Meeting & Agendas

The agenda and minutes were approved.

We reviewed the suggested revisions to the AR and G/P. Substantive changes were asynchronously requested by the Committee regarding substantive and regular interactions. Clarification was given regarding the requirements from QM and will be published in the G/P. Policy questions were discussed and clarified, especially when pertaining to Federal regulation in Distance Education. Substantive review of the AR and G/P will be conducted every year by the Committee.

What is the best way to get this data to the faculty and make them aware of it? We could partner with DESS to bring data to the forefront for faculty so they can better support their students. We will reengage with Jenna and have someone from OIRA present data live and answer questions. We will also leverage the DE Symposium and the DE newsletter to get the data out to more people.

Within the Biology department, there is a robust offering of online courses. In the last year, online faculty have noticed a substantial increase in the performance of online students compared to their on campus peers on the same assessments. For example, written answers on assessments are appearing as if graduate level students answered and class averages are much higher. Proctors examine videos and cannot find evidence of cheating. Faculty have been having conversations with students and students are not able to recall any information about the contents of their exams or answers despite having taken the
exam 48 hours prior. They cannot recall information about anything they have learned in these courses. This was the start of this topic which will be discussed further in our final meeting.

How can we overcome the challenge of late course adds? Instructors are not usually notified until they see the new student’s name in the gradebook. These students then request extensions, and faculty have to take their word on it. Can notifications be enabled so instructors know exactly when late students are added? Late adds are typically department chair decisions. If the instructor is using Quickly attendance, the new students cannot be marked for attendance prior to their first day in the course. This was the start of this topic which will be discussed further in our final meeting.

Alex Watkins announced to think about running for DE Committee Co-Chair for the upcoming year. This position will be voted on in our final meeting in April. The committee was reminded of the next meeting date on April 3rd, and asked to submit agenda items no less than 7 days before.