Greetings all! I wanted to take a moment to share where we are with our analysis of the ZTC data that many of you have provided – and are still providing (thank you!). The more information we have, the better – so please keep it coming. If you are not part of a cohort and are interested in sharing the resources you are using and the needs that you have, please stay tuned – we will create an opportunity for this sharing. From the OERI’s vantage point, the more we know, the better we can support all of our colleges. Forgive me, this message may be a long one.
We have made a 1st pass through the data for almost all of the cohorts. While we are looking forward to providing public summaries of what we have gathered, our 1st step is going to be trying to obtain missing information. Consequently, we will be contacting ZTC contacts at the colleges and requesting missing information. Most commonly, we do not have specific information regarding how sections achieved ZTC. We are interested in what specific OER and library resources are being used, as well as freely available resources. We also understand that there may be instances where there is no easy way to communicate what resources are being used and invite you to indicate “locally curated OER collection”, “mixture of OER, open source, and library resources being used”, or whatever is appropriate. While sharing what is used to get to ZTC is required when ZTC funds are used, you have no such obligation for your course sections that are ZTC that are not being worked on as part of your ZTC pathway work. In addition to not knowing how sections achieved ZTC, the courses that you are working on to make ZTC and how you plan to do that may have not been specified. In some instances, colleges listed every course for a given degree pathway. Please keep in mind that we need to know what is ZTC and what you plan to work on with ZTC funds.
In addition to asking for information, we will also be working to clarify – or further clarify – who we should be communicating with. And this is where things may be a little tricky. As you know, a pathway consist of courses – and not all the courses in a given pathway are in a single discipline. In other words, if you have identified a psychology faculty to be the lead for your psychology ADT work and the courses that are not ZTC in your psychology degree are biology, math, and sociology, the faculty who are working on the identified biology, math, and sociology courses will be the faculty that we will ultimately need to connect with. While it would make things easier for us if there was a single point person for a pathway, if you need to specify others, please do so.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the OERI.