DISTANCE EDUCATION & INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE (DEITC) NEWSLETTER September 2023

The first DEITC meeting took place this past Monday, September 25th. New members were welcomed (see DEITC member list at the end of this newsletter). As a reminder, the purpose of the committee and its goals are:

QM Courses Certified

The following 15 courses have been QM certified since the last DEITC meeting in April of 2023.

QM 7th Edition Higher Education Rubric

The Seventh Edition Rubric was released on July 5th. In order to prepare, QM will be providing a Rubric Update session. All faculty teaching online, course developers and peer reviewers will need to complete this update. QM will be offering it as a free, self-paced, standalone session until January 4th and offered at a cost of $55 for those that enroll after Jan. 5th. All faculty trained on QM must complete it before January 5, 2024, to keep up with the latest rubric and to avoid paying this fee.

eLearning is currently offering an incentive for faculty who register and successfully complete the update session before November 3rd by visiting QMprogam.org/MyQM will be entered into a giveaway.

Changes to QM Requirements

Newly hired online faculty members may be eligible for an exemption from the QM training requirement if they possess online teaching certification from respected organizations such as ACUE and OLC. These faculty members will only need to complete an internal QM training to familiarize themselves with the QM standards and rubric. If you would like to be enrolled in the in-house QM training to know more about the QM process, send an email to elearning-team@tamiu.edu and one of the Instructional Designers will register you.

Any faculty who has attempted the QM course training (APPQMR, TOL, or DYOC) multiple times but has not completed it, should not be assigned to teach online after second attempt.

Proposed Three-tier Increase in Stipend for Online Course Developers

The DEITC Committee discussed the current stipend of $1,500 offered for faculty engaged in course material development. The committee put forth a motion to recommend a three-tiered stipend structure: $4,000 for developing new course materials, $3,000 for revising courses with expired certifications and major revisions, and $2,000 for minor course revisions within a 20% change threshold. The motion passed unanimously. This recommendation will be sent to Provost and VP Finance and Administration for their review and approval.

Transition to Ultra Courses

The preparations to transitioning to Ultra Courses is on its way. The main changes to ultra new look will be to the Institution Blackboard landing page, Ultra is more user friendly for cell phone and tablet usage. The #1 goal of the Ultra experience is accessibility. Ultra Base Navigation will officially launch Summer 2024; However, faculty will be given the option to transition their courses to Ultra Base Navigation starting Spring 2024. eLearning will be offering Ultra training during LTW (Learning Technologies Week). There will also be group training options as per request by college or department. The eLearning team will continue to send the committee updates throughout the summer on the progress of our migration to Ultra Courses.

For information on Ultra Courses View Interface, visit this website from the University of Northern Illinois: https://www.niu.edu/blackboard/ultra/new-features-in-ultra.shtml

Top Hat Update

Exciting news! Top Hat representatives are coming to campus, and they're ready to make learning even more engaging. Join us for a hands-on Lunch & Learn event on September 28th. Come learn how other faculty members are using Top Hat. We hope to see you there!!

Learning Technologies Week (LTW) 2023

The 14th annual LTW will take place during the week of October 30th - November 3th, 2023. Thanks to all the faculty that submitted their presentation proposals. We will continue to accept proposal submissions until October 6th. Visit the Learning Technologies Week website for more information and to view the highlights from past LTW events. We encourage you to invite your colleagues to submit proposals and attend the sessions!

Class Collaborate Purge of Video Recordings

We want to inform you of an important task related to backing up your Collaborate meeting recordings from the years 2020, 2021, and 2022 by September 27, 2023, 5:00pm. As you may know, Blackboard Collaborate has transitioned to its new parent company, Class, and is now known as Class Collaborate. To ensure that your valuable meeting recordings are securely preserved during this transition, we kindly request that you back up copies of your Collaborate meeting recordings to your OneDrive or Echo360 storage accounts. Please note that recordings should not be uploaded directly to Blackboard.

During this transition, it is essential to safeguard your valuable educational materials, as they may not be readily accessible through Class Collaborate in the future. To facilitate this process, we have provided step-by-step guides to assist you in downloading your Collaborate recordings and uploading them to either Echo360 or OneDrive. The following guide has been provided to help guide you to backup and store your Collaborate recordings: Guide: Downloading Collaborate Recordings and Uploading to EchoVideo or OneDrive

Undergraduate Academic Coaches

Any faculty teaching an undergraduate course starting Spring 2024 that have an enrollment greater than 50/60 students will be contacted by Provost office and given the option of having an academic coach assigned to their course. Courses with long discussion dialogue structure, courses that require a lot of student interaction and WIN Courses will have priority.

Student Representation in DEITC

Starting in October the DEITC Committee hopes to add both a graduate and undergraduate student representative to be part of our committee and take part in our monthly meetings.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be in October 23, 2023.

Past DEITC Newsletters

You may view past DEITC newsletters here.