DEAC/COOL Meeting Minutes
January 19, 2011
Chinese Heritage, Room 3523

In Attendance:  Lisa Verissimo, Una Daly, Jerry Cellilo, Chris White, Hilary Ciment, Konnilyn Feig, La Dawn Meade, Anita Whitehill, Kate Jordahl, Judy Baker

Meeting Schedule

Group agreed that we need to set our meetings on various days of the week and times of the day so that more faculty are able to attend.  We agreed on Wednesday at noon for the February meeting.

Propose Academic Senate Resolution about Attendance
The proposed resolution to the Academic Senate about Definition of Attendance for Online Courses was reviewed by the group. The 2010 Resolution by Foothill College Faculty Academic Senate states:  "In compliance with federal requirements to document student attendance in online classes, faculty must record a weekly academically related activity such as discussion forum posting, online quiz, reflection, assignment, exam, email, field trip, telephone call or electronic communication at least through week 7 or the drop with W deadline for each student in an online class.  This is in line with our commitment to best practices of Regular, Timely and Effective Student/Faculty Contact as approved by the Faculty Senate and submitted by faculty on the "Course Approval Application for Online/Distance Learning Delivery" and vital to students receiving financial aid." 
See Foothill Senate Definition of Attendance for Online Courses.
The Academic Senate will vote on the resolution at its next meeting on Monday.  Konnilyn expressed concerns that every week is too often to expect students to submit assignments and actively engage with online course content in ways that can be documented.  La Dawn asked about the need to address student engagement beyond the first two weeks of the quarter.  Kate will share these concerns with the Senate.

Student Evaluation of Online Courses

Judy informed the group of the status of getting student evaluation of online courses to be recognized as official rather than informal.  The major barrier is the low response rates for online course evaluations.  Our hope is that the new Course Map feature that will be available in Etudes starting summer 2011, faculty will be able to block students from proceeding to selected course components until the student has seen the invitation to complete the course evaluation.  This is expected to increase response rates.  A suggestion was made to seek funds from the ASFC to support Foothill Global Access efforts to increase response rates for online course evaluations.

Late Add Complaints

Faculty speculated that the ability of students to see the enrollments of courses via MyPortal may be the cause of student confusion, misunderstanding, and frustration that results in complaints about not getting Add Codes from instructors.  Kate suggested that we approach ETS about not allowing students to see the enrollments via MyPortal in order to minimize these complaints and course shopping.

Minutes recorded by Judy Baker