Annual Report 2021-2022

Randelle Sasa (2022), Punita Bhansali (2023), Merlinda Drini Prelvukaj (2023), Tony Monahan (2024), Fei Ye (2024), Humberto Morales (2024), Celia Sporer (2023), Denis Bejar (IT Academic Applications Director) 

Zivah Perel Katz (Steering Committee Designee), 

Sandra Palmer (President's Designee) 

Margot Edlin (President's Designee) 

Denis Bejar (IT Academic Applications Director) 

Punita Bhansali (2023), Merlinda Drini Prelvukaj (2023), Tony Monahan (2024), Fei Ye (2024), Humberto Morales (2024), Celia Sporer (2023), Daniel Garbin (2025), Shenaz Georgilis (2025), Gabriel Lataianu (2025) 

Susan Lago, Chair (2022) 

Zhou Zhou, Secretary (2022) 

Tony Monahan, Chair (2024) 

Punita Bhansali, Secretary (2023) 

The Bylaws of the College as approved at the Senate state that the Committee shall: 

1. Report and make recommendations to the Academic Senate on all matters related to eLearning, in particular concerning policies and procedures related to the development of, support for, and offering of fully online, partially online, hybrid and web-enhanced programs, degrees and classes; 
   1. In Fall 2021, the Committee continued the effort spearheaded by the outgoing Chair, Prof. Randelle Sasa, to coordinate with Dr. Rezan Akpinar of the Academic Development Committee (ADC) to revise the Student Evaluation of the Faculty Form. Committee members reviewed and commented on the Proposed Revised Student Evaluation of the Faculty form, Sample Policy Statement for Student Evaluation of the Faculty Form, Original Student Evaluation form, Spring 2021 ADC Survey to the Faculty Results Final Version, and PNT Student Evaluation of Faculty form. The Committee approved the changes, which were presented in the October 2021 meeting of the Academic Senate. The Senate approved the revised form on October 14, 2021. 

2. Develop and disseminate guidelines, standards, and best practices in online instruction to the College; 
   1. Due to the ongoing pandemic in Fall 2021, the Committee continued its focus on helping faculty adjust and improve their approaches to remote learning, while also taking into consideration the 70/30 return to campus in Spring 2022, which called for an increase in the number of PNT (hybrid) course offerings. For this reason, discussion of eLearning Guidelines, which had been revised under the leadership of Dr. Zeynep Akcay just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, were tabled. 

3. Serve as the faculty advisory body for the College’s program for certifying faculty for instruction in online modalities, as developed in conjunction with the Committee; 
   1. Denis Bejar, Academic Applications Director, continued to be invited to Committee meetings. In anticipation of the requirements for 70/30 in-person instruction, Mr. Bejar on behalf of the Office of Educational Technology (OET), recommended future elearning technology workshops on Hyflex teaching and Quality Matters (QM) certification. Mr. Bejar also advised that faculty are now using a wide range of free computer applications to do remote teaching.  

4. Provide standards for assessment of the quality of online course instructional designs, reviewing and revising these standards as needed; 
   1. As part of the Committee’s ongoing conversation about instructional modalities, at the April 2022 meeting, Dr. Humberto Morales developed a draft of a student HyFlex survey. Committee members also suggested some survey question ideas: (1) The level of participation comparing online and in-person in HyFlex; (2) The attention students get from professor online vs. in-person; (3) The learning outcome online vs. in-person; (4) Accessibility of the course; and (5) Some questions’ choices should be Yes/No/Occasionally/Not sure. 

5. Work on the assessment process and criteria related to the eLearning program of the College and report findings to the Academic Senate; and 
   1. In October 2021, Dr. Akpinar and Prof. Lago presented the revised Student Evaluation of Faculty form to the Academic Senate (see 1a). 

6. Serve as an advisory body for all matters related to eLearning. 
   1. As the College pivoted from fully remote learning to a modest number of in-person classes in Fall 2021, to a 70/30 ratio of in-person to remote learning in Spring 2022, the Committee worked closely with the ADC, OET, CETL, and the Academic Senate to provide support and guidance in elearning best practices. 

1. Revisit updating committee-specific guidelines, using the Committee Guide Addendum 
   1. See “Bylaws” 2a above. 

2. Coordinate with SC secretary, Zivah Katz to coordinate with Ian Beckford to address these Bylaws Charges: 
   1. In the academic year 2020-2021, Dr. Zivah Perel Katz reached out to Dr. Ian Beckford, Director of Policy Analysis for General Education regarding specific charges. The pandemic continued to impact the Committee's being able to address on this effort as the focus continued to be on pivoting from fully remote to 70/30 learning in 2021-2022. 

3. Provide standards for assessment of the quality of online course instructional designs, reviewing and revising these standards as needed 
   1. See “Bylaws” 1a, 3a, and 4a above. 

4. Work on the assessment process and criteria related to the eLearning program of the College and report findings to the Academic Senate 
   1. See “Bylaws” 1a above. 

5. Revisit your committee goal: Assess online courses to ensure parity of student success with in-person courses 
   1. Full exploration of this charge had to be tabled as the Committee focused on matters pertaining to ensuring that faculty had access to the support, technology, training, and information they needed for transitioning from fully remote to a 70/30 on-campus presence. This work will be explored in more detail in "Committee Recommendations” below. 

The eLearning Committee’s actions as initiated by the committee itself are as follows: 

1. Report on committee representation at tech fee meetings. 
   1. Prof. Lago attended Technology Fee meetings on February 4, 2022 and March 23, 2022 and reported the discussions back to the Committee. 

2. Continue to create and advertise the Brown Bag lunch seminar.  
   1. In an effort not to duplicate elearning faculty online pedagogy workshops, which were continuing to be necessary to help faculty find tools and technologies for optimal delivery of course content during the ongoing pandemic, the Committee coordinated with Dr. Dennihy and Dr. Akpinar of the ADC, and CETL, to offer a series of Brown Bag workshops in December 2021 as follows: 
      1. December 1, 2021: Fei Ye: A Practical Guide to Markdown and Tools. Description: Markdown is a lightweight markup language that can be used to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents It is the popular markup language that people use it to create websites, documents, books, and presentations. For example, my website, and those online books and slides were built using markdown or its extension R markdown. In this presentation, I will introduce the syntax of Markdown, the easy to use editor Typora, the universal document converter Pandoc, the static site generator Hugo, and the cloud computing and website hosting platform Netlify. If time permits, I will also introduce the version control system git, the repository hosting platform GitHub, the app GitHub Desktop, and R Markdown. 
      2. December 8, 2021: "eLearning Modalities Panel" 
         Introduction: Susan Lago; Facilitator: Rezan Akpinar. This panel discussion will help participants understand the differences between the various elearning modalities, including:  Fully online (FNT) asynchronous; Fully online (FNT) synchronous; Hybrid/PNT (PNET); Hyflex. Panelists will share their experiences teaching in these modalities and then take questions from workshop participants. Panelists: Hybrid: Lorraine Cuppelli; Madiha Shameem; Synchronous: Patrick Wallach, Valerie Peyer: Isabella Lizzul; and Brigitte Tilley 

2. In Spring 2022, the eLearning Committee coordinated with CETL to offer the following workshops: 
   1. April 27, 2022. Presenter: Fei Ye. “Customizing OER Books on LibreTexts.” LibreTexts is a popular accessible online textbook platform that include open libraries in Biology, Business, Chemistry, Engineering, Humanities, Mathematics, Physics, Medicine, Social Sciences and Statistics. Books on Libretexts feature many interactive visualization and exercises for learning.  In this workshop, the presenter will demonstrate how to create a customized textbook using the OER remixer of the platform. 
   2. May 5, 2022. “The New Normal: eLearning and Transitioning to Hybrid and Hyflex Pedagogy.” Presenters: Randelle Sasa (Nursing) and Susan Lago. Presenter will discuss elearning tools and strategies that were utilized during the pandemic and how we can utilize those tools as we transition to in-person teaching modality. Presenter will also demonstrate how to record lectures and use interactive tools to comply with 70% in-person 30% online teaching requirements. 

2. Continue to create and disseminate the Committee Newsletter. 
   1. Using the new HTML template developed by Mr. Dave Moretti at the request of former Chair, Prof. Sasa, the Committee continued to put out a biannual newsletter for 2021-2022. Coordinated by Dr. Punita Bhansali, the December 2021 issue included an interview with Dr. Kevin Kolack by Dr. Bhansali, as well as an article, “The challenge of teaching physical activity classes online,” by Dr. Tony Monahan. The newsletter also includes links to the eLearning Website, “What is eLearning?”, eLearning Guidelines, and Faculty Resources. 
   2. In Spring 2022, Dr. Zivah Katz followed up with the Marketing Department and found out how to submit a form to Web Services to share the eLearning Newsletter with the campus community. 
   3. The Spring 2022 issue, which will come out at the end of the Spring semester, will include a "resource guide” put together by Dr. Fei Ye on alternative grading systems. Dr. Monahan submitted an article about his Virtual International Program. 
   4. Discussions in the May 2022 meeting focused on including links and information for OET’s faculty online pedagogy offerings as well as CETL workshops. 

3. Maintain website with meeting minutes and agenda. 
   1. The eLearning Committee webpage was jointly managed by the Committee chair and secretary.
   2. Dr. Bhansali and Dr. Monahan were given access to Cascade’s newsletter template. 

As our campus navigates the transition from emergency remote learning due to the pandemic, through a 70/30 radio of in-person instruction to online instruction, to a resumption of “normal” campus activities, the eLearning Committee has an opportunity to revisit some previous charges that were set aside due to Covid-19, and to attend to new business as well. 

1. Develop and disseminate guidelines, standards, and best practices in online instruction to the College; 
   1. The Guidelines were last substantially revised under the leadership of Dr. Akcay prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to the emergence of remote learning and support systems in response to the crisis, the guidelines may want to reflect lessons learned and opportunities for furthering the goals of the Committee. 

2. Coordinate with Steering Committee secretary to coordinate with Ian Beckford to address Bylaws Charges. 

3. Continue to provide standards for assessment of the quality of online course instructional designs, reviewing and revising these standards as needed. 
   1. In conjunction with OET, the ADC, and CETL, the Committee may want to review standards for assessment of various modalities, such hybrid (PNT) and hyflex, including the application of the QM Rubric. 
   2. Due to the quick shift of the teaching modality during the pandemic, courses are labeled with FNET, PNET, synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid and the new HyFlex forms. There is confusion about all these terms regarding their exact definitions, the differences between them, and how to comply with the requirements of each instruction method. 

4. Work on the assessment process and criteria related to the eLearning program of the College and report findings to the Academic Senate 

5. Assess online courses to ensure parity of student success with in-person courses. 
   1. This charge may be the most important one as QCC helps faculty, staff, and students readjust to on-campus in-person instruction as well as continuing to offer remote learning options, including FNT, PNT, and hyflex. Technologies and tools, such as Zoom, became widely used during the pandemic as a stopgap measure, but now there is a need to attend to issues having to do with attendance, participation, and academic integrity in the online learning space.  

It has been my honor to serve as Chair of the eLearning Committee for the academic year 2021-2022 with such dedicated, committed members as Randelle Sasa, Punita Bhansali, Merlinda Drini Prelvukaj, Zhou Zhou,  Tony Monahan, Fei Ye, Humberto Morales, and Celia Sporer. Although we had to meet remotely, committee meetings ran smoothly and productively. Our non-voting members were Zivah Perel Katz, Sandra Palmer, Margot Edlin, and Denis Bejar who provided greater context and understanding surrounding the Committee's charges. No student representatives attended meetings this academic year. 

Under the guidance and support of our outgoing Chair, Prof. Randelle Sasa, I was able to quickly carry on the work of the Committee. Our secretary, Dr. Zhou Zhou, recorded our minutes, submitted them promptly to the Chair, and uploaded them onto Cascade. Dr. Punita Bhansali was exceptionally dedicated to the coordination and publication of the eLearning newsletter and Dr. Fei Ye and Dr. Tony Monahan contributed to both the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 issues. Along with Dr. Bhansali, Dr. Monahan and I attended online training for the newsletter conducted by Mr. David Moretti. Dr. Ye also volunteered to share his online pedagogical knowledge by presenting in both the Fall and Spring Brown Bag Workshops.  

We met on the second Thursday of each month via Zoom at 3:10. In the Fall semester, we met on Sept 9, 2021; Oct. 14, 2021; Nov. 11, 2021; and Dec. 9, 2021. In the Spring semester, we met on February 10, 2022; March 10, 2022; April 14; and May 12, 2022. Minutes were recorded by Dr. Zhou and uploaded onto the eLearning Committee webpage via Cascade. 

Three members’ terms expired at the end of the Spring semester, including myself, Prof. Sasa, and Dr. Zhou. I am deeply appreciative of their work on behalf of the Committee. The April meeting saw Dr. Monahan unanimously elected as Chair and Dr. Bhansali as secretary. The three new members are Dr. Daniel Garbin, Prof. Shenaz Georgilis, and Dr. Gabriel Lataianu. The May meeting was held with both old and new members, but unfortunately, none of the new members were able to attend. The outgoing members were thanked, and our new officers welcomed in their new roles.  

I am deeply thankful to have had the opportunity to work with each member of the Committee. I am proud of all we accomplished this year, despite the ongoing pandemic. Thank you all! 

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