Colleagues,
This month the VP Council meeting focused on Colorado Online. With so many new faces across our colleges (and “old” faces in new positions), it was a great opportunity to review the evolution of our new Consortial approach since the Steering Committee began its initial planning in 2019. Our vision was, and is, to better serve students by working together, and it was helpful to recap some of the decisions that have been made along the way. We also reviewed data from the spring pilot, shared pain points, and exchanged ideas for continuous improvement. I look forward to working with other groups in the coming months who would find it helpful to have similar conversations.
In other June news:
- Most colleges have identified a primary contact and a backup to help facilitate communication about the Colorado Online implementation across the consortium. Representatives are listed on the CCCS Colorado Online @ SharePoint site, and will have their first meeting in July.
- The Steering Committee approved a layered approach to supporting readiness of Colorado Online courses for Fall 2023:
- A new Learning Design Functional Group is being established, including representation from all colleges and the system office in a variety of roles (e.g. learning design staff, faculty, and instructors).
- As part of the process for selecting common course materials for pooled sections, state discipline faculty identify existing teaching resources that faculty and instructors can use to help set up and build out their own online course shells in D2L. This summer, the Learning Design team will create a self-service workflow to allow college partners to collaborate in reviewing these optional teaching resources, providing feedback based on the Healthy Course Checklist. Selected course materials and optional teaching resources are listed on the Colorado Online @ Copy Access Form.
- The Learning Design team will create and provide additional professional development and related support, in both asynchronous and synchronous formats, for setting up online course shells. Training resources will be made available by August 1 to help faculty prepare for the Fall 2023 semester.
- As a reminder: Fee requests for Spring 2024 pooled sections must be finalized in August. If no common course materials have been submitted by the discipline for a Spring 2024 course, pooled sections will use materials and corresponding teaching resources already in use by CCCOnline (if available) or a college that teaches the course. A Learning Resources Coordinator has been hired to help support this process starting in July, re-purposing a vacant position.
- We continue to receive questions about how and when Colorado Online @ sections are distributed to the colleges, so that was the focus of our June info session. The course section distribution lists are posted to the Course Section Distribution folder on the CCCS Colorado Online SharePoint site for reference by VPs, deans, chairs, faculty, instructors, and staff. Our next info session for the summer will be held at 8:00 am on Wednesday, July 19.
If you have any questions about Colorado Online, don’t hesitate to contact me or Tammy Vercauteren, Project Director of Online Strategic Planning.
Sincerely,
Landon