Learner Support Services Fund Projects

In December 2008, eCampusAlberta invited member institutions to submit project proposals to access a one-time, $300,000 Learner Support Services Fund (LSSF) that was created to determine new ways of providing and enhancing online learner support services across the consortium. In April 2009, it was announced that the following projects were selected for funding:

Project summaries:

Meeting the Needs of Diverse Students Engaged in eLearning (Bow Valley in  cooperation with partners Lethbridge, NAIT, NorQuest, Northern Lakes, Olds, Portage and Red Deer)
Project goals include: enhance the accessibility, capacity and quality of supports provided to diverse learners enrolled in courses and programs offered through eCampusAlberta; identify efficiencies, areas of improvement and system-wide solutions for providing online learner support services.

Read Bow Valley's Successful Practices in Supporting Students in Distributed Learning reports:

• Successful Practices Final Report
• Successful Practices Summary Report
• Successful Practices Executive Summary
• Literature Review
• Policy Development Toolkit

Supplementary reports on the delivery of online learning to diverse students are also available:

• Meeting the Needs of Diverse Students Engaging in e-Learning, Phase I Report
• Meeting the Needs of Diverse Students Engaging in e-Learning, Phase 2 Report
• Meeting the Needs of Diverse Students Engaging in e-Learning, Phase II: Collaborative Policy Development to Enhance Online Learning - FINAL REPORT

The eToolkit represents a summary of all the above projects’ findings along with supporting examples and guidelines for assessing and developing institutional practices in distributed learning. For each of the identified successful practices, the eToolkit provides an Organizational Assessment tool (as a printable MS Word document) that serves as a checklist for determining to what degree an institution follows the practice.

• Supporting Students in Distributed Learning - An eToolkit

Online Academic Supports for eLearning (Lethbridge)
Project goals include: create a website that will contain academic resources for online students; develop an online tutoring service for students enrolled in Lethbridge College courses offered through eCampusAlberta. This pilot project will see the development, implementation and evaluation of a model for online tutoring for students, which could benefit the entire system. The model and evaluation will be shared with all eCampusAlberta partners. Visit Lethbridge College's eLearning Café.

Accessibility to eCampusAlberta for Persons with Disabilities: Systemic Challenges and Proposed Solutions (NorQuest)
Project goals include: identify the accommodation supports required for learners with disabilities who access courses offered through eCampusAlberta; propose a systemic structure to provide supports for learners with disabilities; and outline the process for funding learners with disabilities who are accessing courses through eCampusAlberta.

Read the paper written by Flo Brokop at NorQuest College: Accessibility to E-Learning for Persons with Disabilities: Strategies, Guidelines, and Standards