Colleagues,
As we all take some time over the winter break for some much needed R&R, we are excited to be moving forward in several key areas of the Colorado Online @ project.
Online Steering Committee Decisions:
At its meeting December 13, the Online Steering Committee approved the following recommendations:
- A 3-tiered LMS support system for students and faculty/instructors, including 24×7 support for resetting passwords and basic student use of D2L tools). The CCCS Academic Technology will provide next level support and triage requests to IT and college-specific teams as needed.
- Extended evening and weekend support for faculty and instructor-specific needs, provided by the CCCS Academic Technology team.
- Creation of a central CCCS Online Library to provide students at all colleges with access to a robust online research collection (databases, journals, eBooks, and streaming media). Students in certain disciplines or programs will have access to special collections (e.g., nursing).
- Creation of central CCCS OER Services to support and supplement college OER efforts and more effective sharing of OER materials across institutions
Feedback period extended!
- Watch the Common D2L Framework Video Walkthrough to learn more about what has been developed.
- Login and click around to explore the framework.
- Login URL: https://cccotest.desire2learn.com/d2l/login?noRedirect=1
- Username: fac.review
- Password: fac.review
- You have access to both the base framework with placeholders and an example with content populated from the CCCS Essentials of Online Teaching Workshop that was offered in Spring and Summer 2020, in response to the shift in instruction due to the pandemic.
- Share your thoughts by completing theFeedback Survey by January 1, 2022.
Coming in January…
- The Academic Affairs team will move to a tri-chair model with leadership from VPAAs at both rural and urban colleges as well as CCCOnline. Many thanks to Keith Peterson (CNCC), Rebecca Woulfe (FRCC), and Amy Kahn (CCCOnline) for taking on these roles. I also want to thank Ruthanne Orihuela for her leadership as co-chair during the fall semester!
- The Academic Affairs and Student Support Services teams will finalize recommendations for what students will see courses when they go to register.
- The Learning Design team will refine their course design framework based on the input received from the faculty survey and share recommendations for course design standards and a collaborative design process for the ready-to-teach courses.
- The Learning Resources team will continue working on the purchasing processes for course materials while transitioning library and OER support to an implementation team.
- The Technology Team will recommend which software should be available to all faculty and instructors across CCCS.
Save the Date…
Our next Colorado Online @ Open Forum will be held on February 11, followed by a Mini-Conference on February 18 that will include presentations on the new D2L interface and course design processes, as well as discipline-based discussions of challenges, opportunities, and priorities.
Just the FAQs
Through SFAC, SFCC, and individual faculty we know there are many questions swirling around as this project takes off: “Will faculty have to choose to teach all online or all on-campus courses?”; “Will all online courses in a discipline be taught through one college?” or, “How can my discipline get started co-developing online courses?” The answers to these and other questions can be found in the FAQ section of the Colorado Online @ Blog at https://coloradoonline.cccs.edu. If you have other questions, do not hesitate to reach out to me or Tammy Vercauteren (tammy.vercauteren@cccs.edu). Questions and suggestions can also be submitted via the Colorado Online @ Blog or directed to individual members of the Project Team and /or Subcommittees.
I wish you all a wonderful winter break and a great start to the new year!
Landon