March eTutoring Roundtable

Karen Boyd [00:00:02] So good morning and thank you for joining us for this roundtable discussion that we seem to have kind of bi monthly here with the OhioLINK eTutoring collaborative. And what we need to keep in mind is that you are the professionals behind the eTutoring movement. And I rely heavily on you to market the eTutoring platform on your campus as best you can to faculty members and students and administrators, so your role is is multifaceted. And I also realized that eTutoring is a very small portion of your responsibilities. So when I have expectations of you, I have to keep in mind that this is not your full time job. eTutoring is a complement to the services that you are providing now in our covid area. And I commend all of you for jumping to the to the to the base for making baseball analogies, jumping up to the plate and and seeing how can you continue to support your students using what your campus has created in addition to the eTutoring platform. So I thank you for for coming on board today and let's see how I advance my slide. There we go. All right. The things that we'd like to to cover during this time this morning is, are these things: advisors- and you're wondering, what does that mean? I'll tell you in a minute- task force findings from the individual dialogs that you had with one another; a discussion about the tutor ocean, particularly the video links that I sent to you; our very important dates moving forward for you to put on your calendar and to work into your schedule as best that you can so that we are poised and ready to launch at the end of August with our fall in the new platform and then the planning that we'll do for it says May 8th, actually May 3rd. So I've got that changed on the other side. Forgot to on this one. So it's actually May 3rd. And we will we'll talk a little bit about that. So advisors requested. You're wondering, what does that mean? Amy Pawlowski is now the executive director of the OhioLINK group and she has asked me she asked me, I think about a year ago, maybe two years ago, to create an advisory council. And that's what I see this group as but I think she was looking at possibly a handful of you that are my go-to, "let me bounce some things off of you" individuals and I reached out to some of you in the past to ask if you would serve in this capacity. I think what Amy's thoughts are is that she would like to have the eTutoring program align more closely with the other groups that OhioLINKs, that it serves, that interacts with. So that is her role. She's wanting to incorporate eTutoring moreso into the landscape of OhioLINK. And so when I'm asking for advisors requested, the role would be someone that some people I'm looking at maybe two or three individuals that represent different entities, whether you're a four year urban setting like Cleveland or you're a two year rural settings such as Northwest State, whether you're a private school- and we really only have two of those right now, we have Aultman and we have Lourdes. So what I'd love to do is really have a a small roundtable of folks that when I have a quick question, I think, what do you think about this? And then you could weigh in on that. So the invitation is out there to everyone. However, know that if I don't hear from you, I will be reaching out to maybe some of you, because I think that you have a good take on the situation on your campus and on campuses similar to yours. So give it some thought. I know you do not have 80 hours in your workweek, although some of you do operate that way. But give it some thought. This is not going to be a regular commitment. But it's someone really my brain trust and I think that's how I prefaced it years ago, is that it's my brain trust because as I'm getting older, my brain is getting better. It's getting keener. Isn't that what happens with old age, like fine wine? So give that some thought. The last time we spoke at the end of January, I mentioned half in jest, but someone then called me on it about this task force idea. And the topic came up when we were talking about, "OK, how do we move from our current set up, operating on so many hours gives you so many sessions during the course of the semester," and I just brazenly picked up on Aultmans and picked them up and she asked me, are you serious about this? Which got me to thinking, why don't I have everyone pair up with colleagues in the collaborative who have similar constituencies, who have similar usage patterns, who have similar mindsets. So that's the pairings that I sent to you at the beginning of February, and I know that many of you have been able to catch up with one another, and I would like to have this kind of a be an open forum time for you to share what you found out. Initially, I think it was how do we move forward with the Tutor Ocean Platform using our current mentality of you provide so many hours per week in exchange for so many sessions per semester. Now, we don't have that same apples to cherries with the tutor ocean, but can we still function that way or do you have better thoughts? Because I'm not making up any decisions. Actually, we haven't even signed the contract with tutor ocean, but it is making movement forward. So I'm going to call on Sherry Ricks and maybe she's got her camera from from not spinning everything and so Sherry, I would like to- because you're always full of great ideas- tell us, who did you meet with that? What were your thoughts? What were/what did your/what was your take away from that dialog that you had with your individual, your partner?

 

Sherry Ricks [00:07:23] OK, well, I met with Leah. I, I mean, I know it's Baumgardner. Let's see... Baumhower. I hope I'm pronouncing your last name right. But it was Leah from Edison and I really enjoyed the conversation that I had with Leah. We covered a lot of different territory. We were talking especially about covid, sharing experiences that we had, along with eTutoring in general and then tutor ocean. But it was it was really good. I mean, one thing that Leah and I actually talked a couple different times and we both came to the conclusion that, hey, we wanted to stay in contact with one another because it's just good to connect with one another and find out what's happening with the other institutions that we're partnering up with. So, Karen, do you want me to go ahead and share some of our ideas, the information that we sent to you?

 

Karen Boyd [00:08:39] If you don't mind? That would be good because it might launch some discussion or some questions from the other folks on the call.

 

Sherry Ricks [00:08:46] OK, all right. So. We, Leah and I, were just kind of tossing around ideas, we so we weren't quite sure where to get started. So basically what we did is we started thinking in terms of our writing tutors and and we kind of put together maybe once again, a plan of how we might, with the writing tutors, convert from hours to sessions. So we started thinking in terms of, all right- and Karen, I think I'm going to have to ask you if I'm thinking correctly here, but in past conversations that I had with you, I was thinking that you your expectations were, as our writing tutors became more proficient and as a writing tutor, that you would expect them to maybe review one paper in around forty five minutes.

 

Karen Boyd [00:09:54] That that's correct.

 

Sherry Ricks [00:09:55] Is that correct? All right. So I started thinking and we started thinking along those lines. So we thought, OK, maybe one session for those- once again, for the experienced tutors who are who are acquainted with eTutoring and, and have are more proficient in that- that one session would equal a forty five minute paper review and then two sessions would be equivalent to one and a half hour paper review, three sessions to point to five hours, four sessions would be equivalent to three hours of paper reviews. But then so then Leah said, but hey, what about the person that's just starting out. They're not going to be able to review as quickly. So we thought, yeah, we need to address that, too. So once again, we were thinking in terms of one session would equal like a 60 minute paper review until until a tutor got to the point where they were more proficient and could maybe meet some of those benchmarks that we had just recently talked about there for the forty five minute people reviews. So so that was one thing that we had discussed, to be very honest with you, we didn't really get into the other individual- I mean, the other subject areas, Karen, we just kind of we're concentrating more on writing. But let's see, but then we have thought that, too, and I'm not sure if this is going to be possible or not. I know in the past that if we have, like, writing tutors or any of our tutors that were signed up for a time slot- if they didn't have anybody to meet with, if they didn't have any papers to review that we had talked about, then maybe contributing resources or working on resources for a resource library that we used to have before we went to the platform that we're on now. So I didn't know if there would be- I don't know if that's something that we would want to incorporate into Tutor Ocean. I mean, I don't know what Tutor Ocean even has a has a resource library like we used to have in the past but but that was something that we had talked about as well. Let's see, the other thing we had talked about was just getting- you know, we were really interested in knowing what the tutor's feedback and input would be in regards to converting hours to tutoring sessions, since they're really right there on the ground level working with those students. We were just kind of interested in knowing what feedback they might have, which I'm sure could be very valuable to us as we're working on this whole conversion process. Let's see, and then. Let's see I need to get my glasses on here. Oh -- oh, I'm sorry.

 

Karen Boyd [00:13:37] Oh, no, please, no, I was while you were putting your glasses on, I thought, OK, first of all, I want to commend you for for talking with Leah more than once. One of the objectives, unspoken objectives, was to help build a sense of community, not with the entire group, but with someone else that shares kind of the same status that that you share on another campus. So I'm really pleased that you feel the time was well spent. So and I think your I think your line of thinking so far is probably consistent with what I've heard from other schools. You did bring up what did the tutors think? And just to let everyone know, you folks are all invited too. Next Wednesday, St. Patrick's Day, we're hosting four different webinars/roundtables with the etutors. Two will be for the writing tutors and you will be for the synchronous, the live tutors, to get their feedback on what do they think moving forward? What do they like currently? What would they like to see and everything. So your your identification of we really do need to include the tutors in the discussion and fortunately that's on the docket. So good job there.

 

Sherry Ricks [00:14:58] Ok good. So the other thing we had talked about was, would there be a possibility of making adjustments maybe once or twice a year if we found that our usage was higher than what we anticipated or if we found that our that our usage was not as high as what we thought it might be. So and I know we've kind of done that in the past anyway, but so that was something else that we had talked about. And then the last thing we were just wondering if there were maybe other institutions like ourselves that are currently using tutor ocean, that that were kind of in a situation like us where they were going from hours to sessions. I don't know if there is any way that we can easily, you know, find out who those institutions are, make contact with them, and I guess, Karen, that would be a question I have to ask you, but, you know, and I'm not sure if we can even do that.

 

Karen Boyd [00:16:15] You know, I think it's great to do our homework and talking with people about how did you make the switch? And really, just because we've been doing something one way for 11 years doesn't mean that we have to continue that way. But I I really felt it was important that you folks weigh in on, what is your line of thinking? I know that. I want to say that Lourdes and she's not in on the call today, Lisa Matton. Lourdes and Bowling Green State University on main campus, one of their one of their academic support areas has/is currently using tutor ocean, but they're not integrating with anything that we're doing. I think it is funded through title money, grant money. And so I don't know that we have the luxury of talking to anyone here in Ohio. How did you make the switch? The only thing that we might do is, is talk with the other users across the country and how they make the switch. But ideally, what I want to be able to do is to continue using the information that we have captured this past decade and continue to gather that information. So it may mean more tweaking on my end and not on your end. But I think in order for us to see what did the usage do from one year one to year seven to year 12. So that's that was that's my goal. If you were to ask me what my objectives and my key results would be, it's that I want to maintain all of the data that we've collected in the same format, although it may take me a while to figure out how do I grab that information and then share it with you. So, Sherry, thank you for that comprehensive review of your dialogs with Leah. Is there someone else there that would like to weigh in on some of Sherry's thoughts? Now, don't all speak at once, you know, we really need to have order here, so.

 

Lisa (Madison) [00:18:38] Hi, everybody. This is Lisa Hoops from Madison. I did put in the chat and maybe it sounds like, Karen, that it's not an issue that we can't keep the old sessions to hours formula. Is that not possible in tutor ocean, like we have to find a different way to do it or we're just exploring?

 

Karen Boyd [00:18:53] No, we're really just exploring. I don't think Tutor Ocean, I don't want to say they don't care, they're just saying that this is what you have and this is what we do. So if anything, we might adjust in the MOU how many hours you provide per week and how many total sessions you would get. So, you know, if anything, those might shift because we have not changed in all these years, the ratio of hours and sessions. And this morning I was working on that MOU and what those potential breakdowns could be moving forward, looking at what your past performance, your past usage has been. So to answer your question, Lisa, there's no reason why we cannot continue still thinking hours to sessions. I just want to determine. All right. Is does someone have a great idea that is not coming my way? But I do want to let you know that we are probably rethinking the ratio of hours per week with the number of sessions. And what when I'm doing is looking at each school's really average usage over the course of a period, because actually a decade, at least this past decade, I think is indicative of future decades in terms where the enrollment starts at X and it goes up X plus Y and then enrollment drops. So X plus Y in parentheses, minus Z. So it's it's kind of a convoluted way of doing things. Ultimately, I want your students and your faculty members to buy into this option of online tutoring in this in this situation that we're currently in. One thing that that someone posed and I thought it was very, very valid was we saw kind of a dip in the usage in in our in the fall or in the first part of spring and all I can say is the suggestion was the students may be burnt out of doing everything online. And I thought, I know I get tired looking at a computer screen, and especially if the students are online with their education, online with their social media activities, that, yes, online tutoring is just another layer, but it's here to stay. So I think there was a kind of a rambling thought, but. How about anyone else want to weigh in on what they they found and I'm really pleased that I'm pleased that you're starting to develop relationships with one another, because preparing for the May meeting, you're going to meet up with the same individual or individuals again to build on that relationship, because we do not have the luxury, unfortunately, of meeting face to face and that has always been my favorite time of year in the past, when I got to see you folks, I got to put a name with a face and a name with a a an institution. So the last time, if you recall, the last time we gathered was the time when I used baseball as the theme and you had trading cards of best practices and ideas and that seems so so long ago. So that's why the task force and I probably come up with a more clever name, but that's the value of creating these dialogs. I think Melinda posted something in the chat. Melinda, are you able to speak? Oh, OK, so what she wrote in the chat was what I just said, and maybe it was the email that I had with Melinda about the burn out. And so I think and I was individuals are asking me, what are the current behaviors of our students, our campus coordinators? What are my expected behaviors of that same group and what are the outcomes or what are the expectations with the new platform? And all I can liken it to is we've been driving the same car essentially for 11 years. Now, if you take the average person who drives 15000 miles a year, that's, you know, we've exceeded one hundred thousand miles on our car and it's about time we treat ourselves to maybe not a brand new car, but maybe a new used car so that we're not driving it. So I I guess my long term, I guess when I'm thinking long term is through the calendar year here is that the students will see, OK, eTutoring is still eTutoring, but it's got a new look, has a new smell as a new feel. And maybe if I can inject that enthusiasm with you and you can do that with your your faculty members, then I think the move to the new platform, it's like we're we're unveiling the a new version. So thoughts, comments, anything there?

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:24:37] Karen, this is Kathy at Marion Tech, I may have missed a meeting where this was told before, but I've been asked about the funding side of this. So is this something where the institutions are going to be asked to pay into this system now, or is ODHE going to continue to do all the subsidy work on it, which we've so appreciated over the years?

 

Karen Boyd [00:25:00] Well, first of all, thank you, Kathy, for your people recognizing the contribution from ODHE and OhioLINK and continue to fund. If I had my camera on, you would see a smile on my face because I am so thrilled that the funding for eTutoring, that the funding for eTutoring for the next three years is our responsibility, not yours, not your institutions. The only expense, as you've always had is paying your tutor and paying for any equipment that you tutor may need. And so that would be that would be your only outlay.

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:25:48] That's good to hear. Thank you very much.

 

Karen Boyd [00:25:52] Good. OK, so I hear someone's phone is ringing and I know that it's not mine, but that's OK. So. All right. Any other questions that you have about about what you discovered from one another and the relationship that you're building with someone else in the collaborative?

 

Unknown [00:26:17] Hi Karen -- Oh, sorry, go ahead.

 

Samantha (KSU) [00:26:21] No, I'm sorry it's so hard with these virtual readings, right. I can't even get my video to turn on. There we go. But this is Samantha from Kent State University. I met with Elaine, who is at our Trumbull campus, and then Julie, who's at the University of Toledo, and it seemed like all of us were experiencing very similar things in terms of student traffic, especially to- well both eTutoring and to our in-house tutoring. So one of the things that we talked about was the possibility of keeping things the same, or at least not making drastic changes for now, just because this pandemic has really changed how students use our services. The semester prior to the pandemic, Kent State saw the highest usage it's ever seen in terms of in-house tutoring and eTutoring, and then it has dropped drastically since spring 20. So I feel like at this point it's really difficult for us. Julie echoed very similar sentiments. It's just difficult for us to be able to predict what things are going to look like in the coming year or couple of years. So we're not we don't want to overcorrect in the wrong direction, basically.

 

Karen Boyd [00:27:44] I like that that the use of the word overcorrect, because I don't want to trade in our used car are very well loved, used car and try to get something that I'm not I'm not capable of driving. I can't drive a stick shift. So I'm not looking to overhaul our practices, our reporting tools or anything. I'm just I'm looking for something that will be a new look. That's one thing. But also looking down the road, a platform that can be easily integrated into your current learning management system or the suite of academic support services. So I think that Tutor Ocean has all those capabilities, but again, that's down the road- eTutoring, the only thing it could be do could be done was if you did a single sign on with a batch registration and there were so many obstacles that didn't make that realistic for us. But with the Tutor Ocean opportunity- and maybe this is a good segue is the we talked about this, so... The is that the videos that I sent to you, and please do not feel apologetic if you were not able to watch them, I sent them again this morning and they're live links, they're brief videos that Tutor Ocean created for us, which I'm very grateful because they know exactly how the platform works and how students use it. So if anything, if you can carve out, I'd say probably no more than 30 minutes sometime this week to visit these videos, you'll see how the students go in, they create their own account, there is no reason for you to batch upload. However, if you are- sorry, there is a chat box. Let me let me finish my thought and then I'll go back to answering. The students would create their own accounts versus the batch upload. So it's very similar to the self registration operation that some schools have used in the past. The benefit to that is when we run reports, we're getting a better ratio of students who have actively used it versus the ones who have created accounts or students who have accounts available but they've never activated it, and that's one thing with the the batch upload. So so someone just posted that they saw more usage with self registration. So I think that that's that's encouraging. And I'll look through these chats as as I finish up. But what I see in tutor ocean is really more of a platform that will support us down the road, but it gives us the time in these next three years to fine tune how we can best serve our students. And one of the advantages to the tutor ocean is the opportunity for a tutor to define when he or she is available for one on one with a specific tutor. So, well Mark Caramount from Owens, he's taking as a chemistry class and he really needs to work with a chemistry tutor. He can go online as a student and find out when the chemistry tutor is available for one on one at a specific time. And that tutor now can have a little more flexibility with the hours that he or she is working. And what we have to do is figure out the balance between OK, being totally appointment only, totally drop-in only, and I think what we'll do is initially we'll be all drop-in with a few, with the tutors who want to have that flexibility, will add the the appointment only things. So as I said, this is all going to be this fall is going to be a trial period. But by having the dialog with everyone beforehand, anticipating what will the students do? What will they want? But that's one of the greatest values with Tutor Ocean, is the ability for tutors and students to identify specific times when they can be available. Also, the communication with the platform goes to the tutors and to the students reminding that individual you have a tutoring session with this person at this time, here's the link, and whatnot. So I think that communication element of tutor ocean is far more robust than what we've experienced in the past. And then these other administrator/coordinator view, tutor overview, and assignment review feature- these are going to be the same videos, not the administrator, but this will be the same videos that I share with our tutors before next Wednesday's meetings so that they can see what this new platform will look like, what it will feel like. What I really like about the platform- and I feel like I'm trying to sell. Our daughter is getting married this summer and she lives abroad, her fiancee is foreign and we're trying to orchestrate everything. So we visited all these different venues and we're trying to sell her on what we think is the best thing- so I feel as if I'm trying to sell you on tutor ocean. That's not the case at all. But one thing that I do like very much about the tutor ocean is that our tutors become people. They have their own landing page, they have their picture. They have the opportunity to give examples of their their area of strength, what they like to do in terms of tutoring. So I think it gives the students when Mark comes online and he needs to work with a chemistry tutor when he sees that, OK, this is the specific type of question I have. I think this is the right tutor for me. I think it will help direct students to the appropriate tutors more efficiently. Comments, thoughts? Have any of you had a chance to look at any of the videos?

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:34:42] Hi Karen, this is Kathy. I see Julie has asked about one to one appointments, and so I'm curious about that. But I did have several questions here as I watch the videos, the tutor ocean, the student view asks the students to select a course number, will we have to load all of our courses? I'm guessing not.

 

Karen Boyd [00:35:04] No. And that was a concern that I have. Is that, OK, what information do the tutors need to provide? So that's why I have asked for those of you who have live tutors that are currently on the platform that you anticipate will be continuing in the fall, let's us let's update those aptitude surveys so that we can revisit the different, I'm going to say, topic areas under the general title of algebra. So a good point there that you saw, it said accounting 110 or something. I don't see the sense of that because accounting 110 across the state of Ohio is going to be different accounting levels, but if we can provide the general areas of the topic areas under accounting, then that will help the students find a better tutor.

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:36:01] That makes sense. I also, under the administrative view, had two questions. Will we each have administrative rights or are there like two levels of administrative rights where you have the one level and then we have some rights, but not all of them?

 

Karen Boyd [00:36:17] As I understand it- great question- as I understand it, is that you will see everything that I see and you know what I- the advantage that I have at this point is I can see every individual school. You cannot see every individual school. However, in the new platform, you can set your fields. You know how some things, if you want to only- if you're shopping- and you only want to buy extra large women's pants, you can set those parameters. I think what you can do on the new platform is that you can say, OK, I only want to see what Marion Tech is doing. Or maybe you have paired with, I think, Melinda up at Lorain. Maybe the two of you want to go see what the other school is doing so that you're on the same page. So I think that the value of tutor ocean is that you will be able to see more than you have seen in the past.

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:37:18] OK, and then the other question, under the admin view: it says that at the end of each session there will be an opportunity to provide feedback on each session, not just by the student, but also by the tutor. Will tutors have to do feedback on each session?

 

Karen Boyd [00:37:37] It will not be required. I think perhaps we we might integrate that into some of the tutors that every month they they would have to respond to one or two just so that we get some feedback as how is it working for them. You know, right now, I don't get feedback from tutors unless I have an email from them and we get feedback from students, but not all students. But this platform will always send out a survey and it can be what's the word I'm looking at? It can be customized for for each subject area or maybe for certain tutors. So I would say that it would not be required of our current tutors, but we might use it to help with our evaluation of them.

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:38:32] And then will the students appointments be limited in appointment time? I know right now, typically, you know, it's 20, maybe 30 minutes. But if you're looking at individual appointments where the student can go out with schedule with a tutor, how does that play out in terms of appointment time?

 

Karen Boyd [00:38:53] Terrific question. I would love to say I know the answer to it, but I don't. I think if a tutor says I'm available from 10 to 11 and the student notes that I really have a short question and he reserves it from 10 to 10:30, if the tutor does not have anything else pressing for the next hour, there's no reason why they can't just continue.

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:39:19] Gotcha. Alright, yeah.

 

Karen Boyd [00:39:20] So there is that flexibility with the student and the tutor. The tutor may say I'm available for three, 20 minute sessions from 10 to 11. And once Mark has already reserved the session from 10 to 10:20, that means Sue Shepherd can come in at 10:20 to 10:40 to work with that tutor, and then Marianne from Cleveland can go in from 10:40 to 10 to 11.

 

Kathy (Marion Tech) [00:39:52] OK. OK, thank you.

 

Karen Boyd [00:39:56] Great question, Kathy. Thank you. And I'm glad that you've made it back safely. I know some of you have traveled for good reasons and for not so good reason. So I'm glad to see so many of you here with so much of the chat. I'm going to take a just a break in the chat to see if I've addressed. Yes. Julia wanted to know, will the appointments be one on one if the student reserved a one on one with the tutor? I need to find out, if a tutor is working with a student during an open session, are other people allowed in? How does that work? But we've always prided ourselves in being one on one with the students. I think that's how we best serve them, but I'm always open to that. We've got course numbers too. Will there be one log-in per institution or will each person need the platform and then should students have their own log in... OK, so I just kind of rambled through that. And my understanding is I will create the administrator account for each institution. So for example, at Bowling Green, at Kent, at Acron, anywhere that you have regional campuses using eTutoring, there will be a single administrator. So Elaine can go on. Samantha can go on. The woman we spoke with earlier this year, she can go in. Anyone who has access can go in to the main tutor ocean platform that is OhioLINK and be able to access that information. I need to- ok, Suzannes leaving- very good, so. Very good. How about any other questions? If you have not had the chance to view those videos, please do so and send your questions or comments to me, because as we move forward and fine tune our contract with tutor Ocean, I need to make certain that your needs are addressed from the OhioLINK side with tutor ocean, but the MOU will also have to reflect those responsibilities that were holding tutor link- or tutor ocean to as well. So terrific. So I like that they're saying that student self registration went up and usage went up, you know, maybe because the students are becoming so accustomed to online, maybe that's what we'll see. But that will be- you can still- I had a dialog with Kathy Rice this morning about she batch registers her students. That's what she's always done at Marion Tech. And there's no reason why she can't follow that same type of practice. But what she would do is she would send out an email to all the students that are enrolled at Marion Tech, introducing them to tutor Ocean. And here is where you go and create your account. Now, it's not the same as a batch upload, but she can specifically invite all of the students, different cohorts, different classes. So we still have that ability to fine tune and to limit the students who have access. Although it technically is open to everyone that is enrolled, that includes college credit plus. So for those of you with large, college credit plus then, you know, luckily there- we don't see a lot of schools with high usage. Northwest state is one. Edison is one. Akron is another one. So but that's a chat for another day. And I wanted to keep this to a one hour at the most. So you folks are great with your questions. But let me move forward, because what's important is my VIDs: my very important dates. And I sent that to you folks this morning. So please check your email. And in a nutshell, this is what the upcoming dates look like and how they impact you. These are always set in very wet cement as things change and shift but if you would look at these dates moving forward and try to communicate the information with me, that would be terrific. The document that I sent as the attachment to today's email is more comprehensive in terms of it carries us through all of next academic year when terms will begin, when terms will end, that type of thing. Also, another discussion should be- and really this is just kind of in passing and it's each individual institution is- how do you handle holidays with your tutors? I want to make certain that I get it right when we schedule the tutors, but if you're attitude with your tutor, is your scheduled to work five hours a week, you can do it any time you want, and I'm saying doing moving forward, as we schedule those tutors we'll have to have that communication really flowing well so that we can so that we can schedule the tutors so that they're able to respond to the students when the students are not able to reach on campus or online campus supported activity. So that's still going to be paramount when we go to schedule. I saw another chat pop up. Whoa, so Marion Tech is is hitting another 450 CCPs for this coming fall, I anticipate... That's a great question- Kathy posed the question: in the past, she when her students who are CCP students, they always added either a plus or C at the end of it so we could designate those students from the I want to say the traditional/regular enrolled students. One thing when it goes- when we go to create student accounts, the students will be prompted at the very beginning to say whether or not I'm a CCP student so that we capture that across the board. Right now, I only know when students who use the writing platform are CCP. If I have a student vote meeting with a math tutor and he's CCP, I don't know that unless that student has also used the writing platform. So to answer your question, Kathy, my plan is yes, with ESOL as well. I want to ask as many questions without prying with the student. It's so we can collect accurate data is essentially what I'm getting at when I'm asking those students. So it won't- I imagine that the CCP student field would not be optional. There will be some fields that are optional. But so going back to our very important dates here, please mark these. I would love to be able to start planning what we're looking at for fall. And when I talk about fall right now, my plan is that the fall term will begin on Monday, August 30th. Monday, August 30th, that's a little bit later, about a week later than what we've done in the past, but I want to give us time to make certain that we launched this properly so that we're all on the same page and that we don't we don't fumble around, we don't have that luxury with these students, because as soon as a student has a bad experience with any component of your campus that spells retention, flashing lights, do we lose that one? And that's what I think is one of the valuable elements of eTutoring is that we are able to identify students who have required a tutoring, a certain tutoring assistance. All right, May 3rd, not May 8th, today is March 8th, May 3rd is our next roundtable preparation. All right, we will still be operating, most of us, on the spring term until the end of that week, but we will gather at 11 o'clock on May 3rd for our next roundtable. And by that point, I hope to have the the breakdown of hours and sessions since it sounds like you folks would like to stay the course and let's keep it as it is and then revisit, as Sherry said, can we revisit during the year or during the semester? Yes, let's let's make this work for everyone the way it has worked in the past. I don't want to see any schools leave us, but I also realize that administrations change and priorities change. So May 3rd, 11 o'clock, and you're asking, so what are we going to do? These are your parings again. These are the individuals that you may have caught up with or maybe you're still trying to catch up with to talk about how are things going on your campus? How do you feel about eTutoring moving forward? What are your expectations, what you currently do? What what do you expect out of this new platform to have that dialog with one another, to then share that at the May 3rd roundtable. So I will send out these pairings again, but I will also be sending you an assignment probably after April 1st, that it would probably be kind of your agenda to give you a little more a framework or structure for that dialog that you have with one another. OK, questions, comments, we have six more minutes before high noon hits, but I wanted to open up to anyone who wanted to add something or whatever your you want to share.

 

Kate (Lorain) [00:51:13] Hi Karen, this is Kate from Lorain County Community College, I just wanted to kind of make some comments and some things that folks have been saying this morning and just kind of circle back to something you said so I can get some clarification. I think I heard you mention that you're kind of looking at the data, you know, over the last 10 years, and, you know, LCCC's been with the consortium since the beginning and looking back at the data, the different usage amounts that you sent- thank you for that very comprehensive Excel sheet so I could look back with ease- you know, I noticed something that I I wanted I was actually going to discuss with Kathy. And I wanted to bring you to your attention as well. And, you know, the very last thing that we were looking at on our institutional spreadsheet was our average basically over our our different usage. And I looked at that, of course, and it looks like our average is about 171. But then if I look at the average for the last five years, it drops it down to 107.

 

Karen Boyd [00:52:15] Right.

 

Kate (Lorain) [00:52:16] Our averages were I mean, our usage was much higher before I came, and before we started instituting some of our own online practices. I don't know. And then, of course, like Samantha was saying earlier, you know, we you know, it is kind of hard to tell what's going to happen for the fall. I, I can't... I know I can't necessarily go to my administration and say that our average will be 171 because they would look at the more recent years. So I just wanted to get some clarification on what you said about that 10 year kind of looking back the 10 years of data. I mean, I did hear you say you wanted to keep that information, and of course, that's a different conversation. But would you be looking at like some of our some schools like myself, where we have been with you for a while, would we be looking at that entire average, you know, for the fall or would we be looking at something a little more recent? Because I know my institution has definitely changed a lot over the last couple of years. So it's not even just because of covid, but I'm sure we all have, you know, a lot of thought about that. So, yeah, any insight you could provide would be very, very appreciated.

 

Karen Boyd [00:53:27] Good, Kate. Thank you for asking for better clarification. What I tend to do when I run those spreadsheets is I do the same thing for every school. And so that's that gives me OK, this is my 10 year average so that I can then go to Amy and say, OK, here's our average over ten years type of thing. But the the one of the best elements of the eTutoring collaborative is that I can look at each school individually and say, what has been the trend, what is the current situation? So I do not see myself using the 10 year average to say, "OK, in the fall, Kate, you're going to provide this many hours for this many sessions based on past usage." I think because I need to find out, are some schools using their own Zoom or are they using WebEx? Are they doing something to complement what eTutoring has been doing? But have they done something in the past year specifically to then impact the eTutoring usage, because now Lorain students can go directly to a Lorain tutor for this other thing. So that I can't I can't hold up eTutoring and then say this is what online students this is online tutoring activities at Lorain, because you now have provided different opportunities, as has Kent State, as has Toledo, as Central Street- all of you stepped up to the plate to find out how can we serve our students online, just our students. So to answer your question in a brief way is that it will be a dialog that I have with each one of you saying moving forward, this looks like what we saw in the past year, because really what we're doing is we're we're looking at the past two years- before covid hit, what was it? Then covid hit, it's almost like we have to throw covid numbers out and then say what happened in September of 2020? Because at that point, many of you already had online platforms serving your students, but you also had eTutoring. So it's to answer your question, it will be a discussion I have with each one of you, how we move forward and what's realistic. First of all, too, realistic for your budget and your tutor. Is that helpful?

 

Kate (Lorain) [00:56:08] Yeah, that answers that completely and yeah, that's that's exactly what you know, because even when administration is saying, "well, why is this tutor doing this and that?" And, you know, we all see that. It's easy then to say, well, it's based on these numbers as opposed to some prior numbers, and that that will be satisfactory. And even with our school and I'm sure others are doing the same, anything we do provide online is typically outside the hours of eTutoring and so it is complementary. We hope to continue that in the future, you know, as it being complimentary as opposed to, you know, like I you and I had had a brief conversation about, you know, us leaving, that wouldn't be something that we could sustain. So we need the eTutoring for after hours.

 

Karen Boyd [00:56:53] Bless you. I like that. When you say that what a school is offering online for its students, it is complementary to eTutoring. If we could all maybe use that mindset or at least be thinking along that, but let's not look at competing, you know, because we can't compete with some of your tutors. So some folks are saying that they must leave and I really don't want to cut anyone off. If you want to stay and offer some questions or comments or send me an email, that would be that would be awesome. But again, I want to thank you for staying with us and for doing what you do for Ohio students and I will be sending out this email or this PowerPoint probably by midweek. And thank you, folks.