The Student Senate passed a bill Friday that requiring professors of distance education courses to print out and mail offsite students their graded tests, quizzes and essays unless students waive that right.
This bill also ensures that professors and students alike are aware of an existing $5 per credit hour fee that offsite students pay in their distance education tuition. This fee is to defray mailing costs of graded material.
In an ITV class, students are taught by a professor who is in another classroom at another location. Students can see the professor on a television screen and the professor can see that class on a television screen in their classroom. There are ITV classrooms on the Portland and Lewiston/Auburn campuses.
All seven of the University of Maine System campuses offer distance education courses. These courses are offered through Instructional Television (ITV), Compressed Video (CV) and through the Internet. Undergraduate and graduate courses are offered and degrees can be obtained in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service and the College of Education and Human Development. Distance education began to emerge at USM in the 1980’s.
Student Senator Sarah Ferriter proposed this bill because in an ITV class that she took it was not stated on the syllabus that such a fee existed so as students could receive their work back. Her professor claimed that he was unaware of the fee and that there was no way for her to receive her work via mail. Ferriter said often students are unaware of various fees that they pay in their tuition. “This bill is a way for students to hold the administration accountable for such fees,” she said.
Ferriter wants to hold the administration accountable by having a clear statement in all distance education course syllabi as well as faculty and student handbooks about this fee. Right now, she doesn’t think that students know their rights in regards to receiving graded material back. In the tuition description it is said that the fee is there to lessen mailing costs, she wants to make clearer which mailing costs it applies to. “It’s also important to remember that such recommendations will be made with a willingness to compromise since faculty and administrators also need to have their say,” said Ferriter.
According to Ann Clarey, associate director of Extended Academic Programs, the $5 per credit hour fee exists not only for professors to send students’ work, but also as a “logistical support fee.” Professors of distance education courses are required to send students’ work to the program’s main office in Augusta. This fee covers that, she said. She said that this fee also covers the costs of sending a student’s transcripts from one institution to another. When a student takes a distance education course at say, the University of Maine at Augusta campus, but they are matriculated at USM, the fee covers the cost of sending the student’s transcripts to USM.
Karen Day, lecturer in the College of Education and Human Development, said she wasn’t sure if this bill would apply to the work of graduate students. She said most of the work graduate students do are papers and with the way she handles that work, hard copies aren’t necessarily needed. Upon receiving papers by e-mail, she makes comments on them in a blue font; she then e-mails the papers with comments back to her students. “I don’t know if you want to move from this technology to snail mail,” she said.
Day also said some professors might use the same tests every year. She said this bill might pose a problem in regards to that.
Ferriter wants to look at what kinds of standards the University of Maine at Augusta has for their distance education program as well. “When and if UMA merges with USM, we’ll be offering a lot more distance education courses,” she said. “Right now, I think it’s fair to say that distance education has a number of wrinkles that need to be ironed out.”