Vickie Geisel

Editor’s Note: This issue of Learning Abstracts features the introduction to Online Student Support Services: A Best Practices Monograph, a free online resource for student services personnel that showcases examples of effective practice in providing services to online students. The monograph was created as a part of the grant-funded Online Student Support@Every College at Tyler Junior College (TX), supported by Carl Perkins Funds provided by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The online monograph provides information on website planning, advising, student readiness, freshman orientation, technical support, online orientation, library services, student news, testing, and career planning – all in the context of the online student. Visit the website at http://vc.tjc.edu/Studentsupport/Monograph/index.htm.

Colleges that teach at a distance must be able to offer students needed support and library services for a successful online experience. For more than a century, the higher education model has remained relatively stable. Yet, with the advent of the information age and globalization, changing demographics are driving today's trends in student services. What we have grown accustomed to is being challenged, forcing us to adapt to this rapidly changing environment. Perhaps the most dramatic changes are occurring in how we deliver services to the distance learner.

Distance education students need the same kinds of services as on-campus students but expect the services to meet their needs for flexibility and convenience. To meet these evolving needs, colleges are creating innovative ways to reach their distance learners with student support.

By examining the shift in the delivery of student services from a traditional to a more integrated model, the Online Monograph of Student Support Services provides strategies and best practices for student support. The best practices described have been developed by a cadre of student-support community college professionals with extensive experience in the creation and delivery of services to online students. 

With the severe budget cuts to education over the past few years, and with the elimination of a number of discretionary funding sources, many colleges have been stopped in their tracks as far as the further development of their online student support goes. We hope that the Online Monograph of Student Support Services will serve as a springboard to encourage colleges to increase the success of their online students.

The project team and selected authors of the monograph’s sections share a variety of effective uses of people, technology, and processes in the student services field, so there are exemplary practices within this document for everyone. Best practices in the Online Monograph also demonstrate community college efforts to provide support services designed to increase student success.

Subject matter for the Online Monograph includes innovative applications for both web-based freshman and distance learning course orientations, financial aid, library access, career planning, student news, and testing. The collection of best practices has been assembled in a manner that should allow readers to quickly identify innovative online support services and practices that are specific to certain student areas.

This online publication has been created as a part of the project, Online Student Support at Every College, based at Tyler Junior College and supported by the Northeast Texas Consortium of Colleges and Universities. During the first year of this grant, the project partnered with community colleges and professionals throughout Texas who have been identified as leaders providing online student services. The project has worked closely with the Texas Center for Online Instruction; the Texas Collaborative for Teaching Excellence in Professional Development, Curriculum Development, and Recruitment and Retention; the Virtual College of Texas, the Counselors Network; Texas Rural Community College Network; the North Texas Community College Consortium; and other Carl D. Perkins projects.  

In partnership with Coastal Bend College, Tyler Junior College has developed regional workshops to showcase exemplary student service offerings for online students. The Junior and Community College Student Personnel Association of Texas cosponsored a regional workshop on Best Practices for Online Student Support @ Every College.

This project has been developed by the Texas State Leadership Professional Development and funded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Carl D. Perkins Act.

Vickie Geisel is Dean, College Preparatory Studies and Support Services, at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas. The writing team for the monograph was directed by Mickey Slimp, Executive Director of the Northeast Texas Consortium of Colleges & Universities based at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Tyler, assisted by Jan Adams of Tyler Junior College. Other contributors include representatives of Blinn College, Coastal Bend College, El Paso Community College, North Harris/Montgomery County Community College District, Northwest Vista College, San Antonio College, South Plains College, South Texas College, Texas State Technical College at Waco, Weatherford College, and University of North Texas. For additional information, please contact Mickey Slimp or Online Student Support@Every College.

Cynthia Wilson, Editor