Colleges that teach at a distance must be able
to offer students needed support and library services for a successful online
experience. For more than a century, the higher education
model has remained relatively stable. Yet, with the advent of the
information age and globalization, changing demographics are driving
today's trends in student services. What we have grown accustomed
to is being challenged, forcing us to adapt to this rapidly changing
environment. Perhaps, the most dramatic changes are occurring in
how we deliver services to the distance learner.
Distance education students need the same kinds
of services as on-campus students but expect the services to meet
their needs for flexibility and convenience. To meet these evolving
needs – colleges are creating innovative ways to to reach their
distance learners with student support.
By examining the shift in the delivery of
student services from a traditional to a more integrated model, this
Online Monograph of Student Support Services will
provide strategies and best practices for student support.
The best practices described have been developed by a cadre of
student support community college professionals with extensive
experience in the creation and delivery of services to online
students.
With the severe budget cuts to education over
the past few years and with the elimination of a number of
discretionary funding sources, many colleges have been stopped ‘dead
in their tracks’ as far as the further development of their online
student support goes. We hope that this Online Monograph of
Student Support Services will serve as a springboard to
encourage colleges to increase the success of their online
students.
The project team and selected authors of the
Monograph's sections share a variety of effective uses of
people, technology, and processes in the student services field so
there are exemplary practices within this document for everyone.
Best practices in the Online Monograph will also demonstrate
community college efforts to provide support services designed to
increase student success.
Subject matter for the Online Monograph
includes innovative applications for both web-based freshman and
distance learning course orientations, financial aid, library
access, career planning, student news, and testing. The collection
of best practices have been assembled in a manner that should allow
readers to quickly identify innovative online support services and
practices that are specific to certain student areas.
This online publication has been created as a
part of the project, Online Student Support at Every College,
based at Tyler Junior College and supported by the Northeast Texas
Consortium of Colleges & Universities. During the first year of this
grant, this project has partnered with community colleges and
professionals through out Texas who have been identified as leaders
providing online student services. The project has worked closely
with the Texas Center for Online Instruction; the Texas
Collaborative for Teaching Excellence in Professional Development,
Curriculum Development, and Recruitment and Retention; the Virtual
College of Texas, the Counselors Network; Texas Rural Community
College Network,; the North Texas Community College Consortium; and
other Carl D Perkins projects.
In partnership with Coastal Bend College, Tyler
Junior College has developed regional workshops to showcase
exemplary student service offerings for online students. The
Junior and Community College Student Personnel Association of Texas,
co-sponsored a regional workshop on Best Practices for Online
Student Support @ Every College.
This project has been developed by the Texas
State Leadership Professional Development and funded by the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Carl D. Perkins Act.
