Ideas for collaboration--digital marketplace, online communities of practice, course transformation...

[Jim Monaghan]

Hi colleagues,

Here are some areas that we are considering for the Next Generation Learning
grant.  Do any of these ideas sound like something with which your
campus would like to collaborate?

#1. Expansion of the digital marketplace project.
 a) We currently have several hundred students using eTextbooks in classes at a net savings of tens of thousands of dollars.
b) We are working closely with faculty from 3 departments on the use of
open educational resources (OER's) to provide high quality, low or no
cost instructional materials for students

At CSUSB, we have been involved in data collection and analysis of the efficacy of the efforts.

We would love to partner with other digital marketplace campuses or with campuses that are considering it.


#2. Expansion of electronic communities of practice across the CSU system.
a) We currently have over 30 online communities of practice to support
students in majors from a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from
Nursing to the Student Assistant in Learning (SAIL) program.  In the
SAIL community of practice, we have data to support that this online
community of practice (done through our learning management system) is
assisting retention of at-risk students
b) One of the communities of practice was developed to support the EdD program, in response to WASC's
concern about the presence of a "doctoral culture" among the students.

#3.  Implementation of online tutoring systems to support the Early Start
initiative.  Technologies to be scaled up would include publisher
produced materials such as MyMathLab, which is currently used by at
least one professor in the Math dept.  Also to be developed would be
learning modules that are available freely through resources including
MERLOT.

#4.  Connection with colleagues (e.g. Chico on their eLearning Academy) on programs in which faculty are supported in the
"transformation of bottleneck courses" by using innovative technologies
and pedagogies that have been shown by national studies, conducted by
Carol Twigg and others, to be efficacious in reducing cost and improving
student learning outcomes.

What do you think?