Faculty Recruitment for DEDOS -- meeting with Communications Department Head

I met with communications Department head, Professor Elmer González and Sylva Alvarez, DEDOS Coordinator.  The Communications Department, along with the Business Administration Department, have the majority of students enrolled at USC.  Since Title V project is attending to that population, cooperating with these two departments heads is crucial for the Project's success.

The specific reason for the meeting was to make sure the faculty in general, among whom participants will be recruited, understand what participation in the Project would entail.  We want all faculty to have the same information, to avoid misunderstandings and ensure faculty buy-in.  I began by explaining the need to make distance education that is highly interactive, assessment rich and standard-based.  

Next we discussed what could prevent faculty buy-in, namely the compensation of 1,500 for designing a new course for DEDOS.  This is certainly not competitive, and many faculty members would not be willing to work for that amount.  However, certain factors have to be considered.  A number of courses are already fully web, and many are hybrid online courses.  These have only to be enhanced with interactivity and assessment.  In the case of the courses that have to be created,  faculty will work as a team, which would make work easier and responsibility would be shared.  Additional compensation (monetary or otherwise) could be obtained from USC, such as substituting their work in the Project for a course.  .

DEDOS will do a pilot with 6 courses (2 from communications, 2 form Business Adm. and 2 from the general education core curriculum).  Prof. González and Sylvia selected CMU 318 (Profs. Barreiro and M. T. Martínez) and CMU 130 Prof. Nitza Luna.  However, professors who originally created hybrid or fully web course have intelectuall rights and will be consulted first.  they could recommend anothe faculty member if they will not participate in the Project.

A very important course, according to Prof. González, both as introduction to the discipline and a factor for retention, is CMU 101.  However, it is being redesigned and merged with CMU 103.  Therefore, we decided to postpone the fully web design to year two of the Project, january 2012.    Prof. González and Sylvia will contact the selected faculty. 

Sylvia then mentioned the importance of creating a protocol for students who have special situations will follow to obtain access to a fully web course, as specified by the Project's proposal.  I clarified the future use of the learning objects, wich will be stored in a repository available to all USC community.
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January 24, 2011

I met with Business Adm. Head, Prof. José Pagán, with the same purpose as I did with Prof. Elmer González: to clarify atrategies for faculty buy-in and choose courses for DEDOS pilot.  The issues discussed were the same as in the first meeting, and the courses will be ADM 102- Profs. Damaris Pagán and Llompart and ADM 350- Profs. Eddie Rivera and Rivera Delgado.  Prof. José Pagán will contact Profs. Rivera Delgado and Eddie Rivera.  Pagán and Llompart have already been contacted.