As the 2015-2017 Biennium comes to a close, we’d like to share some of the triumphs we’ve been able to accomplish collectively. Working together, we’ve been able to increase service to students, enrich distance learning environments and lower costs across the 17 community colleges.

• OCCDLA.net website launched.
• All 17 of Oregon’s community colleges have adopted OER, with over 300 entries for courses or course sequences on the Open Oregon Resources page.
• The OER Grant program saved students over $1 million during the 2015-2017 Biennium.
• As of March 2017, the Films on Demand OCCDLA consortium had over 13,500 titles accessed and 147,630 views.
• Staff and faculty from all 17 Oregon community colleges participated in 440 QM workshops during this biennium. 261 of those were workshops with official graded completion standards.
• 132 faculty participated in 7 statewide online workshops, including the IYOC and APPQMR.
• 14 faculty or staff completed QM’s Peer Reviewer Course to become certified peer reviewers. (Peer reviewers can participate on local, state, and national peer review teams.)
• Our statewide grant funding allowed 41 people to participate in the QM National Conference 2016 in Portland.
• 19 courses achieve QM recognition during the past biennium, mainly from CGCC.
• Four member colleges were awarded grant money to complete a special project focusing on promoting quality course design.
• With statewide funding, 96 participants from Oregon community colleges were able to attend the 2016 NW eLearn Conference in Eugene.
• OCCDLA funding provided the opportunity for two aspiring distance learning leaders from local Oregon community colleges to attend the Instructional Technology Council’s Distance Education Leadership Academy in 2015 and 2016. OCCDLA has committed to send three nominees to the 2017 academy this summer.
• 35 statewide participants learned more about web conferencing technology for instruction in the Blackboard Collaborate 2016 Fall Webinar Series. 19 participants attended one or more sessions of the Blackboard Collaborate 2017 Spring Webinar Series.
• Several faculty were involved with reviewing emerging technology tools for Oregon Community Colleges. One example of a result of these investigations: The Zoom pilot has risen to the top as the recommended conferencing tool of choice for the majority of Oregon Community Colleges.
• Accessibility: 31407 minutes of media (523.45 hours) were made more accessible via OCCDLA’s captioning efforts in this biennium. For some schools, this was the only set of dedicated funds to allow them to make their media accessible.
• Representatives from Lane, Linn-Benton, Chemeketa, Mt. Hood, and Portland CC co-presented as OCCDLA on using the Learning Management System to support student success initiatives at the Student Success & Retention Conference in February 2016.

Looking Forward

Here’s to a great biennium with so many fantastic accomplishments!  We are all looking forward to continued success collaborating together on various initiatives over the 2017 – 2019 biennium.