14. PCC Faculty Policies (Pending)

Because of the nature of the distance education environment, there are special considerations that pertain to office hours, workload, class size and faculty evaluations.

These recommendations, developed by the PCC Academic Senate Distance Education Committee and Task Force, have been approved by the Academic Senate Committee. This section provides a summary of these recommendations as found in the PCC Distance Education Policies and Procedures Recommendations.

All recommendations are currently awaiting the approval of the Pasadena City College Faculty Association.

As some policies and procedures for online and hybrid courses may change in faculty negotiations, please refer back to this section of the handbook periodically for the most current guidelines for distance education courses.

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Recommendation for Office/Conference Hours

In accordance with the PCC Contract Agreement regarding Conference Hours, all full-time faculty are required to hold office hours. Full-time faculty members who teach online and hybrid classes may hold a percentage of their office hours online that is proportional to their online teaching load.

Online course office hours:

For fully online courses with no on campus meetings, faculty can hold required office hours through CANVAS or CCC Confer for that office hour session.

General office hour guidelines:	Online office hours cannot be more than 40% of the total number of hours required. The maximum number of online office hours is 2.25 hours (2 hours and 15 minutes). The remaining percentage of office hours, 3.25 hours (3 hours and 15 minutes — 60%), must be held on campus. Office hours must be posted on the online course syllabus as well as any other place the Division requires.
Holding office hours:	Office hours should be scheduled over at least 2 days in blocks of 30 minutes or more. Office hours require synchronous communication (chat, text messaging, video conference, etc.) that can be documented. This means that office hours must either be held using Conferences in the CANVAS system or CCC Confer. (At present CANVAS Conferences can be held for only that particular class section, CCC Confer allows access to all courses during an allotted block of time.)
Hybrid course office hours:	For hybrid courses that carry “on ground” sessions at various points throughout the academic period, office hours must be held on campus at an agreed upon location. For a hybrid course that is mostly online (for example, courses that have only an on campus orientation or assessment), faculty can hold required office hours through CANVAS or CCC Confer for that office hour session.

Recommendation for Course/Teacher Load

Teaching online involves a different set of pedagogical and time management skills than face-to-face courses. Distance education course loads should reflect this.

Guidelines for full time faculty:

Online teaching load should not exceed 2/3of an instructor’s full-time contract.
Exception to the above guidelines:

If the Division Dean in conjunction with their faculty determines that the curricular needs of the students, classroom resources or structure of existing programs requires an increased percentage of online teaching load in some semesters, the usual load may be adjusted accordingly.
Instructors who are teaching online for their first semester may not teach more than 2 online course sections.
Instructors who are new to PCC but who have taught online at another accredited college or university may not teach more than 2 online course sections during their first semester at PCC.

Note: Teaching distance education courses is voluntary. Faculty will not be negatively evaluated if they do not wish to teach distance education courses.

Recommendation for Class Cap/Normal Closing Numbers

Title 5 guidelines for instructor workload and regular effective contact as well as WASC accreditation standards require that instructors have continuous and substantive communication with their online students.Because of this, online and hybrid sections are capped at sizes small enough to successfully meet student learning outcomes. Normal closing numbers are determined by faculty and Division Deans using the process established by C&I.

Guideline for online courses:	Facilitated fully online course normal closing number should be no more than 30 students per course section. In cases where the normal closing number is less than 30, this number should also be used for online courses.
Guideline for hybrid courses:	Hybrid course normal closing numbers for should not exceed the face-to-face maximum. It is preferable that hybrid courses be capped at 30 students per course section. Larger hybrid courses should compensated by additional credit in course load assignment in the same manner as face-to-face sections.

Recommendation for Faculty Evaluation

Faculty evaluation is a critical process for ensuring quality of instruction. Evaluations allow faculty to identify areas that need improvement, meet course goals, determine the most appropriate and effective instructional strategies and guarantee the satisfaction of the online student population.

For distance education courses, evaluations follow a similar procedure for face-to-face classes as detailed in the PCC/CTA Contract, but with a few modifications to reflect the nature of the distance education teaching environment. As with face-to-face courses, full-time permanent faculty will undergo evaluation every 3 years and temporary/contract faculty every year.

The components of the distance education faculty evaluation process are:

Student Evaluation:	During the appointed semester of evaluation, faculty who teach both distance education and face-to-face classes must have at least one distance education course evaluated. All student evaluations of online faculty will be conducted securely and anonymously.
Self-Evaluation Report:	No specific changes to the face-to-face faculty evaluation process have been proposed for distance education courses at this time.
Visitation & Report:	As with face-to-face courses, online courses will be assessed by a peer evaluator and Vice President designee from the department/division. If no member of the department has had distance education teaching experience, either an experienced evaluator/VP designee from another department/division may be chosen.
	Procedures for distance education course visitation: Evaluator should request permission to enter evaluatee’s course during a specific period of time. It is recommended that this window extend for the duration of one learning unit (preferably between 1-7 days). Only the evaluator (and experienced online educator if assisting the evaluator) will have access to the virtual classroom. The evaluation team will not have direct online contact with students enrolled in the course. It is recommended that the evaluatee guides the evaluation team through the course by providing directions, explaining features of the course and exploring the course with the team members. This assistance can be in person or using other synchronous methods.
Instructor-Peer Conference:	The peer evaluator will use the Distance Education Faculty Evaluation Addendum, which is in addition to the evaluation instruments approved by the Faculty Association for face-to-face instruction.