Online Student Services Planning Guide
Online Tutoring
XXXXX Community College provides peer tutoring, and writer’s clinic services primarily to students attending traditional classes on our main campus. Although distance learning students are allowed access to the peer tutoring and writer’s clinic, the availability of these services is not well known or easily attained.
No information is posted on the website about online tutoring services.
NOTE: Although XXCC does not formally offer online tutoring, limited online tutoring is available in conjunction with certain textbook purchases.
The College requested that its Higher Learning Commission Evaluation Team Visit in November of 2003 include approval for the delivery of degree programs through the use of distance-learning technology. The team members recommended that the College establish a taskforce based upon the best practices document of the Higher Learning Commission related to distance education to provide a mechanism to gather college-wide input into an implementation plan for supporting distance degree programs.
The XXCC Online Degree Taskforce was established in February of 2004. The purpose of the taskforce was to develop an institutional plan for supporting the delivery of online degrees. The taskforce was divided into five working groups to address the five sections of the best practices document. These groups were: Institutional Context & Commitment; Curriculum and Instruction; Faculty Support; Student Support; and, Evaluation and Assessment.
The Higher Learning Commission Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs provided the self-assessment framework for the taskforce study and subsequent recommendations. Included in the taskforce recommendations relating to student support issues was to “research and implement online tutoring service.”
Based on this taskforce recommendation, one of my current job responsibilities is to conduct this research and present recommendations for the implementation of an online tutoring service to complement the existing services provided by trained student tutors who are supervised by college faculty. Our institution is presently evaluating SMARTHINKING.com’s online tutoring and writer’s clinic package. We will continue to evaluate other online tutoring services and online writer’s labs based on further research.
My research has lead me to a wonderful resource published by the Instructional Telecommunications Council - Quality Enhancing Practices in Distance Education, Volume 2 Student Services. Chapter 9, “Tutoring Online to Retain Students and Promote Success” provides excellent information about other approaches to online tutoring that colleges such as Purdue (http://owl.english.purdue.edu) and Washington State University (http://distance.wsu.edu/resources/tutor/tutoring.asp) are taking. This publication also lists several issues (critical components) to be reviewed and considered in conjunction with the establishment of an online tutoring service.
Washington State’s tutoring program is also referenced as a model in the recommended resource text, “Technology in Student Affairs – Supporting Student Learning and Services, No. 112.”
A review of the Western Cooperative for Educational Technology (WCET) “Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners lead me to a closer look at the 3-year Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships (LAAP) project in which three institutional partners participated. One of the partners, Kapi’olani Community College (KCC) in Honolulu, Hawaii, developed a WCET Webcast entitled, Tutoring Online: Developing Program Based Online Learning Support Services (May 22, 2002). This webcast lists several websites as illustrations of “Building Blocks: Sample Tutoring Services in Education.” These same sites are listed in the WCET expanded resource paper on the topic of tutoring. I have not yet reviewed each of the sites, but find that Colorado Community College Online (http://ccconline.org/ ) is a good model reference website.
The Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (http://www.ctdlc.org/Student/Tutoring.html) uses eTutoring.org for their collaborative online tutoring program. Carolyn Rogers from the Connecticut DL Consortium is an instructor for the Academic Impressions web conference to be held June 15, 2006 on “Developing a Collaborative Online Tutoring Program.” Another consortium located near Nebraska, the Iowa Community College Consortium (http://www.iowacconline.org) has recently outsourced online tutoring services to SMARTHINKING.com.
Based on the outcome of my continuing research, it is my goal to present a recommendation regarding tutoring services to the collegeVice President of Student Services, et al, that will: