MELA Meeting Minutes 2003 - 2017

1. Numbers have been pulled and sent to each college. Two separate bills will be sent to each institution to pay for the Blackboard contract. Ms. Kimble will send an email explaining the breakdown to DLCs to forward to college business managers. iii. Surveys 1. Ms. Kimble stated that the MSVCC survey will be turned on November 1 and off December 2nd. A separate email reminder will be sent for short-term. 2. Members discussed options for getting more participation in the survey. iv. Exceptions & Issues 1. The exceptions committee will meet November 14 2. Submissions to be brought to the committee should be made in writing (email is fine) by October 21. v. Decade Consulting 1. Ms. Kimble mentioned that she received information from Decade Consulting introducing READI - Readiness for Education At a Distance Indicator for identifying at-risk students who may not perform well in on-line courses. The cost for 8,000 or more students is $4,000 per year. Ms. Kimble sent an email regarding this program to each DLC. Members are encouraged to take a look at this program to see whether the association would like to use it and develop a list of questions. We may have a conference call with this company at the next association meeting. vi. Update on Blackboard App Pack 3 Deployment 1. Ms. Kimble suggested that (after speaking with BB) we wait until December 29 th for deployment. There will be a full day of down time. vii. Update on Help Desk 1. Presidium was approved for purchase and will be in place for the spring term (hopefully earlier). Ms. Kimble is hoping that the association can meet with Presidium next month to begin preparing for implementation. viii. Platforms 1. Three platforms have been added to the express products list: Blackboard, Desire2Learn and Latitudes

IV.

New Business a. Strategic Planning Committee Reports i. Training:

1. Student orientation survey has been developed 2. Certified online instructor course is in progress 3. DLC training goal will be addressed after the instructor training

ii. Technology: 1. Most goals are the responsibility of the state technology contacts and they are working continually on security, bandwidth, email etc. The technology group will take a further look at plagiarism detection software and will get quotes for these applications from both a consortium and college perspective and will try to get some vendor presentations. iii. Quality: 1. Mr. Yates introduced the Quality Matters assessment from Maryland Online Consortium that would provide an objective based view of quality in online courses. (Handout provided) More information about this program can be found in the community discussion forum in Blackboard and www.qualitymatters.org . The quality subcommittee will explore a partnership with the quality matters

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