Meeting & Agendas

The agenda was approved.

This committee consists of representatives from Distance Education, Information Technology, Academic Technology, Student Affairs, Instructional Affairs, Adult Education, and Classified Employees. It is hopeful that the Student Government Association will soon be represented as well. The functions of the committee were reviewed and the schedule of future meetings was listed as: The Committee will meet 4 times a year; October 4th, December 6th, February 7th, April 4th.

This fall and spring semesters are focused on training and conversions. Instruction remains in Blackboard Learn during this time. Training modalities include face-to-face, synchronous, asynchronous, and drop-in sessions. Each workshop is led by faculty. DE is working to set up dedicated Department training sessions. Email blackboardultra@austincc.edu to schedule awareness-building presentations led by Instructional Designers as a preamble to the training sessions. In Summer 2025 Blackboard Ultra will go live– all instruction will move to Ultra.  The website to access asynchronous training and further information is: austincc.edu/ultra

The Department of Education (DOE) has proposed changes that could impact Distance Education. According to the DOE, this will help better determine the outcomes of Distance Education students, improve oversight, and ensure students receive effective instruction. DOE proposes to require institutions to use actual attendance data for DE courses for R2T4 (Return to Title 4) purposes: if a student withdraws, their financial aid funding is returned to the DOE. DOE proposes that clock hour courses delivered via distance education cannot be asynchronous. Final ruling will be November 25th.

Questions from Committee members: 

Q: How can we provide lab kits for all online learning courses when approval is difficult to obtain? Kits need to meet safety and educational standards to obtain approval.  It seems there has been an issue with approval at the departmental level because of insurance purposes. 

A: More information will be sent to Dr. Addae offline to address the situation.

Q: Will we have workgroups in this DE Committee related to the DE strategic plan for the last academic year? 

A: There will most likely be a return to tasks for the workgroups to complete, and more discussion will take place during the next meeting.

The committee was reminded of the next meeting date on December 6th and asked to submit agenda items no less than 7 days before.

Adjournment was not recorded. We will be sure to do it for the rest of the meetings.

Amy Fuller, Angela Smith, Al Purcell, Christopher Morris, Courtney Ahrenholtz, Erasmus Addae, Gretchen Harries (Proxy for LMC), Hailey Bickley, Hector Salas, Jeannette McGowan, Job Hammond, Jorge Lopez-McKnight, Kasey Steffek, Kathleen Park, Kathy Statos, Kristy McDermott, Larry Stephens, Lorlie Braxton, Maria Ruelas, Paula King, Tamy Chapman, Stephanie Long, Rachel Barrera