1.2: Lane Online Guidebook

What's Online vs. Hybrid?

What's Online?

Online classes at Lane have traditionally meant classes that have 100% of their content offered through the Internet. Most of the time, that means that course content, interaction, and grades are handled through Moodle, our Learning Management System. Online courses have an additional course fee for students ($10- per credit, capped at $50- per course) that supports online course development.

At Lane, we use a set of best practices built into the SUNY Online Course Quality Review rubric (OSCQR) as the basis for development and training. These standards are based on research into online teaching and learning, and many echo practices that good teachers use no matter where they're teaching, whether in person or online.

What's Hybrid?

A hybrid course offers at least some portion (we do not have a set percentage) of its content and interaction through online means. Usually, this has meant that the class has one or two scheduled in-person meetings each week, though now that we've worked with a variety of modalities, there may be some new creative solutions to how hybrid courses are scheduled and function.

It's important to understand that hybrid courses require interaction and engagement both online and in-person; a course that only posts resources or readings online, or that uses Moodle as an assignment dropbox, would not qualify as a truly hybrid course. Hybrid courses are also expected to use the OSCQR as a model for course building and delivery.

Distance Education Course Modalities

With the advent of a pandemic environment, Lane found it necessary to extend the course modalities list to include variations on online, online w/inperson testing,   hybrid, live-stream, and hyFlex. Any course using online technology is currently considered a Distance Education course.

To view the list with descriptions (student-facing) see Distance Education Course Modalities.

Who are our students?

This has meant that students in online courses usually had more opportunities than may be obvious to access some in-person campus services (though this was limited by the campus closure during the pandemic). It also points to the many reasons that students take online courses. It's not always a choice because they physically can't come to campus; online may be the only option for students who can't find a class at the time they need, or they may feel more comfortable in a class where discussion happens through technology. 

On the other hand, nearly a quarter of students live outside of Lane county, and in *fall 2019, nearly 700 students who took online classes did not have access to main campus resources. Lane Online and the Academic Technology Division have worked hard to provide services for students who can't make it to campus, but the services are only useful when students know about them. It's vital that online faculty provide information, whenever possible, about the support that students can access. 

*Pandemic numbers are hard to gauge. We will post current information for 2022-23 as soon as it is available. 

Video: An online student reflects

Who are our students: Pandemic Edition

The sudden move to remote and online instruction for Spring and Summer 2020 highlighted a little known fact: Many of our students were already "online" students in some ways. Many face-to-face classes at Lane required students to access resources or assignments on Moodle even before this was necessary for safety.

However, just as there's a pretty big difference between accessing a Moodle reading here or there and taking an entire class on Moodle, so, too, is there an enormous difference between making use of a few Moodle features to support an in-person course and teaching online.

Before Spring 2020, the students who took online courses had one big difference from those who have enrolled during the pandemic: They did so intentionally. Students who signed up for online in Fall 2019 or Winter 2020 knew they'd be receiving all course information and interaction through their computer, and they were able to plan for this.

COVID-19 continues to affect our communities and our work, and the situation is now flexible. As a result, students want more choices in how they'll take their classes. What hasn't changed is our commitment to helping them learn in the best way possible -- whatever technical means are required.

Are online courses for me? A student perspective

In past online development classes, we've talked about how students may need to prepare to be online. This fall, we have a special set of circumstances: all students will, to some extent, be online students. Faculty can help students by including information about support resources early and often in their online classes.

In Week 0-1:

Recommend the Lane Online resources below:

Instructors are the best source for this information! Add the following to a course welcome email or your first announcement to help students start on the right path:

Is this your first online course, or are you anxious about how to succeed online? The resource Keep Learning web page will help you find the support and answers you need.

In Weeks 2-10:

Who are our faculty?

If you had never taught online at Lane before Spring 2020's emergency shift, the setup of our online instruction department may be confusing. Like many community colleges, Lane has no separate division that coordinates the assignments or hiring of "online" faculty. Instead, any faculty member at Lane (full- or part-time) can teach online if they are assigned there. Assignments for online courses are handled at the department or division level by the dean or scheduling committee, and decisions about which courses to offer online when are also (usually) made within academic divisions. (Of course, we're in a different world now than we were in Winter 2020. Classes may now be online because this is the safest way to hold them. Contact your division dean for more information about how online assignments or decisions are made).

The Academic Technology Division works to support faculty at any level of their online teaching experience. This includes help in the Academic Technology Center from trained staff and students and help from our instructional design faculty. 

So who are our online faculty? They're probably all around you. Back in the pre-pandemic days of 2019, more than 125 faculty taught online courses here -- nearly 20% of our total faculty. In Spring 2020, nearly every course moved to a fully remote version, and many of these courses incorporated online teaching and learning methods. If you've taught online here before, or if you're interested in trying it in the future, then you're part of Lane Online!