Status Report on ONE

	Status Report on the Oregon Network for Education (ONE)

May 2001

Background	The Oregon Network for Education was funded by a three-year $322,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in fall 1998. The FIPSE ONE project is in its third and final year. The purpose of the grant is to assist a statewide collaboration of Oregon community colleges and universities to develop a common website for information on college-level distance education courses, degree programs, and services. Additional components of ONE in the original proposal included: exploration of a common course marketplace for course-sharing among campuses; development of financial models for supporting course-sharing among campuses; and a referral service to link students to host institutions with expertise in working with students seeking distance education programs.
Project Management	The project is managed by staff from both the Oregon University System and the Oregon Community Colleges to ensure collaboration among the sectors. A ONE Steering Committee, made up of representatives from universities, community colleges, independent institutions, and K-12, is advisory to ONE. Participation in ONE is open to any accredited postsecondary education institution in Oregon. Participation by campuses is voluntary.
Website Unveiling	A domain name, OregonONE.org, was obtained in early 2000. The graphic design for ONE was developed at that time. The ONE website was officially launched 3/27/00. ONE offers a web-searchable "one-stop" resource of postsecondary distance learning courses, programs, and services from participating institutions.
ONE Database	The ONE database (web-searchable catalog) was developed with Oracle software and resides on the OUS server in Corvallis. Technical expertise is provided by OUS Information Technology Services (ITS). Campuses submit course data through data feeds to the database. Program and service-related pages are developed and maintained by ONE staff in Eugene in collaboration with campuses and ITS.
Database Enhance- ments	Two major technical improvements in the ONE database were completed in year three of the project as a result of feedback from campuses and users: *Course Edit Tool. The Course Edit Tool is an easy-to-use web-based tool that campuses use to add new courses or edit/update information on existing courses in the database. See http://oregonone.org/contributors/course_edit_faq.htm. Key Word Search*. A key word search that searches the fields of course number, course title, course description, and instructor name was added March 2001.
Participation by Campuses	There are 22 institutions participating (eight public universities, ten community colleges, four independent institutions), with more than 75 degree/certificate programs and over 2,000 courses typically listed in the database. ONE also contains more than 80 informational and help pages with numerous links to participating campuses and/or agencies which provide various services. ONE is expected to continue to grow with more institutions contributing and more students using this service. The number of courses offered by participating institutions varies from term to term. A survey on 5/10/01 revealed a total listing of 1,976 courses for the academic terms: winter 2001, spring 2001, summer 2001, and open (flexible start). There were 83 programs listed. Courses are categorized in the database by delivery methods (web, correspondence, face to face offsite, telecourses, videotape, computer conferencing, live video, CD-ROM, and mixed modes). The above listing appears in rank order – the most numerous are the web courses (about one-third) and the least numerous are the CD-ROM courses.
Campus Technical Assistance	An online manual with instructions for campus technical staff is available at ONE to expedite the submission of course data at http://OregonONE.org/contributors/. A Technical Assistance Workshop was held 6/8/00 to help technical staff share their methods of submitting data to ONE and further develop their expertise/efficiency (13 institutions were represented). ITS staff assist institutions on a one-to-one basis with technical difficulties submitting their course feeds. To further assist campuses in developing their procedures to standardize course feeds, ONE invited campuses to apply for technical assistance funds. Fourteen institutions requested funds: seven community colleges and seven universities (Central Oregon Community College, Columbia Gorge Community College, Lane Community College, Mount Hood Community College, Oregon Coast Community College, Portland Community College, Umpqua Community College, Eastern Oregon University, Oregon Health Sciences University, Oregon Institute of Technology, Oregon State University, Portland State University, Southern Oregon University, Western Oregon University). A total of $28,160 was distributed among the 14 institutions. All institutions that accepted technical assistance funds are expected to submit courses to ONE as a condition of receiving the funds.
Faculty Advisory Committees	In 1999-2000, ONE established several interinstitutional faculty committees to consider aspects of a Common Course Marketplace (CCM); and to address career/degree articulation pathways in the fields of nursing, agriculture, liberal studies, teacher education, and business. A total of 88 faculty and staff from Oregon universities/community colleges participated in three plenary sessions (10/20/99, 2/11/00, 5/5/00) and smaller committee meetings. The year-long review of the issues surrounding the CCM concept generated a number of key outcomes including a list of critical issues/barriers to advancing a CCM, suggested approaches and solutions to resolving barriers, and the recommendation to move from committee work towards implementation through modeling the CCM concepts in "demonstration" projects during 2000-01. Although the committees cited many critical challenges, they did not oppose the creation of a CCM. Instead, they suggested numerous approaches to resolve barriers and suggested that the many administrative and financial issues surrounding course-sharing were larger barriers to implementing the CCM than the academic issues.
Degree and Career Pathways	As a result of faculty committees working on degree pathways, information on how students can move from associate degrees to baccalaureate degrees in key career areas has been completed and posted at ONE in the areas of nursing, agriculture, and liberal studies. Additional pathway information is in process for the areas of teacher education, business, engineering, and computer science.
Demonstration Projects	The ONE Steering Committee supported the recommendation made by faculty committees meeting during 1999-2000 to fund projects that could model and demonstrate course- and/or program-sharing elements among campuses during 2000-01. The ONE project solicited proposal ideas from campuses in August 2000. In fall 2000, 12 projects involving a total of 10 institutions and totaling $36,650 were selected as "demonstration projects" during 2000-01. The demonstration projects are focusing on issues and outcomes that hold the most potential for advancing successful models of course- and program-sharing.
Promotion/ Marketing	A variety of informational efforts were initiated to inform students, school and college advisors, and others about the ONE website during 2000-01: An informational flyer on ONE was included in the packets for the three regional high school counselor meetings sponsored by OUS in fall 2000. A one-page flyer summarizing Oregon Collaborative Partnerships in Distance Education was developed 11/00 to be distributed at several regional and national meetings. Two-thousand posters in two designs were printed. Posters were mailed between 12/00 and 3/01 to the 22 participating ONE campuses; 1,230 Oregon elementary, middle and high schools; 220 Oregon public libraries; and 45 Oregon extension offices. Bookmarks were printed for widespread distribution. Bookmarks were mailed out with posters and also distributed at meetings (regional Oregon high school counselors, OUS/Community College Articulation and Transfer Conference, OUS Online Course Showcase, Oregon Joint Boards of Education, Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, Oregon Distance Education Forum). Several PowerPoint slides on ONE were created to use as public service announcements on various cable TV stations statewide. These are currently showing in the Eugene/Springfield area, Ashland/Medford area, Portland area, and Central Oregon. Governor John Kitzhaber recorded a TV and radio public service announcement for OregonONE on 10/2/00 (produced by the University of Oregon Media Services). Versions of the PSAs in beta, SVHS, and VHS of the video and CDs of the radio spot were developed. ONE sent VHS copies to each participating institution, and distributed PSAs across the state to 17 television and 35 radio stations, and is now receiving airtime on TV and radio stations statewide. A four-minute interview on ONE was shown Sunday evening, 9/17/00, on KPDX Fox TV (reporter: Eric Schmidt), with coverage in the Portland metro area. Many campuses participating at ONE have placed links to OregonONE on their distance education web pages. ONE plans to contact the main Internet Service Providers across the state to suggest adding a link to ONE from community service pages they host, as well as cross-linking with various out-of-state distance education consortia/organizations.
Visitor Statistics	Visitor statistics are available at http://OregonONE.org/stats.html. Throughout fall 2000, ONE averaged 3,500-4,000 page requests weekly. Beginning winter 2001 and coinciding with marketing initiatives, visits have averaged 8,000-11,000 per week. Visits noticeably increase in the weeks preceding and the week of the start of the academic quarter term. Approximately 29% of ONE visitors have come from .com domains (especially AOL and ATT's home.com), 26% from .net domains, and 14% from .edu domains.
K-12 Participation	In fall 2000, ONE staff met with the Principal of CyberSchool to discuss K-12 participation in OregonONE (e.g., listing K-12 courses in the ONE database, other joint activities). CyberSchool is the only online distance education site that currently serves K-12 students statewide; others in Salem-Keizer (SK Online), Hillsboro (NetSchool), and Jackson ESD (Southern Oregon Online School) restrict entry to students in their own districts. The first joint activity was a combined mailing of CyberSchool posters with ONE posters to all Oregon high schools in 12/00.
Agreements to Guide Future ONE Participation	Staff prepared a draft of a "Statement of Joint Responsibility Among Participating Institutions" for discussion at the summer 2000 Steering Committee meeting. It was thought such a statement would give participation in ONE more legitimacy and help clarify roles of participants. The draft statement will be reviewed with campuses spring 2001 and as part of the planning for ONE after the grant terminates fall 2001.
Distance Education Forum	A Distance Education Forum was held 5/16/01, in Portland. The meeting was an opportunity to learn more about course- and program-sharing initiatives in distance education, accreditation issues, plans for ONE after the grant ends, K-20 collaborative planning for technology infrastructure, progress made on demonstration projects, lessons learned from the ONE project, and distance education trends/policies. 175 administrators, faculty, and staff from public universities, independent colleges and K-12 schools/ESDs attended, along with agency and corporate representatives.
Plans Post-Grant	Plans are being made for the continuation of ONE after the grant terminates in fall 2001. ONE is expected to be able to operate without additional external support if each of the following groups is able to contribute assistance: the OUS Chancellor's Office and the Department of Community College Services and Workforce Development provide organizational support; the OUS ITS maintains the database; and the campuses continue to feed their course and program information to ONE.
Proposed New Feature at ONE	A new feature is planned for ONE if additional resources are available. This would permit development of an online center for faculty and staff in distance education. The online center would consolidate services to assist faculty/staff from three sectors (universities, community colleges, K-12) in distance education course, program, and services development/redesign. Various strategies could be tested/implemented: for example, a clearinghouse of innovative courses faculty could learn from including web and video; links to instructional-related websites across the educational sectors; showcasing innovations by faculty/staff and institutions (such as campus Portals); conducting and disseminating research on pedagogy; joint planning activities; and shared training services. A grant proposal to FIPSE for this project was submitted on behalf of ONE on 4/26/01, but was not funded.
Key Documents	Questions and Answers about Technical and Operational Aspects of the ONE Project Part One: Building the Database (3/00) Part Two: After a Year of Public Operation (4/01) The Feasibility and Processes for Implementing a Common Course Marketplace Component at the Oregon Network for Education. 10/00 (PDF document) Report on the Academic Residency Policies at OUS Institutions. Sandra Gladney, University of Oregon, 4/01

Direct your questions and comments to the Oregon Network for Education