Teaching & Learning in Online Spaces

In Fall of 2013, two brave faculty saw an open door and boldly stepped through, ushering in Cal Poly’s first attempt to participate along with most other CSUs on the eLearning stage for recognition in quality course design. Bridget Benson (CENG-Electrical Engineering) and Billy Riggs (CAED-City & Regional Planning) offered their hybrid courses up for review against the solid and time-tested standards of the QOLT (Quality Online Learning & Teaching) Rubric, and an internal team of Cal Poly reviewers offered objective and detailed feedback for their continued course development and improvement. Both courses showed a strong adherence to the standards, and a thoughtful approach to engaging students through a student-centered eLearning environment.  Submitting a course to the QOLT takes courage. The QOLT Rubric draws from a venerable list of predecessors such as the  Chico Rubric for Online Instruction , the  Quality Matters  program, and other nation...

By now you have probably heard about the security threat discovered recently that affects up to 2/3 of all websites that use secure login technology. The news may seem alarming and confusing all at the same time. This is, in many ways, like the news of a major flu epidemic – you have to wonder, “have I been exposed? What is about to happen?” And similar to fighting invisible germs, you have no overtly obvious way of knowing if you’ve come in contact with a website that has been compromised by the Heartbleed vulnerability, or whether that contact will result in some sort of infection. This is an exposure where the symptoms may take a long time to come to light. The vulnerability affects many sites that use an encrypted login – whether that is a financial site, a shopping site, or a site which asks for your personal information to be sent over the web in a form that is protected. If you pay attention to this sort of thing (and you should) you would know this by seeing the “https:...