Home

Services/Samples

Subscribe

SurfingThroughNoise

4/06

DISCOVERING IF YOUR STUDENT SERVICES PROVIDED ONLINE
ARE UP TO SPEED
In our modern digital world, where savvy students are tethered to the Internet for the vast majority of their information, entertainment and communication needs, providing top-notch student services online has grown into a vitally important element of an institution’s ability to effectively conduct business. Institutions can now find guidance in this area of their strategic planning through the new Center for Transforming Student Services (CENTSS), which this month officially launched a sophisticated “audit tool” service for measuring and benchmarking the effectiveness of online student services in 20 key areas, ranging from academic advising, catalog production, and library services to orientation processes, registration services, and tutoring. MORE

GOING FROM A BASIC SURVEY TOOL
TO THE CENTSS WEB-BASED AUDIT TOOL
The survey tool started to take on a life beyond MnSCU when its Minnesota Online division won a WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award in 2004 for helping to create the audit tool and successfully piloting it during the summer of 2003. The recognition brought inquiries from other institutions seeking to get access to the tool, which became the catalyst for converting it to its current Web-based CENTSS environment, which was built by Seward, Inc. MORE

WHAT IT COSTS
CENTSS offers a number of options for licensing its audit tool. MORE

TRENDS IN STUDENT SERVICES PROVIDED ONLINE
What are some of the trends in the world of student services online? “There is certainly more of a trend toward interactivity,” says Patricia A. Shea, WCET’s assistant director. “We are seeing more live chat and other types of instant messaging.” MORE

PROJECT SAIL EXPANDING
Colleges that don’t have the means to develop specialty workforce development courses and programs offered at a distance in disciplines that may fill an education need or desire in their local communities can look no further than Project SAIL, a Sloan-C and League for Innovation in the Community College initiative that is quickly gaining ground, primarily at the community college level, but also moving into the four-year higher education space. MORE

THE HANDBOOK OF BLENDED LEARNING
If you are interested in acquiring a keen understanding of how blended learning works in a wide variety of institutions throughout the world, read “The Handbook of Blended Learning: Global Perspectives, Local Designs,” edited by Curtis J. Bonk and Charles R. Graham, published by Pfeiffer, an imprint of Wiley, 2006. MORE

MORE ON USING BREEZE
We devoted a good chunk of last month’s issue to Breeze Presenter and Breeze Meeting, and this month we take this topic a little bit further with a synthesis of an interview we had with Ellen Wagner, senior director of Worldwide eLearning Solutions with Adobe Systems, and an example of Breeze adoption from Mesa Community College. MORE

Copyright. All rights reserved. Lorenzo Associates, Inc., P.O. Box 74, Clarence Center, NY 14032.