Quality Matters conference

I am at the Quality Matters Conference in Tuscon,AZ. The keynote was about federal regulations related to distance learning. This was very interesting for me, but I imagine it felt irrelevant to many attendees,especially faculty. Indeed, I spoke to a faculty member from Skagit who is here and thought it was a complete waste of time.

However, one important takeaway was about the last date of attendance for online students. I've been doing it based on the last login date. However, if we get a financial aid audit, they'll be looking for the last date of academically related work. For example, a paper submission, discussion post, etc. that is easy to track and will be even easier with Canvas, but we'll need to get the information out. I think it also ties nicely with my effort to get faculty to have attendance activities in the first week to use as a basis for dropping students for non- attendance.