MELA Minutes 2024-2025

MELA MINUTES 2024-2025 Mississippi Virtual Community College

Mississippi eLearning Association Minutes Thursday September 12-2024, at 9:00 a.m. Virtual Meeting Link: site. https://itsmsgov.zoom.us/j/88521323446?pwd=a94Df9Sq5AXLatAHwWOrqblPECeuxX.1L inks to an external site. Zoom Recording: https://mvcc16.instructure.com/courses/444805/pages/mela-meeting-recordings-2024- 2025?module_item_id=31987129

College/Association

Representative(s)

Coahoma Community College

Monica Johnson

Copiah-Lincoln Community College

Anna Davis

East Central Community College East Mississippi Community College Hinds Community College

Tish Stewart, Shalon Farris, Katie Graves, Ashley Self, Chanda Sykes Denise Gillespie, Stacey Hughes, Tequila Sunrise, Melanie Francis, Heather Franks

Holmes Community College

Itawamba Community College

Jones College

Jason Cooley; Kelly Robinson

Kelley Gonzales; Holley Purvis; Erin Richardson Carmen Brown, Sarah Buchanan, Jason Zuehlke

Meridian Community College

Mississippi Delta Community College

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

Van Morse; Michelle Pickering

Northeast Mississippi Community College

Kim Harris; Sabine Zabarovska

Northwest Mississippi Community College

Angel Nickens, Aaron, Pain, Carla Malone

Pearl River Community College

Michelle Mitchell

Southwest Mississippi Community College

Matt Calhoun

Dr. Krista LeBrun; Dr. Christa Wilhite, Megan Akins

MS Community College Board

Office

College/Association

Name

President

Itawamba Community College

Tequila Sunrise

Jason Cooley

President Elect

Jones Community College

Secretary

Mississippi Delta Community College Carmen Brown

I.

Preliminaries A. Call to Order: Tequila Sunrise, ICC 9:00 a.m. B. Roll Call: Carmen Brown C. Approval of August Minutes 1. Motion to approve: Kelly Gonzales 2. Second to approve: Aaron Pain 3. Approved D. Approval of September 2024 Agenda

1. Motion to approve: Angel Nickens 2. Second to approve: Anna Davis 3. Approved

II.

New Business

A. MCCB Reports 1. Dr. Krista LeBrun, MCCB Dr. Lebrun thanked Tequila for putting together the conference and acknowledged the challenges with Francine coming in.

1. ELIT Division Updates a. As Dr. LeBrun previously shared, Ariana had a tremendous opportunity to take a new role at Jackson State University which caused them to rethink the office operations. In addition, due to the tremendous amount of federal regulations that are impacting the MSVCC right now. Dr, LeBrun has adjusted her efforts so she can focus more on contractual services and federal regulations b. Dr. LeBrun informed us that Christa Wilhite’s is taking on a new title as Director of Digital Marketing. She will oversee the digital learning operations services of the MSVCC Academy and also cover high level tech support. This will involve working closer with the vendors so MCCB can provide the support services that the consortium needs. c. Dr. LeBrun introduced Megan Atkins who has been with MCCB for 11 years. She will now be the Digital Support Specialist and will be working closely with Dr. Wilhite. Megan will be helping the dept with transitioning content to be in compliance with the accessibility regulation that's recently came out and, in the future, will become the primary contact for tier one support services. d. WOW Award (WCET Outstanding Work) i. Kenny Heard encouraged MCCB to make a submission for the WCET WOW award because of the consortium's outstanding work. ii. An application for the award was submitted based on the work of the Mississippi Virtual Community College that showcases MSVCC's collaborative work. Dr. LeBrun noted that MSVCCs work is considered groundbreaking. She backed it up with statistics, such as our cost savings through purchasing power, collaborative efforts with federal regulations, and professional development. They will be presented with the award in a press release recognizing the colleges and their collaborative work when they attend the WCET conference in October. She also noted that they have been asked to create a blog post and a short video. Christa will lead the video production and ask for MSVCC's input on what each school has done. e. CidiLab- TidyUp i. Dr. LeBrun got a quote from Jen Lucky at CidiLab to renew the TidyUp subscription for another year, costing $10,300, the same as the previous year. She added that CidiLab would host an additional 60-meeting Q&A session on best practices and resources for the consortium. She advised that the consortium should act on it promptly so the extension could be completed by the end of the year. Michelle Mitchell made a motion to extend the TidyUp contract with the additional 60-meeting Q&A session and Tish Stewart seconded it. The motion was

passed. Dr. LeBrun will present this at the MAC meeting in September f. Canvas Insights i. Dr. LeBrun asked if anyone was interested in hearing more about Canvas Insights, presented by Ms. Angela Carter, and Mr. David Thalman from Instructure. If so, she could ask Angela to provide the consortium with additional sessions and quotes for Canvas Insights. Dr. Kelly Gonzalez from Meridian said yes and would like the institutional research department at MCC to be included in the demo. Jason Zuehlke from MDCC mentioned in the chat that he thought it would be beneficial to have other departments on campus present at the demo. Dr. LeBrun said it wouldn't be a problem. She also mentioned that Carley Dear from the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who presented on how they're using Canvas and Power BI, could also present to other departments within the community colleges. There was a lot of interest in this going forward; therefore, Dr. LeBrun stated she would reach out to Angela Carter, and then she and Christa would get something scheduled and sent out to the colleges. a. Dr. Wilhite wanted to give an additional shout-out Megan Akins. She also added that Megan will be added to support emails so she can follow the thread of what's going on. Megan will be working closely with Christa and will attend meetings with Sean and Megan Saxton to form a repour with vendor partners. Dr. Wilhite is working on enrolling Megan in the CCTA program that she, Kim Steinmann, and Jan Zuehlke completed last year. i. Dr. Wilhite suggested Megan connect with the community colleges and learn how each works individually in their canvas instance, which will help her build that skill set. 2. ELC Listserv Updates a. Dr. Wilhite noted she will step in and complete the task of updating the listserv since this is something Tina Bradley did. She will send the current names to all the eLCs and asked to let her know who needs to “stay and who needs to go”. 3. MSVCC Academy Updates and Change a. Dr. Wilhite noted the following is the direction the Academy is focusing on for the fall i. There will be a mix of CidiLabs trainings: live and on demand ii. Quality Committee had an ad hoc meeting this summer and discussed merging Growing with Canvas, Digging Deeper and Course development training creating a three-tier program. She will be working on assembling this with the ad hoc committee.

2. Dr. Christa Wilhite, MCCB 1. Introducing - Megan Akins!

iii. The academy will be piloting course pacing with Course Basics. Instead of multiple offerings, it will be one six-month session where anyone can enroll at any point during this time and complete at his or her on pace b. Dr. Wilhite asked if there were any questions. One question was posed about the cost of the CCTA. i. The cost is $1400 and does not include the support benefit. Christa stated if someone is a veteran admin he or she does need the entire program as in Core 1 and Core 2. She found the API elective was beneficial and there will be more electives becoming available. You can isolate and register for the courses that may be beneficial and not take the whole program. She asked Jason’s opinion, 1. He found value in the course, even though some content was repeated. He stated the way they presented it added significant value. For example, after learning about RSI, he took the CCTA course, where they used Canvas basic tools and they backed RSI effectively. There were only two elective options when he enrolled, but they are adding more this year. He chose the tier-two support package but hasn’t used it yet so that he might switch to the basic package next year without the extra support. The year-long contract allows him to skip tier one, but they were quick and efficient when he used tier one. ii. Dr. Wilhite added if anyone would like her to share her documentation on the subject she would be glad to. presentation for the WOW award. Part of her concept is producing a video which showcases how the consortium collaborates, offers professional development, and encourages students to work with technology. Her deadline is October 2 so she asked to please have these photos to her by the end of September. 5. SmarterProctoring (SP2) a. SP2 has never supported ProctorU issues. Issues with ProctorU will go to them not SP2 or RegisterBlast (RB). SP2 is not involved unless it is with scheduling issues. b. Dr. Wilhite had a side conversation with Sean and Shalon regarding roster sync which involves students being removed when they are no longer in the class, so seats can become available. Sean does have a ticket in within engineering to make that happen. One of her deliverables coming out of this retreat is to give Sean a workflow chart of canvas student status that is either active, inactive, or deleted to help him solve the sync issues between smarter proctoring and RegisterBlast. This is something the consortium has been asking about for 9 years. 4. Photos Needed! a. Dr. Wilhite noted she will need photos to create a video

3. MSVCC Committees 1. Quality & Support a. Jason

i. Jason couldn't attend yesterday's committee meeting, but he's been informed that the focus will be on delving deeper into accessibility to stay ahead of upcoming regulations and guidelines. Kelly Gonzales asked about the ETA for the demo request presented by the Quality Committee yesterday. The committee suggested looking at three companies for accessibility. Jason stated he doesn't have any details right now, only a brief overview of what was discussed. When he gets back on Monday, he will meet with Sarah to gather all the information from the meeting and start setting things up. b. Michelle i. We reviewed the survey summary from the summer, and accessibility was the top concern. We will create a document summarizing the findings for reference. c. Tish i. The 2026-2027 calendars will be reviewed and the will forwarded to everyone. ii. Tequila Sunrise will again serve as president, Jason Coley as vice president, and Carmen Brown as Secretary. Tish reminded everyone of the officer rotation. iii. Tish announced she would be retiring on June 25, so she would like to add two standing members to the admin committee: Michelle Mitchell and Kim Harris. This would result in three permanent members and three members rotating on and off. Angela Nickens made a motion to approve, Carmen Brown seconded and motion approved

III.

Action Items A. None

IV.

Open Forum A. Discussion on Archiving Courses Angel Nickens NWCC 1. Some larger schools archive courses because of space. 2. Some colleges do not archive or remove courses. 3. Some colleges delete courses after a set number of years. B. Credential Files and Transcripts in MSVCC ET. Buffy Matthews

1. MGCCC reminded everyone the importance of instructor credentials for course sharing and for SACs Reviews. 2. MGCC noted SACs asked for resumes for instructors so this may be something we need to add to instructor credentials.

C. Dr. LeBrun added she could ask Van Davis from WCET to talk to the group at the November meeting about accessibility if there were an interest. The group agreed it would be beneficial. Announcements A. Tish announced Holmes is looking for a systems admin who will begin on January 1. VI. Adjournment at 10:01, September 12, 2024 A. Tequila Sunrise stated if there’s nothing else to discuss we will adjourn at 10:01. V.

Mississippi eLearning Association Minutes Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at 9:00 a.m. Virtual Meeting Link: https://itsmsgov.zoom.us/j/87832018601?pwd=CH2A3waXbHWV7CnFftar5QRUaBFzgJ.1

College/Association

Representative(s)

Coahoma Community College

Monica Johnson, Tylan Butler Amanda Hood, Renae Breakfield Kellie Penson

Copiah-Lincoln Community College

East Central Community College

East Mississippi Community College

Katherine Puckett; Kelton Kemp; Jasmine Shepherd Ms. Tish Stewart; Heather Guest, Shalon Farris Denise Gillespie; Tequila Sunrise; Stacey Hughes, Melanie Francis

Hinds Community College

Holmes Community College

Itawamba Community College

Jones College

Mr. Jason Cooley;

Ms. Holley Purvis; Ms. Erin Richardson; Dr. Kelley Gonzales

Meridian Community College

Mississippi Delta Community College

Carmen Brown, Sarah Buchanan

Buffey Mathews, Michelle Pickering, Van Morse

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

Northeast Mississippi Community College

Sabine Zabarovska; Kim Harris,

Northwest Mississippi Community College

Angel Nickens; Carla Malone; Aaron Payne

Pearl River Community College Michelle Mitchell Southwest Mississippi Community College Matt Calhoun, Alicia Shows MS Community College Board

Dr. Krista LeBrun; Megan Akins; Dr. Christa Wilhite

Office

College/Association

Name

President

Itawamba Community College

Tequila Sunrise

President Elect

Jones College

Jason Cooley

Secretary

Mississippi Delta Community College

Carmen Brown

A. CidiLabs Q&A with MCCB and NW teams (DesignPLUS, ReadyGO, and TidyUP) 1. Carla Malone demonstrated step-by-step how to use UDoIt, an add-on tool for CidiLabs. NWCC purchased this to help instructors follow the new accessibility guidelines required by the federal government, which goes into effect in April 2026. To purchase the add-on tool is $5000 per institution. Main UDOIT features : 1. The capability of scanning entire course. 1. Download a summary of the entire scan 2. The capability to see the most common errors, most common suggestions, and most common fixed issues. 1. The different ways to get started: 1. Existing errors, open issues, or issue types 2. Content areas, such as announcements, discussions, and assignments. 3. "Fix It" tool. This tool shows where these issues are located

by providing the content's title, the type of issue (such as whether it pertains to a page), and the specific problem that needs to be addressed and allows you to fix it.

Points and questions brought out: 2. Tish Stewart: Can some of this be done with the regular version of Cidilabs?

1. Carla added the differences between the free and paid versions of the platform. The free version offers access to basic features, but the paid version offers several additional benefits. The free version cannot replace files when generating alternate formats within your courses. The paid version also provides an administrative dashboard, allowing us to track our instructors. 3. Denise Gillespie: If CidiLabs is discontinued, will instructors have access to the pages created there? 1. Christa Wilhite answered: She explained that while the CSS and styling properties for CidiLabs would remain on the Canvas page, they would no longer be editable. 4. Angel Nickens stated that NWCC wanted a user-friendly tool to enable our instructors to remediate their courses effectively and efficiently, so they purchased UDoIt. 5. Angel also stated, "What would it take for the state to get all of us on board and consider adopting a tool? We all need resources to support our instructors and e- learning departments in addressing the challenges we face in our classes. Various online examples show how effective these tools can be. They often catch issues the average person might not notice, such as files that don't meet specific accommodation standards." B. Preliminaries 1. Call to Order: Ms. Tequila Sunrise, ICC 9:14 a.m.

2. Roll Call: Mrs. Carmen Brown 3. Approval of September Minutes:

1. Motion to Approve: Tish Stewart 2. Second to Approve: Buffy Mathew 3. Approved 1. Motion to Approve: Buffy Mathews 2. Second to Approve: Jason Cooley 3. Approved

4. Approval of Agenda

C. New Business

1. MCCB Reports 1. LeBrun

Dr. LeBrun informed the group in order for the proposed regulations to become official and take effect on July 1, 2025, they needed to go through the Office of Budget Management and Research and Effectiveness. However, this did not occur, meaning the proposed regulations will not be effective on July 1, 2025. She also stated given the upcoming election, it’s possible that these proposed regulations could be withdrawn entirely. Therefore, we will continue to monitor the situation. It's important to note that accessibility and professional licensure remain regulations that must be followed. The regulations discussed regarding attendance, opting in for textbooks, and cash management will not take effect on July 1, 2025. This gives some of a

reprieve regarding certain regulations. Updates will continue to be monitored and sent Dr. LeBrun circled back to discuss the contract with TII. She stated the contract with Turnitin expires on June 30, 2025, and it's time to request a renewal quote. Currently, we're paying $199,876 per year, which increased by about $27,000 when we added AI services in the second year. She doesn’t expect a significant increase in the next quote, but she needs to the association's interest in continuing the contract. If there's interest, she can request a quote from Megan to share. She stated she would reach out to Megan today and hopefully get a quote back by the end of the week. But if not, she anticipates Megan will be able to get that by early next week and she will share that via email. She advised us there has been a change in some of their procurement procedures; however, she doesn't anticipate it will extend the process. However, she wants to start the process quickly to avoid waiting until the last minute to submit the proposal. She would like to get the necessary information early next week and secure a vote before Thanksgiving. Submitting everything by mid-December would help her feel more confident about getting the contract approved by our board. Since we don't typically have a December meeting, voting on the matter will take place via email 2. Wilhite 1. ELC Listserv The listserv is still being updated. Our temporary IT team is helping us remove former employees and adds the correct recipients. We appreciate your patience and ask you to share this information with your divisions. 2. Academy Updates 1. Course Duration and Offerings Dr. Wilhite noted they are excited to introduce something new this spring: an initiative combining Growing with Canvas and Digging Deeper. The goal is to make professional development (PD) more accessible for faculty, allowing for a longer duration and easier enrollment. 2. Course Revisions Dr. Wilhite noted that they are looking at the proposed course revisions that the Quality Committee recommended this past spring. These merge Growing with Canvas, Digging Deeper, and some of the course development program content. It is planned to have these ready in Fall 2025 for beginner, intermediate, and advanced formats. Webinars will be available for a year, especially those on hot topics, so faculty can access them throughout the year. She then asked if

there were any questions or suggestions about how the academy might evolve in the spring. 3. Webinar Availability The courses will be based on self-pacing with open enrollment available. The enrollment period will begin on January 13th and continue through the end of June. Both instructors and participants will have the opportunity to register at any time during this window. Courses will start on January 13th and continue until the end of June. Registration is open throughout the enrollment period with no cancellations. Courses are expected to close in May, allowing participants at least four weeks to complete them. Once the spring semester ends, the fall will be available so faculty will have on going opportunities. 3. MELA Course Updates and Accessibility Regulation Dr. Wilhite stated she wanted to ensure the courses are accessible and meet everyone's needs. If you have feedback, feel free to email her or set up a Zoom meeting to discuss it. To ensure compliance with accessibility regulations, she would like to collect feedback on what should be retained, removed, or archived in the upcoming year. The team is looking to move some materials to SharePoint but is facing permission issues across institutions that may affect account access. This process will involve trial and error to ensure everyone can access the necessary resources on the same SharePoint site. She stated she would appreciate any feedback to assist her with the course revision. 4. Upcoming Canvas Release Information Nikki will be covering some of the release notes in her November 13 webinar for the regional call. One of the features included in this release is the discussion checkpoints feature, which allows for multiple due dates for discussions. Dr. Wilhite stated this has been of interest because other tools have similar functionalities for grading and assessing students. She wanted to highlight this feature so that everyone is aware of its upcoming availability in the next release. 5. WCAG Self-Assessment Guide Dr. Wilhite has been working on the WCAG Self-Assessment Guide, which she plans to share with everyone once it's completed. Many people have expressed concern about the need for a checklist and the materials required for faculty to use. She has gone through the guidelines

and tried to approach them from a perspective of what an instructor would need to touch or what has an elevated level of developmental skill that the instructor would not have in an LMS. She started reviewing the materials found and organizing them based on the principal's guidelines. She plans to link them to the actual guidelines and categorize everything to include the necessary images, relevant links, audio and video requirements, and descriptions. She plans to create bite-sized professional development tutorials on YouTube, which would be beneficial because she could start each tutorial with a specific element or description that fits. There will be a need for Academy webinars and training to ensure repetition. She is seeking feedback on the direction and any tools or resources others may be using to share with faculty. 6. K-12 to College Webinar - Today 4-4:30pm The last item is an Academy webinar this afternoon; it's a 30-minute conversation with a new Academy facilitator. He is a K-12 school counselor who also works with colleges. 1. Academic Officers: Tish Stewart stated the calendar will be discussed later in the meeting. 2. Quality Committee : Michelle Pickering stated the information from Quality Committee for accessibility was submitted to the Support Committee which was the last thing the QC completed. 3. Support Committee: Jason Zuehlke was out but the question was raised about accessibility tools and the purchasing process for tools or services, which goes through this committee. 1. Dr. LeBrun noted that the consortium reviewed an accessibility product in 2022 and presented it to the presidents, but it was tabled. She is open to revisiting the topic if the consortium compares the products first which was discussed at the retreat in September. It was noted that this should come from the support committee. Dr. Wilhite stated she’s not been in contact with Jason about this but she saw Michelle Pickering’s email, in which Quality Support Committee outlined the group's needs and referenced a 2022 comparison. She noted that today’s demonstrations, especially by Carla, revealed more to explore with the product. Some vendors want to present to the group, but she chose to wait for the support committee to function properly. After the meeting, she will contact Jason to see if support is ready to proceed with the comparison or needs her assistance.

3. MSVCC Committees

D. Old Business

E. Action Items

1. Admin Committee - 2026/2027 Calendar Approval Dr. Amanda Hood asked if registration dates for Spring 2027 calendar could be moved from November 10 to November 3. It was noted along with a few other changes. A poll was taken 15/15 approved the third draft Denise Gillespie mentioned that the Academic Officers Association dissolved the calendar committee and appointed her to present the MeLA calendar at the meetings . 1. Web Accessibility Regulations (CW/MCCB Inquiry) 2. What is your institution doing to comply with the regulation? 3. What training needs do you foresee for your faculty that The Academy could assist with during Spring 2025? 1. Dr. Wilhite stated she led into this when discussing the self-assessment guide earlier. Our team is interested in knowing what the institutions are doing regarding the web accessibility regulations, like where you are in the process of pursuing compliance and what training needs for faculty, staff, and anybody that the academy could assist within spring 2025. This will help her start planning the webinar schedule. The current plans are to resurrect the CDP accessibility course, add information on the regulation, ensure it is current, and make it available for instructors' participation. 1. CFTTC 2025 Creating futures is going to happen again and will be hosted by the MC4. Presently there is not a room reserved for an MeLA meeting but if there is enough interest Dr. LeBrun can secure one. She mentioned to the higher ups that one issue the MeLA group has is the conference is scheduled during online midterms. Since many people were not included on the initial email Dr. Wilhite will forward it to the MeLA group 2. CW Out of Office - November 20th - 27th. Emails, Zoom, and Texts will not be monitored. Please direct all inquiries to Miss Aikens during this time. H. Adjournment 1. Adjourned at 10:12 F. Open Forum G. Announcements

Mississippi eLearning Association Minutes Wednesday, January 15, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. Virtual Meeting Link: https://itsmsgov.zoom.us/j/86900387249?pwd=Ge8I6deTJGLVEogLSJRqSdq1d0bt0d.1 Passcode: 1234

College/Association

Representative(s)

Coahoma Community College

Ms. Monica Johnson

Copiah-Lincoln Community College

Ms. Anna Davis

East Central Community College

Mr. Matt Blackwell

East Mississippi Community College

Ms. Chris Square

Hinds Community College

Ms. Katherine Puckett; Ms. Jasmine Shepherd

Ms. Tish Stewart; Ms. Heather Guest, Ms. Shalon Farris, Ms. Denise Gillespie; Ms. Tequila Sunrise; Ms. Stacey Hughes, Ms. Melanie Francis

Holmes Community College

Itawamba Community College

Jones College

Mr. Jason Cooley

Ms. Holley Purvis; Ms. Erin Richardson; Dr. Kelley Gonzales Ms. Carmen Brown, Ms. Sarah Buchanan,

Meridian Community College

Mississippi Delta Community College

Ms. Buffey Mathews, Ms. Michelle Pickering, Mr. Van Morse

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

Northeast Mississippi Community College

Ms. Sabine Zabarovska; Ms. Kim Harris,

Ms. Angel Nickens; Carla Ms. Malone; Mr. Aaron Payne

Northwest Mississippi Community College

Pearl River Community College

Ms. Michelle Mitchell

Southwest Mississippi Community College

Mr. Matt Calhoun

Dr. Krista LeBrun; Ms. Megan Akins; Dr. Christa Wilhite

MS Community College Board

1. Preliminaries 1. Call to Order: President Tequila Sunrise (ICC)

2. Roll Call: Carmen Brown (MDCC) 3. Approval of November Minutes:

1. Motion to approve: Buffey Mathews (MGCCC) 2. Second to approve: Chris Square (EMCC) 1. Motion to approve: Jason Cooley (JJC) 2. Second to approve: Michelle Mitchell (PRCC)

4. Approval of Agenda:

2. New Business

1. MCCB Reports 1. LeBrun

MACC Update Dr. Lebrun opened the meeting letting us know the main office had a power outage and would not be opened for a few days; therefore, she as well as all the staff at MCCB, were working remotely. Dr. Lebrun only had a few things to report which were the renewal contracts for TurnItIn and MELO. The renewal of the TII contract was approved by the group via an online vote in December. In addition, the MELO contract. MELO is moving to a multi-year contract and has a nearly $25000 increase in EBSCOHost, so it will need to be approved by MAC. Both items were sent to Dr. Graham to request their addition to the January agenda. She requested usage reports to have available when being presented to the MAC. Dr. LeBrun briefly gave us an overview of the usage. Last academic year, there were about 647,000 submissions across all community colleges with TurnItIn. Regarding EBSCOhost, since there will be meeting with the Librarians Association, Dr. Lebrun asked Seth Woods, the rep for EBSCOhost, to provide a

report showing how each institution is accessing the information. Seth should be sending this out, and she will forward it to everyone as well as with Dr. Graham, and she'll disseminate it to the presidents. Dr. LeBrun is working on providing the 2028 projected budget . Instructure is set to conclude in 2028 so she is in contact with Jason Carter to get assessment data. In addition she will guestimate Aspire EDU, CidiLabs, and Smarter Services which concludes on July 1, 2027, by projecting the average 2% to 3% annual increase. She also mentioned the service the consortium chooses to add for ensuring that courses are in compliance with the upcoming Accessibility of Web Content federal regulations should be factored in. She doesn’t foresee the MAC wanting to discontinue any of the services. The MAC meeting is January 28 and she will let us know what the group decides. 2. Wilhite 1. Contact List Updates.: Dr. Wilhite asked for us to verify all the information on the contact sheet and included a specific person vendors should reach out to. 2. Canvas Regional Webinar - Padlet: Dr. Wilhite stated at Nikki's Canvas Regional Webinar, Nikki had a Padlet up that anyone could add any topics that they would like to see her cover at the quarterly consortium calls. She also mentioned Canvas is going to try to come in person tentatively between April 8 and 10 for meeting with the consortium. 3. TurnItIn Webinar Reminder: TurnItIn will host two webinars on January 29 th . One at 11:00 is for admin only and one at 2:00 is about empowering students with Draft Coach. She explained Draft Coach is part of our service with TII and it works by letting students get real live writing feedback while they're working within Microsoft Word. Dr. Wilhite added the training will be available through the Academy so faculty can have access to it at a later date. 4. CidiLabs Check-In 1. ReadyGO Beta: Dr. Wilhite wanted to update the association about the new improved ReadyGo (Beta) version. It is now available and can run in tandem with the current version of ReadyGo. She and Dr. Lebron have a meeting with CidiLabs scheduled for February 3 and will be getting more information about RG. She does know that it requires an addendum to the contract. Therefore, they are going to try to learn a little bit more about that and why a new contract would be required. She does know the RG beta version has

more robust features and basically has a free install and free support. She wanted to make everybody aware of this and will have more information at the February meeting. Dr. Wilhite asked if any had questions or comments about the new version of RG version. Jason Cooley (JJC) made the comment that Jones has been using ReadyGo a lot and he feels the consortium should move to the new version because of the issues with archiving information under the existing version. Michelle Mitchell also added that Pearl River uses in quite a bit and Ali Mascagni found it to be a “Stubborn” tool.

5. Academy: 1. Accessibility Overview Course Update:

Dr. Wilhite stated after wrapping up doing W3Cs, Intro to Accessibility and WebAIMS Accessible Documents Training in the fall it gave her an overview of what needed to be achieved before the deadline for 2026 with WCAG 2.1 level AA Guidelines. She pulled the old accessibility course from the CDP and revamped so it would be a self-paced and related to the new information. It includes knowledge check quizzes for faculty interaction. It will go live in the academy on Monday January 20. It’s broken down into three modules. 1. The first module is defining accessibility and diving deep into the new federal regulations. 2. The second module is about creating accessible content and goes through talking about basics of accessible design. 3. The last module is about the institution’s responsibility of the publishers resources. 2. Accessibility Spotlight Webinar Series: Dr. Wilhite will be doing an Accessibility Spotlight Webinar Series. She has planned and already has some promotional emails to go out. It will be a series of short 30-minute webinars that highlights text basics, heading structure, font selection, font size, images and alt text 3. Growing, Digging, and Basics Spring 2025 - Course Pacing The courses are based on self-pacing with open enrollment available through the beginning of May. Both instructors and participants will have the opportunity to register at any time during this window with no cancellations. First round of courses will conclude in June. Once the spring semester ends, another section will go live July 1. 4. Promo Email Inquiry: Dr. Wilhite’s last thing concerning the Academy was about emails getting caught up in spam filter. She asked is any of us received an email from her this past

Monday. From the consensus in the meeting Most schools had not been receiving the promo emails about the academy so Dr. Wilhite said she will start adding them in both the MeLA chat and MeLA course until this is resolved. She stressed the importance of us being able to share this information about upcoming webinars with the academy. 6. Catalog Updates - Legacy vs Storefront: MCCB Feedback: Dr. Wilhite informed us that some of the Canvas user interface adjustments in JavaScript in the fall impacted Catalog functionality for some institutions. At that point, a lot of link navigation and catalog vanished. However, when she switched to the new catalog Storefront and entered as an admin, all the functionalities remained the same, seemed a lot cleaner, and all the navigation links were available. One advantage of Storefront is that institutions do not have to use custom Java or CSS to brand their catalogs. It mimics the functionality of the theme editor in Canvas. So, it will automatically work when they make those back-end user interface changes at the instructor level that can impact your custom scripts. Dr. Wilhite wanted to make catalog users aware of some of the benefits of Storefront and it is available. 7. Bug Zapper (ha!) Dr. Wilhite noticed on the Padlet that someone asked about New Quizzes updates and specifically looking for bugs(issues) and workarounds. She talked with Nikki and suggested a one-page document listing the bugs and how to resolve them. Nikki agreed it was a really good idea, so she started a Google doc to get information about what bugs instructors are experiencing with New Quizzes. Hopefully, this will help to Zap these issues! 8. Overall Vibe Check re: MELA/MSVCC/College Needs: Looks like everyone is happy! 2. MSVCC Committees 1. Academic Officers: Tish Stewart (HCC) stated because we didn’t have a meeting in December the calendar was voted on via email and approved. It now must go through the AOA. 2. Quality Committee: Michelle Pickering (MGCCC) there were not updates at this time. 3. Support Committee: Jason Zuehlke was out, but Dr. Wilhite added that she met with Jason in December and updated him on the accessibility documents that had last circulated during the

last accessibility product review, as well as some feedback regarding the WCAG 2.1 level AA standards and what would need to be met. His plan at that point would be to call a committee meeting together after returning in January. 3. Old Business 4. Action Items 5. Open Forum 1. Update on Grade Change Indicator in MSVCC – Buffey Mathews (MGCCC) asked about having some sort of flag that a grade change has occurred in the MSVCC. Dr. LeBrun stated this request has come up in the past. However, because Ive is under an independent contract now she does not see any new requests being accepted. She mentioned the association may need to consider looking at alternatives to the enrollment tool. Circling back to the original question, Buffey suggested limiting the time final grades could be entered because of the huge task her eLearning team has going back and checking to see if grades have been changed. She added the main reason her staff has to do this is faculty across the state is going in and changing grades after MGCCC had already pulled that information. Dr. Wilhite suggested changing the window of when the grades are entered because this can been done without consulting Ive. It was determined that shortening the dates in this window that final grades can be entered should help this issue. It was noted if done this would need to be updated in the Policy and Procedure manual. Ms. Buffey Mathews (MGCCC) made the motion to close the grade window at the close of business on the day grades are due. Michell Mitchell (PRCC) seconded the motion. The consortium unanimously approved the motion to close the grade window at the close of business on the day grades are due. 2. Accessibility Checklist Resource from Chemeketa Community College (sourced from WCET Discussion Forum) – Dr. Wilhite noted she had looked at several checklists and this checklist covered the information the association needs 3. Spring Break Tish Stewart (HCC) stated that after proctoring about 300 proctor tests a day in Ridgeland and running into several issues, she saw a significant need to have a specific contact person to help solve problems with exams. She found this to be extremely important for this semester because several colleges' spring break is during week 8 and

week 4 of the 4-week second term, and exams may be given that week. She stressed the importance of having someone available and adding their name to the contact list so proctors can cannot them if an issue arises. 4. Users without institutional credentials enrolling/accessing courses – NW Angel Nickens (NWCC) wanted to know how other colleges handling people in the community enrolling in the Academy courses. MGCCC uses a third-party software “Lumens”. NECC allows people outside the community to register using their person information. It was not determined if there is a “BEST” way for people outside the institution to register for Academy courses 6. Announcements Kelly Gonzales reminded everyone the Creating Future Event has been resurrected by the IT group and it’s now called MC4. It will be held March 4-7 MELA February meeting moved to February 19 7. 8. Adjournment: Ms. Tish Stewart (HCC) made the motion to end the meeting. Ms. Michelle Mitchell (PRCC) seconded the motion. Adjourned at 10.48 a.m.

Mississippi eLearning Association Minutes Wednesday, February 19, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. Virtual Meeting Link: Zoom https://itsmsgov.zoom.us/j/88941238329?pwd=aVChtqaNhp0rs66dFVmbkXs4jbvjXL.1Lin Passcode: 1234

College/Association

Representative(s)

Coahoma Community College

Monica Johnson

Copiah-Lincoln Community College East Central Community College East Mississippi Community College

Anna Davis, Renae Breakfield

Matt Blackmon Chris Square

Katherine Puckett; Jasmine Shepherd, Kelton Kemp Tish Stewart; Heather Guest, Shalon Farris,

Hinds Community College

Holmes Community College

Itawamba Community College

Denise Gillespie; Tequila Sunrise; Melanie Francis

Jones College

Jason Cooley;

Meridian Community College

Holley Purvis; Dr. Kelley Gonzales

Carmen Brown, Mary Ellen Buchanan Sarah Buchanan, Jason Zuehlke, Buffey Mathews, Michelle Pickering, Van Morse

Mississippi Delta Community College

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

Northeast Mississippi Community College

Sabine Zabarovska; Kim Harris,

Angel Nickens; Kim Steinman; Carla Malone; Aaron Payne

Northwest Mississippi Community College

Pearl River Community College

Michelle Mitchell

Southwest Mississippi Community College

Matt Calhoun

Dr. Krista LeBrun; Megan Akins; Dr. Christa Wilhite

MS Community College Board

Office

College/Association

Name

President

Itawamba Community College

Tequila Sunrise

President Elect

Jones College

Jason Cooley

Secretary

Mississippi Delta Community College

Carmen Brown

A.

Preliminaries

A. Call to Order: Tequila Sunrise ICC B. Roll Call: Carmen Brown, MDCC C. Approval of January 15, 2025 Minutes,

1. Motion to approve: Buffey Mathews (MGCCC) 2. Second to approve: Chris Square (EMCC) 3. Approved by all 15 community colleges

D. Approval of February 19, 2025 Agenda

1. Motion to approve: Buffey Mathews (MGCCC) 2. Second to approve: Carmen Brown (MDCC) 3. Approved by all 15 community colleges

B.

New Business

A. MCCB Reports

1. Dr. Krista LeBrun, MCCB

1. Potential Fraudulent Enrollees a. Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) wanted to update the group about the potential fraudulent enrollees. She stated last week, Cal Smith received a call from a community college regarding suspicious applications. This triggered discussions about possible cybercrime. Cal consulted Jonathan from the attorney general's office, leading to a Zoom meeting with IT staff, registrars, and college presidents to assess the situation. They identified several factors noticed in the fraudulent applications. The fraudulent applications had all-cap text, had a Kenya or California IP address, and were linked to properties for sale on Zillow. Considering the legal implications, Jonathan will decide if this constitutes a cybercrime. She reached out to Nikki for insights on how to mitigate these fraudulent activities, as this issue impacts others in the Mississippi Community College System. Nikki was unaware of this but is contacting leadership for mitigation strategies to identify fraudulent students. Dr. LeBrun will share her response once she receives it. Please inform your teams about these developments. Overall, it looks as if the goal of the students is to attempt to obtain Pell Grant refunds fraudulently. Buffey Mathews (MGCCC) stated she began noticing a pattern after financial aid and refunds were sent out to students last fall. Even though these students had applied, been accepted, and enrolled in online classes,

most of the courses did not relate to their declared majors on the application, and most of them were technical majors. Michelle Mitchell (PRCC) found similar activities and noted students were doing minimal work, if any, but were not being removed from the class before refunds went out. One way in which the PRCC may try to prevent students of this nature from registering for classes is no more email or phone registering; therefore, a student would have register through Teams, showing their ID. 2. TII Update a. Dr. Lebrun (MCCB) stated the TII contract did not make it on the president's agenda because Dr. Graham asked her to provide some usage reports, which Megan Saxton provided. Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) will be sharing these to the consortium via email. Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) visited Gulf Coast Community College about a week ago to meet with Jason Carter, the deputy director, Dr. Graham, and Dr. Pugh and reviewed the overall budget and services currently under contract so they could better understand the usage of the services. The usage reports showed that the consortium had around 647,000 submissions for TII in the last academic year, of which every institution had submissions. Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) had Megan provide a system-wide report highlighting the usage of all services for the presidents, so when it is taken to them this month, they will not have to look over a 30-page report. She feels confident this will be approved by the presidents. However, she added any time a service hits the million-dollar mark she must create a business case and it then will also need to be approved by ITS. She also feels confident ITS will approve the TII contract. 3. EBSCOHost Update a. As Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) stated last month, MELO (Mississippi Electronic Learning Online) wants to move EBSCOHost to a multi-year contract, which will increase by about $25000. However, once we move to the multi-year contract, she feels more confident the increase will only be a 2 -3% annual increase, which these savings can justify the $25000 increase. She also noted that EBSCOHost is a bit more challenging to negotiate with because they are the only ones that provide this service. In addition, Jason Carter requested that he and Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) update the presidents on the services being funded because there is some new leadership among the presidents, and all services have not been reviewed since 2018. She noted that the multiyear contract would not be submitted to the presidents in February because it has been determined that EBSCOHost is exempt from ITS and that a multiyear contract can be made directly with DFA. 4. Thompson Coburn Reminder a. Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) reminded the group that MCCB partnered with Thompson Coburn, a leading law firm specializing in federal regulations, to provide ongoing updates on federal regulations. Aaron Lacey who is with Thompson Coburn will present the first of four webinars on February 26, 2025, from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM (via Zoom).

5. Annual Report Update

a. Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) stated the annual report is almost completed and goes to fiscal year 2028 because the Instructure contract goes through 2028. The report will include extensive data usage by the consortium and provide data that is not available in the ET, such as information on out-of-state students, which should be helpful when answering questions from SARA. She plans to have this to the consortium to view by the end of the month or the beginning of next month. a. Dr. Wilhite announced the April meeting will be in person on the 9 th and10 th and will move from the MCCB conference room to the Library Commission. Presently there is not a tentative agenda, but she stated the Canvas team will be there to present one of the days, then the MeLA meeting, and possible time for strategic planning. She also indicated lunch will be provided. In addition, Dr. Wilhite informed the consortium that Nikki will be sending out a survey to the group to see what the group would like the Canvas team to focus on. 2. Intelligent Insights Paid Pilot Option a. Dr. Wilhite (MCCB) shared with the consortium information on Intelligence Insights to see if any were interested. During the monthly regional consortium call with Canvas it was mentioned that Intelligent Insights is now offering a paid pilot option ($1500 for 60 days of access per institution). Intelligent Insights was premiered at InstructureCon last year and it is an add-on that provides at risk assessment for students, it can be customizable based on what the institution needs. She wanted to share this information incase anyone was interested. 3. ReadyGO Beta Update a. Dr. Wilhite informed the consortium MCCB is working to get access for the new and improved version of ReadyGo before the addendum is processed. Dr. LeBrun (MCCB) stated she is working to get the addendum added to the contract for the new version; however, the addendum reads MCCB does not have ReadyGo in the initial contract. Therefore, the entire contract must be amended which will be a lengthy process. 4. Cidiscape by CidiLabs Availability and Report Request a. Dr. Wilhite (MCCB) mentioned the extensive reporting MCCB was gathering on most all tools used by the consortium and she wanted to add data from CidiLabs. She reached out to CidiLabs and found it offers an add-on tool at no extra cost called Cidiscapes. It has a reporting dashboard for all CidiLabs tools. She used Northwest’s dashboard to demonstrate how it is used. She added if anyone is interested and adding this free tool to their Canvas Instant she or Megan are willing to do the integration process. 5. TurnItIn Admin Session Reminder - Today at 11am! a. Dr. Wilhite (MCCB) reminded the group of the TII webinar Empowering Students to Prevent Plagiarism for admins and the e- learning directors today at 11:00 and next week Enhance Writing Skills with Draft Coach via the academy which is open to faculty or for anybody else the members wish to share it with.

2. Dr. Christa Wilhite, MCCB 1. April MeLA Meeting and Instructure Visit Info/Survey

6. Accessibility Spotlight: Summer Suggestions Inquiry

a. Dr. Wilhite (MCCB) added her last accessibility spotlight webinar for the Academy is the Accessibility Spotlight: Summer Suggestions and would anyone be willing to share what they would need for her to focus on for their accessibility journey. She thanked everyone for sharing the last accessibility spotlight Accessibility Spotlight: Images & Alt Text because it was one of the most interactive and well attended. She added that these have been a really successful series and she is glad that it was that beneficial. 1. Admin Committee 1. Tish Stewart (HCC) asked if the AOA approved the 2026-2027 calendar. It was determined the calendar had not been presented to the AOA for approval. Denise Gillespie stated she would forward the most recent calendar to get a final approval. Buffey Mathews (MGCCC) added the updated calendar and it was now available in the MeLA course. 2. Support: 1. Accessibility progression: a. Jason Zuehlke (MDCC) stated one of the first things he wants do is to evaluate the existing products and understand what is needed. To accomplish this he wants to create a rubric to evaluate the products which covers the WCAG standards that apply to the e-learning side of things and/or instructional side with Canvas. Then evaluate the courses with the tools the consortium presently has so the committee can identify the additional tools needed to cover the gaps and to be compliant by the April 2026. Finally, start the vendor research to cover gaps. 2. Request Ad-Hoc committee volunteers to create rubric for evaluating accessibility standards needing to be met (current and potential additional products) a. Jason Zuehlke (MDCC) asked for volunteers for an Ad Hoc committee to create the rubric. Volunteers can go beyond the support committee. In addition, he added if anyone would like to serve on this committee to send him a message. 1. Student Evaluations in Enrollment tool. 1. Kim Steinman (NWCC) asked if anyone was using the student evaluations in ET. Very few schools are using this because of lack of participation, but some schools are using the questions from the evaluations in their customized student evaluation of online courses. Tish Stewart (HCC) stated they add a customized evaluation in each of their courses and used some of the questions from the ET’s evaluation. Michelle Mitchell (PRCC) also stated their evaluations mirror the evaluation in ET. Angel Nickens (NWCC) asked if the consortium should update it. It was determined this would be done through the Quality committee and Michelle Pickering (MGCCC) said

B. MSVCC Committees

C. Old Business D. Action Items E. Open Forum