In an ongoing series about the Interactive Quality Assessment Tool, IQAT's, subscribers, TRAQS will feature interviews with our member institutions. This month, a discussion with a charter member from the community college group, Kelvin Bentley, Ph.D., Director of Distance Learning, Northampton Community College. Bentley explains, "We subscribed to IQAT because it represented a tool and a process that does not readily exist in distance learning. Although it is important to generate our own data at Northampton Community College, we must find new ways to compare ourselves with our peers who also provide online and hybrid courses. IQAT will help our institution not only prepare its own data about distance learning but help us maintain a steady course toward continual improvement."
Founded 40 years ago this fall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Northampton Community College is a comprehensive community college serving more than 9000 students in degree and diploma programs and another 23,000+ students through its Center for Business and Industry, Center for Adult Learning, Horizons for Youth and literacy programs. To learn more about the College, go to www.northampton.edu.
IQAT: How long have you been the Director for Distance Learning at NCC?
KB: I began my position on June 13, 2006.
IQAT: What does your role entail?
KB: I oversee the Distance Learning Office at NCC and provide oversight for all credit-based, distance learning strategic planning and activities that include online course development, the hiring and evaluation of online instructors, and collaboration with student services offices to enhance the quality of student services to distance learners.
IQAT: What's your background?
KB: I earned a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in 1999 with a major area concentration in clinical psychology. Since this time, I have taught at the assistant professor level and held various administrative positions including the coordinator of Louisiana's first online, Bachelor of Science program in psychology from 2001-2003 at Northwestern State University. From 2003-2005, I served as the Dean of General Education for Baker Online and from 2005- 2006, worked for the College of Arts and Sciences at Seton Hall University as the dean's Academic Director of Online and Extended Education.
IQAT: What is the most critical issue for DL Administrators today?
KB: Maintaining the overall quality of our programs. The rapid growth of distance learning over the past few years brings with it on-going systematic challenges. The design and development of our courses, our ability to hire and train excellent instructors, our use of assessment to measure student learning, and our use of ever-evolving computer-related technologies, to name a few, continue to stretch distance learning administrators' management and leadership skills. Its an exciting time to be a distance learning administrator as we find new ways to meet the challenges before us. I enjoy what I do and I am glad that I have the opportunity to work in a field that is ever-changing and so full of new opportunities to give students access to a college education that aligns well with their schedules.
IQAT: What other benchmarking initiatives exist at NCC that include Distance Learning?
KB: Our participation in the National Community College Benchmark Project (NCCBP). Although the questions used by the NCCBP do include those related to distance learning, IQAT's appeal is that it was designed with distance learning as more of the focal point of the benchmarking process compared to the NCCBP.
IQAT: What IQAT peer groups do you belong to?
KB: Besides our benchmarking activities, the The Office of Distance Learning will collaborate with our student services offices to offer real-time online tutoring and academic advising for the first time in the college's history using Elluminate Live, a popular web conferencing tool. We will also use this tool to hold real-time onlien meetings with our online students and faculty to help them feel more connected to our institution during the academic year. In addition, I will carefully review the success rates of students enrolled in online courses to determine if there are major differences in the success rates of distance vs. onsite sections of the same course. This process could help us identify how we can improve our distance learning courses.
Interested in learning more about Northampton Community College and how they got involved in IQAT? Contact Kelvin Bentley, PhD, Director of Distance Learning at kbentley@northampton.edu or (610) 861-5534.
To learn more about IQAT, the Interactive Quality Assessment Tool, visit www.iqat.org, or contact Melissa Fleischmann at (866) 395-IQAT for additional details.
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