504 Accommodation â€” Specifies that institutions receiving federal funding have to accommodate individuals with special needs so that they can have equal access to learning facilities and materials.

508 Compliant â€“ Originally an amendment to the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and now part of the new Federal Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility and Compliance Act, Section 508 guarantees accessibility to technology for people with disabilities. Examples of this assistive technology could be screen readers, captioning, TTYs.

Accessibility â€” Products and services must accommodate the needs of everyone.

ALT-Tag/ALT-Attribute â€“ An HTML attribute that is used to designate a title or description of an /academics/pcc-online/faculty/handbook/image. This is particularly helpful for students who use assistive technology (like a screen reader). ALT-Tags should also be added for tables and /academics/pcc-online/faculty/handbook/images in word-processing documents.

Assessing Online Facilitation Instrument (AOF) â€“ A tool created by the California State University TIGERS Project which instructors can use for self-assessment or peer review of their online courses. It can also be useful when considering the design of an online course. The AOF consists of 4 categories: Managerial, Pedagogical, Social, Technical.

Assistive Technology â€“ Technology that is used to aid persons with disabilities.

Asynchronous â€“ An approach to distance education in which instruction occurs outside a specific time and place. Email and discussion boards are examples of this type of learning modality in the online learning environment.

Authentication â€“ Verification of students’ identity.

Authentic Tasks/Assessment â€“ Activities and evaluation tasks that mirror practical real-world applications, that is, what students would have to do outside the classroom.

Autonomy â€” Known as both student autonomy and self-directed learning, this is when instructors give more control and choice to students in order to enhance the learning experience. The instructor is a facilitator instead of a disseminator of knowledge.

Best Practices â€“ Teaching approaches that maximize student learning outcomes. Often these approaches are student/learner-centered, that is, the instructor of the course acts as a facilitator, guiding the student’s understanding of the content. Classroom activities also focus more on higher order problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Bloom’s Taxonomy â€” A classification of skills developed to describe cognitive, affective, and psycho-motor processes in learning. The cognitive domain, which goes from lower-order skills such as remembering to higher-order skills like creating, is often used in academic course design.

CANVAS â€“ The learning management system used at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿C.

Collaborative Learning â€“ Learning activities that take place between two or more students.

Continuous Assessment â€“ Instructors mark student work at frequent intervals using those marks to build into a student’s final results. Process-oriented term papers and portfolios are examples.

Courseware â€“ Usually refers to full course materials that are available in an online learning format. For example, a courseware course could include an eTextbook, assessments, lesson plans and project descriptions.

e-Pack (Course Cartridges) â€“ Prebuilt publisher course material.

Face-to-Face (f2f) â€“ Instruction that takes place in the classroom.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) â€” Provides guidelines for access to and release of student educational records.

The Flipped Classroom â€” An approach to web-enhancing a course where content is delivered for homework via instructional technology, and classroom time is used for interactive group and project-based activities.