HETS :: HETS Projects

HETS Projects

Prior to 1999, the Hispanic Educational Telecommunications System (HETS) brought eight member institutions to share courses at a distance through a videoconference satellite network system. At the time, each of these colleges and universities had acquired electronic classrooms and satellite network connectivity through a HETS grant from the US Department of Commerce. For more than three years, HETS Board of Directors and advisory councils dealt with technology issues and tried to establish policies that could facilitate those member institutions to share courses through the satellite network. With its limited activities, HETS was identified at that point as a Type I consortium based on the classification that a consultant from the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET) had interpreted for our board. Nonetheless, HETS moving goal was to widen the access of Hispanic students to higher education through telecommunications.

By 1999 the Internet was becoming a forefront in the transformation of higher education and the American society at large, as part of the impact of information technology worldwide. As a consortium comprised primarily of Hispanic-serving institutions, HETS identified a way to harness Internet technology and help Hispanic students and faculty to bridge the digital divide. In that context, the HETS office staff conceived and developed, with the assistance of some institutional leaders, a LAAP (Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships) proposal to get funds from FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education). LAAP provided HETS with an opportunity to encourage and support new partnership initiatives and enhanced collaboration by using the power of the Internet to expand the access of non-traditional Hispanic learners to postsecondary education and workforce training.

The goal to build a virtual community of students, faculty and mentors for learning, collaboration and support gave direction to this project. By, 2002, HETS had largely refocused the project�s priorities, strategies, and remaining funds to: (a) foster collaboration and provide support for joint online offerings, (b) develop a technical tool for the e-Mentoring program, (c) promote the Teaching Online (TOL) workshop, and (d) integrate the Virtual Plaza to the HETS website in order to insure its continuity.

The LAAP Project and the Online Learning Collaboration Initiatives brought the need to network administrators, faculty, and learners from our different colleges and universities to engage them in collaboration. As a result, through the past two years the project outcomes resulted in moving HETS toward a Type III consortium, whereby our partner institutions have had to engage in greater articulation efforts and agreements, particularly for developing and delivering joint online academic minors and certificate programs.

Collaboration Initiative

This academic collaboration project allows colleges to develop cost efficient alternatives to help increase their educational offerings. With this program, the HETS Consortium fosters partnership initiatives that result in unique online minors, continuing education certificates, and professional programs. It targets groups of the population that otherwise would have not been able to benefit from such education.

LAAP Project

While creating synergy from each other members' assets, the LAAP Project contributed with methods and services to enhance the distance learning experience of Hispanic students and faculty in higher education. We should mention the Virtual Learning and Support Plaza , the Academic Collaboration Project (today called the Online Learning Initiatives Project), the e-Mentoring Project for students , online faculty workshops and online modules for faculty and student support.

Videoconferencing

After 1999, HETS decreased drastically the transmision of videoconferences and initiates the construction on the Internet of the Virtual Learning and Support Plaza. Some videoconferences were trasmitted once in a while until HETS made an agreement with the NASA LIVE Program in 2002.