Five Minutes with ACHE

The 2010 conference is almost here and I’d like to take a few minutes to highlight the theme as it relates to our keynotes and symposium.  The theme for this year is Continuing Education - Reflecting Upon and Responding to the National Agenda.  Given the events in higher education over the last year, the economic situation of the U.S., and the future of our profession, I am very pleased that this year’s conference will address each of these areas through various presentations.  Our first keynote speaker, Dr. Michael Offerman, will discuss The For-Profits:  Bad Actors or Models for the Future through a comparison and contrast of not-for-profits and for-profits institutions while suggesting possible lessons we can take from both models.  Our second keynote speaker, Dr. Billy Cannaday, Jr. will build the case for action by challenging ACHE members to step up and take advantage of the opportunities around them despite the slowing economy via the presentation Stepping up to Opportunities: Building the Case for Action!  Our third keynote speaker will help us frame the future of leadership in our profession. Dr. Rita Martinez-Purson will challenge us in a thought-provoking session that may cause us to think differently about the future, which is arguably here now.  The final link to our conference theme is the closing Symposium with a panel of continuing education association leaders from the U.S. and Canada. The Symposium panel will discuss future trends in continuing education and the challenges in serving adult learners to meet the new national agenda where working adults must continuously improve their skills to advance and remain competitive in the workplace.  The Symposium will begin with a future trend forecast by Eduventures’ Managing Director, Richard Garrett, who oversees Eduventures’ Learning Collaborative programs in Online Higher Education and Continuing & Professional Education.  The conference is an opportunity for your professional growth and an opportunity to be an active participant in our changing field of continuing higher education!

We will have many door prizes from local vendors, but if you would like to provide some door prize goodies from your institution, please bring those with you and we’ll include them in the daily door prizes.  Also, if you have items from your school or organization for the conference tote bags (received by all conference attendees) please make sure they are shipped to be received no later than October 8 to: 

Park University
Glenda Holder, PDL
8700 NW River Park Dr.
Parkville, MO 64152  

We are going to try something a bit different this year.  We are going to hold a silent auction to raise funds for the ACHE Alex Charters Research Grant and Wayne L. Whelan Scholarship.   Details on the silent action will be shared the week before the conference along with a preview of the current auction items.  If you wish to donate any items to the silent auction, please bring them to the conference and send a description of the item along with a value of the item to me at roxanne.gonzales@park.edu no later than October 5th.  Our goal is to increase available scholarship monies for graduate students.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge this year’s conference sponsors and exhibitors for their support of ACHE and continuing higher education.  Please make sure to visit their booths at the conference.  If you aren’t able to make the conference, please review their services and thank them for all they do for ACHE!    

My year as president is quickly coming to an end.  This has been an exciting year for me and for ACHE.  We have established partnerships with vendors and our Canadian colleagues from the Canadian Association for University Continuing Education, which will enable ACHE to move forward with new initiatives.  We have held and participated in our first webinar both regionally and nationally with great success!  Fiscally, ACHE has experienced a solid year due to excellent management from our home office team.  I would like to thank the membership of ACHE for allowing me to serve over the last year. I’ve enjoyed visiting the regions and meeting the ACHE membership.   I would also like to thank the ACHE board of directors for their guidance, innovative ideas, and dedication to our field.  Thank you to the home office team - Ynez and Rebekah - and to Dr. Jim Pappas for his wonderful executive leadership.  Thank you to committee chairs for carrying out the business of ACHE and to the 2010 Program Planning Committee for planning the upcoming outstanding annual conference in October.   I thank you for a wonderful year, one that will continue to enrich me professionally and personally for many years to come.  I now encourage everyone to help me congratulate and welcome our incoming President Tish Szymurski!  I know she will reap the same rewards as I during her upcoming year.

I look forward to seeing you in Albuquerque!

rox 

Roxanne Gonzales
ACHE President, 2010

President Roxanne Gonzales is very interested to hear about success stories in continuing education, things that your units are doing to change the lives of adult students. In addition, we are always looking for articles on the following topics:

• Experiences in marketing a continuing education program
• A profile of a unique continuing education program at your institution
• Experiences as a professor in adult continuing education
• Article or book reviews

Proposed Amendment of Constitution and Bylaws, Article III; Section 6: (page 6)

Amend by striking out current wording and inserting new wording.

Current wording: "The Executive Vice President will submit the books of the Association to a certified public accountant for auditing at least annually."

Proposed amendment: Strike out existing Article III; Section 6 and replace with sentences below. If adopted will read:

"To monitor appropriate utilization of association funds, the Executive Vice President will request Agreed Upon Procedures at least annually in accordance with AICPA Standards appropriate to the size and scope of ACHE . The board of directors may elect to request a full certified audit as needed."

Rationale: To conserve association funds, this move would allow testing of specific financial transactions to determine that the funds of the association are being utilized appropriately, while also giving the board of directors the authority to specifically request a full certified audit at any time.

The Journal of Continuing Higher Education considers two types of articles:

• Major articles—current research, theoretical models, conceptual treatments—of up to 7,000 words on:
  • organization and administration of continuing higher education
  • development and application of new continuing education program thrusts
  • adult and nontraditional students
  • continuing education student programs and services
  • research within continuing higher education and related fields
    

Manuscripts should have both theoretical and practical implications.

• “Best Practices” articles of up to 4,000 words. These “Best Practice” articles contain descriptions of new, innovative, and successful programs or practices. The programs or practices should be replicable and of significance to continuing education.

JCHE strives to support continuing higher education by serving as a forum for the reporting and exchange of information based on research, observations, and the experience relevant to the field. Issues are published in the winter, spring, and fall. JCHE is published by Routledge.

Manuscript submission guidelines are available online at or through ACHE’s website.

Potential authors should feel free to consult with JCHE editor James Broomall, University of Delaware. He can be reached at jbroom@udel.edu or (302) 831-2795.

Please share this announcement with colleagues and graduate students who may be interested in submitting manuscripts to JCHE. The Journal has published outstanding graduate student work in the past.

Student Authentication

The HEOA legislation, as it currently stands, requires institutions that offer courses or programs through distance education to have processes in place that verify or authenticate that the student who registers in such a course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the course or program and who receives the academic credit.

Some of the initial rumors surrounding the bill suggested that institutions of higher learning may be required to adopt sophisticated and perhaps expensive technology that would serve as a bridge to verify online students as the “real” students enrolled in online courses. However, this is not the case. The HEOA simply requires institutions that offer distance education to have security mechanisms in place, such as identification numbers or other pass code information to be used each time the student participates in coursework online. This includes methods such as:

• A secure login and pass code (as through the Course Management System);
• Proctored examinations;
• New or other technologies and practices which are effective in verifying student identification.

Most learning management systems are password protected, and are thus in compliance with the HEOA. In addition, the HEOA legislation makes it clear that any authentication policy must protect student privacy and it must notify students at registration or enrollment of projected additional charges for identify verification.

So, how does this impact accreditation? Belle Wheelen, Chair of the Council of Regional Accrediting Commission, posted the following information on the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET) website earlier this year:

Accreditors are required to ensure that institutions use, at minimum, a secure login and pass code or proctored exam and, as they become available and widely accepted, new identification technologies and practices. Additionally, whatever strategies of authentication are used must protect student privacy, and institutions must notify students, before they enroll, of any additional costs that they might incur because of this verification.

In addition, Fred Lokken, Chair of the Instructional Technology Council and Russ Poulin, Associate Director of WCET, in a Magna Publications Online Seminar conducted on April 15, 2010, stated that:

They [accrediting agencies] do not have specific requirements in those areas, but they are interested in trying to find out that campuses have something in place and that they are working on it. The feeling is that presently, the regional accrediting agencies are not planning on making this a huge issue in terms of their accrediting visits coming up. But it is still a requirement that they have to report back through the DOE. The feeling is that right now, accrediting agencies are kind of in an exploration and fact finding mode at this point of time.

In summary:

• Institutions that offer online courses to students are presently in compliance with the HEOA if they have, at a minimum, a pass code/password system in place as means to authenticate students, or proctored exams, or technologies and practices which are effective in verifying student identification.
• As new identification technologies are developed and become more sophisticated, less expensive and more mainstream, accrediting agencies or associations and institutions will consider their use in the future and we can assume that institutions will be adopting these measures accordingly.
• Institutions must protect student privacy as part of the authentication process and if there are extra fees associated with this as part of the online course, students need to be made aware of this prior to enrollment.
  

Academic Integrity

The Higher Education Act of 2008 attempts to improve academic integrity in online courses through compliance. However, at Compass we believe that prevention through adopting new online teaching and governance practices is another strategy which can be used to promote academic integrity. Online learning has the reputation of being anonymous and, therefore, more prone to academic dishonesty. Good online instructional design and pedagogy are highly interactive and multi-dimensional—two strategies that also discourage cheating.

There is little research to support claims that online students cheat significantly more than face to face students. What the research does show is that there is a perception that the opportunity to cheat as an online student is greater than for their on-campus counterparts. The distance learning community is aware of this perception and, as a result is adopting best practices for online teaching to enhance academic integrity.

For example, in February, 2009, in a joint collaboration between the WCET, the UT TeleCampus of the University of Texas System, and the Instructional Technology Council published “Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education.” This document reflects exemplary principles and practices from online instructors and administrators from 170 higher education institutions in the United States in five core areas: Institutional Context and Commitment, Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty Support, Student Support, and Assessment and Evaluation. Some of these principles include:

• Use of multiple assessment techniques in place of high stakes exams.
  

  Most distance learning providers use multi-faceted assessment strategies rather than high stakes proctored exams. Assessments are designed to be frequent, varied, and authentic to the application of learning. Instructors rely on interactive discussions, writing assignments, quizzes, capstone projects, group work, and online exams. Assessments are often modified from semester to semester.

• Greater reliance on written assignments and threaded discussions.
  

  Students demonstrate learning outcomes through written assignments and interaction with the instructor via discussions. Instructors become familiar with students' writing styles through online discussions. Many online instructors report that they have greater confidence in the authenticity of their online students' work than their classroom students.

• Use of test banks, and timed test delivery.
  

  Test questions are randomly drawn from banks of questions, so each student gets a different set of questions. Most tests are designed to be open-book, but once a student begins a test, they have a limited amount of time to complete it, and usually only one attempt.

• Raising awareness among students about what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate academic behavior in an online course.
  

  Many cases of academic dishonesty arise from students’ lack of awareness, such as when it is okay and not okay to collaborate on coursework. Many providers now include in course syllabi a college’s academic integrity statement and a link to campus policies; a description of academic dishonesty and information on repercussions for academic dishonesty; links to plagiarism information as well as acceptable sources, and descriptions of permissible and non-permissible collaboration. Some colleges use an honor code approach where communities of learners discuss and agree upon honor codes for courses or programs and the use of ethical decision-making case studies as a part the curriculum.

We can all agree that these examples represent good pedagogical practice whether the course is online or face-to-face. The HEOA language has shined a spotlight on what online educators already know: academic integrity is crucial to the acceptance of online learning as a means for delivering high quality education. Institutions must be diligent in their efforts to find both a technical and a pedagogical means to ensure students’ identification and performance in online courses and programs.

References

Academic Integrity and Student Authentication. (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.wcet.info/2.0/index.php?q=node/1212

Are Your Online Students Really the Ones Registered for the Course? Student Authentication Requirements for Distance Education Providers. (2009). Retrieved from http://wiche.edu/attachment_library/Briefing_Paper_Feb_2008.pdf

Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education. (2009). Retrieved from http://wiche.edu/attachment_library/Student_Authentication/BestPractices.pdf

The Federal Register. (2009). October 27,Volume 74, Number 206, p.55413-55435

Gilman, T. (2010). Designing Effective Online Assignments. The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 22, Retrieved from http://chroniclecareers.com/article/Designing-Effective-Online-/64772/

Guidelines to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Classes (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.broward.edu/elearning/eLearning/faculty/eResources/AcademicIntegrity.pdf

Lokken, F., & Poulin, F. (2010). Changes in Federal Distance Education Policy: How You Can Respond. April 15, 2010.

Watson, G. & Sottile, J. (2010). Cheating in the Digital Age: Do Students Cheat More in Online Courses? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 13(4). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring131/watson131.html

Wheelen, B. (2010). Greetings from the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions. Retrieved from http://www.wcet.info/2.0/index.php?q=node/1309

Copyright ©2010 by Compass Knowledge Group LLC

It has become very clear in the past few decades that students learn in more than one way and that in today’s environment traditional classroom lecture approaches, while still relevant and appropriate, may not always be the best choice. Young people today begin their early pre-K educations with the rapid pacing and quick cuts of Sesame Street. Most become adept at computers before they start school. Their environment is marked by 80-channel cable television, Internet-connected computers, e-mail, CDs, DVDs, audio and video iPods, voice and data-connected cell phones, and the ever-present Facebook. They live in a world of multi-tasking and multiple concurrent demands. How staid the traditional lecture format must look to them.

We, as educators, and they, as students, can benefit from pedagogies that vary the learning style, pace, and venue to enhance learning. For that reason, more and more on-campus lecture courses are adopting “hybrid” elements that stretch the learning experience and student-teacher and student-student interactions beyond three 50-minute classroom sessions per week. They also use computer-based simulations and employ captured media to foster the educational experience, enhance retention, and make clear the real world implications of theoretical principles.

Said another way, if your car were running rough (or you had a brain tumor), would you rather take it to someone who had read about the repair process in a book or to someone who had actually opened the hood (head) and done the tune-up many times?

Student engagement gives us the opportunity to enhance students’ educational experiences and try out disciplinary theory by actually “getting under the hood” so-to-speak in the real world. Medical schools understand that, making third- and fourth-year studies function entirely “under the hood.”

Student engagement also allows us, as educators, to take any aspect of the community and make it a laboratory to enhance student learning. Available vehicles are many: internships, co-ops, clinicals, practica, community-based studios, field work, capstone courses, and, of course, service-learning. All connect students to their community and help them make the leap from academic theory to community application. The primary difference between service-learning and other community-based learning experiences (using the Carnegie terminology) is that service-learning is as interested in providing service to the community as it is in enhancing disciplinary learning. In the process, it advances both while simultaneously helping to cement the community-postsecondary school relationship. The other forms of community-based learning also require engagement with community partners, but the focus shifts toward increasing student learning with real world situations. Typically these experiences occur later in students’ academic careers when they have greater disciplinary backgrounds.

Research over the past few decades has made it clear that well planned and conducted experiential education experiences enhance learning and increase student “engagement” (with a different meaning this time: connection or sense of connectedness, using NSSE terminology) with the institution. It also increases student connection with the community, institutional retention, and graduation rates—all good things for the student, the school, and the community.

As one example, UK landscape architecture students in the five-year degree program spend their entire last spring semester working with community leaders and community members in a specific Kentucky county, planning future county land use. Brian Lee, their course instructor, spends much of the preceding semester meeting with officials, determining their needs, and gathering data. Once spring classes begin, students visit the involved county, hear the thinking of elected officials, conduct multiple community forums, and assess community needs and inclinations. Then they return to campus, wade through the data, develop and evaluate proposals, and prepare preliminary reports, charts, and presentation materials. When ready, they return to the county, formally present preliminary proposals to the community leaders and also to the people in multiple sessions, report the responses received, and rework their proposals to address concerns raised. When the semester ends, their data, reports, and presentation materials are given to the county to use as it sees fit. Typically, many elements of their proposals are adopted immediately or over time.

These students get a world-class learning experience. They apply five-years of theoretical learning in a real world setting. They learn to interact as professionals and practitioners in the field with community leaders in formal settings and with community members in multiple forums. They learn the importance of respectful interactions and good communications. They come to understand that they’ve got to bring their A-game every day, and recognize that they must abide by the wishes of their community clients. The experience assists them in moving from student roles to jobs as working professionals in the field.

The community gets a usable land use plan at no cost. They can adopt it in its entirety, piecemeal, or not at all. Whatever they choose, community leaders and members are educated in their pressing land use issues and options.

This approach provides an extremely effective pedagogy as well as a laboratory for everything the students have learned in their degree program. It also teaches them about community issues and about the process by which ideas become policy in a democracy. They learn that, despite their five-years of relevant study, their proposals won’t be adopted unless they are able to effectively address community concerns, provide convincing arguments and data to mixed audiences, stay within financial constraints, and respect community decision-making. The students will be much better practicing landscape architects for this experience.

There are other benefits as well. The community-based experience advances the students’ leadership skills and brings them face to face with the community they must convince to be successful. Regardless of the students’ major, community interactions provide extremely valuable training as well as a reminder that our society needs the leadership of its educated people.

The Morrill Act of 1862 established America’s land-grant universities; it also required that ROTC be part of the required curriculum at those schools. The clear rationale was that the country needed the leadership of its educated people. That policy remained a requirement for all male students at many postsecondary institutions until the 1960s. Even if you oppose any contact with the military, the concept remains valid. The educated people of any society are its natural leaders, and they have, or should have, some obligation to use their knowledge, ability, and resources to advance the society. Whether it’s for military service, non-military national service, day-to-day community involvement, participation in the electoral process or the local city council, or response in time of need, our postsecondary schools should be engaging students in our society, training them to participate and lead, instilling in them a commitment to giving back. It’s the antidote to the “me” generation.

It’s all there with student engagement. And you, as continuing educators, are among the natural choices to promote and oversee student engagement at your school and in your community. You live at the interface between university and community with one foot in each world.

Thanks for listening.

Join NC State in Raleigh for the 11th annual meeting as we explore how universities "Sustain Authentic Engagement."

Visit the 2010 NOSC Website for more information.

The 2010 National Outreach Scholarship Conference will explore authenticity and sustainability as critical components of engaged scholarship. The important questions of what, where, who, how, and why will be the foci of the Conference reflected in five sections: Program, Place, People, Process, and Philosophy. These focus areas invite a diversity of perspectives and experiences reflecting the academy's authentic and sustained commitment to engaged discovery, learning, application, and integration.

Sponsored by the National Outreach Scholarship Conference partner universities. View a complete list of partner institutions.

To be added to the mailing list for this conference, please email ContinuingEducation@ncsu.edu