The Online Education Initiative (OEI) is a California Community College Chancellor’s Office program. In November 2014, Foothill-DeAnza and Butte-Glenn Community College Districts were awarded a 5 year grant to increase graduation and transfer rates, improving online success and retention rates and streamline the online experience. In June 2018, the grant, now known as the California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative (OEI-CVC) was awarded to Foothill-DeAnza Community College District as the sole sponsor. Additionally, sole responsibility for @One has been added to the OEI-CVC grant. These goals are being accomplished through the build of a course exchange, the development of online course design standards, training for excellence in online teaching, use of a common course management system, and providing student and academic support services.

Preparing students prior to their first online course and continuing to support them throughout their enrollment is a key component to improving online student success. A comprehensive readiness program called Quest for Online Success (Quest) is available to all 114 California Community Colleges. Eleven engaging multimedia tutorials and four interactive tools were developed under a CC-BY Creative Commons license and are available from http://apps.3cmediasolutions.org/oei/

The Quest program also includes SmarterMeasure (a diagnostic assessment), quizzes, and supplemental learning materials have been made available to students taking an OEI course since spring 2015. Schools can also link this comprehensive Quest program, which contains two pathways, one for novice and another for experienced online learners, inside academic courses to provide ongoing support services throughout the term. This is accomplished using the Redirect Tool in Canvas.

The specific education needs being addressed by the Quest program is to increase online student success and retention by preparing students prior to the beginning of their online courses and continuing to support them throughout the term.

__________________________________________

The goal of the Quest program is to improve the success rates of online students, specifically those taking online courses. While there are many metrics to measure online success, the one that continues to haunt us is the gap between online and onground rates of course completion. The growth of online learning continues with 28% college students taking at least one online course according to the Online Report Card – Tracking Online Education in the United States (Babson Survey Research Group, 2015). The Instructional Technology Distance Education 2014 Survey Results tells us that nationally online student retention is 8% lower than face-to-face instruction. That report also mentions that while the online learning environment has matured, faculty training has improved, and online course selection and degree program options have increased, effective ways to prepare first-time online students continues to be a challenge.

The Online Education Initiative Quest for Online Success Program helps students understand the expectations of online learning. It also helps them identify weaknesses and develop specific skills that improve the chance of successfully completing their online courses.

____________________________________________

The OEI has partnered with the Research and Planning Group for the California Community Colleges to evaluate the experiences of students and faculty who have participated in the Quest for Online Success program. For spring and fall terms, students were surveyed at the end of each module and then again at the end of the term. Faculty also took end of the term surveys, but the numbers of survey respondents were quite low.

The primary evaluation goals for Pathway 1, designed for novice online learners (which includes a Diagnostic Assessment, Introduction to Online Learning, Getting Tech Ready, and Becoming an Effective Online Learner) were to evaluate student satisfaction and perceptions about whether the learning modules prepared them for online success. A majority of the respondents reported that participating in this pathway would improve their chances of online success with results ranging from 83% to 91% positive responses depending on the module. The Becoming an Effective Online Learner was the module that was most well received by novice students.

The primary evaluation goals for Pathway 2 for experienced online learners (which includes Becoming an Effective Online Learner, Career Exploration, Education Planning, Instructional Support, Personal Support, and Financial Planning) was to heighten awareness of the services, to encourage students to reflect on whether they need the service, and to help students determine their next steps in each of these areas. A majority of respondents participating in this pathway reported that overall the modules were helpful with positive results ranging from 75% to 85% depending on the module being assessed.

Future improvements based on research results, include integrating a badging system that is tied to engagement in the modules and quiz results and a re-design that more clearly articulates who should be completing each of the pathways. There may be too many experienced online learners completing both Pathways.

_________________________________________

In order to meet the needs of diverse students, the original multimedia tutorials were offered in three versions: a captioned multimedia presentation, a text-only script, and an audio-only MP3 version. With the updated version, the OEI decided to create an even more accessible version of the Quest tutorials that fully utilizes the capabilities of HTML5 media, including the ability to create a highly interactive multimedia experience that is fully accessible to everyone, including individuals with disabilities. OEI hired the creator of Able Player, a fully accessible cross-browser media player, to assist in continued development of the modules.

Able Player is an open source project that itself has many additional innovative features, such as an interactive transcript built by combining time-synchronized content from the chapters, captions, and description tracks; as well as a set of preferences dialogs that enable users to customize the appearance of closed captions and define keyboard shortcuts that can be used to operate the media player from anywhere on the web page.

The use of Able Player has resulted in a Quest program that is fully accessible to students who are blind or have visual impairments who use audible screen readers, Braille output devices, or other assistive technologies to interact with computers; students who are deaf or hard of hearing who depend on transcripts and captions in order to access audio and audiovisual content; students who have physical disabilities that prevent them from using a mouse, so instead they operate the computer using keyboard alone, speech recognition systems, or other alternative input technologies; and students who have dyslexia or other learning or cognitive disabilities and therefore benefit from multimodal learning experiences that engage multiple senses. The Quest program has a level of accessibility that is matched by few if any other multimedia tools or resources in the online learning space.

During development of the latest version of the Quest tutorials, additional features were added to Able Player revolutionizing what is possible with standards-based HTML5 media. This project resulted in improvements to both the Quest tutorials and Able Player. The outcome of this partnership could result in a new generation of fully accessible online educational resources.

_________________________________________________

During the initial pilot phases, the Quest tutorials under went several revisions based on early research. For the foreseeable future, the 11 tutorials and 4 interactive tools will continue to be made available through the CC-BY license. We hope that those who use these tutorials will communicate back to the OEI what improvements they have made and how they have implemented the tutorials at their local institutions.

The comprehensive Quest program are available to all 114 California Community Colleges (CCCs).

__________________________________________

The Quest tutorials developed under a Creative Commons license have been available for institutions either to download or to connect students to either via a link to all the tutorials or to single tutorials from http://apps.3cmediasolutions.org/oei/

The license allows colleges and universities to customize and brand the tutorials for local use, but this was difficult because of the software used to develop the original version. Now that the fully accessible version has been developed using standards-based HTML5, it is much easier to download and customize each of the tutorials and embed them in local college websites or course management systems for seamless distribution to your students.

The latest version of the Quest tutorials were specifically designed to ensure that all learners, including those disabilities, are fully able to benefit from the educational materials and be better prepared for success in online courses. Any resources or services we can provide to students to increase the likelihood of their success should be fully accessible to all learners. These accessible multimedia tutorials provide a positive example that all learning technologies can follow.

_______________________________________________

We hope that other colleges and universities will use what the Online Education Initiative has developed and improve on the delivery. Statewide laws and policies within our system prevent us from making a readiness for online learning program required prior to a student’s initial online course enrollment. However, some colleges have implemented the Introduction to Online Learning tutorial in mandatory matriculation processes such as first year experience programs so students can gain an understanding of the demands of online learning before selecting their first online course.

An ongoing challenge for the OEI is ensuring that students have access to the Quest program in time to make an informed decision about whether online learning is right for them. Our research indicates that most students are being connected to the Quest program either a few days before the beginning of the term or during the first week of the term when it may be too late to change their schedule. The best delivery of a readiness solution is either well before the beginning of the semester; or, optimally at the point of registration. This requires the cooperation of the counseling, enrollment management, the distance learning and IT staff to provide early access to the readiness for online learning program.

For online support throughout the term, the OEI provides pilot schools with suggestions about how to incorporate the readiness resources into specific course assignments. This encourages students to spend time remediating weaknesses and reflecting upon and discussing with classmates ways to overcoming barriers to online success. All parts of this program except SmarterMeasure are Creative Commons licensed and are available for viewing, download, or direct link for students globally.