State Authorization: Strategies for Online Providers

Change is coming to distance education. Even with legal challenges, variations in state regulations and potential state reciprocity agreements, some form of state approval for out-of-state-based online education programming seems likely.

Federal regulations requiring higher educational institutions offering online education programs to secure state authorization wherever they serve students could mean trouble for the unprepared.

If your institution’s online programs cross state lines to reach students, you need accurate, comprehensive information to help make sense of all the changes, and that’s what State Authorization: Strategies for Online Providers, delivers.

The presenter for this two-part seminar series is Dr. Bruce Chaloux, executive director and CEO of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), and a major player in national efforts to help states and higher education respond to state licensure/authorization issues.

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Order a copy of Part One, recorded February 1, to learn more about state authorization processes, strategies to address state requirements, and what to expect from Federal regulations in 2012.

The 90-minute session also covers such practical concerns as:

• What you should have already done about online authorization – and what to do if you haven’t
• What to consider before seeking approval from a specific state
• How to engage and respond to state authorization agencies
• What authorization costs and requirements are in different states
• What specific challenges confront multiple-state programming
• What happens if you delay action.

In between seminars, you can take your questions about state authorization directly to Dr. Chaloux through an exclusive LinkedIn discussion group available only to seminar participants. His expertise and direct involvement with new developments in regulation will help you keep your program on track.

Part Two of the seminar series will be scheduled after the legal dust has settled, and will go into more detail on emerging state authorization initiatives, and new challenges facing online providers. It will also draw upon the experiences of participants and institutions from the first seminar.

Cost to Attend:
The cost for this special two-part online seminar is $450. It includes the CD and transcript of part 1 and the Online Seminar Package for part 2. The Online Seminar Package gives you live access to part 2 of the seminar (date TBD), plus on-demand access for seven days, a copy of the seminar transcript, and all the handouts.

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CDs of the seminars onto the institution’s password-protected internal website for unlimited access by the entire campus community.

Counter Uncertainty with Strategy
Even though online learning regulations remain in flux, you can still prepare for these challenges. Through these seminars Dr. Chaloux provides:

• Up-to-the-minute information on regulatory efforts and online learning requirements
• Resources and best practices to help you meet state authorization standards
• Updates on regional and national efforts employing state reciprocity agreements to meet federal requirements.

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Who Should Attend
This intermediate to advanced-level seminar series will give you the information and tools you need to rise to these new challenges. It’s particularly helpful for people in the following positions:

• Deans, directors and leaders in e-learning/online learning/distance learning units
• Department heads
• Program directors
• Online programming academic unit leaders
• Administrative personnel responsible for securing state authorization.

All seminars include a discussion guide for facilitators
Participating in a Magna Online Seminar as a team can help leverage unique insights, foster collaboration, and build momentum for change. Each seminar includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators which provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You’ll also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

I’m Teaching Online Next Term: What Do I Have to Know?

Program includes a CD with the video presentation, plus supplemental materials, PowerPoint slides, and complete transcript • $99

New online instructors tend to face the virtual classroom with conflicting feelings of excitement and fear. While embracing the benefits of online learning, they also have a lot of questions … about the technology, about creating a teaching presence, about structuring their course, and much more.

Led by one of the most respected names in distance education – Lawrence C. Ragan, Ph.D., Director of Faculty Development for Penn State’s World Campus – this fast, focused presentation will provide you with a 12-step framework for online teaching success.

View a brief clip from the program:

Loaded with practical advice, you’ll learn the key steps involving:

• Learning management systems
• Course flow and structure
• Planning and calendars
• Creation of a teaching plan
• Establishing expectations
• Student evaluation and assessment
• Tech support
• And more

Along with the video program on CD, you’ll also receive a checklist of core competencies every online teacher should possess.

Order this 20 Minute Mentor

Convenient and affordable
At just 20 minutes, the program fits conveniently into any schedule … and it fits your budget, as well. We think it’s one of the best professional-development values available … and if you don’t agree, we’ll refund your money.

Entering the online classroom is a big step. Let us help you make it a success: order this 20-Minute Mentor today!

This Magna 20 Minute Mentor includes a CD with the video presentation, supplemental materials, a copy of the PowerPoint slides and the program’s transcript.

Want to make this program available for your entire campus?

Contact us about a Campus Access License to load the CD onto your institution’s internal web site for unlimited, convenient on-demand access to members of the campus community. The Campus Access License is ideal for ongoing group or individual training or to build a library of professional development material.

Results of the survey were released earlier this month in a report titled Trends in eLearning: Tracking the Impact of eLearning at Community Colleges. The survey was completed by 139 colleges, typically by the institution’s distance education administrator.

Since the survey began in 2004, respondents were asked to rate the greatest challenges for their distance education program. For all six years, the number one challenge has been the need for support staff for training and technical assistance. The second biggest challenge this year, moving up from number three, is adequate assessment of distance education classes.

Some of the key findings of the report:

• 21 percent offer blended courses; up from 15 percent last year.
• 71 percent continue to increase the number of blended courses each term; up from 53 percent last year.
• 81 percent cap enrollment for online classes.
• 72 percent develop their own course content; 21 percent use publisher content.
• 40 percent charge students an additional per-credit fee for take online courses.
• The most difficult classes to teach online remain unchanged from previous years and include: lab-based sciences, speech, clinical requirements, fine arts, nursing, math, industrial technology, foreign languages, and computer hardware.
• 63 percent have mandatory faculty training with most saying that “more than eight hours” are required.
• 40 percent allow full-time faculty to reside in another city or state from the institution.

Access a PDF of the report Trends in eLearning: Tracking the Impact of eLearning at Community Colleges, here »

For more information on the ITC, go to http://www.itcnetwork.org/

Here’s how …

The best activities are “reality-based” activities. The more a student can relate to a learning activity, the easier it is for that student to get involved in it—and employ the purpose of the activity beyond the course. In creating activities for your online course—whether from scratch or by tweaking other activities to fit your class—be sure they reach into the real world. And that real world can include pieces of history or other events, people’s stories, or really just about any other item that is interesting, unusual, or humorous enough to hold students’ attention, no matter what the subject.

Be certain the activities are up to date. Using outdated activities will likely lead to low student interest (and leave an impression that the instructor is out of touch and/or just doing the “same old, same old”). If a dated activity is still fresh because it is interesting or its “datedness” is precisely why it is being used, fine; but if neither of these is the case, change the wording so it reflects a more current time frame (and certainly one that is relevant to your students).

Be on the lookout for existing or potential activities that can be morphed to fit your class. From textbooks that include activities to cartoons to daily events to newspaper and magazine articles to conferences and conversations to Listservs and blogs to TV shows and movies to everyday life experiences—each of these (and others) presents you with a gold mine from which to unearth new and exciting activities for your course.

Develop any new activities with students in mind, never you. Whether you are form-fitting an existing activity to your class or creating one from scratch, it must be designed to fit all aspects of your students (and your class)—not just you and your creative bent. Too many activities have failed in their efforts to keep students engaged; to successfully highlight or spotlight an idea, formula, theory, fact, or philosophy; or to lead students to new discoveries and insights simply because the instructor failed to keep students in mind.

Keep all activities short and easy to understand. Activities are, by their very nature, not meant to be treatises, dissertations, essays, or theses; they must be short to hold students’ attention and to fit as a component of a larger lesson, and they must use vocabulary and concepts students can readily understand on first reading.

Don’t hesitate to use humor in the activities. Activities that evoke a smile, chortle, chuckle, or guffaw are effective as they have a friendly flavor, thus making them easier and more enjoyable to tackle. But observe three notes of caution. (1) Use these sparingly, not as the norm, for you want a balance in the style of your activities (too much humor can take away from the serious nature of the course). (2) Be sure it is humorous. Too many people try their hand at humor and are miserable at it; it’s much better to try out humor on colleagues first than to have it fall flat on your students. (3) Always keep the humor in good taste!

Make certain all activities fall under your school’s umbrella of acceptability. Schools may have certain policies regarding the use of activities, the number of activities, your activities vs. school-sanctioned activities, etc. Be aware of any of these before you begin creating activities for your course; you don’t want to invest time and effort in activities only to learn you can’t use them.

Make use of the newest online technology. Beyond good ol’ text, there are blogs, podcasts, videos, animation, .mps (audio) files, interactive links, and other options—explore these and see which ones might be a nice bonus to an activity in engaging your students, in presenting your activity’s purpose, and in spicing up your class. We online instructors must embrace new technology and use it to enhance our teaching efforts—and this includes the activities we present to our students.

Be sure to give credit when applicable. If you decide to use something verbatim or nearly so from another source, it is important to give credit to the author. In some cases you must get permission from the publisher.

Errol Craig Sull has been teaching online courses for more than 14 years and has a national reputation in the subject. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his next book—How to Become the Perfect Online Instructor.

Excerpted from Teaching Online with Errol: How to Create Effective Activities for Online Teaching, Online Classroom, July 2009.

Florida State College at Jacksonville (formerly Florida Community College at Jacksonville) Open Campus has borrowed a page from the corporate sector to create a continuous process improvement plan based on elements of the ISO9000 and TQM quality assurance programs.

In the recent online seminar, Ensuring Online Program Quality with the eQuality Model, Richard Schilke, EdD., associate dean for online Liberal Arts and Sciences at the Open Campus, outlined the school’s system for measuring and delivering quality in its distance learning programs.

The eQuality program looks at quality from four different perspectives, which the Open Campus calls the four pillars of program quality, and has qualitative and quantitative assessments for each.

1. Quality Courses – The quality checks in this area ensure the courses provide a sound learning environment, implement best practices in online learning, meet college requirements for academic rigor, and reflect all official curriculum requirements.
2. Quality Instruction – The quality checks in this area ensure sound instructional approaches and techniques for reducing the transactional distance in online courses.
3. Quality Support – The quality checks in this area focus on those elements outside the courses that make the teaching and learning experience easier and more fulfilling, including, technical support, student advisement, faculty training, and staff training and development.
4. Quality Administration – The quality checks in this area examine the policies, procedures, guidelines, and other interactions between the institution and the staff, faculty, and students. The goal is to minimize the organizational barriers to student success, student satisfaction, and faculty satisfaction. This pillar is by far the most complicated to manage and improve, Schilke says.

“The most successful quality programs ensure they provide their stakeholders with the right tools to succeed,” says Schilke. “In online learning this means giving your faculty, staff, and students the technology, knowledge, and skills to do their respective jobs as effectively and efficiently as possible.”

Dana Tesone, assistant professor in the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, and Peter Ricci of Barry Kaye College of Business at Florida Atlantic University, set out to learn more about the way that students perceive online education today. Their work shows the equality of student perceptions of online versus face-to-face courses, and it has implications for how we think about these two delivery approaches.

The study
Tesone and Ricci, both professors in the hospitality field, studied a series of 450 students enrolled in a senior-level hospitality management program. These were largely traditional-age students (mostly 20 or 21 years of age), skewing female and non-minority. Some 70 percent were employed in the hospitality industry.

Quantitative results showed that student perception of their courses was similar, regardless of whether courses were delivered face-to-face or online. The areas the survey measured include:

• feedback concerning student performance in the course,
• instructor’s interest in student learning, use of class time,
• instructor’s overall organization of the course,
• continuity from one class meeting to the next,
• pace of the course,
• instructor’s assessment of student progress in the course,
• text and supplemental learning materials,
• description of course objectives and assignments,
• communication of ideas and information,
• expression of expectations for performance,
• availability to assist students,
• respect and concern for students,
• stipulation of interest in the course,
• facilitation of learning, and
• overall assessment of the instructor.

Students were given the option of providing comments, and the comments were also interesting. Students in the asynchronous online course gave favorable comments about convenience regarding time and travel. Also intriguing was the fact that the face-to-face course employed what the authors called a “sage on the stage” learning method, while the online course employed learner-centered methods—but both types of pedagogy were rated equally highly by students.

The implications
The first implication of these findings is the importance of using the more appropriate learner-centered pedagogy in the online classroom. “We have people who just don’t get the change in pedagogy,” says Tesone. “Everyone should be trained in this; it’s a major mental shift. If you aspire to be a sage on the stage, then this is not for you,” he says.

If the online environment presents a challenge for faculty, it also presents a challenge for students, perhaps in part because of misperceptions about the rigor of the courses brought about by experiences with poorly-designed courses. “We teach students who have had other classes that were treated like correspondence courses; that’s what gives us a bad name,” he says.

But today’s students are not taking a correspondence course, locked into distance delivery because it is the only way to complete a course. “Today, students who live 200 yards away take the [online] course because they don’t want to come to the classroom. They took the course out of convenience, not realizing the interaction is more intense than sitting in class.”

Today, technology adds a dimension to education, and students ultimately value both the increased convenience and the experience. “It has allowed us to become closer to students because of the software, and they learn more as a result,” says Ricci.

Excerpted from How Your Students See Your Courses, February 1, 2009, Distance Education Report.

Results of the 2009 Managing Online Education Survey, a collaborative initiative of the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET) and The Campus Computing Project, were discussed Oct. 29 in a live online seminar featuring Kenneth C. Green, founding director of The Campus Computing Project, and Russell Poulin, interim executive director of WCET.

The goal of the survey was not so much to quantify the growth of online education, though there were a few questions on that and not surprisingly 95 percent reported an increase in the number of enrollments, but to get to the heart of the operational, instructional, and IT issues for online programs.

The survey covered a wide range of important planning and policy issues including faculty training, support services, tuition, ADA compliance, and assessment. Some of the key findings are:

• Organizational structures for online education programs are in a state of flux with 45 percent having restructured their management of online programs in the past two years and 52 percent anticipating they will restructure in the next years. Further, 29 percent reorganized during the past two years and expect another reorganization soon.
• In terms of profitability, only 1.6 percent report that their institution lost money on online programs. Forty-five percent report having profitable programs and a surprisingly large 45 percent of campuses don’t know if they’re making or losing money with online education.
• More than three-fourths (77 percent) of institutions in the survey report that they limit class size for online courses, with 37 students being the average enrollment cap.
• Tech support, a critical but sometimes overlooked factor to online student success, ranged from 24/7 support provided by 36 percent of institutions to Mon.-Fri. 9-5 support offered by 17 percent.
• Slightly over half (53 percent) of the institutions surveyed report mandatory technology training for faculty teaching online programs.
• Despite the emergence of a whole host of low-cost and easy-to-use web-based technologies, online courses rely heavily on traditional print materials. Eighty-five percent say textbooks are “widely used” in their programs.

Green and Poulin noted that while anecdotal information about how different campuses are managing their online programs is plentiful, they hope the data gathered with the survey will be “a catalyst for conversations” with regards to campus planning and policy decisions.

The survey data are based on responses from 182 senior campus officials at two- and four-year public and private U.S. colleges and universities who were surveyed in September and October 2009.

Critical New Findings from the ‘Managing Online Education’ Study

To date most data-gathering around online education programs has focused largely on documenting the rising enrollments in online courses. And make no mistake, online education is booming. But what’s been missing is reliable, comprehensive data to help distance education administrators with the planning and management of their programs. That’s about to change.

The groundbreaking 2009 National Survey of Online Education Programs provides the first-ever, national data on critical issues facing schools involved with eLearning. Sponsored by The Campus Computing Project and WCET, this survey is focused on the instructional, organizational, and technological operations of online programs across all levels of post-secondary institutions.

In Critical New Findings from the “Managing Online Education” Study, Dr. Kenneth C. Green from The Campus Computing Project and Russell Poulin from WCET explain the freshly-compiled data in this audio seminar format.

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You will receive the latest survey results on:

• Critical planning and policy issues
• Faculty training
• Assessment practices in online versus on-campus programs
• Outsourcing methods
• Preferred Learning Management Systems
• Class sizes and enrollment caps
• Marketing and recruitment strategies
• Factors most likely to impede your online expansion efforts
• ADA compliance in online courses and programs
• And more

Who will benefit from this seminar:
This seminar is an absolute must for anyone involved in online learning:

• Campus officials in charge of online education
• Faculty teaching online courses
• Information technology staff
• Providers serving the distance education market
• Anyone interested in learning what the competition in online learning is doing

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It’s an age-old question that continues to stump online instructors as well as the managers of distance education programs trying to solve the attrition problem that continues to drag down this otherwise thriving segment of higher education.

Perhaps one reason for poor online retention rates, says Dr. Curt Bonk, professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University, is that instructors are not engaging students with the technologies they love nor are they taking full advantage of the online tools and applications that have become so readily available.

During the recent online seminar Creatively Engaging Online Students: Models and Activities, Bonk explained how instructors can use “low-risk, low-cost, low-time activities” that are relatively easy to incorporate into a lesson, but make a big impact on student engagement and learning.

Using his TEC-VARIETY Model, which is an acronym that stands for Tone, Encouragement, Curiosity, Variety, Autonomy, Relevance, Interactive, Engagement, Tension, and Yields products, Bonk outlined a wide range of web technologies and resources that address each of the TEC-VARIETY components to make a difference in the online learning experience. Some of the tools he discussed include: Jing, Screenr, Slideshare, Animoto, Google Docs, and YackPack.

Bonk also showed how different learning styles can be addressed using what he calls the R2D2 Method, which thankfully has nothing to do with Star Wars and actually stands for Read (auditory and visual learners), Reflect (reflective learners), Display (visual learners) and Do (tactile, kinesthetic, and exploratory learners).

Resources that address the R2D2 Method range from blogs and video blogs (or vlogs as they’re sometimes called), to wikis, podcasts, concept maps, online timelines, Flash, 3-D visualization, surveys, and map mash-ups.

Although it’s easy to get overwhelmed, and at times intimidated, by all the new resources available today, Bonk encourages experimentation. He also recommends enlisting the help of students to be “the cool resource provider” by finding and presenting that day’s relevant online video clip.

11 Strategies for Managing Your Online Courses

Much has been written about the challenges of teaching an online course. While not discounting the unique (and sometimes frustrating) aspects of the online learning environment, it could be said that, despite the numerous differences, many of the same course management strategies that are essential to success in a traditional classroom also apply in the online classroom.

A strong syllabus, clear directions, well-organized materials, and timely feedback are the building blocks of any course management plan … whether you teach online or face to face.

Of course, the big challenge for online instructors is that the very nature of online education amplifies the importance of properly addressing these management issues, while throwing a few more additional obstacles into the mix. So if you think the flexibility of online teaching also means that it’s OK to “wing it” now and then, you’d be wrong. If anything, you have to be more organized, more consistent and more prepared for anything than ever before.

11 Strategies for Managing Your Online Courses

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Choosing the right communication tools and protocols, addressing technology problems, managing student expectations, and building community are just some of issues that can stretch online instructors to the breaking point.

11 Strategies for Managing Your Online Courses was created to help online instructors tackle many of the course management issues that can erode the efficiency and effectiveness of an online course. It features 11 articles pulled from the pages of Online Classroom, including:

• Syllabus Template Development for Online Course Success
• The Online Instructor’s Challenge: Helping ‘Newbies’
• Virtual Sections: A Creative Strategy for Managing Large Online Classes
• Internal or External Email for Online Courses?
• Trial by Fire: Online Teaching Tips That Work
• The Challenge of Teaching Across Generations

Remember, you’re not the only one who may be a little anxious about going online. Students often have anxiety when taking their first online course as well. It’s up to you to help them feel more confident and secure, all the while keeping your workload at a manageable level. The course management tips in this report will help.

11 Strategies for Managing Your Online Courses

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Faculty Focus contains a wealth of valuable material – not just about online course management, but all of the key issues that matter to today’s top faculty and administrators. It’s packed with best practices, tips, and other information you can use on the topics that impact your students, your school and your work, including:

• Instructional Design
• Faculty Development
• Teaching Strategies
• Distance Learning
• Classroom Management
• Educational Assessment
• Faculty Evaluation
• Learning Styles
• Curriculum Development
• Community College Issues
• Trends in Higher Education
• And much, much more.

11 Strategies for Managing Your Online Courses

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High-level Online Faculty Support for Low-level Cost

If your online program is like most, you have more courses, more students, and more teachers moving online – and a budget that isn’t keeping up. The demand for strong online support is outstripping the funds available for it.
So how do you provide top-notch faculty support when you’re dealing with a shrinking budget?

Does your online faculty have everything it needs to be successful? Whether you use full-time faculty members, part-time adjuncts or some combination of the two, without the proper training and on-going support, no online teaching experience is going to be as positive as it should be. But how is your online support team supposed to do its job, when it doesn’t get the budget it needs to function properly?

That’s a dilemma facing many college campuses. As online programs take off, both in popularity and in scope, support budgets frequently lag far behind. More and more, support teams are relying on resourcefulness, innovation and “tricks of the trade” to provide high-quality service at no-frills prices.

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High-level Online Faculty Support for Low-level Cost is led by Kaye Shelton, Dean of Online Education at Dallas Baptist University. DBU has an especially robust online program, with 34 fully online degree programs and a 92% student course completion rate. The school provides exceptional faculty support, despite a budget that presents stiff challenges.

In presentation, you’ll learn how DBU has balanced quality and cost. The seminar covers:

• Critical factors for online success.
• Efficient ways to keep faculty updated on the latest developments in online learning.
• A workable model for cost-effective online support.
• Free or low-cost software solutions for creating quality course design.
• Where to find highly competent, highly motivated support help–cheap.
• Essential website resources.
• Proven tips for high-quality course development on a budget.
• And much more.

You’ll get practical, use-it-now information to maintain a robust support program on a less-than-robust budget.

Who will benefit from this seminar:

• Directors of online programs
• Deans of distance learning
• Instructional designers
• Online faculty
• Distance education administrators

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Because the online learning experience is, by its nature, frustrating, anyone who can take remove any unnecessary frustration should do so. Frustration leads to anxiety, a reduced ability to learn, and attrition.

What it comes down to is technical and learning usability — the ease (or lack of ease) with which learners interact with online instructional materials (pages, forms, media, etc.) and people (the instructor, peers, help sources). Good usability for online learning materials means the site, content, and media are easy to find, use, and navigate. And good usability for people means the interaction tools (such as email and discussion forums) are easy to use and facilitate getting input or help as needed.

Technical Usability in Online Courses
Good technical usability involves minimizing system-related frustrations so learners can use them for their intended purpose without unnecessary hassles, delays, or extra steps. Here are some common recommendations for improving technical usability in online courses:

• Use a simple and consistent navigation scheme (for example, tabs labeled with the week number or topic containing all the materials for that week or topic).
• Optimize images and media for quicker downloading.
• Provide a list of required hardware, software, plug-ins, and bandwidth to prospective students so they know what’s needed, technically, to succeed.
• Offer printable versions of pages that are likely to be printed, either by providing separate print versions or PDFs or by making sure that existing pages print well.
• Design online courses so they function similarly to each other. Once learners understand how to use one course, they will be able to use others more easily.
• Make materials or pages that are commonly used or referred to readily available without having to navigate through numerous menus and hyperlinks.

• Manage expectations: Tell learners when to expect a reply to emails or questions so they aren’t frustrated when you haven’t answered in three minutes.
• Make help available: Look at your course content and activities realistically. Any places where students are likely to get stuck? Provide extra help options at these times.
• Provide reality checks: Let prospective students know what to expect so they can determine if they have the access, motivation, and time for the coursework.

Maybe you’re thinking this is too much to worry about. It’s hard enough designing content, activities, and assessments; facilitating course activities; answering questions; and grading papers and tests. But since the negative outcomes from poor usability end up in the instructors’ and students’ laps, it’s our problem, whether we like it or not.

Patti Shank, PhD, CPT, is a nationally recognized instructional technologist, designer and developer, and the president of Learning Peaks.

Adapted from Online Teaching Fundamentals: (Not) Making it Hard(er) to Learn, Part 3, Online Classroom, vol. 7, no. 5.

Now in its sixth year, the recently released report is based on responses from more than 2,500 colleges and universities. It is a collaborative effort between the Babson Survey Research Group, the College Board and the Sloan Consortium and supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

“Bad economic times have often been good for education, either because decreased availability of good jobs encourages more people to seek education instead, or because those currently employed seek to improve their chances for advancement by pursuing their education,” according to the report. “Higher education institutions believe that the rising unemployment rates currently being experienced will, once again, lead to enrollment increases.”

Other results of Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008 provide a glimpse at just how many students are learning online. The report found that more than 3.9 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2007 term; an increase of over 12 percent when compared to the number reported the previous year. All told, over 20 percent of all U.S. higher education students were taking at least one online course in the fall of 2007.

In addition, the survey posed a series of questions about motivations for teaching online. There was broad agreement between a sample of faculty who teach online and chief academic officers, with one important difference. While chief academic officers rate the motivation of additional income second on their list, online teaching faculty place it fifth – just ahead of “for pedagogical advantages” and “because they are required to.”

The complete report, Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, is available for download from the Sloan-C website.

The result? Non-tenure track and untenured faculty have a decreased desire to teach online because of inadequate compensation for online course development and online teaching, as well as administration’s failure to recognize the additional work involved in teaching online versus teaching in a traditional classroom, DiSalvio said. This, he noted, has the potential of creating a teaching vacuum, particularly at research institutions where the research and publishing requirements for tenure and promotions are most intense.

• Have a thorough understanding of what web-based strategy means for the complexities of the particular institution and the needs of its faculty.
• Understand policy choices based on the institution’s knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses, its environment and the market in which it must compete for resources (students, faculty, funding and public perception).
• Know that there is no one right answer to a policy choice — only choices that might be better or more appropriate for one institution at a point in time.
• Know that policy changes generate all types of suspicions and responses from faculty and others who may have something to lose or gain by the change.
• Heed the needs of the department, college/school and the institution in terms of strategic vision, goals and challenges and know how faculty reward systems affect the respective agendas.

“I think it starts with the departmental leadership and the recognition of the department chair’s pivotal role in setting the direction and establishing a reward system and really articulating how Web-based teaching affects workload, promotion, and tenure,” DiSalvio said.

1. Let go of the guilt. In any given online class, there may be a soldier logging in from Iraq, a student located three time zones away, and a night owl who concentrates best at 4:00 a.m. As a result, the online faculty member likely will receive questions or comments at any time of the day or night.

The desire to serve students, and online educators’ subconscious need to justify their work-at-home existence, leaves many online faculty feeling guilty if they don’t respond to students right away. It’s time to let go of that guilt.

2. Set your working hours. Kelly urges all online faculty to set working hours and obey them. “This [problem] is common to telecommuters; we try to fit in work around everything else,” she says. But instead of continuously checking email, grading papers, running errands, and doing laundry, Kelly suggests carving out set blocks that are just for work.

These blocks may not correspond directly to a standard office work day, for example you may have day when you need to teach one synchronous class in the morning and another in the evening. However, on these days, it’s important to schedule time in the afternoon for non-work-related activities.

3. Manage your time, and learn to explain to others. Part of the secret to the work-life balance is better time management. However, even when online faculty manage their time well, they often have trouble explaining their position to administrators, and vice versa. Questions about time management are often heard as complaints about workload or requests to work harder; learning to communicate with one’s colleagues is often a big hurdle to handling time effectively, Kelly says.

4. Be proactive. If online faculty do not learn to set boundaries, they risk the sort of burnout that could drive them out of the online classroom altogether. While it’s important for administrators to make it clear that a commitment to teach online is not a monastic oath to have no life other than a virtual one, Kelly also encourages online faculty to take charge of their own time.

A critical step to doing so involves managing students’ expectations by explaining instructors’ availability and communication policy upfront. Students, she says, generally understand as long as the online faculty member obeys his or her own promises about check-in times and response turn-around.

Adapted from “Setting Boundaries: Four Tips for Managing Your Time Online and Not Letting Your Work Consume Your Life,” Distance Education Report, August 1, 2007.

In a study that looked at developing trust in virtual teams, Coppola and her colleagues built on the work of Meyerson, et al. that looked at “swift trust,” “a unique form of collective perception … for temporary, but not trivial, situations.” For the purpose of the study Coppola and her colleagues used these previous researchers’ definition of swift trust, which frames trust in temporary situations in terms of the following characteristics:

• vulnerability – the belief (hope) that others will care for what is being entrusted with good will.
• uncertainty - a willingness to suspend doubt in order to execute the task performance.
• risk – a willingness to take risks
• expectations – a positive expectation of benefits of temporary group activity.

To determine the effects of trust in online learning, Coppola and her colleagues identified the most effective teacher from among those they had studied based on 1,300 post-course questionnaires that rated instructor effectiveness. For comparison, they also selected an instructor who was ranked among the least effective.

The researchers coded the online discussion transcripts in each course and analyzed them for social emotional positive and negative responses to students. Based on their analysis they found that communication plays an essential role in developing trust in virtual teams and developed the following trust-building strategies:

• Establish early communication. Students need to perceive the instructor’s presence as soon as the course begins.
• Develop a positive social atmosphere. Team members are going to respond to the caring that they perceive in the instructional environment and the way that instructors do this is by modeling solidarity, congeniality, and affiliation. “We found that when students followed that model, there was evidence of the establishment of trust,” Coppola says.
• Reinforce predictable patterns of communication and action. Students need structured activity, repetition, and feedback. Without these, the students will get the impression that the instructor does not care about the course or the students, making development of trust unlikely.
• Involve team members in tasks such as group projects or activities that require students to rely on each other to complete them. To get students to participate fully, participation should be required and the instructor should maintain a presence and motivate the students.

An important role the instructor plays is modeling. “Students take their cues from the instructor, and when the instructor is not there, the students will be negative. But if the instructor is positive from the beginning, showing emotion for the students and the content, students will respond in the same way,” Coppola says.

Although the instructor is the most important player in establishing trust in virtual teams, course design can have an impact as well. “Certainly, the environment should be designed to facilitate conversation. Communication is the single most important aspect of a successful online environment. The course needs to be designed with the most opportunities for communication between and among the students and the instructor and the opportunity for students to give feedback to one another,” Coppola says.

These strategies can encourage trust, but the instructor needs to closely monitor communication in the course and take corrective action when necessary. Coppola recommends asking the following questions to gauge trust:

• Are students responding positively to one another?
• Are the students responding frequently?
• Are the students really thinking and engaging with the material and one another?

The answers to these questions can vary throughout the duration of a course, and trust can sometimes be undermined with a single negative comment. If a student expresses negative comments that could disrupt trust early on, Coppola recommends communicating with that student privately via e-mail to try to get to the source of the negativity. “Sometime when you have someone with a strong presence come forward with a social emotional negative response, that student can shift the course. The instructor always has to be the leader — not dominate or be aggressive — but very clearly deal with anything that can interfere with the cohesiveness of the group.”

In some cases it may be appropriate to delete inappropriate negative comments, Coppola says.

Reference

Coppola, Nancy W., Hiltz, Starr Roxanne, and Rotter, Naomi G. (2004) Building Trust in Virtual Teams. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, (June), 95-104.

Kerry Lynn Rice, Web developer/instructor in the Department of Educational Technology at Boise State University, teaches PBL to teachers in an online program and has found some striking similarities between online learning and PBL. In both online learning and PBL, instructors facilitate and support learning rather than provide direct instruction. Like PBL, many distance learning experiences incorporate some kind of authentic tasks or assessment, which motivates students.

Rice uses PBL in each of her online courses, simply because of the similarities between these two constructivist pedagogies.

“When you’re teaching online, it’s very difficult to have an interactive, motivating course if you’re just spewing out text-based information. I think the more you teach online, the more you learn that it’s more effective to have student-centered, hands-on, authentic project-based activities than it is to have lecture-type activities where students are just reading and absorbing information,” Rice says.

As with incorporating technology into a course, Rice recommends using PBL where it is suitable to the course content and learning objectives. “The basis of any course is going to be the standards or curriculum. You’re not going to use a project just for the sake of using a project. It’s the same with technology. You don’t use the tool unless it’s appropriate.”

There are few instances in which PBL is the sole pedagogical technique used in an online course. Rather, Rice says, it is often incorporated as appropriate. “I have a feeling that a lot of people are doing it and don’t realize they’re doing it, because there’s such a meshing between project-based learning and distance learning,” Rice says.

Advice for doing PBL online

With the similarities between online learning and PBL, Rice recommends finding ways to incorporate PBL into online courses. She offers the following recommendations:

• Start small.
• Begin with the end in mind.
• Choose a topic you already have an activity based on.
• Structure the project around the curriculum.
• Create a driving question based on the theme of the course. The driving question should require students to consider the context surrounding that question.
• Don’t be afraid to release control. “It’s OK for your students to know more than you do,” Rice says.
• Provide scaffolding. Don’t assume that your students have all the skills necessary to learn effectively using PBL. “For example, if you ask them to brainstorm, don’t assume that they know how to brainstorm. Make sure you provide guides for those activities and anticipate students’ needs. Starting small gives you the chance to build those scaffolding activities into your project as you go along,” Rice says.
• Plan the assessment. Students can be involved in developing the assessment rubrics, and you can “up the ante” by having students publicly share the product of the project with people who are knowledgeable about the issues the project addresses. (In the Buck Institute model, students share their projects with experts.)

Project-based learning has the potential to promote high-level thinking-analysis, synthesis, and evaluation-which can improve student achievement and motivation, Rice says.

It also offers the ability to provide more personalized learning than do more traditional teaching techniques. “I think the most amazing thing is to find out so much about my students in an online environment, and I think project-based learning is the same way,” Rice says. “[Online instruction] gives the ability to individualize and find out individual strengths and weaknesses in your students a lot more than traditional face-to-face instruction does. For me, it’s just learning more about my students, being able to personalize things more, and using what [students] know to guide what they do and what others do in the class.”

For more information about the Buck Institute for Education’s project-based learning model, visit http://www.bie.org/pbl/index.php. Contact Kerry Lynn Rice at krice@boisestate.edu.

If you are an instructor who is contemplating using online teaching methods to provide part or all of the course content, what do you need to know in order to prepare yourself for a successful and rewarding online teaching experience? It is not just a question of whether or not your teaching style fits online delivery, because there are many equally important issues that you need to consider before preparing to teach an online course.

The three groups of questions listed below will help in that preparation. The information is based on a collection of insights about and experiences in teaching online courses (fully online, blended, or Web-enhanced), and the issues are related to the topical areas of teaching skills/capabilities and pedagogy (e.g., student/instructor relationship, managing discussions), technology skills and capabilities (e.g., computer and office capabilities, computer skills), and institutional expectations (e.g., course support, training, course ownership).

Question #1: What teaching methods/techniques/skills will help me?

• Loves teaching and interacting with students on a frequent basis
• Prefers written, technology-based interaction over face-to-face interaction with students
• Answers all e-mails and responds to students within 48 hours, and enjoys a variety of formats to teach courses
• Gives complete and thorough answers to e-mail questions
• Writes e-mails that are unambiguous, not insulting or easily misunderstood
• Ready and willing to access the course room and e-mail at least five days a week, including one weekend day
• Realizes that most online courses take more time than “regular” classes
• Good at planning minutiae for courses and assignments before the course starts, and then sticking to a schedule
• Consistently meets deadlines for deliverables
• Uses (or is willing to develop) highly detailed syllabi, course policies, project information, sample papers, and more supporting course materials
• Encourages and welcomes questions from students
• Uses, and is adept at employing, Socratic questioning for leading course discussions
• Leads effective case study discussions
• Writes thorough feedback on paper drafts and final papers
• Challenges students’ thinking and encourages exploration of new areas of learning
• Integrates students’ experiences into the application of the theoretical principles of the subject matter
• Creates innovative assignments that foster analysis, synthesis, and integration of course materials at an appropriate educational level (lower and upper divisions, master’s and doctoral)
• Uses online plagiarism-detection tools

Question #2: What computer-related capabilities and skills do I need?

Computer and office configuration:

• High-speed access (DSL or cable) preferred for optimal interactions
• Good-quality monitor (and possibly 22-inch focal length computer glasses)
• Ergonomic chair/desk/keyboard set-up
• Full, current MS Office suite along with Adobe Acrobat to create and read PDF files
• Portability: ability to access online courses and school record-keeping tools from public libraries/cyber cafes or has a laptop to use WI/FI or hotel high-speed lines
• Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail accounts for student communication for easy Web access (if the online course room platform does not provide internal e-mail functionality)
• Secure backup/disaster recovery/contingency plans for all data and files on home computer and off-site access/storage
• Business phone line to protect personal privacy if willing to take student calls

Computer skills:

• Touch type at high speed and high accuracy
• Save and open/read files in any word processing format (PDF, doc, wpd, rtf)
• Create .html documents from word-processed files
• Create and open attachments to e-mails and course room postings
• Strong file management and retrieval skills
• Use of file recovery and diagnostic software such as Norton Works
• Use all facets of the course delivery platform software (see later section)
• Scan and disinfect all files and e-mails coming in; consistently uses virus protection with virus definitions updated several times a week
• Scan computer for cookies and spyware frequently, and remove it all
• Use the comment feature of Word to provide feedback inside student files
• Conversant in using the Internet, WWW, libraries, and other Web-based information portals (e.g., scholar.google.com) for searches, navigation, bookmarks, and basic terminology
• Excellent use of netiquette and the ability to compose clear, unambiguous statements

Question #3: What questions should I ask of my institution?

Course Support:

• Is there support for purchasing the needed computer and Internet access capabilities for home computers?
• Is there back-up for all online course files and software (and a low outage rate for access) for all needed online university systems?
• Are there institutional instructional designers to assist the instructors in creating the online courses?
• Is there a “Master Course” template, or does each instructor start the course design and structure from ground zero? How much of the master course template must each instructor use (as dictated by the institution/department)?
• Are students screened for the ability to succeed in online course rooms before registering? Is there an online introductory course room tutorial for students?
• Is there a TA for the course?
• Is there adequate IT support for instructors and students?
• What types of student policies set by the instructor will the administration support (e.g., failure due to two weeks of course absence per term, failure to fully participate, late postings getting credit, make-up work or do-overs, plagiarism)?
• What will the maximum course size be? (An ideal course size is 13 to 15 students. Twenty students is the maximum effective class size for learning and teaching based on research and experience.)
• Is there a land-based testing center available for local students if needed? Are there alternative test-taking proctoring options at public libraries or other institutions for nonlocal students?
• Does the university offer an online reference library and a 24/7 technical help line?
• Does the university offer an online writing tutoring/consulting service for students, such as Smart Thinking?
• Is there a university license with a Web-based plagiarism detection service such as Turnitin.com or mydropbox.com? Is there an institution-wide policy regarding student plagiarism?

Ownership:

• Who owns the course design, content, and supporting documents: the faculty or the institution?
• Is the faculty member compensated for course development time?
• Does each instructor sign an intellectual property agreement form assigning any course content design and materials to the institution?
• Is an instructor permitted to teach the same course at another institution?

• What are the baseline course room performance expectations for the faculty (e.g., number of postings per week, number of days per week of activity in the course room, timeliness of response to e-mails and for grading)?
• How will the instructor’s performance be monitored and evaluated?
• Who (from an administration perspective) has access to the course room?

Compensation:

• Is there compensation to the instructor for developing the course content and supporting materials?
• Is there compensation for teaching the course (flat fee) or a sliding scale by student (capitation)?
• Will the teaching compensation go up as the number of sections the instructor has taught increases and the student evaluation scores increase or reach an established threshold?

Training:

• Is training available for the faculty member on a) the pedagogical theories and principles necessary to create strong online courses, b) conversion of courses from one platform to another, and c) use of the course room software?
• Is course development and instruction training available online (so that the instructor may experience online learning from a student perspective)?

Platform:

• On which course platform software will the course be delivered?
• Will the institution mandate the course platform, or can the instructor select from several vendors?
• Has the institution set, and monitored, response-time expectations? One- to two-second responses are normal.
• Can instructors view the course room content and interactions from both the instructor and student points of view?

In summary, an instructor should have solid information about the expectations of the institution and department before agreeing to develop and teach an online course. Knowing what to expect and what is needed to do the best possible job of teaching are the most critical tools the instructor can have. With sufficient support from the institution and academic departments, teaching online is rewarding and enjoyable. It is one of the few teaching modalities in which every student participates actively and is always awake in class!

Contact Carol Bormann Young at CarolBormann.Young@metrostate.edu, Nancy Johnson at njj35@yahoo.com and Ken Hess at Ken.Hess@metrostate.edu.

McKeown prominently displays course expectations. Students must check a box verifying that they have read them. On this page, McKeown covers the following expectations in detail:

• “You will spend more time on an online course than a traditional classroom course.”
• “You must stay in contact with the instructor.”
• “You will not be able to work at your own pace.”
• “You will be able to schedule your own time.”
• “You don’t have to be in the classroom or even on campus.
• “Email isn’t instantaneous.”
• “You won’t get a notice that your assignment was received.”
• “You are expected to know how to use the computer and your software.”
• “You will spend lots of time programming.”
• “You will need to be self-motivated.”
• “You won’t be alone.”
• “You will be rewarded.”

Despite these clearly articulated expectations, McKeown finds that traditional students often struggle with online courses. “Without a doubt the traditional college students fair the worst. A month into class they’re three weeks behind. They dig themselves a hole they can never get out of. My own personal bias is that they think it’s easier than going to a regular class. It’s tough for them to get motivated,” McKeown says.

Personalizing the learning experience

In addition to his expectations, McKeown uses several other techniques to get students involved and keep them from procrastinating. In a face-to-face class, he gets to know students pretty well because DSU is a relatively small campus. If he gets to class early, he will strike up conversations with students, and he gets to know his students’ interests are and campus involvement. “I also try to find those things out with my internet students. Some of it gives me an idea of when they’re around and what they’re doing. For example, a high school student in my course is probably working during study hall. A non-traditional student with a full-time job probably won’t have an opportunity to work on the course during the day. If you personalize things, it makes it a lot easier for them.”

This information gives McKeown a frame of reference and helps him personalize his communication for each student.

Another way he personalizes his communication without any extra effort is by using a mail merge so each group e-mail he sends addresses each student by name. “Each week they get a message from me. I communicate with them more. The first couple of times [I taught online] I would send out an e-mail a week and reply to all their messages, but I found out that students didn’t read the things and even if they did, they wouldn’t remember things. That’s why I start a couple weeks in advance and say, ‘This is your window for taking the test.’ And I give them multiple reminders.”

McKeown also makes it a point to send motivational messages like “We’ve got the test out of the way” “We’re two-thirds of the way through the course” “There’s a big push coming up before the break” — things you would normally do in the classroom that are tougher to do online.”

Another face-to-face technique he adapts to the online environment is real-time one-on-one assistance. Since he cannot be in the same room with his students, he uses Real VNC (virtual network computing) that allows him to talk on the telephone with students while being able to view a student’s computer screen and demonstrate what he is talking about. “It’s not exactly looking over their shoulder, but it’s very effective,” he says.

Contact Jim McKeown at Jim.McKeown@dsu.edu.

The breadth and depth of the subject matter coverage should be equal in every way in Web-based courses to the coverage in the corresponding on-ground classroom. In past translations, that was taken to mean “posting” materials one for one. This assumes that Web-based and on-ground presentation styles are the same and that this “posting” will ensure the same breadth and depth in student learning in both on-ground and Web-based courses. Kearsley (2000) maintains that it is not the same and that the Web-based classroom is a special social environment that is very different from the on-ground classroom. If this is the case, then students lose out on critical elements of the educational process due to the instructor’s and facilitator’s inability to meet the student’s individual needs when translating on-ground courses into effective Web-based courses.

Web-based learning has been referred to as a presentation style or a medium that is used to present information and to encourage the acquisition of knowledge or learning. Adopting this perception causes facilitators and instructors to contemplate a template style different from those used in the face-to-face, on-ground classrooms. The American Federation of Teachers noted in Distance Education: Guidelines for Good Practice (2000) that “Each medium has its own strengths and weaknesses and can deliver different kinds of dramatic experiences.” (p. While students in on-ground courses may not need to experience additional social aspects of the course, the Web-based course may require an enhanced social aspect for the majority of the students enrolled in order to maximize the student’s learning experience through the presentation style. Taking this into consideration, it is detrimental to student success to just accept information presented in the face-to-face, on-ground classroom and commit it to a Web-based course platform. As the old saying goes, “we lose something in the translation,” and in Web-based courses that “something” is often the student.

The following suggestions may help facilitators and instructors review priorities and translate effective on-ground courses into effective Web-based courses by creating a presentation methodology that addressed the different needs of students in Web-based courses.

1. Remove materials. Take an inventory of all of the instructional materials you have used in the past on-ground equivalent course. Some of the materials will relate well in Web-based courses but others will not. Don’t be afraid to remove or replace the materials that need face-to-face interaction in order to be effective.
2. Make lectures interactive. By adding websites and simulations throughout the written lecture that support the lecture topic, students will be better able to understand examples, to experiment with ideas, and to acquire a deeper understanding of the course topic.
3. Provide a social outlet from the very beginning. Many students will feel isolated if not provided with networking capability. This social networking capability is built into the on-ground course by the mere nature of the presentation style. This is not the case with the Web-based course. For example, the instructor must work hard to provide an opportunity and place for interaction during online courses. Discussions of specified topics, team or group work, and instructor-led interactions all encourage networking.
4. List website resources. Assume that many of the students will come to the Web-based courses with insufficient skills in technology, formatting styles, and library usage. Provide websites that will help enhance those skills and encourage students to use these websites.
5. Provide a survey of skills activity. Students may not know that they have a skill deficiency compared to the expectations established for the course unless you provide a way for them to rate their abilities. Providing survey tools for students to review their skills is very helpful in pointing to deficiencies.
6. Provide transition activities. On any new skill activity, provide a “practice run” at the beginning of the course. This will yield a better assessment of true student learning and not merely an assessment of technology skills. For example, if use of the library is essential in the course, create a treasure hunt that provides use of the skills required before students need to use the library to access knowledge.
7. Use research-based guidelines. Review and incorporate Implementing the Seven Principals: Technology as a Lever, by Chickering and Ehrmann (1996), when creating Web-based courses.
8. Interact with students. Picciano (1998) found that instructors’ activities were related to students’ perceived learning in online education courses. Interacting with students means responding to concerns and question in a timely manner, giving plenty of constructive feedback, and providing opportunities for the student to work with others in order to avoid feeling isolated.
9. Assess students regularly. Schedule student assessments, both subjective and informative, to let students know at the beginning of the course when they can expect to receive grades or scores and keep to that schedule.
10. Ask for feedback. Evaluate the course at least twice during the semester. This evaluation should include student feedback on needs and wants within the knowledge-base of the course.

The successful translation from an on-ground into a Web-based course requires a rearrangement of course priorities for the facilitator or instructor of the Web-based course. It has been asserted that the style of presentation may not matter as long as the students are comfortable in the online environment and are having their needs met. As instructors or facilitators, we want to ensure learning through effective methods for the student. If that means changing perceptions and looking at Web-based instruction as a medium or presentation style, and developing materials that encourage learning through this medium, then that should define the route to take in order to ensure that students aren’t “lost in translation.”

References

American Federation of Teachers. (2000) Distance education: Guidelines for good practice. Higher Education Program and Policy Council of the American Federation of Teachers

Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S. C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. AAHE Bulletin, October, 3-6. [http://www.aahe.org/technology/ehrmann.htm]

Kearsley G., (2000). Online education: Learning and teaching in cyberspace. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Picciano, A. (1998). Developing an asynchronous course model at a large, urban university. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. 2(1).

Vonderwell, S. (2003). An examination of asynchronous communication experiences and perspectives of students in an online course: A case study. Internet and Higher Education, 6, 77-90.

Woods, R.H. (2002). How much communication is enough in online courses? Exploring the relationship between frequency of instructor-initiated personal email and learners’ perceptions of and participation in online learning. International Journal of Instructional Media, 29(4), 377-394.

Sherion Jackson is an associate professor of educational administration at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Contact her at sherion_jackson@tamu-commerce.edu.