Distance Learning Consortium

View: New Higher Education Model (Inside Higher Education)

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:40:54 +0000

October 6, 2011

Today, our public colleges and universities are facing some of the toughest challenges they have ever encountered. The choices they make about how they deliver quality education to the millions of students who depend on them will determine whether our country will continue to be a global economic leader, or whether other countries will surpass us in postsecondary achievement.

Click here for full text of the article.

Online and Hybrid Course Enrollment and Performance in Washington State Community and Technical Colleges (CCRC Working Paper No. 31)

admin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:31:27 +0000

By: Di Xu & Shanna Smith Jaggars — March 2011. New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University

This report investigates enrollment patterns and academic outcomes in online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses among students who enrolled in Washington State community and technical colleges in the fall of 2004. Students were tracked for nearly five years, until the spring of 2009. Results were similar to those found in a parallel study in Virginia.

Please click here for the Community College Research Center Website.

The abstract notes: …students were more likely to fail or withdraw from online courses than from face-to-face courses….

The authors suggest four stronger areas of student services integration:

Student online readiness assessment
Course management system tutorial
Online support services
Faculty development support

A pdf download of the report is also available on the CCRC website.

Enroll and Retain More Online Students: July Webinar

admin — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:50:14 +0000

Join the Distance Learning Consortium to find out how to Enroll and Retain More Online Students. Webinars will be held the weeks of July 18 and July 25.

Click here for details.

OpenText (FirstClass) Social Workplace Ver 2 released

admin — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:43:24 +0000

OpenText Social Workplace offers a secure, highly collaborative feature set for use by Consortium client schools and training organizations. Collaborative Communities are created with a couple of clicks, and can be used to supplement online courses, or used for staff/faculty planning and document creation. Please watch: Open Text Social Workplace Ver 2.0

Joint Webinar on Title IV Program Integrity Regulations

admin — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:31:16 +0000

If you missed last week’s webinar with Gragg Advertising and Choice Consulting, drop me a note and we’ll get a copy over to you.

Click here for more information.

For a copy of the presentation, including audio, please click here.

No Going Back on State Approval Requirements

admin — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:26:01 +0000

Don’t count on pending legislation to make the State Approval Requirements for online schools go away.

See this article from Inside Higher Education.

Elaborating on Online Accessibility

admin — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:13:47 +0000

From: Inside Higher Education

May 27, 2011

The Department of Education on Wednesday elaborated on a 2010 letter urging college and university presidents to make sure that the “emerging technology” on their campuses squares with federal laws protecting disabled students from discrimination.

While the original “Dear Colleague” letter focused on recent controversies over the accessibility of classroom devices such as electronic readers. Wednesday’s addendum made it clear that online courses and their content also must be accessible to disabled students — even if none are currently enrolled.

Click here for full text of the article.

Does teaching online increase the risk of faculty burnout?

admin — Mon, 16 May 2011 13:24:58 +0000

From Inside Higher Education

May 16, 2011

Online education demolishes borders: borders between regulatory jurisdictions, between traditional and nontraditional learners, and between for-profit and nonprofit higher education.

But one pattern of erosion that has been less thoroughly documented has been the crumbling of the borders that define the work lives of college professors. Some experts fear that the boom in online education could lead to higher rates of burnout among faculty, especially those whose emotional satisfaction depends on face-to-face interactions with students and colleagues. At the same time, some suggest that technological advances in online learning environments, specifically tools that aim to make virtual interactions more rewarding, could reduce the risk of alienation for online instructors.

Click here for full article.

Online Education May Transform Higher Ed

admin — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:51:39 +0000

Online Education May Transform Higher Ed

The industry has experienced growing pains but may be on the path to maturity.

From US NEWS and World Report

By Brian Burnsed

Posted: April 20, 2011

Can online education be the rock that disturbs the placid waters of American higher education? Several industry experts believe it will have a significant ripple effect on colleges and universities of all sizes in coming years—but only if it’s subject to regulation, governed by a common set of accreditation standards, and widely accepted by institutions who have long clung to the traditional face-to-face model of instruction.

Click here for full article.

Using Audio Files to Improve Classroom Communication

admin — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:22:36 +0000

From Inside Higher Education, Academic Minute.

April 18, 2011

In today’s Academic Minute, Empire State College’s John Beckem discusses how audio files are being used to improve communication between faculty members and students learning at a distance. Beckem is an assistant professor of finance and management studies at Empire State’s Center for Distance Learning.

Click here to listen.