Meeting & Agendas

Advisory Committee Members in Attendance • Jenny Magic (Chair), Principal/VP Content Strategy, SiteGoals • Michelle Trudo (Vice-Chair), UX Designer, Projekt202 • Amanda Moon, UI/UX Designer, SiteGoals • Oscar Llarena, Experience Director/UX, T3 ACC Faculty and Staff in Attendance • Linda Smarzik, Dean, Computer Studies & Advanced Technology • Gail Bayeta, Dept Chair, Visual Communication • David Correa, Professor • Marc Bonasso, Assistant Professor • Mary Kohls, Dept Chair, Computer Science • Sam Greer, Director, IT DOL Grant • Lorraine Lebeau-Carter, Administrative Assistant • Alida McCullough, Administrative Assistant

ACC has received a 2.1 million dollar grant under the Bureau of Labor Computer Training Act of 2009. The grant is being used to convert existing computer science courses in the Computer Science department to online competency based education (CBE) courses. The Dept. of Education defines competency based education as “students learning at their own time, and at their own pace.” Qualified students can earn certificates in an accelerated format. ACC is working with Sinclair College in Ohio, Brevard Community College in Florida, and Western Governor’s University to implement this revamped curriculum. Initial goals of the grant: Convert 25 Computer Science courses to competency based online courses, each including 5-10 competencies. Improve distance learning at ACC Increase the number of available certificates Increase student completion rates Computer Science has completed 15 courses, and is now working on 5 more. ACC has received another grant for competency-based education from the Gates Foundation through the Educause Breakthrough Models Incubator. An advantage for ACC is that faculty can be paid via stipend to develop the CBE courses, and increase degrees offered through the DOL grant.

C.B.E. enrollment is selective, students must apply and go through an interview process. The stringent curriculum is not suited to all students. Only about 50% of those who apply have been accepted for the Accelerated Programmer Training (APT) CBE courses. Seventy percent of the students currently selected have already earned a Bachelor’s degree or higher. Courses are offered in 16-week, 12-week, or 8-week format. A Student Support Specialist checks in with each student regularly to offer support, find out if there are any issues for which the student needs assistance, remind them to register for the next courses in the sequence, and serve as a point of contact for ACC services. ACC is working with multiple industry partners in different ways through the grant. One way is that industry partners serve as advisors—discuss competencies with faculty to keep curriculum fresh. Another way as an Industry Partner, which covers: pre-screened, qualified applicants for your jobs awareness of program competencies [what students have learned] immediate online access to student portfolios Industry partners logos appear on the website, so students become familiar with your company How the C.B.E. program came to Visual Communications Presenter: Gail Bayeta Linda Smarzik let Gail know that there was room in the grant to integrate another discipline. They discussed the possibility of developing a latticed certificate, consisting of courses from both Computer Science and Visual Communication. After talking with David Correa and Marc Bonasso, then consulting with VisCom advisory committee member Michael Stewart, a Coder/Designer certificate was put together. The proposed certificate includes a base of Computer Science courses, one current Visual Communication course, and four new Visual Communication courses which were approved for inclusion on the new User Experience Design AAS at the August Advisory Committee meeting.

Proposed CBE Certificate: ITSE 1411 - Beginning Web Programming. Skill development in web programming including mark-up and scripting languages. Web page programming including mark-up and scripting languages. Introduction to structure and object oriented programming design. Course includes use of XHTML and JavaScript programming languages. ITSE 2402 - Intermediate Web Programming. Techniques for web development. Includes server-side and client-side scripting. Intermediate applications for web authoring. Topics may include server side includes (SSI), Perl, HTML, Java, Javascript, and/or ASP. ITSE 1394 - ***Special Topics in Computer Science. Topics address recently identified current events, skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes and behaviors pertinent to the technology or occupation and relevant to the professional development of the student. This course was designed to be repeated multiple times to improve student proficiency. ***jQuery - Develop, test, deploy and maintain RIA (Rich Internet Applications) powered by the jQuery framework with an emphasis on user experience enhancements employed by DOM element selection, traversal and manipulation. Other technologies utilized include: HTML, CSS and Javascript. ARTC 1310 - Design Concepts. Fundamental techniques in conceptualizing. Includes all procedures from initial research to creating strategies to finalizing a project. Will use Design Thinking as conception framework. UXUI 1471 Prototyping 1. A study of the tools and techniques used to create rapid prototypes for websites, web applications, and native apps based on industry standards. May include Keynote, Balsamic, Axure, Omni tools, Open source tools, etc. Explore various prototyping methods for solving interactive design problems Develop sketching skills to test early ideas and concepts for software products Develop software skills to utilize industry standard prototyping applications Produce prototypes to test features and validate software product concepts UXUI 2471 Prototyping 2. Students in this course will develop presentation techniques that demonstrate for a team, and to a client, the use and function of digital products such as websites, web applications, and native apps. Apply appropriate prototyping methods for solving interactive design problems Apply sketching and software skills to test early ideas and concepts for software products Produce prototypes to test features and validate software product concepts Produce hi-fidelity prototypes for team and client presentation UXUI 1472 User Interface Design 1. Gain an understanding of the overall user interface design process, usability principles, and interaction design. Topics include interaction principles, requirements analysis, designing for different screens, design standards, style guides, information design, and visual design principles. Study of human-computer interaction in the context of graphical user interfaces. Gain knowledge of user behaviors, design principles, prototyping techniques, evaluation techniques, and the implementation of graphical user interfaces. Review of the most pervasive design patterns and emerging trends in visual design, interactive design, and user experience design. Use sketching for communicating information design ideas and to tell the product or service """"story."""" Use wireframes to demonstrate information design and user interactions with a 'clickable' user interface. Learn rapid prototyping techniques with open source tools, web apps, and other services. Understand common UI patterns and interaction design techniques. Understand user centered design. Learn the fundamentals of Information Architecture for effective pre-design stage planning. UXUI 2472 User Interface Design 2. Learn how to develop user scenarios, user object models, navigational models, flow diagram, and an exploratory view of the user interface using low-fidelity (paper) prototyping techniques as well as high fidelity design comps. Students will research user interface design development processes for a small software application concept. Students explore key concepts in Information Architecture, UI Patterns, Content Strategy and Interaction Design. Topics include multi-channel design, the internet of things, and digital product design. Create user interfaces and develop interaction sequences that support a software product/service solution being designed through the use of sketching, wireframing and prototyping. Utilize UI patterns and interaction design techniques in the creation of interface design layouts and prototypes that support usability and the best user experiences. Create mood boards to explore style considerations for hi-fidelity designs Students will design high-fidelity product solution sets as teams. Multi-function, multi device solutions. Who is this certificate aimed at? This is a design flavored certificate for programmers. Can give a working professional, for instance a developer who has design tendencies, enough exposure to design to be able to function as a designer/coder. This is not the same audience as the students who come to ACC to earn the AAS in User Experience. Students must pass a screening process to start the program. Competencies are still being developed for the five new courses out of Visual Communication. The first three course competencies developed this semester will be shared with select members of the committee next week. Goals for today’s meeting Give information about the proposed designer/coder certificate and competency based education Gain approval of the Advisory Committee to offer the designer/coder certificate (no vote was taken because a quorum was not present) Get input from committee members

Jenny Magic stated that she sees this as a good option for employees she wants to bring along but does not have time to train. Oscar Llarena mentioned that people who can communicate effectively to both developers and UX Designers have an advantage. Jenny suggested that committee members offer suggestions as to books, blogs, websites that they feel are essential resources for this field. Gail mentioned that we are looking for instructors who would be interested in teaching these courses as early as Spring 2015. Next actions Notes from this meeting will be shared with all advisory committee members. They will be asked to vote to approve the new designer/coder certificate. If approved, the proposed plan will be presented to the ACC Curriculum Committee in October.

Meeting Adjourned by Gail Bayeta at 1:05pm