Faculty Senate IT Committee

June 2005

 

Recommendations regarding on-line teaching and learning

 

Over the past year, the IT committee has been gathering information and holding discussions on the topic of on-line teaching and learning.   The committee feels that on-line education can be a valuable component within the array of opportunities offered by the university.   At the same time, maintaining academic standards in on-line courses can pose a serious challenge particularly when these courses are made available to the general undergraduate population.  In the hope of enhancing the ability of faculty members to better meet the challenges of on-line education, the Senate IT Committee offers the following recommendations:

 

A note on definitions:  We understand on-line courses to refer to courses that do not meet face to face on a regular basis and in which all or nearly all of the educational communication takes by means of the computer.  We are not referring to so-called hybrid courses in which on-line activities are combined in various ways with traditional face to face class meetings.  Issues surrounding hybrid courses deserve to be treated as a separate topic.

 

I.  Faculty Development:

 

Faculty members teaching on-line courses quickly find out that effective electronic teaching requires much more than simply taking existing courses and “putting them on-line.”  On-line teaching requires distinct tools, strategies and expectations.  We feel that more could be done to help faculty members adapt their teaching styles to the challenges on the on-line environment before their courses begin.  

 

Faculty development workshops (with stipends) should be offered for faculty members teaching on-line courses.  The emphasis should extend before the technology itself to focus on broader pedagogical and conceptual issues. 

 

Support should be given to faculty members to revise and enhance on-line courses from semester to semester.

 

Particular attention should be devoted to the development of effective measures for assessment. Testing, when necessitated by the demands of the particular course, should take place in a proctored environment.  An on-campus testing center should be seriously considered.

 

Faculty members should be given strong support in maintaining high standards of academic integrity, taking into account the particular challenges posed by on-line courses in this area.

 

The performance of the course management system should be closely monitored to insure that it provides the best possible array of resources for the delivery of on-line courses.

 

 

II. “Gatekeeping”:  Who should be taking on-line courses?

 

Success in on-line courses requires a particular set of academic skills that many traditional undergraduates have not yet mastered.  The high rate of failure and withdrawal in many on-line sections is evidence of this deficit. We feel it would be appropriate to introduce policies aimed at insuring that the students taking on-line courses have a reasonable likelihood of success.  Specifically, the committee recommends the following measures:

 

Efforts should be stepped up to market on-line courses to non-traditional students in special programs since experience has shown that these are often the students who are best served by these courses.

 

As a general rule, freshmen and sophomores should not be allowed to take on-line courses—it is understood, however, that deans would be able to waive this policy in special cases.

 

Students with low grade point averages (i.e. below 2.5) should be barred from registering for on-line courses.

 

Students should be required to successfully complete an on-line orientation module (to be developed by TLTC) before being allowed to register for on-line courses.

 

 

III. Course Administration:

 

On-line courses should be offered and administered with a clear understanding of their distinct nature.  Toward that end, the committee recommends the following measures:

 

On-line courses should be clearly distinguished from traditional courses at all stages of the registration process.  

 

Course enrollments should always be capped at a maximum of 15 students.  Chairs should only sign in additional students under exceptional circumstances and should never allow more than three additional students per section.

 

On-line courses, both new courses and on-line sections of preexisting courses, must be approved the EPC of the college in which they are offered.  In accordance with current practice, courses and sections may be offered on an experimental basis for no more than three semesters, after which they must undergo the approval process.

 

Academic programs based primarily on the offering of on-line courses must also be approved by the EPC of their college and by the APCCC when required under existing guidelines and practices.

 

Rigorous procedures for continuing evaluation and quality control of on-line courses should be created and implemented.  Maintenance of high academic standards should be the primary goal.  If and when on-line courses are no longer in accordance with this goal, they should be eliminated.