11048

11048

General Session - Conference Presentation Only (no formal paper)

**Collaboration and College-wide Inclusion Leads to Student Success**
Sandra Moses, Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland, OH, USA, sandy.moses@tri-c.edu

Come learn how collaboration across all major entities of the Cuyahoga Community College have lead to faculty and student success, and the importance of inclusion of all areas of the College impacted by the work of a Title III grant: Supporting Student and Faculty Success in Distance Learning

The original mission of the Office of eLearning & Innovation (eLi) was to “broaden access to College courses and learning for those who wish to either begin or continue learning.” In 1975, Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) began with one distance course and 123 enrollments. In FY 2008, the Office of eLearning & Innvoation offered 688 courses and 1141 sections with over 16,000 students, representing 14% of the College FTE. With the adoption of a course management system, Blackboard, in FY 1999, enrollment in Web-based courses began to grow rapidly and significantly.

In 1999, a Joint Committee on Distance Learning was formed to “review and develop necessary and appropriate recommendations related to distance learning.”

In 2005, the Office of eLearning & Innovation was moved from Administration to Academic & Student Affairs.

In 2006, a Distance Learning Strategic Planning (DLSP) process was initiated, culminating in a final report. One of the DLSP committee recommendations, to offer fully online degrees, prompted Tri-C to apply for accreditation of the College’s distance learning programs.

In July 2008, the College received approval to offer three fully online degrees. In order to address several of the other recommendations, Tri-C applied for and received a five-year, $2 million dollar grant from the Department of Education. The grant focuses on four key areas in distance learning: academic support, infrastructure and technology, faculty preparedness, and quality. We are in year 3 of the grant, and we have met all the required performance indicators, even exceeding several year 5 requirements. We have been able to measure student success after several pilots of virtual services, and have seen improvement in grades, course completion, persistance. We have also seen student satisfaction with the virtual services implemented.

Our Title III initiatives address: •Student orientation and preparation (eLearning Orientation) •Online student services and advising (eAdvising, Online Tutoring, and the Virtual Front Door) •Managing information technology and change(Collaboration strategy, Grant organization, expansion of the Learning Management System Blackboard) •Professional development for faculty and staff (Faculty preparedness through Teaching For Online Learning Training and Peer Course Design Reviews based on the Quality Matters™ Rubric) •Online hybrid, or blended modes of technology enhanced learning (Hybrid Sample Courses in development Math and English designed and developed with faculty.)

You can read more about the history and success of the grant at http://title3.wordpress.com/.

All Audiences online orientaiton, online tutoring, virtual front door, eAdvising, collaboration strategies, collegewide inclusion, student success