PROJECT EAGLE I (Part B), "online learning project"

STATEMENT OF WORK

1. Synopsis
   

   The original Project Eagle (P116Z990010) was a multi-year strategic initiative by St. Petersburg College (SPC) to build a national model for increasing access to four-year degrees and work force training for students attending community colleges. The project continued from 1999-2003. Upon its conclusion in 2003, Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) began and it provided additional funds to move from an anytime, anywhere leaning environment to an everywhere, all-the-time learning environment. The current project is a continuation and extension Project Eagle II, which gave St. Petersburg College the impetus for the current undertaking. Since this is a continuation of Project Eagle II, and Congress named this appropriation “Project Eagle I”, the label (Part B) will be added to distinguish it from the previous projects. Please see the schemata below for a timeline of the various related projects.

   Timeline of Project Eagle grant's active years from 1999-2007

   Grant	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
   Project Eagle P116Z990010
   Project Eagle II P116Z030112
   Project Eagle I (Part B) P116Z040272

   
   

   To review, Project Eagle II secured salaries for personnel only for year 1 of its four-year period. In each of the years 2004-2007, because the personnel category was not funded as it was necessary to pay wages, the levels of program accomplishments were scaled back. As was stated Project Eagle II, “Other external funding is expected to support the program after completion of its start-up this coming year. The remaining positions in Project Eagle II after Year 1 will be supported with a combination of institutional funds, grant monies, and Project Eagle II monies.” Project Eagle I (Part B) will allow for the full achievement of the program objectives from the previous project and more. The two projects by design will coalesce on some of the objectives as stated in the previous proposal and quoted in the budget section of this proposal. Through this appropriation, SPC will be able to automate and enhance its television Broadcast operation, purchase software for a student-based Internet portal, and sustain the goals and objectives of the previous award.

   Over the next three years (July 2004 – June 2007), with the funds from Project Eagle I (Part B), St. Petersburg College proposes to:

   • Enhance the SPC Television Broadcast operation through the use of digital storage and automation;
   • Develop a robust college portal that integrates all electronic student services and is supplemented by a help desk so it becomes the one stop shop for students needing online support and information.
   • Formulate, implement, and disseminate an evaluation process of a nationally awarded outstanding distance education program.

   As a continuation Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and through the additional funding from Project Eagle I (Part B), St. Petersburg College will sustain the following goals and objectives:

   • Extension and continuation of online course and expand program development at the certificate, associate and baccalaureate levels;
   • Analysis and enhancement of current online courses to encompass innovative technologies;
   • Explore, test, and implement (in new and existing courses) models for standards-based learning objects, mobile computing and production activities, and video-on-demand;
   • Consolidate and integrate electronic academic and student support services;
   • Serve as a model for best practices and evaluation techniques, including the development of a formal comprehensive ongoing system for assessing quality of online programs and instructors.

   SPC will accomplish these objectives by:

   • Transferring all of the videotape library to digital files;
   • Integration of live promos and live programming on SPC-TV;
   • Design and implement an online support service standards
   • Formulate and implement an online student code of civility.
   • Create and implement an evaluation tool for Educational Technologists.
   • Focusing on the trend toward mobility in computers in both capturing educational materials and developing applications for mobile devices like PDA’s;
   • Providing support for faculty during transition from the current course management system to the new one;
   • Adding to the repository of reusable learning objects/shared content objects and provide leadership in the national debate on evolution of standards, e.g., SCORM and other compliance issues like ADA, in this arena;
   • Extending of a multi-phased video initiative, including newly developed educational materials, to be incorporated in classes and developed for SPC-TV, and refining the systems for archiving, organizing, and utilizing a video-on-demand (VOD) system partially purchased with Eagle I funding;
   • Creating model courses that include these new technologies and applications; then refining the concept of mentors to work with the Educational Technologists to extend/expand training initiatives;
   • Augmenting cyberservices for online students to include cybertutoring;
   • Refinement of a database driven interface that allows for regular updating of information for Project Eagle courses in development and redevelopment;
   • Additional purchasing and upgrading, where appropriate, equipment and software for faculty and course development to take advantage of video applications and infrastructure advances;
   • Through project and contractual staff, developing, and testing a methodology for assessing learning outcomes and using the results to improve learning, including an ongoing research evaluation and dissemination component.
     
     
2. Background
   

   Since this is a continuation of previous Congressionally directed funding, this background statement recalls the previous Project Eagle background statement. St. Petersburg College (SPC) has been a major player in the educational arena in Pinellas County for 77 years. It has responded to educational needs in Pinellas County with innovative approaches to the needs of its more than 60,000 students per year in credit and non-credit programs at its four comprehensive campuses and three special-purpose centers for health, law enforcement and corporate training. SPC spans the County’s 280 square miles serving nearly a million people in the southeast’s most densely populated county.

   As Pinellas County moved from a tourism-based economy to a much more diversified economy, including being home to the state’s second highest concentration of both high technology and small manufacturing industries, demand for new flexibly delivered programs to an increasingly highly skilled workforce escalated dramatically. In response, in 1999 SPC secured support for the first Project Eagle which developed more than 160 online courses for addressing educational demands, including a full AA degree and several AS workforce programs. The University Partnership Center (UPC) was created, bringing 52 full bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree programs from 14 college and university partners to Pinellas County. In 2001, SPC singularly was granted the authority by the Florida Legislature to begin offering bachelor’s degrees in three critical needs areas: teacher education, nursing, and technology management beginning in fall 2002. Due to the advancements of Project Eagle and other online learning alternatives, students are no longer bound to the County’s boundaries.

   To provide leadership to the developmental side of this initiative, the College built an educational technology team which consists of subject matter experts (SME’s); Instructional Technologists who would work on course management templates, training, storyboarding, and the pedagogical constructs; and Technology Design Specialists who created the graphics and the technical tools and effects that brought the courses their multimedia appearances and interactivity. Then to provide leadership, continuity, and responsibility on the operational side, the College created eCampus, a separate organizational entity charged with organizing and managing the College’s electronic course offerings.

   The result of concentrating efforts on both developmental and operational fronts has proven effective. From 1999 to 2003, the duration of the original Project Eagle, eCampus’ growth has been phenomenal. In fall of 1999, eCampus enrolled 534 students; by fall 2003, enrollment reached 11,980 students, an increase of 467%! Last year SPC topped the other 27 community colleges in Florida by a large margin: more than 18,000 student enrollments in 1,112 sections of over 240 different courses. And the satisfaction level of eCampus students, indicated by results of the College’s 2002 “Enrolled Student Survey,” was the highest of any SPC site. The crowning achievement eCampus occurred when SPC won two prestigious awards from American Association of Community College’s Instructional Technology Council this year: a full-time faculty member received the Outstanding Faculty Member Award and eCampus was named “America’s Outstanding Distance Education Department.”

   As both the students and the College have adjusted to eCampus’ meteoric growth, demand has accelerated for even more courses and programs, for continual technological- and application-upgrading of existing courses, and for better integration of student and academic support services.

3. Narrative for PROJECT EAGLE I (Part B) “online learning project”
   

   Since the College was awarded its first Project Eagle funds in 1999, several circumstances have converged helping to fuel the success of the original Project Eagle. At the same time that local area traffic and geographic inaccessibility became impediments to convenient access to higher education, there was a continuing concern that Pinellas County was underserved, especially in upper division programs available through multiple learning modalities. These issues are being addressed by the new high tech Seminole Campus, organized to house all the major academic and administrative technology operations of SPC; in 2005, a joint-use facility for College and county high-tech and economic-development training will open.

   Building on the strengths of earlier efforts, with Project Eagle I (Part B) SPC proposes to address the new needs described below.

   1. Master Control Automation and Digital Storage System
      

      A major objective of Project Eagle II was to enhance online courses. It was addressed by one increasing use of video-on-line within the online courses and college educational materials overall. With the escalating number of faculty and courses using the College’s video services, it’s become increasingly difficult to manage the resources. In order to manage the content, SPC’s Television Broadcast operation will be digitized and automated. The multiple benefits are as follows:

      • Unattended operation 24/7 capability
      • Enhanced reliability Compressed storage of media
      • Less tape machine maintenance Automated satellite recording
      • Streamlined operation Automatic insertion of promotional interstitials
      • More efficient use of existing personnel, if not some reallocation

      Many of these benefits will be realized immediately. If batch encoding and existing personnel are used, the entire library could be transferred to digital files in a matter of months. Once the content is digitized, a daily schedule can be generated in 1-2 hours per day greatly freeing up existing personnel for other responsibilities. During normal working hours, casual monitoring will be performed. Even so, the equipment will have the capability of notifying via phone, beeper or alarm if a program interruption occurs. It also will have the capability of switching to a back-up program source: DVD, CG or MPEG loop in the interim. The quality of the signal will be limited to the quality of the original programming. Thus, it will not improve the quality of the ¾” masters. It will, however, improve as SPC moves into a DVcam production format. The use of automation alone will make the College channel more professional in appearance by adding promos, live programming when possible, other interstitial elements such as Public Service Announcements, and possibly going to a 24/7 operation. In addition, the transition to extended video resources will mean a change in the operational duties of the “TV techs” who currently monitor the “control room”. The automation supported through Project Eagle I (Part B) will result in the shifting responsibilities for these “techs.” Additional video library tasks will be accomplished without new personnel.

   2. Develop a Robust College Portal
      

      St. Petersburg College continually strives to improve its online services to students, faculty and staff. Although SPC has its own website, having a singular portal that integrates all electronic services for students to access has many advantages, noted in the following:

      • Becoming a one-stop shop for students needing online support and information;
      • Being a single, role-driven login will allow seamless integration of all information and web-enabled systems, such as a student system, online course delivery, email, etc., for students, faculty and staff;
      • Offering customized events listings, messages, etc. that can be delivered based on assigned role to students, faculty, or staff;
      • Being able to customize the view they see and to add links to frequently used web resources outside the college as well, resulting in a personalized home page that will draw users back to it regularly; and
      • Enabling simplified navigation of self-service system features for students and faculty.

      SPC has explored various portal options, including development of our own web front-end. While in-house development could be cost effective, it is labor-intensive and does not provide for a true portal that enables automatic integration of services and functions. JA-SIG's free uPortal is appealing for its lack of cost, but provides no functions or design, only the portal shell. The PeopleSoft Portal, although requiring extensive set-up and customization, provides many desirable features automatically + the flexibility to develop and integrate many features besides those linked to PeopleSoft. The software decision-making will occur within a month of the project’s start date. Event Calendar, search of SPC sites, contact directories, check class schedule, and view class rosters are some of the features that could be implemented in the portal.

   3. Formulate an Evaluation Process for a Model Distance Education Department
      

      SPC has emerged as one of the leading institutions for distance education as demonstrated by enrollment statistics and national awards received. The College is continually researching avenues to improve its service, delivery, and instruction to students. Given its newfound stature and its needs-driven concerns, SPC is an appropriate institution to formulate a set of evaluation tools. Once developed, these documents will be disseminated to other colleges and institutions via Project Eagle’s web site and through Best Educational Electronic Practices (BEEP)s. As part of a formative evaluation process, SPC will develop an evaluation tool by which the educational technologists can fashion faculty training, assistance, and other technology-related business.

      A growing concern in the online environment is the behavioral standards by which the distance education department functions. Normally institutions have a well-established set of standards for face-to-face operations; however, since distance education is still rather new, written policies are still emerging. Additionally, students who may otherwise not raise concerns in a face-to-face situation are more vocal and sometimes abrasive or even disrespectful or profane in the online environment. As a model distance program, SPC will develop and disseminate a set of service standards for all departments dealing with online students, including counseling, advising, business, instructional, support staff, library, and the helpdesk. A student code of civility will be composed for online behavior for bulletin board postings, chat rooms, email, online course obligations, cheating, and plagiarism. As the medium evolves, so will other evaluation tools to address newly identified needs.

      As a continuation of the previous project (P116Z030112) and through the additional funding from Project Eagle I (Part B), St. Petersburg College will sustain the following goals and objectives:

      1. Build New Online Courses and Programs
         

         During the three years of Project Eagle I (Part B), SPC proposes to develop 120 new online courses with project funds: 40 in each in of the three years. It was stated in Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) that 20 courses will be developed in the years 2005, 2006, and 2007, but with the additional funds from this project the number will double for the three overlapping years. These courses, including some full programs, will be at both the associate- and bachelors- degree levels, primarily in the high demand workforce area, including some incumbent worker training. Limited non-credit courses for the business community may also be created.

         In addition to SPC faculty, funds will be provided through partnership agreements to other colleges’ and universities’ faculties who might develop online, interactive and/or blended learning classes through the University Partnership Center. As part of the new program development, the expanded Educational Technology team will create model courses to serve as templates for standards and use of upgraded techniques and tools.

      2. Enhance Existing Online Courses and Programs
         

         While many of the online courses in SPC’s current “inventory” were being created, so were the processes to ensure proper pedagogy and interactivity. Many of the techniques and tools used to identify weakness and support changes were in their infancy or non-existent.

         With Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B) funds, SPC proposes to infuse existing courses with better communication tools, in addition to the content enhancement noted in item “3,” which follows. Also, a database-driven interface will be revamped that enables regular updating of information for Eagle’s courses as they are developed or redeveloped. Faculty-development activities will be included to improve the faculty’s effectiveness when using new processes/tools and making content more robust.

      3. Develop and Integrate Powerful New Courses Elements
         

         Both existing and new courses will benefit from contents enhancements using advances in technology, institutional capabilities, and infrastructure upgrades for hardware, software and personnel. Support for specialized hardware and software, for use both by faculty and ET/IT staff, result in major enhancements in three areas: reusable learning objects, use of video, and use of mobile applications.

         1. Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs)
            Also known as Sharable Content Objects (SCOs), RLO’s are small segments, modules or mini-lessons that can be developed, used and reused as they are imbedded in numerous courses. The college is committed to continuing efforts to create 50 - 100 RLO’s during each year of the project. Training on use of the College’s RLOs will be emphasized throughout the term.
            
            
         2. Greatly Enhanced Use of Video
            

            Since the advent of the initial Project Eagle, there probably have been more significant advancements in the potential use of video, including expanded bandwidth, than in any other area. Through support from Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B), SPC proposes to launch a multi-faceted effort to make more effective use of video in online courses and educational materials overall. Video production capabilities will be developed to expand educational programming in SPC-TV. These enhancements will be made using production facilities already constructed on the Seminole Campus and equipped, in part, with funding from Project Eagle I. Both Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B) will support increased staffing as well as mobile production equipment for field “shots” and on-site streaming from anywhere at the College (and beyond)! The equipment and staffing will provide a rich array of content and the ability to create course segments and learning objects anywhere within SPC.

            VOD (Video-on-Demand) equipment and software, already available at SPC, will be supplemented to establish, organize, process, distribute, and manage that content. This enhancement will provide all faculty ready access to significant video resources for classes across the curriculum and all delivery methods.

         3. Mobile Applications
            

            The widespread adoption of simple, low-cost wireless connectivity promises to fundamentally challenge the way we deliver and access learning. No longer tethered by wires or bound by even an 8-10 pound notebook computer, we are now able to find better and more efficient ways to present experiences/learning outside the classroom than ever before. As part of Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B), SPC proposes to develop applications and tools for the next generation of Personal Data Assistants (PDAs) and other mobile Personal Computers (PCs) so distance/online learning can truly be “everywhere, all the time.”

            Both the PDA applications’ development and the mobile video equipment serve to underscore the innovative nature of the project: not only access to learning “on the spot” and “as it happens”, but also being able to archive video for future learners. And all these assets will be integrated with the “next generation” course-management system secured by the funding, which will give the College the ability to share materials across courses and upload materials with ease.

      4. Consolidate and Integrate Electronic Academic and Student Support Services
         

         The Project Eagle support allowed SPC to create electronic applications across the range of academic and student support services: applications, registration, testing, financial aid, orientation, library services, etc. Last summer SPC launched the Peoplesoft Student Records System and both Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B) are proposed to integrate the smaller electronic applications within the larger system; more importantly, to integrate the new course management system with Peoplesoft.

         Both Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B) will support trained staff at the College’s Help Desk to address questions and technical difficulties of online learners as well as a programmer who, in addition to the integration tasks noted above, will spearhead SPC’s effort to build personalized information systems for all students via a new SPC portal. The portal will need to be interactive and customized, providing access to the full range of services referenced above as well as individual student information on items like grades and courses — a tool to consolidate information and services with quick, easy, secure access to personal data.

         Through the purchase of software tools and assignment of dedicated staff, Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B) also will help to support a personal connection for online students through the availability of a cyberadvisor, supplemented with tutorial software.

      5. Conduct, Research, Evaluate and Disseminate Information on Best Practices and Learning Outcomes’ Assessment for Online Learning.
         

         In order to monitor progress and evaluate outcomes, both Project Eagle II (P116Z030112) and Project Eagle I (Part B) will include a formative and summative evaluation process, and will both collect and disseminate information on best practices. The specifics on the College’s evaluation plan related to Eagle I (Part B) are included in Section 4 of this document.