Colleagues,
Fall Colorado Online courses are well underway, and registration opens this week for the more than 400 courses that will be offered through Colorado Online this Spring. Here is some of the progress we’ve made in the past month to get ready for Spring (and beyond):
- Planning for enrollment growth. Colleges have completed course confirmation forms for Spring 2024 courses. Over the next two weeks, we will distribute remaining wild card sections, along with extra sections that will support up to 130% enrollment growth (if needed). Earlier this month we also distributed the preliminary allocations for Summer and Fall 2024 so that we can finalize those section distributions before the winter break.
- Updating the teaching resources collection. The CCCS Learning Design Community of Practice has been collecting syllabi, learning objects and full courses with the goal of making more teaching resources available for courses transitioning to Colorado Online for the SP24 semester. To date, the CCCS Learning Design Community of Practice has received 11 syllabi, 5 learning objects, and 35 courses and our goal is to see this number increase! You can you help us meet that goal by sharing your syllabi, learning objects, or course shells. The priority period to submit items has been extended through November 7, and we will continue to collect and make teaching resources available after that date.
- Preparing spring online instructor orientations and professional development opportunities. Dates and times for live orientation sessions start November 29; Zoom links will be posted to the Inside Colorado Online web site and the Colorado Online Professional Development Faculty Resources site in D2L. The Resources course is designed as an asynchronous tool to help faculty/instructors prepare a pooled section, additionally covering online course essentials. All pooled instructors are auto-enrolled, and others may self-enroll through this form. We’ve also added a new asynchronous course, Building Your Course from the Ground Up, that will be particularly helpful for instructors who have only the Common Course Framework available to them as a teaching resource (self-enroll through this form).
- Hiring a second Online Success Liaison to help students, faculty, and staff navigate student success issues across colleges. Contact the online success liaisons at studentsuccess@cccs.edu for assistance. The Academic Affairs and Student Support Services Subcommittees continue to document use cases and business processes. Work is also underway on recommendations regarding tutoring, proctoring, accessibility, and early alerts.
- Collaborating with State Discipline Faculty to refine the Course Transition Timeline and Course Section Distribution Processes. Examples include:
- Removing courses that should no longer be offered online (e.g. courses only offered online due to the pandemic);
- Exempting courses from needing to offer pooled sections due to program-specific needs (e.g. practicum and capstone courses, courses with special accreditation requirements, courses with special requirements due to local business / K-12 partnerships);
- Adding courses that are not yet on the transition timeline;
- Scheduling specialty/low-enrolled courses to support equitable student access across colleges and timely program completion;
- Considering alternative approaches to distributing sections in response to special circumstances (e.g. small disciplines with relatively few courses that need to rotate courses / assignments, meet full time faculty load, etc.).
- State Discipline Chairs can submit requested changes via the State Discipline Faculty Feedback Survey. Requestors will be notified of the decision and approved changes will be posted to the Transition Planning and Course Section Distribution Documents on the CCCS Colorado Online SharePoint site (click on the link to request access the first time you go to the site).
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to supporting student success in the online environment. If you have any questions about Colorado Online, don’t hesitate to contact me or Tammy Vercauteren, Project Director of Online Strategic Planning.