Job posting

Manager – Learning Operations (Rockwell Collins)
Cedar Rapids, IA (TAL00000008)

Description
This position reports to the Director, Learning and Development. The principal purpose of this position is to manage the employee and leadership course delivery and coordination and the enterprise performance management process. Additional responsibilities include oversight of project management in Learning and Organization Development organization as well as the daily operations of the Learning Management System and career development tools.

Provide leadership and performance management for the Learning Operations team. This also includes an overall working knowledge of the L&OD organization budget.

Provide consistent learning and development practices across the organization to achieve economy of scale, provide more efficient and effective (cost and learning) teaching methods, and ensure a rigorous evaluation process.

Requirements
Bachelor's degree in appropriate discipline, and eight years of related experience, or, in the absence of a bachelor's degree, fourteen years of related experience.
Rockwell Collins is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse global culture that values teamwork, integrity, innovation, leadership, and an unwavering commitment to our customers.

Share your advive with new ALOP students!

(from Jeff Mease)

Do you remember your first Friday night class in the Drake adult education program? Were you nervous, scared, excited, or maybe a little bit of everything? I know I was very excited to finally be there while equally convinced that I was only person in the room who didn’t know anything.

What helped me to survive were the friendships that I made with my fellow classmates. Their advice and insights were extremely helpful as we ventured into new subjects and tackled big projects. Together we discovered a website or a book that made a class easier to get through. I learned a few tips like buying my books online instead of at the bookstore that saved me time and money. I’m sure you’ve got a few tips and tricks yourself that could help the next class of students.

Here’s your chance to share with others the resources that you’ve found helpful in your studies. As part of my final project for the class ALOP-298 Using Emerging Technologies for Learning, I’ve created a wiki to collect your insights and advice for the future students of our program.

For those not familiar with what a wiki is, it’s a webpage or collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content – think Wikipedia on a small-scale. I’m asking you to contribute to our wiki. It will be a collection created by Drake adult education graduate students for Drake adult education graduate students.

Instructions:

1. Click on this link to open the ALOP Advice wiki
   
2. In the navigation panel on the left-hand side, I’ve created some pages to organize the content. Click on a page to view the current material
   
3. To add your own material, click on the “Edit This Page” button at the top of the page
   
4. Add your content. Please start your entry with your name and graduation date.
   
5. Click Save and you’re done.

Please feel free to forward this to others in the program that I missed.

Thank you for your help with my project; and on behalf of those students who have yet to enjoy their first Friday night, thanks for your advice.

ALOP 291 Dissemination Night

Mark your calendars--dissemination night for ALOP 291 will be held April 28, 7:00p-9:30p upstairs in Olmsted.

What is dissemination night?
It's a chance for the students in the applied research class to talk about their research projects in front of friends, colleagues, family, and other students.

Why should you attend?
To support your colleagues and to see what it's like before you have to take research! (plus it's a great chance to see the types of projects students do for this class.) And there's dessert and coffee!

2 New Visitor Spots in SOE Parking Lot

We've always had the 30 minute visitor spot next to the back door of the School of Education, but we've just added 4 additional 2 additional visitor spots in the parking lot next to the handicapped parking spots. No time limits given on these spots.

So now when you come in for advising or other appointments you may not have to park on the street!

If you're graduating May or August 2009....

There are several things you need to do.

First, you need to tell yourself you're going to attend commencement.

If you are graduating in May or August, you are eligible to participate in the commencement ceremony held May 16. I strongly encourage you to participate in the graduation ceremony. Many of us travel in professional and personal circles where we know many people with graduate degrees and may lose sight of what a tremendous accomplishment this is...but if you look nationally, the number of people with masters degrees is a small percentage of the population. This is a great accomplishment. You should be proud of yourself and consider participating in commencement. And, if you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for your family, spouse, significant other, and your kids who have shared the graduate school experience with you and who will want to celebrate this accomplishment with you as well!

Second, you need to complete a graduation application.

• To get to the online graduation application, go to MYDUSIS
• Click on the Student Services tab
• At the bottom of the left colum is the channel for the grad app
• As you complete the application, be sure you print it. If you are not given the option to print it, it may not have "taken"

Finally, you need to order your graduation gown!

You will rent a cap, gown and hood (you get to keep the tassel! :-) I'm quoting the bookstore when I say that you need to place your order before January 6 or you get "the crappy robes." After all this work, you at least deserve the high quality robes! To order your robes or ask any questions, go in to the bookstore, call or email:

Judy Elings
jelings@nebook.com
515-274-3401

Judy will be able to tell you the information she needs to include with the order (hat size, etc.). Payment is due when you place your order.

We'll see you at graduation!

Spring Registration Times

In case you have not already seen it, here is the schedule for spring registration:

If you earned 27 credits or more by the end of summer semester, you can begin registering Monday, Nov 3, 3:00 PM

If you earned 15 - 26.999 credits by the end of summer semester, you can begin registering Tuesday, Nov 4, 3:00 PM

If you earned 0 - 14.999 credits by the end of summer semester, you can begin registering Wednesday, Nov 5, 3:00 PM

As always, you can register for classes through MYDUSIS.

Deadline for December Graduates

If you are planning to graduate this December (end of Fall semester):

1. Congratulations!
   
2. You must complete a Graduation Application and submit it by October 1! The form is available electronically under the student tab on BlueView.

APA Tutorial

Now that we're a few weeks in to fall semester and you are working on prework and other papers for classes...it's time for a reminder on APA and the resources that are available to you!

We now have an APA tutorial available through BlueView.
To access the tutorial:

We also have APA resources on the ALOP website (including my favorite "cheat sheet" by Degelman and Harris at Vanguard University). The ALOP website also has general writing support (keep scrolling to see it all!).

As a student, you can also get one-on-one feedback on your papers (and other writing-related help) through the Drake Writing Workshop. It's a great, but underused, resource for you!

New Drake Email

As you know, last weekend the Drake email system was updated. This means several things for you:

• your email has CHANGED. Your email is now Firstname.Lastname@Drake.edu (of course using your first and last name!)
  
• when you go into BlueView and click on "email" you will see a new logon screen (and then a new email interface)
  
• when you log in to webmail you use your email name (Firstname.Lastname), not your student ID number

Why do you care about Drake email? Because all your class info and all official Drake communications will be sent to your Drake email!

If you have questions about the new email, feel free to call the Drake help desk at 515-271-3001.

Advisee Blog Survey Results

Thanks to those of you who completed the (very short!) Advisee Blog survey. Here are the results:

Q1: will you read the advisee blog if it contains content interesting or useful to you?

• The majority of the respondents said "yes." Although several people said they forget to look at it and appreciate email reminders to check the blog.

Q2: What would you like to see as content for our advisee blog?

• There was a 3-way tie for first place: Logistical and administration information and topics related to Training & Development, and Technology
  
• There was a 2-way tie for second place: Topics related to Leadership and Higher Ed
  
• Third place: Topics related to HR

So here's my plan:
Q1:

• I will continue to send email reminders
  
• I will add a post later in the semester on blog aggregators so you can, if you're interested, set up your own blog aggregator and make it easier to keep up with new posts in this blog and others!
  A blog "aggregator" or blog "reader" goes out and finds the new blog posts for all the blogs you have selected and presents all the new posts in one place (it "aggregates" them). This means you can go to one place and read all your blogs--a real time saver!

Q2:

• I'll continue to include logistical and administrative info in the blog but will also add Training & Development and Technology posts. To a lesser degree I'll add Leadership and Higher Ed posts too.
  
• For the fall, I'll be keeping a separate technology blog as part of ALOP 298--Using Emerging Technologies for Learning. I started this blog for class last year and will continue to add to it. Some of the posts may be a little "techie" but others should be interesting! So feel free to check it out last year's posts! (they won't all be on the screen-- click the "2007" on the right side of the screen to see the 2007 posts)

Thanks again for your feedback!

Student ID

Getting a student ID:
If you do not have a student ID, the student life office (located in Olmsted, next to the pay parking lot) is now open extended hours for student IDs:

• Monday-Saturday 8:00a-10:00p
• Sunday 10:00a-10:00p

Why do you want a student ID?
First of all it's your library card. But you can also get student discounts with your student ID. Add a comment to this post and list the discounts you have received or know you can get with a Drake student ID so everyone can take full advantage of it!

Parking at the SOE

We've been asked to remind everyone that the School of Education (SOE) parking lot requires a Drake parking sticker ($140/year); including nights and weekends.

Also, although it used to be OK, we have been asked to not park in the Lutheran Services parking lot east of the SOE because they moved some client-serving deparments into the building and want to be sure they have enough parking for these clients. The best (legal) option for students without parking passes is to park on the street.

Fall 2008 Announcements

Welcome to Fall semester! A few announcements as we start a new semester:

New Drake Webmail & Email Outage
As you know, unless this is your first semester, you can access your Drake email through the "Email" icon in BlueView. That email program will be changing to a more full featured email program. The email change is scheduled to take place over Labor Day weekend. This means two things for you:

• When you log on to your Drake email after Labor Day it will look different
  
• There will be no Drake email (student or faculty) from Friday, August 29 11:00pm through at least Aug 31, and probably until Sep 1.

(if you do not know how to access your Drake email and are NOT taking ALOP 242-Living, Learning & Leading in the 21st Century), let me know and I can tell you how to log in to BlueView and your Drake email).


Petition of Candidacy
Now that you all are officially accepted into the ALOP program, the next administrative step is to complete a petition of candidacy. The petition is plan of which classes you will be completing which semester. You need to complete this petition by the time you have 12 credits, but most students find the sooner they do it the better! If you have not yet completed a petition of candidacy, send me an email after classes get started and we can schedule a time to get it done!


Have a great fall semester!

Change in credits for fulltime student status

I've been getting a few questions about the impact of the change in the fulltime credits on financial aid (including student loans). Here's the situation:

Full time for grad students was 12 credits, but has been lowered to 9 credits starting fall 2008.

This really doesn't impact financial aid for those of you who have been getting financial aid as part time students. Financial aid has always had the guideline of half-time status eligibility. So now you must take a minimum of 5 credits (9 credits / 2 = 4.5 credits, rounded up is 5 credits) to be considered a half time student and to be eligible for financial aid.

If you have specific questions, you can call the Student Financial Planning office (aka "financial aid") at 515-271-2905.

BlueView & MYDUSIS maintenance

Once a month, BlueView and MYDUSIS are taken down for maintenance from 4:00pm until about 10:00-ish. You can still reach Blackboard and Drake email by using these direct web addresses:

Blackboard: http://bb.drake.edu/
Email: http://webmail.drake.edu/

For planning purposes here's the schedule for the maintenance dates for the rest of 2008:
July 11
August 8
September 12
Octover 17
November 14
December 12

Drake System Maintenance

BlueView and MYDUSIS will be unavailable at approximately 4:00 p.m. on Friday, June 13, 2008 due to routine maintenance. These applications will be available again at approximately 6:30 p.m.

You can still access Blackboard and webmail directly (without going through BlueView) at the following web addresses:

• Blackboard: http://bb.drake.edu
• Email: http://webmail.drake.edu

For planning purposes the next maintenance windows are scheduled for:

• Friday, August 1 - NOTE: This is expected to be an extended maintenance window possible lasting through August 3 in order to upgrade blueView to the current vendor release. (but you can still get through BB and email through the direct web addresses)
• Friday, September 12, 2008
• Friday, October 17, 2008

Drake Internet Outage--Friday, June 6

FYI:
The Office of Information Technology is planning an Internet maintenance outage scheduled for Friday, 6 June 2008 beginning at 4:30 PM, Central Time (U.S.).

The Internet maintenance will improve the quality of service to the internet offering at Drake. The maintenance outage scheduled will last 30 minutes.

Internet Services functions will be unavailable during the maintenance outage as connectivity will be taken down while migrating to a new service. All Inbound and Outbound functions will be unavailable during this time, including:

• Mail service, including sending and receiving mail
• Access to the blueView home page
• Blackboard
• Internet access Drake

APA Update

I received the following from a former student who is now a writing teacher and consultant (Cecelia Munzenmaier):

If any of your students have EBSCO create reference citations for them, they may find the database name replaced by a DOI identifier, as in this example Whitmeyer, J. M. (2000). Power through appointment. Social Science Research, 29(4), 535-555. doi:10.1006/ssre.2000.0680

This is correct, according to the update to electronic reference style at http://www.apastyle.org/elecmedia.html

Another change is that the retrieval date is no longer required for sources that are unlikely to change.

These changes are summarized at http://www.apastyle.org/elecmedia.html

New Policy: You can take *six* credits before you are admitted

Hi Everyone-

I just learned of a change of policy that will take effect Fall 2008.

Currently, students are allowed to take up to 12 credits before they are officially accepted into any graduate program in the School of Education. Beginning Fall 2008, students will be able to take 6 graduate credits before being accepted into the program.

What does this mean for you?
If you have not yet completed the admissions process and been accepted into ALOP...you'll want to do it by the end of the summer. Here is the admission process, but if you have questions feel free to give me a call or send me an email.

FYI: Billing of tuition and fees

Beginning Summer 2008, billing of tuition and fees will be sent to students via BlueView. The student will receive an email notice that their billing statement is available on-line. The student will be directed to BlueView, then to the Student Services Tab. Their statement will be available in the "My Drake Account" channel. Students can view their statements and make payments on-line, if they choose.

Any questions regarding your statement or if you are experiencing any difficulties accessing your statement through BlueView, please contact the Office of Student Accounts at 515-271-4777.

Heads up on Drake email fraudulent messages

Dear Drake Community,

Drake OIT is notifying its Webmail customers about an abusive email practice in which a fraudulent message requests that the Universities Webmail customers submit personal information online.

Drake OIT emphasize that we never uses electronic communication to request personal information, and it is warning consumers to delete suspicious email and report encounters with the abusive practice known as "phishing." "Phishing" is typically an electronic attempt to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, birth dates, passwords, bank account or credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity.

The suspicious email message was sent last week to Webmail users with Drake Email accounts. It falsely claims an affiliation with Drake while making a request for personal data.

Customers who encounter a suspicious email or website claiming an affiliation with Webmail should report the information by reporting it to the Drake Service Desk (x3001).

Joseph M. Dworak
Director Computer & Network Services Office of Information Technology

FYI: Presentation April 24

I thought this might be of interest to some of you.
From the Society for Technical Communication Central (STC) Iowa Community:


We have an exciting presentation opportunity coming up next week if you are interested in attending. Nationally-known humorist and speaker Dalton Hooper (http://www.wordsandwit.com/index1.html) will be presenting Why is a Microphone Like a Breath Mint? Mr. Hooper will be sharing his tips for public speaking and presentation skills with us while making the program informational and fun!

Program details are included below:

• Date: Thursday, April 24, 2008
• Time: 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
  Location: Christopher's Restaurant, 2816 Beaver Ave., Beaverdale, IA 50310
• Cost: $35.00 (includes cost of meal and program)
• Contact: Eden Picht at (515) 577-9891 cell or at epicht@shazam.net if you are interested in attending this program.

Please contact Eden by Monday, April 21, and she will assist you with registration for this program.

STC Central Iowa Community
www.stc-centraliowa.org

Bucksbaum Lecture April 9

As many of you may know, Drake hosts several lectures each year as part of the Bucksbaum lecture series. April 9th at 7:30pm, Erik Peterson will speak on the Seven Revolutions initiative, and will explore issues leaders will face out to the year 2025.

It should be a fascinating night of future trends, insights and implications for leaders and the rest of us. This should be interesting and useful no matter what your concentration (Training & Development, Leadership, HRM or Higher Education).

Consider getting together for "dinner and a lecture" with some of your ALOP colleagues or, since it's free and open to the public, feel free to bring your non-Drake friends and family too!

"Mis-matched" higher ed course numbers for registration

I suppose it's inevitible that when you restructure a program (like ALPD to ALOP) there are bound to be a few technical snafu's. Here's the first one:

Apparently the course numbers for the classes in the higher ed concentration have different numbers in our brochure and on the stickers, than the numbers that are listed in MYDUSIS. Of course, this has the potential to be confusing for you because we're starting registration next week. So here's the scoop:

You think the number is: -----MYDUSIS thinks the number is:
ALOP283:Seminar in Stud Svcs--ALOP284:Seminar in Stud Svcs
ALOP284:Hist & Phil of High Ed---ALOP282:Hist & Phil of High Ed

We're going to try to get them synched up, but if we don't, you now know what you need to register with minimal confusion! No matter what, if you go by the title, you'll be all set!

Sorry for any confusion!

Short Notice! Jane Elliott in Ames tonight!

I just heard that Jane Elliott (creator of the Brown eyes/Blue eyes diversity exercise) will be presenting an interactive workshop tonight at ISU in Ames. It's a wonderful opportunity if you can make it!

Here's the info:
"The Anatomy of Prejudice"
Jane Elliott
7 p.m., March 27
Memorial Union Sun Room
Free and open to the public

Did you get your "free" MS office software?

Reminder: one of the benefits of the tech fee you pay each semester is that you can pick up a copy of MS office (for the macintosh or windows). If you have not yet picked yours up, you can get it in the basement of Carnegie Hall before 4:30p Monday-Friday. Currently they are distributing office 2003.

For everyone--I recently heard that they are going to start distributing 2007 (windows) and 2008 (macintosh) in June and because it's a version change you can pick up a new disk whether or not you've picked one up in the last year! I'll try to send you a note when they are available, but you might also want to make yourself a reminder to call the help desk in June (515-271-3001) and see when the new versions are available.

Summer & Fall registration

The summer and spring courses are now available on MYDUSIS.

Also posted on BlueView is the schedule for when registration opens for each of you.

Here it is in a nutshell: Registration dates are based on the number of credits you earned as of the end of Fall 2007 semester (since we're in the middle of spring semester, you technically have not yet earned your spring semester credits and that's why we don't count them.)

The dates/times for School of Ed, graduate students are:

• 18 or more credits -- Mar 31, 3:00pm
• less than 18 credits -- Apr 1, 3:00pm

You should be able to register through MYDUSIS.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

Summer/Fall Registration

The summer/fall registration dates will be March 31 to April 7. (the exact date & time you are eligible to register is based on the number of credits you've earned and will be announced soon.) If you would like to meet and talk through your schedule, let me know and we can set something up!