Vista Update 082907

Hey Everyone- This note is going up on Blackboard Vista today:

Attention Students and Faculty: Temporary Service Outages

The Vista System will be taken down and brought back up daily at 2 PM, 8 PM and 4 AM for approximately ten minutes.

BlackBoard has identified the core issues with the recent latency in the performance. The reboot will be scheduled as a part of a short-term solution until we can schedule a software upgrade.

We apologize for this inconvenience. Please schedule your online activities around these daily system outages.

The splash page will be up during the brief downtimes and will include information about the duration of the down time.


What the cluster reboot does is reset all of the connections between the application servers (we have 8) and the database. Each server has 100 (rising to 125 later today) connections available. Apparently these are not being released properly once the current request has been processed. Re-booting the entire cluster (all 8 application servers and the database) resets these connections (releases them really) and allows performance to return to normal levels.

The root cause of the bottleneck is problems with the way Web Logic is communicating with the database server. The upgrade to application pack 2 includes an upgrade from Web Logic version 8 to version 9, which does include general fixes for this sort of problem. We will probably try to push that upgrade forward from the currently scheduled weekend (September 22-26), but have to complete some additional testing first. As soon as I have more solid information I will pass it on to you.

Thanks for all of the hard work! Students seem to be in their classes and happy with them. We are receiving very few support calls at this time and the support desk (Deb Michel) has been able to keep up with the calls and emails all week.

Lisa

Vista Update

We wanted to give you another update on Blackboard performance this afternoon. We are continuing to see some slow response times on and off throughout the day. This is a different problem from yesterday, and does appear to be application related as a result of very heavy use. We are working with Blackboard on possible solutions, one of which is to upgrade to AP2 sooner than our planned Sep 22 upgrade date. AP2 improves database performance, garbage collection, and also fixes a stubborn issue with Web-logic. We have authorized ASP to perform the upgrade on our QA server immediately so we will have an accurate estimate of the time needed for the upgrade. We have not discussed this with LTC yet, and will wait until we have a conference call with ASP at 6:30 this evening.

We realize (and have communicated to BB) that this is directly affecting courses system-wide, and will do whatever it takes to stabilize the system.

Lisa and Rhonda

Faculty Conference - Call for Presenters

Hi Everyone-

Our English Program Chair is looking for presenters for a panel on plagiarism for the faculty conference:

Subject: Plagiarism and Authorship at Faculty Conference

Hello everyone,

In planning this year's CCCOnline faculty conference, we thought it important to offer a session on the issues surrounding plagiarism. As most instructors are aware, the problems with plagiarism and academic integrity are somewhat amplified in the online world, where information is more readily available and where copyright becomes extremely confusing to students. In this session, we hope to explore some methods for teaching about plagiarism, for teaching about authorship, and for coming at plagiarism with a positive, constructive, trusting approach.

As the chair for this session, I am planning a panel presentation to allow for several different perspectives on the issues at hand. I am looking for two instructors from any discipline who have insights and/or stories to share on the topic of plagiarism. Each presenter on the panel will have 5-7 minutes to present their initial thoughts, followed by a general discussion with the audience aimed at building a constructive response to plagiarism.

If you are interested, please contact me before the end of the day on Friday (August 31) at olddogpaw@mac.com.

Thank you!

Best,

Sean

Sean Michael Law

Chair, English Department

Colorado Community Colleges Online

sean.m.law@mac.com

303-408-9730

"The highest justification of liberal education is that, by forming free and well-furnished minds, it prepares students to fashion for themselves a good life." - J.S. Mill

Thanks-
Lisa

Vista

Hi Everyone-

BB has made some configuration changes to their firewall that have speeded access to Vista up significantly. They are also planning some hardware changes around midnight our time that shouldn't cause us to be offline, but that may cause some slower response times for an hour or so. Once those are in place BB's expectations are that network response times should be back to normal for tomorrow.

That said, tomorrow is still the second day of classes for us and for many of the colleges, so don't expect to see incredible jet-like speeds tomorrow. We had emailed all of our students and suggested they wait until tomorrow to log in if they were experiencing lengthy delays today. That will of course increase the load tomorrow.

We will update you on the results of this evening's configuration changes and tonight's hardware changes tomorrow. FWIW though, I was in doing some grading this evening and things are looking up just now.

best,
Lisa

Today's slowdowns on Vista

Hi Everyone-

I just talked with Jay Robertson, the VP for ASP hosting for Blackboard. He tells me that the network problem at the hosting center has been isolated to a problem with the firewall in the VA2 data center. Blackboard has escalated to the highest possible level with the firewall vendor.

BB will call me with any update and I will pass it on to you. Until then ..... don't make yourself crazy trying to get on today. Tomorrow is fine.

And note that the good news is -- this isn't a problem with Vista itself or our hardware. :^)

Lisa

Rosters, etc.

Hi Everyone!

The new term begins Monday. Enrollment is up. Vista has been stable for at least three days now. The student load went well this afternoon. All's right with the world. :^)

Frank Vazquez tells me he has the website set up for you to grab your student rosters and he students' external email addresses. You can access those at https://www.cccodevelopment.cccs.edu/roster/login.php using your S# and password (same as Vista). It would be great if you all happened to send your students a welcome email this weekend reminding them that they will be able to access the class beginning at noon on Monday.

Right now it looks like everything is lined up far a great start to the fall term on Monday! Have a great weekend!

best,
Lisa
(Photo is American Basin above Lake City, CO)

Late Registration Policy

Hi Everyone-

Here's the note that went out to college registrars from John Schmahl:

From CCCOnline Director, John Schmahl.

We are going to try a little experiment this semester. Students who want to register late, after Thursday, August 23, will need to complete an Late Add agreement form, https://www.ccconline.org/students/late_registration/, acknowledging the potential risks of registering late. Once they submit this form, it will come to John and Roxanne, who will then add the student into the appropriate course in INB. Basically, we have found in looking over figures from the last couple of years that students who register late are at a slightly higher risk of being unsuccessful. However, the risk was not as great as we had thought. Therefore, we are trying this change to see if we can better accommodate those students who need to register but are unable to within the regular registration timeline. We will see what the impact of this at the end of the semester and decide whether to continue it or change it for Spring.

Again, students will still not be able to register via SSB after Thursday, August 23, but by completing the Late Add form, https://www.ccconline.org/students/late_registration/, we will add them through INB until Thursday, August 30.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks!

John H Schmahl
Director, Student Services
CCCOnline
john.schmahl@cccs.edu
1.800.801.5040
http://ccconline.org

We will also poll all of you at the end of the term to find out whether or not the form sets expectations appropriately. :^)

Overall fall 1 enrollment is up about 10% over this day last year. Fall 2 enrollment is up about 30% over this day last year. There are some oddities -- enrollment increases in some areas and decreases in others, so it's not consistent with our past growth trends. We are very happy to see growth again though! Last year was traumatic for all of us!

Thanks!
Lisa

Thank you to Blackboard Hosting

Hi Everyone-

Last night we were down for about ten minutes. As long as Blackboard hosting services had to re-boot the cluster anyway they decided it was an appropriate moment to add two more application servers (brings us to 8). This morning we appear to be running much more quickly, so that seems to have helped.

I think you can expect some slowness Monday and Tuesday next week as the remaining 8 colleges start classes, but once those days pass we should be past the really tight spots.

We are still planning on upgrading to application pack 2 September 22nd, so please don't set due dates for Sept 22-24.

Thanks!

Lisa

Hybrid or Blended Class Teaching Tips

I Know a lot of you also teach on campus in face-to-face courses or in blended or hybrid courses. The Learning Technology Council put together a list of teaching tips for those classes that I have included below: Tips for Using Blackboard Effectively in Hybrid and Web-Enhanced Courses

• Give your students an orientation to your course site on the first day of class and show them how to use all the tools they will need.
• If your class meets online before they meet in class, try to communicate with students ahead of time by email or phone. You can also refer students to orientations available online and/or at local campuses.
• Think about the outcomes you want and then think carefully about what activities should be online vs. face-to-face. How students accomplish the outcomes will guide your design. For example, activities that require hands-on involvement or require that students see each others' facial expressions need to be conducted during classroom hours, but you could help students prepare for and review those activities online. The online discussion board is a great place to have reflective discussions throughout the week, without the time constraints of the classroom.
• Tie in face-to-face sessions with online discussions by collecting a list of topics that you want to cover next in the face-to-face session and vice versa.
• Help students understand how the online and face-to-face components work together

Technology Tips for Improving Performance Accessing PowerPoints and Videos uses a lot of bandwidth, which can be a big drain on the system if a whole class tries to view them at the same time. If you plan to show a PowerPoint or Video in your classroom session, show them to the class from a CD or file downloaded to your computer. Do not have everyone in the class login and look at them in Blackboard at the same time.

Lisa

Solution for Slowness

Hi Everyone-

Here's an update from David:

We had a phone call with BB today and covered several short and long term issues and goals. First, there is a team of DBA’s reviewing the behavior and performance of the Vista server. We should have their recommendations later today. Another action in regard to the current performance is to add another node with in the next 24hrs with a possibility of an additional one if needed.

Long term, we all know and agree to try to move to AP2 in the window we discussed, September 22. This is greatly needed to fix many of the issues that are affecting the performance of our bulging database.

Short term, we could get some improved performance if we could run garbage collection on Production. They have written a script and need to test this on the QA server first, then if that looks good, run it after hours on the Production server. Our concern is that we have our archives safe from previous terms. Toward this end, BB is setting up a third server and will clone Production there. Let me summarize the use and process of these three ASP servers:

1. QA server: this will be cloned from Production;
1. old terms (at least FA2006) will be deleted and garbage collection (GC) run here to test the script. This will probably occur on Monday.
2. After GC is run, the AP2 upgrade will be run and evaluated, some time later next week.
2. 3^rd ASP server: this will contain a copy of all of our data on Production.
1. If anything is lost at anytime over the next several weeks or months in making these adjustments, we will have a copy.
2. We also have a copy on the Test server, but it is not available as yet, due to some technical problems that we work on in our spare time.
3. In summary, we will have Fall 2006 and Spring 2007 in two places.
3. Production
1. If the GC script runs as expected on the QA server, they will do this after hours for several evenings on Production to remove deleted sections
2. LTC needs to determine what Terms we can live without on the Production server, so that we can enhance our performance

i. Can we delete Fall 2006?

ii. Can we delete Spring 2007?

One point that one of the ASP managers made is that the first week of online school for all of their customers is the busiest time of the term, but many students either drop or become less active after the first week. He thought that we had some advantage in not having all the colleges start on the same day but rather staggering them.

In summary, we are working with the ASP on resolving the current issue by adding an application node, possibly making some adjustments to the database operations, per the DBA’s recommendations. We are also taking an extra measure to previous term data, and initiating a series of tests and processes that will – we believe – provide better performance and a more stable software in a few weeks.

David

Just to update you on college start dates: we are slow this week because 6 colleges started classes yesterday. 8 others, including us, start this coming Monday. Vista will certainly be slow Monday and Tuesday of next week just because of that, although the additional node will help. Please be patient and don't plan on a lot of heavy class work until after mid-week next week.

Thanks-
Lisa

Yes we were down

Hey Everyone-

We (Vista) were indeed down for an emergency re-boot at 5:00 pm today. We were back up again in about 20 minutes. 6 colleges started classes today, so that may account for the slow response times we were seeing from the system. More news as I have it.

Lisa

Oh the Places You'll Go!

Oh, the place you’ll go. . .and we hope you will go to your calendar right now and save September 28 so you can attend the CCCOnline Fall Faculty Conference: Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

The conference will run from 8:00 until 4:00 at Arapahoe Community College. Tentative session topics include Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, social networking, podcasting); Vista tips, tricks, tools, and questions; open source content/NROC; plagiarism prevention; and more. SMARTHINKING will join us for a session on tutoring services.

In addition, we’d like some feedback from you about your interest in a multi-session presentation on the Quality Matters project. Quality Matters is a continuous improvement model for assessing and assuring the quality of online courses. For more information you can check out the QM website at http://www.qualitymatters.org/. If enough of you are interested, we will invite Ed Bowen to present a series of sessions on the QM model. Please email donna.welschmeyer@cccs.edu by Friday, August 25 if you would like to participate in this exciting workshop.

Blackboard Vista Scheduled Downtime - Sept. 22-Sept 24

Hi Everyone-

We (David and the Learning technology Council) have spent the past couple of months talking about when/how to schedule the upgrade to application pack 2.

We felt we needed to do quite a lot of testing before beginning the upgrade because it may take some time and we need to know we can roll back if necessary (as you may recall, we rolled back once after starting the last upgrade to application pack 1). We have several steps scheduled now, but not completed. Because the fall term is beginning soon and many of you are working on your schedules we wanted to let you know of any impacts this may have on your schedules.

The upgrade is currently scheduled for Saturday September 22nd beginning at 1:00 pm. The window we have in place goes through Monday, September 24th at 1:00 pm. Please don't schedule any due dates for students within those days and times.

The decision to upgrade during that window is not final -- the final decision won't be made until Sept. 15th when testing is complete. I will let you know as soon as I know, but meanwhile please plan around those dates.

Thanks!
Lisa

Last Day to Add a Class

Hi Everyone-

For years CCCOnline's last day for student's to add classes was the Friday before classes began. Last year we were forced to back that up to the Thursday before classes began (data loading issue).

While we have always said we never let in late students, in practice that hasn't been accurate. Some students did get to add a course the first day or three of the semester and some didn't -- it depended on their story and who they told it to.

So.... this year John Schmahl did some research around the success rates of students in relation to when they registered. It turned out that the students who register the last week of classes don't have a lower success rate than the students who register earlier. And when you look at the students who we allowed to add during the first week of classes --- no significant difference there either. (Success was defined as A,B, or C grade).

Given those results, we thought it was time to revise the late registration policy. Self-registration will still end on the Thursday before classes begin. Students who want to add after that will have to contact CCCOnline staff. We will go ahead and add those students through the first Thursday of classes, but we will also have them sign a late add acknowledgment form.

The form includes a few critical disclaimers. Among those: students need to order their required textbooks right away with overnight shipping. They need to pay their tuition bill within 24 hours. Students will need to catch up with the rest of the class immediately. And the all important "Faculty are not required or expected to allow late submission of assignments."

We will try this new version of our policy for a term and see if if causes complications. I don't really expect a sudden wave of late registrations as we will still try to talk students out of that. It should improve the consistency of treatment of students across staff member though and it makes sure students understand that they are responsible for catching up with a class they have started late.

best,
Lisa

(Picture is Elevenmile Reservoir, west of Colorado Springs)

Entering Summer Grades

Dear Faculty;

It’s that time of year again, the end of the semester and time to enter grades. 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)

All grades are due no later than Thursday, August 16, 2007.

Once you have submitted your grades, we will pull a daily report listing the grades and they will be manually entered into Banner for the students. Grades will not be viewable by the students until the day after they are manually 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 Frank Vazquez, frank.vazquez@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 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” or “W”

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)
W (must include last day of attendance)

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)
W (must include last day of attendance)

Grades due Aug 16!

Dear Faculty;

Grades for Summer semester will be due no later than Thursday, August 16, 2007. We will be sending out directions for entering grades shortly (including the URL), we just want to make sure the site is set up and operating correctly first. In the meantime, below are some reminders regarding grade entry.

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 must be given a grade, even if they have not participated in the course**

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

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)
W (must include last day of attendance)

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)
W (must include last day of attendance)

Chuck Sherrill

Dear CCCOnline Faculty,

It is with great sadness that I write to let you know that our colleague and friend, Chuck Sherrill, passed away this morning. Chuck and his family are such an important part of CCCOnline, and I know his loss will be felt by all.

The family has requested privacy at this time, but as soon as I know more about where to send condolences, I will let you know.

Our deepest sympathy especially goes to Jan Butler and Jon Sherrill.

Sincerely,

Rhonda

Professional Development - What is required?

Hi Everyone-

I've received several requests for information concerning the CCCOnline training policy. Here's what we ask:

Before you teach a course you must complete the Getting Started online workshop. All of you on this list should have completed that already.

Sometime during the first year of teaching for CCCOnline (earlier is better) you must complete the Managing Discussions online workshop. You only have to take it once, but you are always welcome to re-take it at any time. The workshop has changed over the years and varies with facilitator also.

Also sometime during the first year, but not the first semester you teach, you need to take what is now Teaching with Vista 101. If you took either Survival or Next Steps you're finished with this requirement also.

Most of you have long completed those initial workshops. As an on-going instructor with CCCOnline we ask that you complete one professional development activity each year. That activity can be one of the online workshops, attendance at the fall faculty conference, one of the synchronous sessions offered via Elluminate, or a discipline team meeting. The training directors are also working on some self-paced online workshops to round out our offerings. in addition, you can let us know that you completed a relevant training activity somewhere outside of CCCOnline.

The other half of this discussion is the challenge of managing on-going professional development in your field. Unfortunately we can't send everyone to conferences or workshops in their discipline. We do however offer a $300 stipend to anyone who puts together a presentation to your peers on knowledge gained at one of those conferences. You can present from within your faculty lounge, via Elluminate, or at the fal faculty conference. We hope that helps to defray some of the cost of staying current in your field.

Hope this makes everything clear. :^)
Lisa

Correct Registration Link

Hi Everyone-

Once again I forgot that I can't copy directly to the blog from my MS Outlook account. It messes up all of the links whenever I do that. So... the correct link to the training registration form is http://cccs-lms.ccconline.org/RegistrationForm/.

You can also get to the form from the faculty tab on the website.

Sorry for the confusion!
Lisa

Managing Discussions Workshop

Just as a side note -- This workshop is required for all first year CCCOnline faculty. It's also a great chance to spend some time with Alice Bedard-Voorhees who is facilitating it from her new home with the Colorado Mountain College!

Managing Discussions Workshop

The Discussion area of your online course is the online classroom…the place where you and your students exchange ideas, ask questions, solve problems, work together. How do you manage this important aspect of your class?

The following questions are addressed in the workshop, and more!

• What type of question should I ask to get students to participate?
• What do I do if my students don’t participate?
• How much am I expected to participate in discussions?
• How do I grade discussions?
• What is the Virtual Speakers Bureau, and how do I use it?
• It takes so long to grade student discussions. Is there anything that can help me manage my time better with this task?

In the Managing Discussions Workshop, you’ll discover ways to help you get students interacting, understand the CCCOnline expectation for faculty involvement, and develop solutions to common discussion issues (such as the quiet student, the chatty student, difficult students and more).

What you will get:

• Information on theory and best practices for setting up and facilitating online course discussions.
• Instructions on using Vista Discussion Tools.
• Help with discussion problems, an introduction to the Virtual Speakers Bureau and an explanation of CCCOnline’s Quality Assurance expectations for faculty.
  

Sign up today!

What: Managing Discussions Workshop -- CCCOnline training workshop

Format: Facilitated, not self-paced. Be expected to spend at least an hour a day or more in this workshop.

Where: All Online

When: August 13^th-24^th (next session is September 10^th -21^st)

How: Register at http://cccs-lms.ccconline.org/RegistrationForm/

Facilitator: Alice Bedard-Voorhees, Ph.D.

For more information: Training@ccconline.org

*****************************************

CCCOnline Faculty Professional Development Requirements:

Before you teach: Getting Started

Your first year: Managing Discussions

Late in first year or early in second: Teaching with Vista 101 (Next Steps and Survival fill this also)

Every year afterwards: Some professional development activity -- an online workshop, Elluminate session, discipline meeting, the faculty conference, something you found outside of CCCOnline offerings. We're also working on developing some just-in-time self-paced workshops.

Training News!

Hi Everyone-

The Training Directors have been working hard on some re-development work in the workshops. One goal has been to split the Next Steps workshop into two parts, now called Teaching with Vista 101 and Teaching with Vista 201. (Feel free to offer us more creative names.) 101's focus is teaching tools while 201 now contains the course development tools. It's best to take them sequentially, but not required.

Teaching with Vista 101

Sign up by August 7th.

Vista Next Steps has been retired. Its progeny are Teaching with Vista 101 (TwV 101) and Teaching with Vista 201 (TwV 201). The focus of TwV 101 is teaching and facilitating tools, tech tips, and teaching tips.

• What: TwV 101 - CCCOnline training workshop Where: All Online
• When: August 13-24 (next session is September 10-21)
  
• How: Register at http://cccs-lms.ccconline.org/RegistrationForm/
• Format: Facilitated, 2-week self-paced
• Time: 1 hour a day or more in this workshop
• Who: Instructors who have been teaching in Vista for one or two semesters

Discussions are optional. But, if you have a specific problem area, bring your questions for class discussion, as we all learn from the experiences of others.

Teaching with Vista 101 is designed to prepare you for teaching with Vista beyond the basics. Specifically, TwV 101 will cover:

• Grade Book
• Discussions (creating categories, threaded topics)
• Assessments (setting release criteria, grading paragraph/essay questions)
• Assignments tool (return to student for further editing)
• File Manager (unsubscribing files, using HTML Creator for editing links)
• Tech Talk
• Teaching Tips
  

TwV 201 will be offered later this fall. Combined, TwV 101 and TwV 201 prepare you with the skills needed to thrive in Vista! For more information on CCCOnline trainings, contact the training team at training@ccconline.org.

Save the Date!

One last post and then I swear I am finished for the day!

We have a date for this fall's faculty conference! The conference will be Friday, September 28th at Arapahoe Community College from 9:00 am-4:00 pm.

This year's theme is Beyond Migration: Oh the Places You'll Go! We have lots of ideas for presentations and workshops already. There will also be time set aside for discipline meetings so you can spend some face-to-face time with your peers. And of course we will do a call for proposals so you too can have your speaking time!

Donna Welschmeyer is the chair of the conference committee this year, so if you have thoughts on what you would like to see please email her directly at Donna.Welschmeyer@cccs.edu.

See you all there!

Lisa

Update on Tonight's Maintenance

I have a little more news on tonight's downtime. This is what went out to students:

ACCESS TO CCCONLINE COURSES MAY BE DISRUPTED TONIGHT

Blackboard – the company that hosts CCCOnline classes – will make some critical repairs at its facility in Virginia tonight beginning at 10 p.m. The repairs probably can be done without disrupting access to CCCOnline courses. However, there is a chance that access to courses could be interrupted briefly.

To be safe, you should NOT start a test or online assignment that you cannot finish before 10 p.m.

The maintenance period could last several hours. CCCOnline will post a notice when the work is complete. You may continue to access their courses during the work, but be prepared in case there is an interruption.

If you try to login to a course and see a message about the repairs, you have been diverted to a different page. The next time you login, don’t forget to use this link: http://online.ccconline.org.

The key point is that we may or may not be down. Blackboard is trying to do this without taking us down, but that may not be possible.

The purpose of the maintenance is to replace equipment critical to the back-up system. Right now if we go down unexpectedly we don't have a current back-up. That is a fairly critical problem.

best,
Lisa

Emergency Shut Down Tonight at 10:00 PM

Hi Everyone,

We just received this notification from Blackboard hosting:

Dear Blackboard ASP Customer:

Blackboard Infrastructure will be performing emergency maintenance beginning tonight (July, 25, 2007) at 11:59PM EDT (9:50PM MDT) and continuing through 2:00AM EDT (12:00 AM MDT). This is in response to the unplanned extended outage which occurred on Friday July, 20. Blackboard ASP will be using this time to restore redundancy to your Blackboard environment. We believe the need to perform this work warrants the work being completed tonight rather than pushing this until our scheduled window of Friday morning. Although there is a risk associated with this type of maintenance we do not anticipate there being any downtime.

As a result, the redundancy testing that was scheduled to be performed Friday morning (July 27) which included known downtime, is being postponed until a later date.

If you have questions or concerns about this change, please contact your TSM. They will be happy to assist you.

Thank you in advance,

ASP Management

I will let you know as soon as I have more information. We are also notifying students, but if you have exams scheduled to end at midnight tonight you might want to consder adding an extra day. And don't forget to breath. :^)

Thanks-

Lisa

Real Time Field Trip!

Our Criminal Justice and Paralegal program chair, Diane VanOs, invited her Business Law students to join her on a field trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to view the Titanic exhibit and talk about legal ramification of the sinking. She was very pleasantly surprised by the turn-out! In the end there were two groups on two different days, one with 19 students and one with 23. Diane commented:

It was a lot of fun and I've noticed those who attended have really picked up in discussions to me as well as to each other. Who knew?

For me this was a friendly reminder that personal contact is a nice addition to a course where possible and appropriate. I wouldn't recommend it for every course and we can't require a real-time field trip, but it is still an interesting alternative to offer students.

An alternative way to add some interest to a course is to use a guest speaker. We have a stipend to offer guest speakers ($50 per section). You are welcome to try using a guest speaker at any time.

And while we are adding interest to courses.... I know many of you teach for more than one college and are probably looking for easy ways to share content across those courses. Slideshare will now allow you to sync audio files with your slide show. For more information see Alan Levine's CogDogBlog.

Lisa

New Training!

Need an easy way to grade your assignments?

Want to make sure your students understand exactly what is required in an assignment?

How about developing a Grading Rubric [rü-brik]? A grading rubric is a set of criteria for evaluating assignments/assessments and for providing feedback.

A rubric is useful for the students so that they understand exactly what is required of an assignment and how it will be graded before turning it in. A rubric will help you, the instructor by providing an easy guide for grading the assignments.

And… Vista even provides a Grading Forms tool that will let you input your grading rubrics and then use them to grade your assignments through the Assignment tool.

What you will get from this training session:

· A virtual trip to France

· An understanding of rubrics and their uses

· What comprises a good rubric - several examples of rubrics

· How to write a rubric

· How to use the rubric within your Vista course

What: Creating Grading Rubrics -- CCCOnline training workshop

Format: Self-paced with facilitator guide

Where: Entirely Online

When: Wednesday, August 1^st through Tuesday, August 14th

Facilitator: Lisa Marie Johnson

How: Register at http://cccs-lms.ccconline.org/RegistrationForm/

For more information: Training@ccconline.org

Changes in Training

Phyllis Dobson, our intrepid Training Director who has led us through the valley of tears (that would be the Vista transition), is stepping down. Now before you all panic, she is not leaving us completely - she is still chairing the EDU program and teaching in the CIS department for us. (Never mind the other FT job she has at CCD). She did an absolutely amazing job of helping everyone survive the move to Vista and of building the training program at CCCOnline into a true professional development program. Everyone please join me in an enthusiastic thank-you to Phyllis and in a round of applause for the wonderful job she did. (Thank you emails should go directly to Phyllis at dob101@aol.com.)

Attempting to replace Phyllis we have two people: Sharon Taylor and LisaMarie Johnson. Sharon has been Phyllis's assoc. director for the past year as well as faculty for several years now. LisaMarie has been faculty and a special associate to CCCOnline for several years. Welcome to LisaMarie and to Sharon!

As a side note: I was on vacation last week (http://picasaweb.google.com/Lisa.CheneySteen/XLazyF2007_bestof) and will be on vacation again this coming week, then at the Blackboard conference in Boston the week after that, so my response time may be a little slow.

best,
Lisa

About the Web 2.0 and Mobile Devices

Instructional Design Director Cheryl Compstock was talking about this very thing yesterday--that it's time to add Web 2.0 into our way of thinking about instruction (which includes some mobile technology as well as shared creation of content).

So lo and behold, the issue on Mobile Learning out of Athabasca U in Canada. The guest editorial is a nice way to think about mobile learning and get an overview of the contents of this issue:

Ally's Editorial

Total Journal Content

The articles are available in HTML, PDF, and MP3 formats.

Last Day to Drop Reminder

The following reminder was sent to all summer students today.

Thanks!
john

This note is a reminder that you have until Wednesday, June 13, 2007, to drop your CCCOnline delivered Summer course(s) with a full tuition refund.

If you do not plan to drop your course(s) or have already dropped them please disregard this reminder.

CCCOnline courses are ONLY those courses with a section ID starting C1* (example ENG 121C11)

Please note that due to the large size of CCCOnline courses, we split courses into multiple sections (C12, C13, etc.), therefore, your online section may not be C11, however, if you want to drop the course, you will need to drop the C11 section at your college.

**Contacting your instructor(s) will NOT result in your being dropped or withdrawn from your course(s)**

To DROP your course(s):

- go to http://ccconline.org/start/college_table.htm or your home college web site

- click on the Self-Service Banner link for your home college

- select Login and enter your Student ID and 6-digit student PIN

- click Enter

- select the Student Menu and then the Registration Menu

- select Add or Drop Courses and follow the steps to get to your Current Schedule of

courses

- on your Current Schedule, use the Drop Down box under Action and select Drop

Web

- Click Submit Changes at the bottom of the page

- check your Current Schedule to make sure the course(s) has been dropped

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us or your home college.

For any technical questions or problems with your course, please visit http://ccconline.org/support/

Thank you for your time and we hope you continue to have a great and successful semester!

CCCOnline
Student Services
1.800.801.5040

http://ccconline.org/support/

Going Schedule Free Part 2

Hi All-

I was interested in Al's experience for a couple of reasons. The first is the potential conflict in what the grade is measuring I mentioned in the last email. In theory our goal as faculty is to make sure students are able to meet the official course outcomes as defined in the common course numbering system, plus whatever else we think is important in our field. The final grade ought to reflect our opinion of what percentage of the outcomes the student has met. Unfortunately life sometimes intervenes in the measuring process and we are left with a set of graded assessments that may or may not add up to a good measure of learning outcomes.

As dean, I tend to face that at the end of the semester when I get the students' complaints. That makes me interested in ways to avoid the mis-match up front, or at least to make it less likely. I also don't really like to be the person who has to arbitrate between the student who thought her child's pre-school graduation was more important that the deadline for an exam. She thought she'd be able to get the exam in earlier, but of course the car broke, the cat threw up, .....

On the other hand, we all want to control our lives also. We want to know when we need to set aside time for grading and we know the end of the term is a hard deadline.

How do you balance those conflicts? The math department includes an extra exam, so the lowest score is automatically dropped from consideration. That was when a student misses an exam it doesn't affect his grade. It does probably affect his learning -- we would hope to the degree it does, that is captured in the following exams.

At the end of the term when you are reviewing your grades do you look at the overall picture and think about what you really believe in terms of learning outcomes? (And just to complicate things, some outcomes are probably more important than others....)

Al's solution was interesting. What is yours?

Lisa

Going Schedule Free

Hi Everyone-

Many of you know Al Turner already as he has been teaching Political Science for CCCOnline since the very beginning. For years he was the poster faculty for strict deadlines in classes. Al never let a deadline slide and yet his students always seem to love him -- there's a fine line in there somewhere that Al has managed to walk semester after semester, student after student.

This past spring he decided to try a complete change in policy -- essentially no deadlines. Here is his description of that experience:

I just completed one of my online classes that had only two deadlines for all assignments-Recommended Due Dates and a Final Due date. I decided to try this based on previous observations from Dean Lisa’s Blog. She said, "I tend to feel that we have adult learners in most of our classes who do have very busy and complex lives. Flexibility on our part tends to make the semesters run more smoothly and help keep the learning experiences positive. Most students appear to try very hard to meet all deadlines."

Also, before the semester started, it was necessary for me to make several changes to my Schedule, Syllabus and Assignment Due Dates about the two due dates (Recommended Due Dates and the Final Due Date). Yes, it required a little extra work. But I had the time.

On the first day of class, I had posted all 21 essays questions and encouraged students to work ahead of our Schedule. And, I opened all five Unit Discussions too. I normally had only one Unit open at a time based on our Schedule. I also encouraged them to do their best by honoring our Recommended Due Dates. And if this was not possible, then to be aware of the Final Due Date when “everything” was due.

Throughout the semester, I used the Announcement, Calendar and Email tools to let students know of our two Due Dates (Recommended and Final). I was like “in-your-face” everyday. Since this was the first time, I found myself posting more Announcements then I normally do during a 16-week class. I was OK with this.

And here’s what I learned.

Students did their best to honor the Recommended Due Dates for our discussions and assignments. And if they were not able to, I was OK with that.

The rest of their work (21 essays, 42 quizzes, Semester project, extra credit and other assignments) constantly flowed in throughout the semester. I was OK with this. Why? Because I had a chance to “even out” grading their work. That is, all the assignments were not dropped on me all at once at the end of each Unit.

Another reason was that I received only one, that’s right, one excuse for the entire semester. Yes! So, I didn’t have deal with “those creative and imaginative excuses.”

Doing this for the first time also got me outside of my “normal way of doing things online.” One of my biggest concerns was being “dumped on” with all the assignments on our Final Due Date. Never happened.

Next, I think “flexible due dates” would work best for our 16 week classes. It may work in our Session two too. That would be my next attempt.

Did the students like it? I had only three positive responses and one of those made it to the Student Survey. And, it seemed the semester ran smoother because of the "accommodating due dates."

I’m sure many of you have already tried something similar to what I’ve already done. And I’d like to hear how it worked for you here in our Blog.

Would I do it again? Yes.

Al

I don't know that I would recommend this approach for everyone, but I do think it begins to get at the conflict between the grade as a measurement of the student's understanding of the learning outcomes and the grade as a measurement of the student's ability to meet the course schedule. :^)

Lisa

Speaking of Wikis: Lee LeFever's Short Wiki Video

Lee Lefever of Common Craft has done it again by creating a three minute something video on using wikis. It's available in more than one format from more than one video source, and he has included a captioned version and a transcript.



Text Transcript: http://www.commoncraft.com/transcript-wikis-plain-english-video

Captioned Version: http://dotsub.com/films/wikisinplainenglish/

I thought we'd have the captioned version here since I copied the code from his site so people could view it from this blog, but that is not the case.

His best screens are examples of the simplicity needed for the small screens of portable media players.

Another exciting note from Jessy -- wiki's in class

Hi Everyone-

Jessy Devasia also experimented with using a wiki in her class last semester. Here is her note on that experience:

I would like to give you a brief note on my experience with using Wiki this spring semester. I used it for BI0 201, 202, and 204 with moderate success. Initially there was no response from the students. But offering a few extra credits for using wiki did the trick. Some of the students started posting interesting web ites, news items, answers to some of the questions etc. in wiki.

The biggest success was with BIO 204-Microbiology in which we were doing a group project. Students were divided into 12 groups. Many of these groups used to edit their projects in the wiki. They were happy that they need not have to email back and forth all the time.

I plan to use it again this semester right from the beginning of the class. It is easy to introduce new things in the beginning of the semester before the students get too busy with assignments and tests. I would suggest the use of wiki for classes which have group projects, tough lab exercises etc.

Everyone is welcome to have space on the wiki if you are interested in teaching with it also.

best,
Lisa

Turning a Student Around

Hi Everyone-

I wanted to post this email from one of your fellow instructors, Jessy Devasia. Last semester Jessy had a student who was really primed to have a terrible learning experience in her course. Jessy managed to help that student have instead one of those positive, turning-point experiences that I am sure the student will remember for her entire life.

From Jessy:

I am a Health Sciences faculty and my teaching techniques are very traditional demanding hard work, discipline, order, mutual respect, and truthfulness. But I have learned over a period of time that patience, compassion, forgiveness, keeping my pride and ego aside, and being a little flexible can turn around even very difficult students in a very positive way. I had a gratifying teaching experience with a student whom I taught this spring, which I would like to share with you.

Profile of the student: She is taking this particular course for the third or fourth time with CCConline. She was not able to go beyond the third week of the semester each time she has taken the class due to various reasons, which appeared silly and funny to me! This student is in her fifties, working 3 jobs (60-65 hours), neck deep in debt, with weight and health problems, ailing spouse, and a very intelligent perfectionist who tries to relive her excellent teen years and early twenties as a top student. She has been admitted to the BSN program at a reputed University in Texas for fall, 2007. She wanted a commitment from me that I would not let her go this time. I promised her that I would work with her as long as she tries her best and keeps in touch with me.

Though whatever I did was not a big thing for me that turned out to be a life changing experience for this student. . I know that all of us do to these things for our students every semester we teach. When our kind Head of the Department, Alison Jacobs asked me to write about how our little acts of timely kindness and help may turn into a forward moving experience for our students, I looked back and found a few things, which may have helped this student to complete this course and chase her dream of joining a prestigious nursing program in a reputed university.

1. Listen to our students carefully especially during the first 1 or 2 weeks of the semester and look for direct/indirect hints which some of our students give expecting our leadership, help, understanding, reassurance, and guidance as they undertake this journey with us. Make a note of the back grounds of these students (age, type of employment, number of jobs, number of working hours, sexuality, marriage status, single parent, health problems, getting back to school after many years, care givers of sick spouse and parents, financial problems, got admitted to programs which start soon, taking 3-4 online classes, need a B or C…) and keep a special eye on these students all through out the semester.

2. Always reply to the student emails as early as possible. Never reply to an email when you are tired, angry, and disturbed about something. When we are in a hurry to write a well thought out reply let the students know that we have their message and get back to them soon.

3. When a student openly says that the instructor is bad, hate the way we run the class, and find fault with everything we do, it is really hard not to take it to heart. But my experience with these kinds of students tells me that it is a cry for help and they are not able to move forward. These students are like our children who say that they hate the parents and home when they need us to reach out to them. This is when we can keep our pride aside and ask the student what we can do to help her succeed.


4. Please always try to contact an enthusiastic student who suddenly disappears from the class. You may reach them when they are very miserable and able to offer a helping hand. I believe that there is nothing wrong in being flexible with our test and assignment schedules (with penalties for late submission applied) to help our non-traditional students who come to the class with bagful of problems on their back.

5. A second attempt on reaching a missing student from the class also will not hurt.

6. Help the students to be practical, to make compromises, fix up priorities, set achievable goals, and plan the work-time schedules. It is also right to be tough at this point and use an iron hand. Suggest the students using their time wisely. Remind our adult learners that we cannot be always perfectionists and we are not the teenagers who made straight As and went several extra miles doing schoolwork 35-40 years ago. No body learns everything about a subject in 15 weeks and gave them suggestions on how to do well in tests. We can always read and learn many things later on.

7. After all these advise do not help in turning in class work, we can resort to the technique of giving ultimatums. Give the final chance and express your final decision without any ambiguity. We have done everything possible within our limits.

I would like to add an email, which I received from this student at the end of the semester:

"My deepest gratitude for your kindness and above all your fair treatment to me as student. With mixed emotion, I now move forward from the warmth and intellectual nurturing of Arapahoe CC to the fast-tracked arena of the University of Texas @ Austin.

I have learned more than just academic content from you -- I depart with the memory of compassion and understanding without judgments, which now are my responsibility to share with those lives, which will now cross mine."

I think that these are some of the most gratifying moments in my teaching career.

Jessy Devasia

Welcome to Summer: First Week Ideas

Greetings to Each of You,

As you create community this first week, here’s your chance to not only let people know that they belong, but also provide activities that help them know HOW to belong.

Various Strategies

Let your welcome email let people know what you find exciting about the course, and express your wish for their success. Outline practices that will help learners be successful, and name resources that can help them (Smarthinking, student helpdesk, rubrics, self-quizzes, interactivities).

Provide a phone number. Let people know when good times are to call and what info to leave w/ messages (name, course, phone number, reason, good days and times to return call).

Let students know they can request a phone conference from you via email.

Let them know best uses for external email.

Post a picture of yourself in the course. Invite people to provide pictures in the course room either of themselves or something they like to do.

Ask people to review the course competencies and ask how these line up or are different from their own goals

Have an icebreaker topic (like provide a link about your hometown, where would you like to be if you could be on vacation right now…)

You could create a brief “what to expect from this class” letter or sound file.

Write down your ideas (script)
Go to gapcast.com, create a free account.
Pick up the phone and call in your remarks.
Either download the mp3 or get the code right at gapcast to put a player on your home page.

Have the plagiarism discussion. We now have the links to the student handbooks at the home college. They'll soon be up at the Student Wiki, but your chair also has a copy.

Invite people to ask any questions about the course or tools—you can make this one anonymous.

Here’s wishing you a great term, and thank you for all you do for CCCOnline learners!

Best, Alice

Student Email Addresses

Hi Everyone-

We should have email addresses of students out to you later this afternoon. Once you have those a welcome email to students is a great practice.

Thanks,
Lisa