D2L System Upgrade

D2L will be upgraded to Version 9 on Monday, July 5. D2L will be unavailable to students and faculty from 6:00 a.m. until approximately 4:00 p.m., July 5.

Colorado Teaching and Learning Conference (COLTT)

***Please do not reply to this message. Instead, please direct questions to Jill Lester, the COLTT Conference Coordinator at coltt@cu.edu***

The annual COLTT conference will be held August 11 and 12 at CU Boulder. Visit the conference website at https://www.cusys.edu/coltt/2010/index.html for additional information.

The Colorado Community College System has generously offered to sponsor registration for approximately ten faculty members from across the Community College System to attend COLTT this year. Please note that the intent is to distribute the scholarships across the community colleges, hence we will first prioritize one applicant from each school. Sponsorships will be awarded on a first come first serve basis.

For those who represent any of the following schools, an additional travel honorarium will be provided for their attendance at COLTT to help underwrite their travel costs. (This travel benefit does not apply to faculty from the metro area colleges.) The campuses that would be eligible for the travel honorarium are Trinidad, OJC, Lamar, Pueblo, Pikes Peak, NJC Sterling, Morgan CC, CNCC, CCC online.

Please submit your application online through our registration link, choose the skip payment option and reference CCCS in the text box. Upon completion please forward a copy of the confirmation page to Jill Lester, the COLTT Conference Coordinator at coltt@cu.edu. Please contact Jill for more information regarding the conference or eligibility questions.

Reminder: Back Up Your Gradebook

*Please do not reply to this message. If you have questions, please email me directly at elizabeth.dzabic@cccs.edu.*

This is a reminder to back up your course gradebook by exporting grades to your own computer. For help, please see the “Exporting Grades” tutorial.

Following this process each time you post grades means you’ll have a backup in case of technical difficulties. Thanks!

No Show statistics to date

With 64% of faculty reporting here is where we are so far:

82% of students are active in class.

10% are no-shows.

8% don't meet the definition of active, but have been reported as keepers.

70% of the 10% (7%) of students reported as no shows are attending a home college that does drop no shows.  That means we will see some roster clean-up from this exercise.

Thanks everyone!  And if you are one of the 36% of faculty who have not reported no show students please do.  

best,

Lisa

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Co-Exec. Dir., CCCOnline

The Keep Column and why the new No-Show Policy?

Hi Everyone-

I want to talk just a little bit about our new student no-show policy.  This policy is in direct response to two significant issues surrounding distance learning:  student authentication and student presence.

I am sure you have had someone ask you how you know who your students are.  Is the student who signs up for your course the student who completes the work?  Many of you have seen websites advertising services around taking exams and writing papers for students.   We address this concern in several ways.  We ask students to log into our learning management system. That is very straight-forward and also simple to get around by giving someone else access to the user name and password.  Beginning this fall we will also ask students to respond to a set of identity questions similar to the questions used by online banking.  (This service will be provided by Acxiom, a data company many private concerns also use.)  We are also beginning to track data such as IP addresses.  If a student logs on consistently from one or two computers we wouldn't expect them to take all exams from a third computer.

Our other concern is student presence.  Sometimes the correct student has signed up for a course, but has no intention of completing the course.  We are addressing that through our own participation requirements - the introductory discussion and the first assessment. Student participation and presence matters.  We all want to teach students who are actively engaged in the course and with the course content.  Classes are better when the majority of student in the class are actively engaged in the class.

CCCOnline has been a target of a couple of major financial aid fraud schemes.  Online learning is certainly also a target of concerns around student authenticity outside of the financial aid schemes.  We clearly need to continue to address both of these issues.  On the other hand, we want to make sure we don't introduce inappropriate barriers to our actual students.  That gets me to the "Keep" column of our current no-show policy.

Many of you will have students who have emailed or otherwise interacted with you, but who have not completed either the introductory discussion or the first assessment.  You might feel that it would be inappropriate to drop these students at this point in the course.  The keep column allows you to keep them in the class at your discretion.  We are planning on gathering course completion statistics on the students who are kept at faculty discretion.  We'll pass that information back to you, giving you another advising tool for students.    For example, if on average only 10% of the students kept on the basis of the keep column pass their courses you can pass that information on to your students and perhaps it will be what they need to hear to enable them to either drop the course or change their priorities so they can pass the course.

Please keep in mind also, that not all colleges drop students based on no-show reports, so only some of the students you no-show will actually disappear from your course.  It does send a message to students however and it may help prevent fraud and to limit classes to those who are actively engaged in the courses.

I appreciate everyone's assistance with this endeavor.  We hope to have some data on its success or failure by this time next year. 

best,

Lisa

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Co-Exec. Director, CCCOnline

Disability Accommodations

**Please do not reply to this post. If you have questions, please email me directly at** Donna.Welschmeyer@cccs.edu.

It's that time of the semester when we begin to see accommodation requests from students who have documented disabilities. It is our goal, of course, to provide needed assistance to these students while ensuring the validity of the requests. This is a reminder of the steps in that process and how it affects you as an instructor:

1. Students who request accommodation must do so through their home college.
2. The home college provides CCCOnline student services staff with an accommodation request that outlines the specific accomodations we are asked to provide to the student.
3. CCCOnline student services staff forward the request to all affected instructors.
4. Instructors should direct all questions regarding received requests to their program chair or to CCCOnline staff.

Please note

1. It's always a good idea to communicate with the student regarding the request you have receive and how you intend to accommodate him/her. You can explain, for example, that you have set the time for the exams for this student to double the time other students have, or that you don't have timed exams in your class. It's important that the student be informed of how his/her needs will be met.
2. Unless you have received an accommodation request from CCCOnline student services staff, you are not required to provide accommodation to the student. If the student has not processed a request through the home college, direct him/her there.
2. Students must request the accommodation every semester; you will be notified by CCCOnline staff at the beginning of each term if you have students for whom you should provide accommodations.
2. If a student says to you that he/she requested accommodation, please email john.schmahl@cccs.edu and ask if we do indeed have a request on file.
3. The typical accommodation we provide is extra time on exams. If you need assistance setting this up, please submit a profhelp ticket at the faculty gateway.
4. We do not usually provide extra time for "regular" homework assignments because students know from day one what those assignments are and generally have ample time to complete them.

To help you better understand the accommodation process, the training and professional development department has created a great tutorial that can be accessed here: https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Policies_%26_Procedures_-_Faculty_Handbook_-_Teaching_for_CCCOnline_-_Faculty_Role_In_the_Classroom_-_ADA_Training.

No-Shows due Wednesday, June 16

This is just a reminder that you need to report on ALL students as part of our new no-show policy as being either "Present", "Keep" or "Missing" on the class roster by Census, this Wednesday, June 16. Please see the policy details below for more information.

Thanks!
John


No-Show Policy

CCCOnline's no-show policy helps to identify students who do not intend to actively participate in courses. If necessary, courses will need revised to comply with the No-Show Policy. Contact your Program Chair for guidance with necessary revisions.

To comply with this policy, each CCCOnline course must require students to:

1. Participate in an "Introductions" discussion.

a. The discussion may or may not be graded.

2. Submit a graded content-related assessment prior to the census date.

a. The census date is the last day to drop in a term (see the Academic Calendar).

b. The assessment must be content related – it should not be a "syllabus quiz".

c. The assessment may be a Dropbox, Quiz, or Discussion.

Reporting No-Shows Procedure

To Report No-Shows, use the following instructions:

1. On the Census Date, login to the Faculty Gateway: https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/login.php

2. Click the "Online Roster" link.

3. Click the title of a course from the Online Roster page to open its roster.

4. Each student MUST be reported as Present, Keep, or Missing.

Report students by selecting the radio-circle for the appropriate designation as follows:

a. Present – Student completed the Introductions discussion and content-related assessment.

b. Keep – Student did not complete the Introductions discussion and/or the content-related assessment, but you decide think the student may be active at a later date. The Keep designation might be selected, for example, if you have any reason to believe the student may become active:

- The student communicated with you or class peers elsewhere in the course.
- The student notified you s/he will start the term late.
- The student has given you other reasons to expect s/he may become active.

c. Missing – Student did not complete the Introductions discussion or content-related assessment and you decide not to designate the student as "Keep". Students designated as "Missing" will be reported to their home college as a "No-show".

Reporting a student as Missing DOES NOT mean the students will automatically be dropped from the course. Several colleges do not drop no-show students. However, CCCOnline uses the No-Show data to help monitor and evaluate student retention and success.

5. After selecting the designation for each student, click the "Roster's Course Listing" link (on the upper-left of roster page) to save your selections

Academic Integrity Focus Group & E-mail Updates

*Please do not reply to this message. If you have questions, please direct them to Lisa Marie Johnson or Liz Dzabic.*

--In order to develop training and informational materials around the topic of academic integrity, we need your help. Please participate in the Academic Integrity Focus Group. The focus group is happening in a discussion topic inside the "CCCOnline Community" course. The guidelines for participation are explained in detail in the discussion.
To access the Focus Group discussion:
1. Log in to CCCOnline's D2L
2. On your My Home page, in the My Courses widget, click the "Student" tab.
3. Locate the "CCCOnline Community" course and enter it by clicking its title.
4. Once inside the course, click the "Discussions" link on the course navbar.
5. Enter the topic "Focus Group: Academic Integrity Violations.”
*If you have questions about the Academic Integrity Focus Group, please contact Lisa Marie Johnson directly at LisaMarie.Johnson@cccs.edu.*

--Just a reminder: if you need to update your e-mail address in the system, please remember to do so through the Faculty Gateway (https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/login.php).
*If you have questions about updating your e-mail, please contact Liz Dzabic directly at Elizabeth.dzabic@cccs.edu.*

Thanks!

Reporting No-Show Students

No-Show Policy

CCCOnline's no-show policy helps to identify students who do not intend to actively participate in courses. If necessary, courses will need revised to comply with the No-Show Policy. Contact your Program Chair for guidance with necessary revisions.

To comply with this policy, each CCCOnline course must require students to:

1. Participate in an "Introductions" discussion.

a. The discussion may or may not be graded.

2. Submit a graded content-related assessment prior to the census date.

a. The census date is the last day to drop in a term (see the Academic Calendar).

b. The assessment must be content related – it should not be a "syllabus quiz".

c. The assessment may be a Dropbox, Quiz, or Discussion.

Reporting No-Shows Procedure

To Report No-Shows, use the following instructions:

1. On the Census Date, login to the Faculty Gateway: https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/login.php

2. Click the "Online Roster" link.

3. Click the title of a course from the Online Roster page to open its roster.

4. Each student MUST be reported as Present, Keep, or Missing.

Report students by selecting the radio-circle for the appropriate designation as follows:

a. Present – Student completed the Introductions discussion and content-related assessment.

b. Keep – Student did not complete the Introductions discussion and/or the content-related assessment, but you decide think the student may be active at a later date. The Keep designation might be selected, for example, if you have any reason to believe the student may become active:

- The student communicated with you or class peers elsewhere in the course.
- The student notified you s/he will start the term late.
- The student has given you other reasons to expect s/he may become active.

c. Missing – Student did not complete the Introductions discussion or content-related assessment and you decide not to designate the student as "Keep". Students designated as "Missing" will be reported to their home college as a "No-show".

Reporting a student as Missing DOES NOT mean the students will automatically be dropped from the course. Several colleges do not drop no-show students. However, CCCOnline uses the No-Show data to help monitor and evaluate student retention and success.

5. After selecting the designation for each student, click the "Roster's Course Listing" link (on the upper-left of roster page) to save your selections

Summer Rosters Now Available!

You can now view your Summer class roster.

Please note that we have added a new field for personal e-mail address. This is the personal e-mail address reported by the student. If it is blank then the student did not provide a personal e-mail address. Also note that students are not required to update their personal e-mail addresses so we cannot guarantee their accuracy.

Please go to the Faculty Gateway here,

https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/login.php

Login using your S# and Password.

Please contact myself or Frank Vazquez, frank.vazquez@cccs.edu, if you have any trouble accessing your roster.

Thanks!
John