In February, the Office of Academic Affairs launched a distance learning initiative, intended to increase enrollment, generate revenue, provide student convenience, and extend the global reach and reputation of the university. Several online courses will be developed this spring and beta-tested in summer 2019. Evaluation of the training process, methods, and support will take place, as well as student satisfaction surveys of the summer courses. Assessment data will be presented in a detailed report for review at the July meeting of the UWest Board of Trustees.
 
To ensure quality online course delivery that is equal to or superior to traditional classroom teaching and learning standards, several UWest faculty are currently undergoing what will amount to eight technical and quality assurance training workshops. Funding permitting, trainings are planned to continue into the future, beyond the first faculty cohort, since it is intended that only those UWest faculty who are trained will be certified by the Office of Academic Affairs to teach online, as a quality control measure.
 
More broadly, we seek to link UWest online course offerings with the Fo Guang Shan International University Consortium (FGSIUC) cloud system, so as to offer distance-learning opportunities to international students both within and beyond the FGS network of schools. Toward this end, UWest has begun initial conversations with Nantien Institute in Australia, informing one another of online developments to date and exploring possibilities for future co-operation in online programming. Both schools have created Microsoft Team platforms to share content and resources.
 
In order to provide demonstrable value to both domestic and global course offerings, four critical areas have been identified by the Office of Academic Affairs and the online faculty cohort: 1) team effort, 2) program quality, 3) organizational support, and 4) faculty incentives.
 
By using a team-oriented faculty cohort model, we are building positive momentum that encourages faculty to boldly step outside their professional comfort zones to explore the vast and developing worlds of educational technology and teaching at a distance.
 
The faculty cohort represents a cross-section of UWest’s academic departments. Team members include Professors Murray Johannsen and Steven O’Sullivan from the Department of Business Administration, Professor Emily Scrimshaw from the English Department’s ESL program, Dr. Brad Conn from the Department of Psychology, and Professor Joseph Rogers from the Department of Buddhist Chaplaincy. Courses to be tested this summer include “Digital Marketing,” “Business Communications,” “Research Methods,” “English Bridge, 100A,” and “Mindfulness Meditation.”
 
Intentionally stepping away from the notion of teaching as a solo-activity, the UWest faculty cohort is further supported by Instructional Design Manager Dr. Edward Shih and Technical Support Manager Professor Rafael Wu. In addition, UWest’s Institutional Effectiveness Manager Jessa Forsythe Crane will help train faculty in course quality assurance and program assessment.
 
Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Peter M Rojcewicz supervises the workshop trainings and is responsible for executing the online initiative’s objectives and strategic goals. Dr. Otto H. Chang, President of UWest, actively participates in the training sessions, providing encouragement and ongoing institutional support.
 

The online training and course development of faculty is occurring in eight weekly, 2-hour workshops facilitated by Dr. Edward Shih, UWest’s Educational Technology Manager. The workshop curriculum is as follows:
 
Session 1 Introduction to the Moodle Learning Management System, e-learning, and mobile learning from a systems point of view.
 
Session 2 Using Tools, such as Camtasia and H5P, to create video tutorials with interactive features.
 
Session 3 Use of Zoom Meeting and YouTube live-streaming to create a hybrid (Asyn and Syn) teaching and learning environment.
 
Session 4 Meet ADA Section 508 code for disabilities accessibility documents and applying ADA Compliance Testing Tools.
 
Session 5 Apply Citation Machine and Plagiarism detection tools.
 
Session 6 Handle common user technical issues in the Moodle Management System.
 
Session 7 Load course content and supporting activities to Moodle course shells.
 
Session 8 Faculty cohort members continue to load content onto the Moodle shells in preparation for the beta-testing of courses in summer 2019 and a formal launch in fall 2019.
 
From a whole-systems point of view, faculty and program support is not simply a matter of the knowledge and use of educational technology. The Office of Academic Affairs is taking several integral steps to assure the successful realization of quality standards and targeted outcomes.
 
It is essential that we set course learning outcomes and related activities, as well as authentic assessment measures and tools. We are designating numerous high impact student projects and assignments that require application of concepts in simulated and actual real-world contexts.
 
Faculty are being trained to present information efficiently and clearly in various media, in accordance with existing laws and best practices concerning copyright, fair use, and the creative commons. Faculty presentation of all course materials is to be done efficiently and unambiguously in various media, keeping in mind ADA compliance standards.
 
In addition, students are to be provided meaningful feedback on all online assignments without faculty overwhelming themselves. Support for the online initiative ultimately means that UWest holistically nurtures a cohort of online teaching faculty, as they grow professionally by exploring new learning territory.
 
Early in our campus conversations about the possibility of online education at UWest, several important faculty concerns were voiced and discussed. Some faculty members worried that subtle but rich personal interactions and communications between faculty and students might be sacrificed in favor of educational technology and online delivery of content.
 
For example, some spoke of the importance of bodily gestures, facial expressions, vocal intonations, and various extra-linguistic and non-verbal cues that often play a part in the communication that leads to learning. Others feared that the emphasis on credentialing faculty to teach online could displace the university’s commitment to whole-person education and personal attention.
 
Still others acknowledged that some students need more time or various forms of reasonable accommodations to succeed and worried that online delivery might not meet those needs. Finally, a few wondered if online education by definition was anathema to holistic, liberal arts education.
 
These faculty concerns are successfully being addressed as part of the mentoring and training workshops devised by UWest Educational Technology Manager, Dr. Edward Shih. Faculty find confidence in the fact Dr. Shih has a doctorate in online education and significant online teaching experience. His training curriculum has underscored for faculty a sophisticated student-centered approach that is highly interactive, competency oriented, and consistent with and supportive of UWest’s whole-person approach to education.
 
To further incentivize faculty to commit to online training and teaching, they will receive financial compensation. They have voiced their pleasure in collectively facing learning challenges, deepening professional knowledge, and forming professional bonds of belonging to a community of practitioners. As a result, faculty are high-spirited and confident that the courses they offer this summer will pave the way for greater enrollment and wider university recognition. In this way, UWest will effectively extend the educational vision of Master Hsing Yun further into the world.