Technology

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has a long established position of supporting technology that will enhance the educational experiences of students; and

Whereas, Significant portions of the Technology III Plan 2007-2010 (Tech III) developed by the system Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Committee (TTAC) support this position;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges support the initiatives proposed by the Tech III Plan that propose a systemwide solution for various system-level problems; and

Whereas, Title 5 55219 requires that colleges/districts annually provide information regarding courses offered via distance education to their local governing boards and to the System Office;

Whereas, The survey the System Office created for the collection of such information generates data of limited utility for system planning with regards to distance education efforts;

Whereas, The effective delivery of distance education and the evaluation of current efforts is an academic and professional matter; and

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has worked for many years to ensure that the delivery of instruction be implemented with the highest degree of excellence and quality regardless of the methods or modalities utilized; and

Whereas, Such efforts to maintain the highest quality standards must continue in tandem with the evolution and changes in the use of technology and the availability of technologies for teaching and learning;

Whereas, Information technology continues to evolve in ways that can be utilized to enhance the student learning experience within every form and modality of instruction; and

Whereas, Both systemwide and local information technologies and infrastructures continue to be underfunded such that these expenditure efforts are often an uncoordinated patchwork effort sustaining mismatched technologies without ever considering the total cost of utilizing these technologies;

Whereas, The high cost of textbooks is a barrier to student access and the expense of textbooks often forces students to sacrifice academic time for work hours;

Whereas, Electronic web-based material is often less expensive than a printed text and of greater educational value because of its interactive and multimedia nature;

Resolved that the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges urge local senates to report on a regular basis via InfoNet the status of local planning and policy development on AB 1725-related issues, and

Resolved that the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges urge local senates to share AB 1725-related local policies, models, and prototypes on InfoNet, and

Whereas the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has a long established position of supporting technology that will enhance the educational experience of students, and of supporting college funding that makes this a priority, and the current draft of the Technology II Plan contains significant funding for centralized projects that will have little immediate impact on students, and that would extend the capacity and/or role of the Chancellor's Office in the provision of distance education and student services in significant ways, and

Whereas, Traditional student course evaluation forms do not work effectively with distance education courses;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate collaborate with statewide bargaining unions on developing student course evaluation standards and tools for use with courses offered via distance education and present the information at a future breakout session.

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges passed Resolution 11.03 F01 objecting to the 4CNET Acceptable Use Policy; and

Whereas, The Community College Council/California Federation of Teachers has passed a nearly identical resolution objecting to the 4CNET Acceptable Use Policy;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate reaffirm its request that 4CNET revise its Acceptable Use Policy to include support for academic freedom and information privacy; and

Whereas, Section 508 of the Workforce Rehabilitation Act requires that all electronic and information technology purchased by the Federal Government be accessible by people with disabilities;

Whereas, SB 105 requires that all California state governmental entities comply with Section 508;

Whereas, All college and district websites fall under compliance with Section 508; and

Whereas, Applications that evaluate web pages for compliance are very costly;