XplanaZine

This is the first in a series of profiles of e-learning programs and initiatives in colleges and universities selected as exemplary, innovative, or otherwise ground-breaking in the area of online and technology-enhanced learning. The information provided here is based on interviews, articles, reviews, correspondence, and the institutions’ own websites. It is possible that it is not complete and there may be unintentional inaccuracies, although strenuous attempts have been made to avoid errors or distortions. This is intended to be helpful and to serve as a point of departure, a jumping-off point for discussion, debate, and idea exchange. Please let me know if I’ve made egregious errors. They will be corrected. (The minor ones will be, too.) Thank you for reading.

Institution: Florida Community College at Jacksonville
Main website address: http://www.fccj.edu

Degrees and Courses Offered Online: Several associates degrees, including associates in arts, associates in science, and associates in applied sciences. In addition, FCCJ offers an “Accelerated College” in which students can gain advanced standing and college credit though tests such as CLEP tests, military experience, corporate training, certification programs, and portfolios.

The site has a very nice “one-stop shopping” portal at http://www.distancelearning.org/ which allows students, instructors, and visitors to gain an idea of what courses are offered, how to proceed, how to succeed, etc. The fonts are tiny and it is fairly easy to lose oneself in the website. Nevertheless, it is easy to navigate, and the contact names and e-mail addresses are fairly easy to find.

Advising and Degree Information: Florida Community College Jacksonville offers clear degree plan through its “Degree Road Maps,” which indicate very clearly which transfer hours and military training can count toward a degree. FCCJ is very military-friendly, and has a clear diagram which indicates which Navy training corresponds to FCCJ for-credit coursework.

Which student services are offered online?
Online Application? Yes. FCCJ offers the “Artemis” online system which allows students to register, create a username and password, and to begin the application process.
Online Enrollment? Yes, through the “Artemis” system. How to enroll is demonstrated through streaming media, for a total of 9.07 minutes. I did not have any problems accessing it via cablemodem and Windows MediaPlayer.
Financial Aid? Yes. Filing for financial aid is also demonstrated via streaming media, for a total of 4:55 minutes.
Testing and Assessment? CD-Based.
Virtual Library? Yes. FCCJ uses LINCC electronic journal access system which provides full-text article access. E-books are also available.
Online Bookstore? Yes. FCCJ works with Follett.com
Student Support? Most seem to be located in learning centers which provide training, tutors, etc. http://www.fccj.edu/current/learningcenter/index.html

Information and Guides: Distance Learner’s Handbook contains information ranging from how to succeed as an online student to student evaluations http://www.distancelearning.org/dlhandbook.html

Online Calendar: FCCJ offers 16-week, 12-week, 8-week, and 4-week sessions. There is a very long and complicated calendar with key dates listed. It is not immediately clear to the outsider why there are so many different sorts of sessions and session lengths. There are no explanations of the course length rationale on the website. It might be helpful if there were.

Online Course Schedule: Online and on-site courses are presented on the same page, with an indication of course name, number, location, dates, name of instructor, link to instructor website, mode of delivery. It is very convenient to have all courses gathered together in one master course list. There are master lists for credit courses, continuing education, and professional development certificate / enrichment courses.

Faculty Selection, Orientation, Training:
Professors who are interested in teaching online for FCCJ are encouraged to provide information and apply. There is a link on the Search/Site map http://www.fccj.edu/sitemap/index.html and also on a page I fleetingly connected with before losing contact with it as I made my way, higgly-piggly, through the labyrinth. Note: this is not a criticism of the FCCJ site. All websites seem to be labyrinths if they contain more than three or four categories of information.

Online Inquiry for Prospective Instructors: The first step involves contacting FCCJ and indicating interest. The second step involves submitting a resume.

Prospective Online Instructor Interview Process: The prospective instructor must undergo a telephone interview in which experience, familiarity with the technology, and potential responses to likely student problems are evaluated. Questions served to assess whether or not a faculty member was likely to be

a) sufficiently responsive to students;
b) patient and helpful with probably technical difficulties;
c) supportive and encouraging in an ambiguous and anxiety-producing online environment;
d) experienced in teaching the subject matter;
e) familiar with the course management software;
f) familiar with likely problems in teaching one’s expertise online;
g) aware of privacy issues and appropriate online communication.

Faculty Website: Faculty members are provided with webspace and access using MS FrontPage.

Faculty e-mail: Faculty members are given an e-mail account through the FCCJ Exchange mail server.

Faculty Blackboard account: FCCJ currently uses Blackboard 6.0.

Course Content:
Course content, syllabi, textbooks, etc. are generated by the faculty. In essence, it is a faculty-driven model, with centrally-provided online instructional support services.

Faculty Instructional Design Support: Instructional design, instructional technology, informational technology and support are made available through a central office, rather than for each individual department.

Course Syllabi Accessible to Public? No. In order to see the course syllabi, one must enter the course management system, Blackboard 6.0, unless the professor has made it available on a website via his/her individual website.

Open Source Software Initiatives: No.

Institutional e-Learning Initiatives: FCCJ is making great strides toward providing online education and services for Navy personnel.