If you find yourself searching for help in using Blackboard to its fullest for yourself and your students, then we have several options. The Online Faculty Resource Center contains tips, processes, videos, and answers to previously asked questions. You’ll find the FRC in your Courses list under the “Courses where you are a student” section, and you’ll interact with it as if you were a student gathering information within a Blackboard course. Sections are labeled so that you can easily find what you need. Should you have questions about or issues with the FRC or with Blackboard in general, you can always contact us at the Online Learning Help Desk at https://lasierra.atlassian.net/servicedesk

As you make your way through your career as a La Sierra University student, you will use Blackboard Learn extensively alongside your face-to-face courses. You may find that your professors use Blackboard only a little, or you may take courses entirely on Blackboard. 

Our Online Student Resource Center can help you navigate Blackboard Learn with tips, processes, videos, and advice. Blackboard need not be a daunting aspect of your classes, and we are here to help with these resources and our help desk for questions and problems. You can see the Online Student Resource Center in your Courses area on Blackboard, and you will access and interact with it as you would any of your student courses (though you’ll never receive a poor grade in it as it’s ungraded!) Should you have questions about or issues with Blackboard or the OSRC, please create one of our help tickets at https://lasierra.atlassian.net/servicedesk.

La Sierra University currenly maintains a membership with the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). The Online Learning Consortium provides an overabundance of information relating to all types of distance education material; online and varied virtual teaching and learning formats. La Sierra faculty enjoy attending synchronous and asynchronous workshops, listening to podcasts or webinars, attending virtual conferences, reading journal information, and much more. Our membership with OLC assists our department in providing our faculty with updated information and training materials, allowing our team to stay up-to-date on the many changes in online education. 

We value our membership with the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA). This is a nonprofit distance learning association that provides our faculty with quality research, journals, websites resources, blogs, books and articles on distance education changes and challenges. We give our faculty access to this information in our online faculty resource center.

Western Commission Educational Technology (WCET) is a Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) nonprofit unit. WCET brings colleges, universities, higher education organizations, and companies together to improve the communication of technology-enhanced learning programs. They have four main focuses: emerging technologies, institutional success, policy and regulation, and student success. The State Authorization Network ( SAN) provides leadership, training, and community in support of policy and procedure regarding state authorization, professional licensure, the United States Military, and international authorizations. Our team works closely with these organizations to continue our role in student success and state and federal online or distance education regulations.

The Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) comprises over 85 non-profit colleges and universities. They work closely with the state to provide policy, leadership, and community. Through the AICCU, our leadership and faculty have access to up-to-date information on policy changes, healthcare in the workforce, information about adult learners, and diversity. They provide multiple fact sheets and state reports and assist with knowledge of higher education policy as it relates to online education, state authorization changes and updates, and much more.

Every quarter our team compiles a newsletter for our faculty that introduces them to changes or challenges we discover in our research. In this newsletter, we also offer upcoming workshops or webinars that our team members develop and those they will find interesting as they continue their journey into distance education. Our newsletters are delivered quarterly and then placed in the online faculty resource center for review.

If you are part of the La Sierra faculty and would like to contribute to our newsletter, don't hesitate to contact us at onlinelearning@lasierra.edu with the title Contributor. We are always looking for interesting and exciting online and distance education news.