technology and the Next Generation: Are YouReady?" will be held April 15-17 in Vail. CCCOnline can send 2 - 3 faculty to this conference as presenters, so please feel free to submit your workshop proposal to eLCC (by January 23) and let Lisa CS or Donna know if you'd like to present. For more conference information, please go to http://www.telecoop.org/conference/index.html.

LMS Selection Process Update

Dear Faculty,

The LMS selection committee would like to update you on our progress towards choosing a learning management system for the future. As you already know, we down-selected in November to four finalists. Those finalists provided sandbox areas for all of us to review the products. (Those sandboxes are open through January 5th, as is the survey form for feedback to the selection committee). We also had the finalists come to Colorado to present their solution to the selection committee. The vendor presentations took place the first week of December.

Our next task will be checking references. We plan to be as thorough as possible, with all members of the selection committee taking part in the reference check process.

Last, in mid-January we are planning on sending a technical team to visit the hosting facilities of at least the top two vendors.

Once we have all of that information in place the selection committee will meet to make the final selection. That meeting is currently scheduled for late January. After the selection committee has agreed on a recommendation we will take that recommendation to the executive steering committee and to the presidents at the February 10th presidents meeting. The name of the finalist will be released at that time.

We would all like to be more forthcoming about the process and the many discussions taking place around the merits of the vendors and learning management systems, however, as you know, the state purchasing rules which govern the RFP process require strict confidentiality throughout the process. We extend our appreciation to all who participated in this process by testing the sandboxes and completing the survey. The information gleaned from these surveys was instrumental in crafting additional questions for the current finalists and will also be utilized as part of the final evaluation process. Be assured we are releasing as much information as possible without compromising the process.

Sincerely,

The Learning Technology Council/RFP Committee

Link to Sandboxes: http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Sandbox_Areas_for_LMS_Finalists

Friday, December 19, 2008

Voice Grading

Here's a link to a post by Terry Anderson of Athabasca University on using Adobe Acrobat's voice annotation tool to grade papers. There is also an interesting comment from someone else in response on another tool. I think I mentioned this tool as a possible "time saver that actually increases comment quality" in a past post, but this includes more information.

http://terrya.edublogs.org/2008/12/14/marking-with-voice-tools/

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Happy Holidays


This picture even has Kurt -- under the Santa hat at the back. And that is LisaMarie in the pc. Aaron is the Santa on the left.

Lisa

Happy Holidays!


Happy Holidays from the CCCOnline Staff


Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Student Surveys, Course Dupes

Student surveys are now available for your viewing pleasure! Follow this link http://at.ccconline.org/survey/faculty2 and log on using your S# and pin.

Also, just a reminder: Please be sure to read the emails you receive when a course has been duped for you and indicate within 72 hours whether or not the correct content is in the course; you'll then respond one more time (prior to the beginning of the term) to indicate that the course is ready for first-day course checks. This helps ensure that you and your students don't have any unpleasant surprises on the first day of class!

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

LMS Sandboxes

Hi Everyone-

Just a reminder that the sandboxes are open for the finalists in the LMS selection process. Login information is available at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Sandbox_Areas_for_LMS_Finalists. Please complete the survey form for anyone you play with.

The selection committee will continue to compile questions from those surveys and we will make sure we ask them of the vendors.

Thanks!

Lisa Cheney-Steen

FERPA Update

Hi Everyone-

LisaMarie sent me a link to an article on Inside Higher Ed about the "new" rules around FERPA. The article is available online here: http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/09/ferpa

Of interest to me was this quote:
For example, here is the language on disciplinary records: “[N]othing in FERPA prevents an educational agency or institution from including in a student’s records and disclosing to teachers and school officials, including those in other schools, appropriate information about disciplinary actions taken against a student for conduct that posed a significant risk to the safety or well-being of that student, other students, or other members of the school community.”
As CCCOnline grows we will inevitable see more disciplinary problems and, even though we are online, we do now and then have scary communications with a student. In general I think it is still important to allow students to have the benefit of the doubt -- to assume that just because they had problems in one class does not mean the problems will escalate in the next class. That means we still don't want to exchange much information about students with whom we have had problems in a course and that the best way to exchange information is still through student services. That said, if there is a trend, it's nice to know that we aren't violating student privacy rights it we collect information about discipline problems across courses and act on it.

Don't forget we have a new FERPA training site on the faculty wiki at
http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=FERPA_and_Online_Communications.

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Last Training Reminder

Stuck at home due to snow today or do you just need to get your training credit?

Join us today for a Webinar scheduled for l2pm! The session will focus on what SafeAssign is as well as how and when to use SafeAssign. Session will be facilitated by members of CCCOnline's Training and Professional Development and Instructional Design teams. Additionally, the CCCOnline Associate Academic Dean, Donna Welschmeyer, will be available during the question and answer portion to address questions about policies for plagiarism and use of SafeAssign.
· TUESDAY, December 9, 2008, from 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM (Mountain)
· Click here to access the session (opens Elluminate).
· OR, access from the FRCC Elluminate page by going to the following link and clicking on the date: December 9, 2008: http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Fall Grades Due by December 11

Dear Faculty;

It's that time of the semester, Fall grades are due no later than Thursday, December 11, 2008.

Please follow the directions below to enter grades for your courses. If you have any questions regarding grades, please contact me (john.schmahl@cccs.edu).

Once you have submitted your grades, we will pull a daily report listing the grades and they will be entered into Banner for the students. Grades will not be viewable by the students until the day after they are entered.

If you have any students needing their grades earlier, please contact John Schmahl, john.schmahl@cccs.edu or Roxanne Manske, roxanne.manske@cccs.edu.

To submit final grades:

go to the online Grade Book here, https://at.ccconline.org/gradebook/input/

Login using your Blackboard Vista login credentials

Select the appropriate section

If you are missing any section(s) or have extra section(s) listed, please contact John Schmahl, john.schmahl@cccs.edu.

Enter the appropriate grade for each student, accepted grades are listed below

Remember, developmental courses (those with course numbers under 100) must use the developmental grades, see below

**All students on the grade roster must be given a grade, even if they have not participated in the section**

Enter a Last Date of Attendance for any students receiving a grade of “F”

Click “Update” and return to the menu to select the next section if needed

Approved grades

Standard courses (course numbers 100 and above, e.g., PSY 101)
A
B
C
D
F (must include last day of attendance)
I (must include incomplete contract)

Developmental courses (course number less than 100, e.g., MAT 060)
S/A
S/B
S/C
U/D
U/F (must include last day of attendance)
I (must include incomplete contract)

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Last Training Opportunity this Year!

Can you believe 2008 is almost over? I know I'm enjoying the snow and the holiday season, but can't believe how fast the year has gone.

Our last training opportunity this year is next week. A Webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at l2pm (noon) and will focus on what SafeAssign is as well as how and when to use SafeAssign. Session will be facilitated by members of CCCOnline's Training and Professional Development and Instructional Design teams. Additionally, the CCCOnline Associate Academic Dean, Donna Welschmeyer, will be available during the question and answer portion to address questions about policies for plagiarism and use of SafeAssign. No preregistration is required and this does count as a training credit.

TUESDAY, December 9, 2008, from 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM (Mountain)
Click here to access the session (opens Elluminate). OR, access from the FRCC Elluminate page by going to the following link and clicking on the date: December 9, 2008: http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/