WCET Annual Meeting Presentation

1. eTutoring Collaborative
Communities
Crossing borders ::
Supporting students

2. Panelists
Anna Bendo Director of eStudent Services, OH-TECH
Connie Broughton Director, eLearning and Open
Education, Washington State Board for
Community and Technical Colleges
Kevin Corcoran Executive Director, CTDLC
Lawrence Parisotto Director of Collaborative
Programs, BCcampus
David Porter Executive Director, BCcampus (Moderator)
Carolyn Rogers Director of Academic Services, CTDLC
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 2

3. Panel format
What is eTutoring? Back-channel
• Why eTutoring in your service Twitter hashtag #etutoring
practice?
Etherpad
Panelists http://bit.ly/etutor2012
• Why eTutoring in their service • Collaborative notepad (no
practices? login needed) for audience
notes and questions
• What is is the opportunity or
pain point that eTutoring
addresses?
• Why has eTutoring gotten so
big, so fast?
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 3

4. Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium
State Agency Created in 1998

5. eTutoring Program Update
CTDLC’s eTutoring Program
Started in Fall 2001
Funded by a Grant from the Davis Education
Foundation

6. Online Tutoring Options
Build Your Own
Outsource Your Service
Create or Join a Collaboration

7. Why Collaborate
• "It is the long history of humankind (and
animal kind, too) those who learned to
collaborate and improvise most effectively
have prevailed." - Charles Darwin
• "The secret is to gang up on the
problem, rather than each other." –
Thomas Stallkamp

8. Why Collaborate
“...The network of talent made available through the pooling of
resources of the participating two and four-year schools is hugely
superior to whatever any individual institution may possess.
Moreover, the ongoing sharing of ideas and resources contributes
to even greater benefits.
What you have done is create a forum for the sharing of new ideas
in teaching and learning and, remarkably, a platform for the
realization and testing of these ideas.”
Greg Fallon, Assistant Dean for Learning Resources,
Passaic County Community College

9. eTutoring.org
A Collaborative, Aggregated Service:
• Institutions join for a fee, based on usage
• Tutors provided by each institution
• Tutoring hours are combined into one schedule
• Students at each institution access all tutors on
this one schedule

10. eTutoring Services
Online Tutoring Services Offered:
Synchronous Student-Tutor Sessions
• Drop in Sessions Scheduled 7 days a week
Asynchronous Student Questions
• Response received in 24 to 48 hours
Asynchronous Online Writing Lab
• Response received in 24 to 48 hours

11. Collaborative model
CTDLC
Director Create & Enhance
Platform
Facilitates
Technical Support
Monitors
Host
Schedules Institutions
Trains
Market, Hire, Pay
Coordinators
Meet Regularly
Set Policy
Collectively
Choose Subjects
Supervise Tutors

12. Northeast eTutoring Consortium Fall 2012
Connecticut: 10 Community Colleges
2 Ct State Universities
Charter Oak State College
3 Private Institutions
Massachusetts:
6 Community Colleges
Framingham and Salem State Universities
Assumption College
Community College of Vermont
Illinois: Shawnee CC
Southern Illinois College
New Jersey: Passaic CCC
Mercer CCCC
Fairleigh Dickinson University
New York: CUNY Online Baccalaureate,
LaGuardia CC, Fulton-Montgomery CC,
Hostos CC

13. eTutoring Collaborations
13 states
3 Consortia
6 Individual Programs
130+ Campuses

14. Newest eTutoring Partnership
A New Multi-Institution Collaborative Online Writing Lab

15. eTutoring for One Institution
• Use eTutoring Platform to supplement existing programs
• Synchronous and Asynchronous tutoring options
• Fully hosted and supported technology
• Administrative Support and Consultation
• Customize Program to Support Undergraduate and Graduate
Students

16. Online eTutoring Platform

17. ETUTORING IN OHIO
Before: vendor-based, state subsidized online
tutoring
Reasons for switching
 Control costs
 Work collaboratively on an effort to assist students
 Many institutions working together is better than one
institution going it alone
 Provides one more tool in a campus’ arsenal to
serve students

18. Participating Ohio Institutions
Academic Year 2011-2012

19. GROWTH OF ETUTORING
Pilot Fall 2009 – 5 institutions joined Northeast
Consortium
Ohio eTutoring Collaborative began in January
2010 with 15 institutions
Spring 2012 - 21
Fall 2012 - 42!

20. ETUTORING – NOW & LATER
Increased state support
Became an initiative of the Ohio Board of Regents
Memberships are paid through state funds, so
institutions only have to pay for their tutors
This is the first year with this model, so we are
still learning
Future ideas – Career one stops

21. Western eTutoring Consortium
Connie Broughton
Director, eLearning and Open Education
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

22. Western eTutoring Consortium

23. Western eTutoring Consortium
• 42 member institutions in 6 states and 2 time zones
– 9 four-year institutions, 27 Washington community
and technical colleges, 6 community colleges in
Oregon and Utah
• January 2008 began as the Northwest eTutoring
Consortium
• Summer 2012 became the Western eTutoring
Consortium

24. Western eTutoring Consortium
• 2011-12
– Approximately 280,000 FTEs
– 18,440 online tutoring sessions
– 110 tutors (mostly peer tutors), 42
institutional coordinators, 2 quality
assurance coordinators, 1 executive
coordinator
– 12 subjects, 7 days a week, 50 weeks a
year

25. eTutoring Collaborative
Communities
BCcampus Perspective

26. Context
• Need to be intentional about support of
off-campus students with off-campus
services
• Some services (ApplyBC, AskAway)
exist, but no coordinated online tutoring
activity in the province
• Request from senior administrators of
student services at colleges, universities for
writing support
• Collaboratively we can do what no one
institution can do on their own, so looked to
a consortial online tutoring solution
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 26

27. Opportunity
• Aggregate demand for writing Two components to collaborative
support as a proof of concept; educational service:
limited pilot, then expand to more
participants and other discipline • “shared service” for implementation,
areas, e.g., math, sciences, busin hosting, support of eTutoring
ess, etc. platform (Canadian hosting
required)
• “collaborative service delivery” for
tutoring service
Total cost of ownership much lower
than many individual implementations
and user community and service
benefits
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 27

28. Potential
• Many discipline areas accommodated with one service
• Platform developed specifically for consortial approach
with many participating institutions
• Business model approach to shared service and
consortial approach to service delivery allows all
institutions to join and benefit
• Bottom line: a scalable, sustainable, systemic shared
service (s5)
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 28

29. Looking ahead
• Where is eTutoring going?
• Challenges, lessons learned, innovative practices
emerging?
• Predictions and implications for policy
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 29

30. Looking ahead
Feedback from the Community
(Regional Advisory Council meeting back in August)
• Assessment • At-Risk Students
• Enhanced reporting • Tutor Notes
• Shared research design • Escalation & Notification Paths
• 3rd Party Tools
Industry Trends
• APIs – automated account creation/updating & single sign-on
• Integration with other tools – Starfish Solutions
• Mobile
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 30

31. Twitter Feedback - #WCET12Tutor
BCcampus | connect. collaborate. innovate. Page | 31