Schedule 2012

The Creation of an Online Writing Center: Students submit their paper (s) online, a trained tutor reviews the paper, identifies problem areas, then records the explanation using Tegrity. The student receives feedback by video, audio and print. If additional assistance is needed, appointments may be scheduled virtually, by phone or face-to-face.

Growth can be a blessing as well as curse especially in distance education. This proposed paper/presentation will address the wide spectrum of issues created by rapid growth of an online program including, but not limited to, ensuring quality, faculty and staff issues, student issues, funding issues, strategic planning and related issues created by a rapidly growing online program and attempt to provide workable solutions and/or strategies for consideration by the group.

This paper explores the benefits and limitations of inviting the public to participate in free, open, and/or inexpensive online learning experience...

Traditional faculty believe that a lack of visual cues from students in online learning is a tremendous weakness in teaching effectiveness. This presentation will present a practical model to help administrators and traditional faculty understand the digital cues which are equivalent to reading a student's facial tones and body language in the face-to-face classroom.

Facilitators and participants will discuss legal, ethical, psychological, and educational ramifications of actual and perceived instances of cyber-bullying in higher education to include student-based aggression, instructor-based incidents, and acts of bullying by administration. Appropriate responses to reports of bullying will be addressed.

Taking classes online allows a certain degree of anonymity and security not possible in the F2F environment. Does that make it a preferred choice for students suffering from PTSD? Find out how students themselves responded to this question in a groundbreaking 2011 survey.

How do we respond to calls for greater accountability and quality control? Sloan-C's Quality Scorecard is an attempt to create an industry standard for measuring distance education program quality. Come see how we have utilized new accreditation standards together with the Quality Scorecard to evaluate and administer our e-learning program.

Telecommuting, homesourcing, remote sites, and contracted services are all increasingly common aspects of providing high quality e-learning programs. As a result, the author of this paper 1) provides a review of the literature on promising practices in virtual teaming as it applies to e-learning initiatives, 2) proposes a conceptual framework for leading and managing remote stakeholders, and 3) concludes with a series of practical suggestions for those seeking to leverage the power of leading high impact e-learning teams at a distance.

Discussion board posting has become a standard tool in administering online courses in an effort to heighten student engagement and interaction. This presentation will discuss research conducted to compare the effectiveness of two methodologies for effectively administering student engagement in online discussion boards as a component of course assessment.

Carbone and Winston (2004) described colleges as "charity" rather than "commerce" institutions. What is your opinion? Pierpont's Continuing Education Department thinks in commerce terms with the LERN Model. Does being self-sufficient change the mission of distance education? Are we really self-sufficient or is it a financial illusion?

This year's "Going the Distance" survey revealed that our "awareness of Open Education Resources varies with the intensity of online offerings." For-profits are using more than publics or privates. So, what exactly are they, how do we find and select them? What contribution can OERs make to our online and blended courses?

Do you always get the same five questions about why distance education won't work? Where do these URBAN MYTHS come from and better yet how do we respond to dispel them? Let's talk.

To understand how variables related to student retention change over time this study compared undergraduate retention data (n > 190,000) and related regression analyses over four year period. This presentation will elaborate on the findings and suggest methods for utilizing evolving, dynamic models for multi-faceted interventions.

While there is ample literature on the impact of anonymity and identity formation for students in the online classroom, an instructor's disclosure of their race, class, or gender may have equal significance. This paper explores how divulging this information can influence student perceptions and learning outcomes.

Now is the time for traditional institutions to make online teaching and learning a strategic priority if they hope to garner an appropriate market share and remain viable in the new educational landscape. This session highlights seven key recommendations to help traditional institutions make this transition.

Today's employers demand employees who can apply the technical skills of their profession, are critical thinkers, and collaborators. Transformational pedagogy meets employer's needs by actively engaging adults in learner-driven content. To support instructors to change pedagogically can be difficult. Learn how you can help.

With the rapid rate of adoption of online graduate programs among bricks-and-mortar institutions, students' sense of program identity can be compromised with the elimination of face-to-face interactions. This session examines the design of virtual learning communities for graduate student populations, specifically how learning community taxonomies and theory translates to distributed learning environments.

Love a fast moving session? Enjoy interacting with others? Know of a great gadget or program to share? Come and grab your two minutes of fame in a fast-moving "Smackdown" session. Up to 9 participants will have about two minutes of floor time to share something that they find valuable in this exciting and ever-changing world of educational technology.

Original online teaching materials were compared to traditional teaching methods for a statistics lesson with very positive results. The online methods combined web pages for navigation, skills building, and an immersive case study environment to deliver instruction. The online materials are applicable to both corporate and university settings.

University Extension programs are increasingly using distance delivery to reach audiences. One goal of Extension is to help people utilize research-based information to transform their lives. This paper will explore the potential of using distance delivered coaching strategies to help learners discover and implement personal change and innovation.

Distance education strategies for remotely deployed or highly mobile military populations, Native Americans on remote reservations, institutionalized populations and other geographically, temporarily or institutionally challenged individuals will be examined and critiqued.

Providing effective feedback on student writing is difficult and time-consuming; however, because writing well is so critical to success in academic and professional worlds, faculty commits a great deal of time to this process. This presentation will offer tools to faculty across the curriculum to improve the feedback process using macros.

Can Zeller and Mosier's (1993) W-Curve, which was applied to first-year college students in traditional settings, be applied to the experiences of students new to distance education? W-Curve implications for distance education and explore interventions to assist students in adapting to the distance education environment.

Researchers have theorized that online degrees are less valuable in the perception of hiring managers. Identifying the factors which influence the hiring managers' perceptions and if obtaining a degree from a for-profit institution influences that perception is critical in designing programs and courses. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that are considered as adding value to an online MBA.

This paper will analyze how the College of St. Scholastica has strategically implemented faculty and staff training and development over the past five years. This organizational analysis will review perceptions of success using an organization development change model (Cummings and Worley, 2009) as the analysis tool. This paper will be of value to other professionals in the field by understanding the organizational process this institution took to plan for and implement change when dealing with faculty needs when considering optimal students' outcomes. In addition, this paper will show how complete organizational buy-in was optional when dealing with the multiple stakeholders, internal and external.

The strategic planning process in place to create Excellence Online was recognized by the HLC as a best practice. The four task streams are 1. financial modeling, 2. faculty practices and expectations, 3. guidelines and standards for curriculum and assessment, and 4. branding and the learner experience - have led to the requirement to develop a dashboard to measure the performance Excellence Online. This presentation will present the strategic planning process and the dashboard.

This paper discusses how the online jury portfolio assessment was used to assess Instructional Technology graduate students' learning performance at Southern Ilinois University Edwardsville since 2006. The findings have implications for graduate education across disciplines.

What is most important for the initial faculty training? What should the duration of training be for a new faculty member? Should we offer more than one chance to complete training? What key elements are looked for within the training before hiring the faculty member? Do long - time faculty need refresher training on best practices and the LMS at some point? Can processes be streamlined?

FutureLab is a test center that continuously explores new and exciting technologies in eLearning. It engages faculty in the identification and exploration of tools, techniques, and technology that can be used to enhance the learning experience of students and teaching capability of faculty, which increases the interactivity in online classrooms. FutureLab engages senior academic leadership in the review of the recommendations from the various perspectives to include instructional strategies, student retention and technology capabilities, and platform compatibility.

Since the early 1990's, the University of Alabama has offered the Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering degree via distance education. This from VHS beginnings to its current online platform.

For distance learning administrators, faculty buy-in for a course quality initiative can be challenging in the inception and over the long-term. Learn about the development of University of Central Oklahoma's faculty-centered course quality process and how that process has certified nearly 300 courses in the last four years.

My presentation will cover the following points: Evaluation of current support; Identification of gaps; Use of CRM to improve support (how this aids in student recruitment); Identification of services to be filled in-house, and those filled through partnerships (improves efficiency and avoids duplication of services); Implementing your support plan.

Is a purposive focus on building community in the online course at the expense of developing a sense of community outside of the classroom? This fishbowl session will explore strategies on how to create program and institutional affiliation, broadening the experience of students and alumni beyond their completion of a series of discrete coursework.

Presenters will discuss creative marketing approaches they used to increase enrollment for their online programs. Topics will include: marketing and recruitment as a new service, implementation of a customer relationship management tool (CRM), develop of program specific marketing and recruitment plans, and establishing and promoting our brands.

As institutions seek to grow their distance learning programs, they sometimes forget that the bulk of the burden falls on the faculty. A challenge exists in supporting the faculty while also fostering quality distance learning offerings. Over ten years of research on faculty-centered distance learning professional development strategies show that faculty who are slow to adopt distance learning require a specific set of support strategies. This presentation will share those strategies.

A pressing question in distance learning is how to maintain rigor while meeting the needs of individual students and the various backgrounds and experiences they bring with them. This session will focus on building and developing free cloud based supports that provide scaffolding for learners and will assist in meeting Section 508 requirements.

Novel credit arrangements flourish in institutions at the bottom of the postsecondary class heirarchy. It's easy to say such practices would never be applied at our school. Technologies, however are changing how and when teaching and learning takes place. Isn't it time to stop charging by the credit hour?

This presentation focuses on overcoming the communication obstacle that exists when dealing with decision makers who do not grasp that online students are not "here." One tool to overcome this obstacle is the use of location mapping applications that provide a reference point to align their perceptions with your reality.

Students pursuing degree programs often have access to orientation tools to become familiar with the online environment and performance expectations. However, the online learner seeking certificate programs or professional development may need more efficient means of support for their courses. This presentation shares some techniques for helping these learners succeed.

What factors influence faculty participation in online education? Does one incentive model fit all programs? This session will share aggregated and disaggregated data from an institutional study on faculty engagement in online education. Factors, such as incentive, disincentives, motivators, and barriers related to online education, will be discussed.

Our university has improved quality assurance while moving from courses only to online programs plus eCore courses. This work has been influenced by online design and teaching standards from state and national organizations, and by authority won from our own administration and faculty to evaluate courses and enforce standards.

Are new, more pervasive and powerful learning ecosystem management tools emerging that promise more interesting, unconventional and (hopefully) more disruptive visions for the learner-driven education - and spell the end of the traditional learning management system (LMS)?

This paper will present results from an electronic survey conducted at a small, mid-western university that was designed to measure institutional barriers that prevent faculty from developing online comparisons between academic rank and number of years teaching in higher education.

Online discussion boards often lack rich, dynamic dialogue, and instead contain hasty postings and repetitive content. This presentation examines measures to promote meaningful online student interaction. The researchers created an innovative, activity-based exercise to promote the quality and quantity of student-centered engagement. Qualitative methods were employed to measure student perceptions, quality of performance, and levels of interactivity.

This presentation will introduce the use of video to personalize students and administrative services for distance learners. Video and other forms of real time screen based communication have long been recognized as a tool for engagement. While text based communication is often seen as impersonal, video creates a communication richness and establishes a more personal connection. This presentation will explore the use of video in the administrative realm in distance learning.

Online educators are challenged daily with making the best use of their time. Fortunately today we have a variety of tools to aid instructors in increasing productivity. Voice recognition software offers a time saving tool for the development and management of academic courses. We will discuss installation, "training" and use of software in managing workflow and output. Tips and tricks will be shared. Participants will be invited to join a virtual user's group for ongoing discussions.

This paper will discuss the organization needed to design, develop and implement an assessment and evaluation process that communicates an ongoing and cyclical process for continuous improvement in student learning. It will establish a process that is transparent for the learners, faculty, administration and accreditation.

A well articulated and executed mentorship program benefits a mentee, yet improves the pedagogical practices of the mentor in surprisingly new ways. This collaboration takes curriculum and instruction to new heights and emboldens both to adopt new technologies as well as instructional strategies. The added benefit of a watchful peer boosts instructor confidence and alleviates the sense of isolation. Students who are taught the mentoring collaborative seem to experience a smooth and efficient course with fewer mishaps.

By transitioning our faculty development for online teaching certification to a hybrid format, from f2f, we have created an authentic and accessible learning experience for our instructors. With this presentation, we will discuss the motives for the change in delivery, outline the new training and share the evaluation data.

This presentation will discuss how video orientations for distance learning students can accomplish the goals of acquainting students with a fully online program, introducing program teaching faculty, and getting ahead of frequently asked questions by providing detailed descriptions of all major program requirements and expectations.

The concern in the distance education community following the HEOC's student identity verification requirement stimulated many high-tech solutions. These are analogous to "the general preparing to fight the last war." We can enhance learning while making violations of academic integrity prohibitively difficult through superior instructional design applicable to any discipline.

This paper will discuss how a university which offers online degrees is exposing students to plagiarism and its repercussions early as well as how they are reacting to plagiarism quickly in an effort to avoid the student becoming a repeat offender.

Cultivating the Digital Ecosystem outlines an initiative at the Savannah College of Art and Design to encourage faculty use of educational technologies through blended learning. The campaign will evolve and derive its structure based on faculty participation, sharing of resources, peer exchanges and faculty engagement with the scholarship of teaching.

We have created an authentic and accessible learning experience for our instructors by transitioning our faculty development for online teaching certification from face-to-face to a hybrid format.With this presentation we will discuss the motives for the change in delivery, outline the new training, and share the evaluation data.

Universities have adopted different practices for the review of courses and the associated incentives. This paper will provide an overview of the history of the incentives and requirements we have implemented over the years at our institution, as well as how the process has evolved over time. We will share how we currently incentivise academic departments to participate in our course review process, as well as the structures and systems we use to support the operation.

Emerging technologies have been heralded as providing the opportunity to transform education, learning, and teaching, yet the picture of how such technologies are used is fuzzy. What instructional theories guide the effective use of emerging technologies in online an blended classes? Share your successes and failures.

Online course quality measures recommend student interaction and group activities, but these can be difficult. This session offers strategies for facilitation of online group work.

Have you ever browsed through an email and told yourself, "I'll come back to that", but you never made it back? Trust me, we all have. This session will focus on effective strategies for communicating online. Attendees will be introduced to tools and technology that will assist with daily, distant communication. We'll also review basic communication techniques to assist in clearer communication amongst administrators, faculty and students.

Fall 2011 marked a new beginning for GPC Online - we piloted two fully online English 99 courses. I built and taught a half term course. This session will discuss the design decisions that were made and how they differed from the college level courses I design and teach.

Online enrollments continue to increase, yet concern over student success remains. In this session, explore the perspectives of unsuccessful online students. Focus groups of students who dropped or withdrew from online courses reveal barriers to student success. Implications for student and academic services are discussed.

This session will focus on how Macon State College's School of Information Technology enlists a Quality Assurance Coordinator to monitor courses delivered completely online. Topics include rationale for implementation, faculty perceptions, coordinator perceptions, and impact on the quality of the courses.

Workshop activities will focus on strategic frameworks and planning processes for positive online marketing, professional development, and student interactions. Seligman (2000) coined "positive psychology" as human strengths for excellence and flourishing. Reivich (2009) developed curriculum that infused positive psychology strengths of resilience, optimism, gratitude, creativity, and leadership.

This presentation will present and discuss solutions to challenges in implementing real-time instructor presence, interaction, and peer social presence in distance learning. It includes solutions to issues involving time zones, class size, time constraints, flexibility, logistics, group sign-up, grading of real-time participation, planning, and training for instructor and students.

Threaded discussions are a key component of online courses designed within a social constructivist framework. Yet, research demonstrates that these discussions are unsatisfactory to both instructors and learners. So, in what direction should we be moving – towards better design and facilitation or away from threaded discussions altogether?

Admitting students into graduate programs with the aptitude to succeed is critical to providing quality academic programs and impacts retention and graduation rates. This paper discusses the Graduate Record Exam as an indicator of student success in a large graduate education online program.

Microblogging offers promising cognitive, social integrative, and personal integrative possibilities as a teaching-learning tool. Drawing on Uses and Gratifications Theory, the authors examine the gratifications of microblogging for a purposive sample of undergraduates in an introductory mass communications course at a southeastern doctoral, comprehensive university. A qualitative content analysis of students' responses to an open-ended survey indicates that microblogging boosted news surveillance, content interaction, peer interaction, and academic performance.

Correspondence courses have been part of the UCO since 1907. This delivery method was viewed as outdated and was dying out. UCO's distance education team changed the concept from paper delivery to self-paced online courses (SPOC), to provide flexible, innovative and high quality learning opportunities designed to meet student needs.

Because of writing's role as the conduit for online learning, students struggling with writing encounter problems documenting learning and achieving competencies. This fishbowl will examine student services in writing, including the pros and cons of options such as outsourcing, utilizing learning objects, or providing tutors or in-house writing centers.

Do you enjoy being the "Cheat Police?" Does it thrill you to catch students plagiarizing? This session is for those who want to develop a culture of integrity for student growth. A philosophical approach will initiate discussion of leadership, structure, accountability, expectations, and trust as they apply to distance learning.

This paper shares some of the hurdles and milestones in transitioning the Teaching Academy for Distance Learning (TADL) from face-to-face to a hybrid delivery. TADL was setup to train instructors how to effectively use distance learning technologies. TADL follows the 7 principles of good teaching, incoporates multimedia tools, and web 2.0 technologies.

The presentation is on our service implemented within our distance education program. It enables support staff to work from home during emergencies, such as snow storms, power outages etc.. Basically anytime our campus is closed our support services remain open for all distance students, faculty and staff. We would love an opportunity to share our experience in this type of system, explain the hardware/software required to make it work and discuss the value it created for our team.

In the text, Multimedia Learning, Richard Mayer outlines research indicating that properly designed multimedia content enhances learning. Mayer's principles are easily applied to course design, webinars, and presentations. In this session, Mayer's research is summarized in easily understood portions. Examples which reflect Mayer's principles are presented to the attendees.

The topic for this FishBowl discussion will center around what DL administrators and instructional designers can do to relieve the stress of creating online courses from the technical side so that faculty can focus on developing activities that are engaging and worthy of digital-age learners.