Staff Development Newsletter

Quinsigamond Community College

New Editor: Erica Merrill

Layout & Design: Erica Merrill

This month's issue:

"Past, Present & Future of Academic Advising"

By: Joan Ladik, Jean McLean, Paula Moseley and Maria Addison

"Using Interactive Tools and Video to Enrich the Online Classroom"

By: Joan Perry

Staff Development Announcements

Autumn Nostalgia

It’s autumn and those pesky “dead” leaves are falling, drowning the once emerald grass in a sea of crimson, amber and gold – time to start raking them into neat little piles, and while you’re at it, time to start remembering those long-forgotten days of jumping and playing in the pile afterwards.  Admit it!  We’ve all done it (and some of us probably still do).  Nothing to be ashamed of – that’s what leaves are for. 

I’m tempted to say that summer is my favorite time of year, but I’d be lying if I did.  Nothing beats this time of year – the smell of apples and pine wafting through the air, the crisp October mornings that redden my cheeks, the icy dew that blankets the grass in a crunchy whisper beneath my feet, the nippy wind whipping the leaves into a mini red-gold cyclone that makes me want to raise my hands to the sky and turn and twirl with them in a dizzying dance, leaving all my cares and troubles behind – that’s what leaves are for.

I think Emily Dickinson describes it best in poem 12, according to Thomas H. Johnson’s numbering:

                The morns are meeker than they were –
                The nuts are getting brown –
                The berry’s cheek is plumper –
                The Rose is out of town.

                The Maple wears a gayer scarf –
                The field a scarlet gown –
                Lest I should be old fashioned
                I’ll put a trinket on.

National Academic Advising Association 20^th Annual Northeast Regional Conference:

“Past, Present & Future of Academic Advising”

March 24-26, 2004

By: Joan Ladik, Director; Jean McLean, Coordinator; Paula Moseley, Advisor, Academic Advising; Maria Addison, Coordinator, Health Careers

On March 24-26, 2004, we attended the NACADA Conference held in Burlington, Vermont.  As the title suggests, the theme this year was reliving our past, relating our present circumstances, and visualizing the future that lies in store for all academic institutions across the nation.  This conference was preceded by pre-conference workshops on Advising Administration.  The remainder of the conference was spent attending many different, yet connected presentations, all based on how the institutions represented have been surviving the challenges of the last 20+ years in advising, and their goals for the future.

Advising Administrator’s Workshop – Susan Campbell – University of Southern Maine; Pamela Marsh-Williams – University of Massachusetts, Amherst

This workshop provided assistance to all administrators who are in the process of developing new advising programs or altering existing programs, those who were looking to enhance their administrative skills, and those looking for new ideas and a chance to network with colleagues in the advising administration area.  Topics discussed were creative ways to budget with shrinking finances and building connections across campus, assessing your advising process and gathering evidence for improvement, but most of all, saving your advising staff’s sanity and motivating them while enrollment continues to increase. 

Not So “Trivial Pursuit”: A Fun Method of Training Faculty Advisors – Gail Gauthier, Donna Lally, Patricia Connolly, Judi Smith – Mass Bay Community College

The staff from Mass Bay Community College did a great job with this interactive workshop on advisor training.  Based on the Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit formats, workshop participants were either “Bay Brains” or “Mass”ter Minds.”  Teams selected questions from categories such as Graduation Requirements, Alternative Credit, and Academic Policies.  Question and answers came from the college catalog, the student handbook, and other college publications.

Mass Bay Advising used this fun, interactive, and non-threatening training method as an alternative workshop on their professional development day.  The five top challenges for the Advising staff were: reaching consensus on answers; making the wording of questions clear, accurate, and respectful; avoiding topics that would lead to debate; relevancy; and deciding what to include in handouts.  Advising “judges” ruled on answers and partial answers.  The advisors had attention grabbers such as balloons, game show music, and prizes to reward teams.

Mass Bay reported that their faculty really enjoyed this creative approach to training and it was a great refresher course for returning faculty advisors.

The Systematic Evolution of an Advising Team: Past, Present and Future – Victoria McMillin, Harmony Haynes – Wheaton College

Wheaton College has developed a mentoring program that effectively meets the needs of its new students, advisors and other staff who are affiliated with this program.  In the past, there was a first year seminar course, and a Faculty Advisor who worked one-on-one with the student.  In the new mentoring program, all new students are assigned two preceptors (student mentors) and an advisor.  The two preceptors work with a group of 20 students as they are oriented to the college, through the ups and downs of the first semester, and continue through the year.  An upper level administrative staff member is included in this process and helps students negotiate with departments across the institution.  This advising team includes student-advisor-preceptor-administrator who can provide an intersection of offices so that the student successfully navigates through the college.  Students may then apply to become preceptors the following year if they so desire to continue the process.

Creating a Captive Audience: Retention in a First-Year Advising Program – Mary Fraser – Central Maine Community College

When Mary Fraser was at Newbury College in Brookline, MA, she implemented a Study Skills Seminar for first time, at-risk students – those who scored below college level courses.  The class was created to ensure that students possessed good note-taking, time management, study and communication skills before they moved up to higher level classes.  However, students complained that the class was “boring,” that the textbook was “too work-booky,” and that they already knew how to take notes and study.  They also felt that they were “targeted” – they felt “labeled” as somehow being less than real college students.  The attrition rate among this group soared, and retention decreased dramatically.  Faculty were also disgruntled; no one felt that the class was doing what it was supposed to do.

Fraser redesigned the seminar so that it became a universal experience for all Freshman students.  And, rather than have just one mandatory, pre-determined seminar, she recruited the faculty to design several choices based on content.  Topics included: “The Sixties: On Campus and Off – Tune In, Turn on, Drop Out”; “Magic and Witchcraft”; and “Roads to Success.”  All seminars covered the same skills as listed in the above paragraph, but students chose how they wanted to learn them, and faculty chose how they wanted to teach them.  Fraser renamed the class.  No longer was it called “Study Skills Seminar,” but now “First Year Seminar.”  And, the seminar instructor became the student’s academic advisor for the year.

Feedback this time was completely different.  Students no longer felt labeled. They found the chosen subject interesting and engaging.  Faculty wanted to teach.  In 2002, there was an 88% retention from Fall to Spring (an 8% increase over the previous year).  In 2003, the retention rate was 85.8% from Fall to Spring.

I found this a very interesting and relevant workshop.  I kept comparing the comments and reactions of Newbury’s students and faculty to our own ORT 110 equivalents’.  What I found especially noteworthy was that if a new student transferred into Newbury with more than 15 credits, s/he was automatically exempted from having to take the First Year Seminar.

Retention through Peer Outreach – Freda McClean, Lesley Leppert – Borough of Manhattan Community College

This New York City Community College hires Dean’s list Liberal Arts students, scholarship recipients, and grad students from NYU to peer advise Liberal Arts students with GPAs between 1.75 and 2.30 as part of its Peer Outreach Program.  Peer advisors and graduate student advisors are trained and then assigned to work with individual students in the Academic Advisement and Transfer Center.  They send letters to at-risk students, follow up with phone calls, send notes to the classroom and finally send postcards to students urging them to come to the Advisement Center which is open seven days a week.  Much of what these peer advisors do centers around getting students to formally withdraw from courses they are no longer attending.  The peer advisors also help students with time management, study skills and career exploration through DISCOVER.  At the end of this pilot project, 51% of the at-risk students were off probation.

“Honey, I Shrunk the University”: Building Community Among First-Year Students – Mary Beth Powers, Sandy Trapani, Dawn Liu – Stony Brook University

What do you do when budget cuts reduce staff and resources, but your population keeps on growing and growing?  You create 6 new and innovative Freshman programs, that’s what you do!  The Stony Brook University Advising staff decided something had to be done to assist first-year students with learning about the university and its programs.  It was time to create smaller, interest based “colleges” so that first-year students could be connected to students, staff and faculty through similar interests.  Each “college” has a specific focus – such as “Inventive” for the Information and Technology Studies College, or “Creative” for the College of Arts, Culture and Humanities.  By grouping like-minded individuals together into colleges, students, faculty and staff were happier and the college population is growing.

A Continuing Case Study: Mandatory Advising and Retention – Neil Shannon, Jr., Robert Lukaskiewicz – Norwich University

Norwich University in Vermont is the nation’s oldest private military college with 1800 undergraduates.  Students are assigned to faculty advisors by major and must obtain advisor signatures on registration, add/drop, withdrawal and petition forms.  Two groups, academic probation and conditional re-admission, must participate in mandatory advising with special, full-time, PDR advisors.  Students in both groups must sign a contract; failure to comply results in dismissal, or their credit hours and extracurricular activities are restricted.  Other conditions include meeting with their advisor weekly and meeting with a Learning Services Center senior staff mentor (tutor) for a minimum of one hour a week.  Students are required to attend all classes and must sign a waiver allowing information to be shared among faculty, the mentor, and the advisor.  Students must also take the LASSI test, a 77-item learning- and study-strategies inventory that measures student strategies in 10 areas, including such topics as motivation, anxiety, time management and concentration.  Students must work to improve in deficient areas.

Over 18 semesters, the retention rate for re-admitted students has always exceeded the overall rates of the University.  Students in both programs have a retention rate of 68%, significantly higher than the overall rate of 49%.

Casting an Advising Net – Net Student Group Advising – G. Duncan Harris, Manchester Community College

The underlying theme in this workshop was that it is better to teach someone to fish rather than to fish for them.  Teach them where and how to find the resources.

Duncan Harris is the coordinator/counselor of Academic Advising at Manchester Community College in Connecticut.  MCC allows its returning students only 3 weeks to register for classes on-line.  After that, the students must register in person.  New students meet with an advisor in groups of 12-20 in a 1-½ hour seminar.  Like our students, before they meet with an advisor, they have taken the assessment tests.

MCC uses the developmental advising method.  Before recommending the number of and what classes the student should take, advisors ask each student a series of questions: are you working, and if so, how many hours; are you planning to transfer; do you want to be a full-time or part-time student; are you applying for financial aid?  The advisors make sure that those students who need disability services know where to go and whom to contact.

I enjoyed this workshop; it was like looking at a photograph of a long-lost relative – not knowing before that the family member existed, but recognizing the resemblance immediately.  MCC is almost identical to QCC.  What I found most interesting and practical was that MCC published a “How to Read the Class Schedule” list in each semester’s schedule booklet.  Maybe it is something we can use for our students.

Heading Toward the Portal – Rosemary Kelly, Margaret Stearns, Joey Tse – Syracuse University Continuing Education

Syracuse University is moving toward the use of a Portal.  Sound familiar??  Continuing Ed, a division of the University, is really the first point of contact students often have with the University.  Here, all part-time students are advised, registered and prepared to move on to the University, if they so choose.  In an effort to ease navigation through the university system, a Portal is being implemented in September.  This portal will provide all university information to students, faculty and guests – calendar, course information, updates, schedules, degree audits, registration – much like ours will at QCC.

College Advisement Makeover: Past, Present and Future – Nancy Lebron – Dutchess Community College

Nancy Lebron has learned the secret of how to survive in Academic Advising: you must have a sense of humor.  Her dry wit and comments throughout this workshop made this hour and 15 minutes seem like a blink of an eye.

She told the story of how Dutchess Community College’s dysfunctional Advising Office evolved from an “office” to a “room” to its now fully operational and functional Advising Center.  She shared her stories of how once disgruntled and un-cooperative faculty came to support and embrace the Center, and how they now volunteer their time.  There are still only 3 permanent advisors year round, but faculty supplement the high demand times.

It was good to hear that other Community College Advising Centers have gone through what we at Quinsig have experienced.  It was a wonderful “moral support” kind of workshop, and it offered a chance to remember that we are not alone.

Disability Advising: Life in the Trenches – Dian Duranleau, Karen Maden, Clyde Stats – Johnson State College

This was perhaps the most informative and eye-opening workshop I attended.  Actually, it was a roundtable discussion with advisors across New England sharing the similar experiences and challenges of working with students with disabilities.

Topics and issues included: faculty “Buy-In,” – how to get faculty to be more sensitive (suggestions were to include faculty on a Disability Advisory Board and then have the faculty take back information to their respective divisions; Disability Services should visit each Academic Division at least once a year; offer workshops and start where the faculty’s mindsets and biases are; reiterate and make sure that the faculty know that “it’s the law”; recruit disabled faculty on campus as allies); and explaining the differences between Disability Services at the High School and College level (parents don’t understand that they no longer have to have an adversarial relationship with the college; colleges might want to offer a “Transition Training” Workshop for new students; make sure that the student gives the faculty a written description of their disability; offer temporary accommodations for those students who claim to have a disability but who have no prior documentation).

Again, it was comforting to hear that other advisors have the same concerns and issues that we at QCC have.

Seeing the Future: Collaborating for Student Success and Retention – Michael Roggow, Isabel Mirsky, Octavio Melendez, Victor Rodriguez – Bronx Community College

Bronx Community College and Lehman College needed a convenient method of using technology for advising purposes.  A software was designed to improve advising and communication between advisors in the Advising Center and faculty advisors.  Neither college had access to a coordinated database system that permitted access of student records, so they wrote a Title V Grant and funded it themselves.  Between the two colleges, they were able to create an easy-to-use system that gave advisors all the information they needed to effectively advise a student into appropriate level courses and assess their success.  Much like the CAPS plan design, this program provided short- and long-term plans for the student and advisor to use together or separately to complete degree requirements.

Turning Past Practice into Future Success – Pamela Najarian – University of New Hampshire

This session focused on strategies for success with at-risk students.  The presenter covered such topics as lack of confidence, sleep deprivation, nutrition, building vocabulary, reading skills, note-taking, time management and other challenges these students often face.  Apparently, her students do not face issues such as full-time jobs, full-time family responsibilities, academic under-preparation, language barriers, transportation issues, learning disabilities, or a lack of career focus that our students do.

Summary

This particular conference really honed in on the challenges being faced by all institutions in the nation both academically and administratively.  In particular, how we all work together to form partnerships across campus to benefit our students was mentioned during every presentation and during all conversations over lunch and dinner.  We, in Massachusetts, certainly are not alone in our concerns.

"Using Interactive Tools and Video to Enrich the Online Classroom"

By: Joan Perry

On June 2, 3 & 4, 2004 I attended MECC (Massachusetts Education Computing Conference) hosted by Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Mass.  The conference is in its eighteenth year and offers workshops and demonstrations of new technologies as well as an opportunity to socialize and make new acquaintances.  Attendees come from all over the state representing several state and community colleges. Each year the conference is held in a different location allowing other state colleges to be the host. 

One of the sessions I attended in the Academic track was “Integrating Video and Synchronous Tools into the Online Course” presented by John Lessoe of UMass Boston and Bill Benoit of Videré Conferencing.  John Lessoe is the director of the Distance Learning Video Production Center at UMass Boston.  The Center's primary function is to support the University's academic mission by offering the University community affordable broadcast quality video production, and satellite and video conferencing.  They have integrated streaming video, interactive TV and Voice over IP for its distance learning courses. 

UMass uses a fiber optic network service through MITI (Massachusetts Information Turnpike Initiative.  Each of the five UMass campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell and Worcester) has several state of the art distance learning classroom facilities connected over the network.  Each classroom has direct connections to the MPEG-2 and ISDN video networks.  ATM-ISDN gateways and an ATM-based multi-point conferencing bridge provide on-demand connectivity to the State and Community Colleges that share programs with UMass and each other.

Use of Streaming Video to Support an Online Course

Streaming video is a sequence of visual data that is sent in compressed form over the Internet and displayed by the viewer as it arrives.  Streaming media refers to the combination of visual and audio data.  With streaming video, a Web user does not have to wait to download a large file before seeing the video or hearing the sound.  The media is sent in a continuous stream and is played as it arrives.  The user needs a player, such as RealOne or QuickTime.  A player is a special program that un-compresses data and sends video data to the display and audio data to speakers.  A player can be either an integral part of a browser or downloaded from the software maker's Web site.

Online instructors are required to create a video stream introduction for their online course.  The UMASS Distance Learning Video Production Center assists faculty with all of their video-production needs.

Some video creation tips:

Examples of using streaming video:

Things to consider when developing an online course:

Streaming Video Copyright Issues

Copyright law applies on the Internet as it does to paper.  It is an infringement of copyright to post material on a Web site, for example, without the consent of the copyright holder.  This applies whether the site is on an intranet, accessible only to members of an organization, or the Internet (http://www.accesscopyright.ca/licenses.asp).

It is important to adhere to the Copyright laws regarding “Fair Use” of video for online instruction.  “Fair Use” is a privilege in others than the owner of the copyright to use the copyrighted material in a reasonable manner without the owner’s consent, whereas the purpose of the use is for nonprofit educational purposes.  Works put on the Internet are considered “published” and therefore qualify for copyright protection.  Permission from the owner is necessary before one may use any materials, including photographs, music, and videos, downloaded from an internet site.  If someone uses the copyrighted information without authorization, the copyright owner can then sue and receive compensation for any losses suffered.

If instructors are streaming videos owned by others for their online course, then they may get digital licensing.  Digital licensing is the licensing of copyrighted materials in digital formats, including full downloads, limited-use downloads and on-demand streaming.  “Films for the Humanities and Sciences” (www.fims.com/Films_Home/) have 12,000 films in their library that are available for digital licensing.  Digital licensing is available for $200.00, which allows UMass to digitalize videotapes or DVDs to their server and deliver them as video on demand.

UMassOnline – Centra

In July of 2002, UMass Boston purchased an application tool for its online courses called Centra.  The CentraOne software is a single-platform enterprise solution for live eLearning and collaboration.  It allows application sharing, two-way audio chat and interactive tools to communicate.  The Distance Learning Video Production Center (DLVPC) at UMass Boston creates accounts for students (student names are emailed by the instructors to the DLVPC staff) on a Centra server devoted to the support of UMass Boston online courses.  Logins and passwords are required to access the Centra server and are provided to students via email notification messages.

Upon the first time attending a Centra event hosted on the UMassOnline-Boston Centra site (http://centra.umassonline.net/boston), the Centra client software must be downloaded and installed on the client’s computer; minimum System Requirements: Processor Pentium-class 133 MHz Processor, Memory 32 MB RAM, Display 800 x 600, High Color 16-Bit, Sound Card & Speakers, Network Connectivity 28.8 kbps.

Centra does not work with Apple Macintosh computers.  Internet Explorer (IE) is the recommended browser.  Speakers and a microphone or a headset with a microphone are needed.  During the installation, an audio wizard pops up and prompts to check the level of the speakers and microphone.  Centra users are encouraged to login well in advance of the session to test the software, and adjust speaker and microphone volumes.

Before an event is in session, attendees can speak with other participants and step through the agenda content.  When the Leader/Presenter begins the session, the Leader and co-presenters control the agenda content, Centra tools, and microphone.  During a session, the participant must request a microphone in order to speak and the leader must give the microphone to the participant.  The Centra communication tools consist of clicking on the appropriate icons (i.e. click on the hand to request a microphone to speak, a number will appear next to the participants name indicating the order in which the hand was raised; click on “yes” or “no” to answer a question; click on the clapping hands to applaud).  If the Leader activates video, the participants are able to view and broadcast live video in a symposium.

Centra Conference enables the conduction of large-scale (up to 1000 simultaneous participants and a leader) presentations, demonstrations, and conferences over the Internet or Intranet.  UMass Boston online students and faculty are supported in using Centra by the staff of the Distance Learning Video Production Center.

Video Conferencing

Bill Benoit of Videré Conferencing in Braintree, MA, presented the second part of this session.  Videré is a Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium (MHEC) approved vendor and MECC sponsor.  Videré Conferencing specializes in audio, video, and web conferencing services, is partnered with Centra and has helped to tailor the Centra software needs for UMassOnline courses.

Videoconferencing is a system allowing participants at different locations to view and hear each other immediately via video cameras and monitors along with microphones through telephone lines or the internet.

With the help of Videré, UMass has upgraded from ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) to video-over-IP technology.  ISDN is a digital telephone service that provides fast, accurate data transmission over telephone wiring.  Video-over-IP or IP Streaming Video are newer technologies that allow video signals to be captured, digitized, streamed and managed over IP networks; it is the convergence of voice, video and data over a network.

A key benefit of IP videoconferencing is that you can use the existing data network as the means of transport.  This is known as “converged networking” and can lead to dramatic cost savings and efficiency improvements because only one network is deployed and managed.

In 1964, AT&T introduced the first videoconferencing technology to the market.  The legacy standard for the communications is ITU, or International Telecommunications Union (H.320).  This standard has restrictions on usage costs and users had to maintain dedicated equipment in a single location.  New standards released in 1996 (H.323) allow for IP-based Video Conferencing.  IP-based services are far better as the conference can be initiated from any PC on the network equipped with the proper tools, and the signals travel over the regular network infrastructure and equipment, eliminating the need for dedicated lines and usage charges.

Videoconferencing can be point-to-point (one user to one user), or multipoint (multiple users participating in the same session); users in the latter are viewed in separate windows.  Videoconferencing has also introduced a new concept in communications through collaboration.  An electronic whiteboard can be included in the conference allowing users to write notes on the same board and/or view each other’s presentations and notes while speaking.  A MCU (Multipoint Conference Unit) is generally maintained at a central location.  This unit allows the multiple video-feeds to be viewed simultaneously.  A box called a Gatekeeper is normally included for multipoint conferences.  This box controls the bandwidth, addressing, identification and security measures for the conferences.  They are typically software applications that reside on a separate PC, but newer model equipment has the gatekeeper functionality built in.

Video presentations can be grouped into three categories: Video Broadcasting, Video on Demand, and Video Conferencing.  These video-over-IP transmissions are scalable, cost effective, and very flexible.  IP video applications are rapidly replacing the legacy ISDN video conferencing applications.  The movement to a single, converged, IP-based voice-video-data network is well underway.  It appears that IP will be chosen in the near future over ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode, a network technology based on transferring data in cells or packets of a fixed size) and frame relay.

Staff Development Announcements

Annual New Employee Welcome Reception

On Wednesday, September 29^th, Staff Development sponsored the annual Welcome Reception for new employees.  The College Community honored and welcomed to the QCC Family 38 new or newly promoted employees who had been hired as of November 2004.

Save the Date!! Save the Date!!

QCC’s Annual Seasonal Celebration

Thursday, December 16^th
Room 109A&B & the Library Living Room in The Learning Center

 Mark your calendars!