ASCRC Minutes 9/27/05

Members Present: J. Campana, S. Derry, J. Eglin, V. Hedquist, C. Henderson, C. Johnston, J. Luckowski, D. McCormick, V.Pavlish , M. Roscoe, H. Thompson, A. Szalda-Petree

Members Absent/Excused: D. Potts, R. Welsh

Ex-Officio Present: L. Carlyon, A.Walker-Andrews

Chair Luckowski called the meeting to order at 2:10p.m.

Old Business:

· Two of the new committee members will also be on the subcommittee representing their discipline. Matt Roscoe will be on the Science & Math subcommittee and Joe Campana will be on Humanities. The subcommittee chairs are finding adequate membership for curriculum review. The list on the ASCRC’s website needs to be updated. Subcommittee Chairs should send updated committee list to Camie.

· The reconfiguration of the Graduation Appeals Committee was discussed. The Committee receives lots of appeals and meets frequently. There needs to be continuity and experience on the committee. Therefore, it is proposed that membership include the current ASCRC chair, chair-elect, the past chair, and a student. The past chair will be a non-voting member. ASCRC will vote next week on the motion to go to the Faculty Senate. It will be distributed via email.

· Oversight: Internet courses:
There was a lengthy discussion about the oversight of internet courses. The Regents’ policy on distributed education includes the following points related to course standards.

a. Standards and procedures for the regular evaluation of the organization and content of distributed learning courses must be equivalent to those used for resident instruction.
b. Standards for student success or failure in distributed learning courses must be as rigorous as those for traditional on-campus credit courses and communicated to the students at the beginning of the course.

Currently academic departments sign off on established courses that are offered online. Establishing a new permanent online course requires the same review as a traditional course. Many faculty are concerned that the electronic delivery changes the pedagogy . There is also an increased opportunity for misrepresentation and cheating on exams. ASCRC could ask for a detailed justification of the evaluation process. However, if standards are developed for online course assessment/evaluation then they must also be developed for traditional courses.

Many universities are transitioning to online remedial courses. This seems somewhat exploitative, particularly for students who benefit most from face-to-face teaching. Are the online courses truly providing students the type of instruction needed to develop the necessary skills? There are studies indicating the algorithmic environment of online math courses lead to mimicking from the short term memory rather than long term learning retention. The chair’s experience in teaching an online course, structured like an individual tutorial is that students learn a lot about a little.

The number of students that would utilize online courses is unknown. It seems working professionals would be interested in certificates and perhaps degrees to advance their careers. Some courses and programs are appropriate for online delivery but others are not. There are intangibles in the face-to-face interaction between individuals (free interchange) and the campus community that is a critical component of the educational experience.

It was suggested that the development of online education is politically and economically driven and there is little desire by the administration to slow the pace in order to address concerns about quality. The future student could be using computers 100% of the time, even though many current students dislike online courses. The use of technology in education and the workplace is only going to increase, thus resisting the change is not going to benefit the students.

There are more sophisticated ways to make the interface work, but these require an infusion of money. Otherwise the online environment is limited and the structure of UM online courses is bound by the Blackboard framework. Students will become proficient in blackboard and may not be exposed to diverse and creative teaching methods.

It was suggest that ASCRC should raise questions about the quality of online education and possibly play a role in the approval process for online courses It was noted that the committee does not have the expertise to evaluate online courses.

Professor Szalda-Petree volunteered to find samples of online course evaluation procedures.

· Oversight: Internship Services
The committee discussed how internships are a valuable experience and that the oversight rests with individual departments. The data presented last week doesn’t show a pattern of abuse. However, departments are well advised to review their standards and procedures. It was suggested that ASCRC send out a departmental communication recommending a review that may include suggested structure or a few samples, or it could ask Academic Affairs to require Internship Services to tighten the structure of the program.

The committee does not want to make it more difficult for students to participate in internships. Interns are a valuable resource for the community and students acquire real life experience. However, the internship should have some link to the student’s major. Professor Eglin will review the Internship Services guidelines and bring ideas for strengthening and clarifying requirements for the committee’s consideration.

Committee Reports:

· The Writing committee has its first meeting tomorrow at 9:00 AM.

· The General Education committee is working on identifying advantages and disadvantages of the models relative to components of the preamble. The real work will be in reconstructing foundational criteria.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:50 PM.