CSC faculty publish articles in law journals

An article addressing how Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance relates to the Internet and online education by Dr. Nathaniel Gallegos and Dr Jesse Sealey will be published in the spring 2015 volume of “The Journal of Technology Law & Policy.”

Gallegos is an assistant business professor and Sealey is an assistant education professor.

A second article by Gallegos regarding agribusiness will be published in the spring 2015 volume of “The Drake Journal of Agricultural Law.”

Gallegos said he became interested in the concepts for the ADA article based on CSC’s large array of online courses.

“As soon as I started here, Dr. Carnot and the Teaching and Learning Center were very instrumental in helping me form my teaching style. I attended a workshop last year that got into the legal aspects of online courses and that piqued my interest into the area,” he said.

Sealey said CSC faculty members have been urged to implement the Quality Matters (QM) rubric mentioned in the article to all courses.

QM, a peer review process, helps faculty members see that their courses are designed and delivered in a manner that complies with ADA. Each three-member review team is highly qualified including a peer from an outside institution, a subject matter expert and a team leader, Sealey said.

In the fall of 2014, Gallegos and Sealey began research with the goal in mind to publish the article together. Gallegos focused on the legal research and history of the ADA while Sealey focused on the online educational aspect.

“It is important that faculty create courses that allow all students to accomplish the goals of their courses and education. It’s not so much a tale of caution for faculty to ‘do this or else,’ but rather, it is for faculty to recognize that there are methods that the law is saying for us to use to bring broader access of our content to learners,” Gallegos said.

Gallegos, who serves as the committee chair for the agribusiness option within the comprehensive business administration major, said his background in law and agricultural economics was beneficial while researching and writing the agribusiness article.

Gallegos teaches BA 432 in which the legal aspects of business entities are discussed and AGRI 431, an agricultural policy course.

In his effort to illuminate the uniqueness of agriculture as a form of business, Gallegos recently designed an MBA course in agribusiness, BA 623, which will launch this summer.

—Tena L. Cook, Marketing Coordinator