Report of 12/5/95 Discussion
This meeting was called by the Faculty Senate Working Group on
Distance Education and Educational Technology, and co-sponsored by the
University Computing and Communications Resources Committee.
Invited speakers were:
Questions discussed included:
- Has Virginia Tech, which once led in distance education,
fallen behind?
- Will our distance learning efforts lead to quality education
as the faculty hope? How are we evaluating our efforts and
improving them?
- Is distance learning at Virginia Tech coordinated and in
a coherent fashion addressing needs and opportunities?
- How are the faculty involved in the planning for distance
learning, both in the short and long term?
- Is there a sound business plan, balancing costs and faculty time
with benefits to Virginia Tech and the Commonwealth?
- Where are the programmatic needs being identified and how
does this lead to activities? Are we focusing on our
various centers, on economic development opportunities,
responding to inquiries, following faculty ideas, or
working in coordination with Community Colleges?
- How does this connect with the Graduate School, the Colleges,
Information Systems, and the governance system?
Lucinda Roy spoke about CyberSchool (run by A&S)
and Access (funded by Sloan).
Harold Kurstedt handed out his Sept. 6 draft for "A Strategy
for 2005" and discussed key points of this.
Bruce Chaloux spoke about the Commonwealth Campus Program
and efforts of the Graduate School, in No. VA and elsewhere.
As the meeting ended, Mark Sanders and John Moore agreed to develop a
plan for "The Distance Ed Button." This would attach high up near the
top of Virginia Tech WWW pages and will be developed and supported by
John Moore starting early in 1996. Meanwhile, accumulated information
will be attached to
http://fox.cs.vt.edu/CCRC/dist/index.html