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by
Holly Zanville, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Bonnie Morihara, Program Associate for Distance Learning
October 2001
CONTENTS Introduction Special thanks to research assistants:
Leslie Carey, Carla Harcleroad, Adam Reinwald
Funded, in part, by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, to the Oregon Network for Education project managed by the Oregon University System.
Introduction Oregon's postsecondary system is a leader in distance education, with a 15-year history of offering college-level courses and degree programs using distance education. The primary method of delivery during most of this time was a two-way audio/video network. Increasingly, Oregon courses and degree programs are incorporating web-based delivery modes in order to expand access to "anytime/anywhere" programs and services. With growing student demand for web-based distance education, however, there is increasing need to provide assistance to faculty and staff who have the major responsibility for meeting the instructional and service needs of students. Oregon distance education planners have proposed that the next major development in distance education may be to meet some faculty/staff needs through online service centers. To explore this idea – and particularly to learn if others around the country are moving to meet faculty/staff needs via online centers – a survey of virtual universities was initiated in 2001. This paper presents a summary of this research and implications for distance education planners. Context for Online Services for Faculty Just five years ago, postsecondary instructors teaching online were at the forefront of web-based distance education. Many were doing their own HTML coding and publishing their own courses. They were exploring teaching and learning opportunities offered by the new online medium, but they often did not have encouragement from their departments or technical support from campus media centers. (Morihara, 1999) Today, with the recent ubiquity of course management software and user-friendly web editors, greater numbers of faculty are developing online courses without needing the technical expertise that used to be required. Some faculty who have taught only face-to-face are also being directed by deans/department heads to develop online courses. In some cases, instructors are asked to teach an online course they themselves did not develop. Additionally, instructors must often fit course(s) into entire degree programs being developed for delivery via distance education. Some of these degree programs mix delivery modes, using both web and video. Increasingly, instructors need versatility in developing their courses in such a context. Also, instructors new to distance education want access to research into the efficacy of online learning, models of facilitating distance learning, distance learner attrition, assessing student progress and learning gains, face-to-face versus online instructor evaluations, implications for the awarding and portability of credentials, issues of confidentiality and privacy, cost/benefit analyses of different delivery modes, cultural ramifications of distance learning, etc. (Olcott & Schmidt, 2000; Palloff & Pratt, 2001) For these reasons, instructors need a place where they can look at exemplary online courses, see examples of the advantages/disadvantages of teaching strategies used in various contexts, learn ways to promote community among online learners, discover how to increase student-to-student and student-to-faculty interactivity, examine ways to encourage reflectivity, learn which pedagogies work best in online versus video environments, and take online tutorials to learn how to use various technologies and software. The concept of an online center which could meet many of these needs is a likely further step in distance education. Centers could offer annotated links to online studies on distance education and host articles written by researchers on distance education. Centers could provide a location for instructors to have threaded discussions about their individual experiences with distance teaching/learning. Centers could also be places where faculty/staff can network and hold threaded discussions about online/video course development and teaching with others in their discipline or levels (undergraduate/graduate). Additionally, online centers could link the many state virtual universities to one another. This would enable faculty from multiple disciplines and levels to compare notes and share information about distance education policies (including copyright and intellectual property rights), meeting ADA requirements, FTE/tuition distribution in shared courses, discipline-based issues, etc. Study Questions The study was designed to answer the following questions:
Methods The methodology was an electronic survey of websites of virtual universities/consortia in the United States. In order to survey a diverse number of these entities, a list was assembled from multiple sources including the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), the Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac Issue 2001-02, and Internet searches using the following key words:
Effort was made to identify at least one virtual university from each state by searching the World Wide Web where the initial list did not include representation by a state. The final list included 62 virtual universities and/or collectives. These are included with their URLs in Table 1. The list was additionally reviewed to ensure inclusion of various virtual campus collectives suggested by an organizational framework developed by Sally Johnstone at the Western Cooperative for Educational Communications (from a presentation made by Johnstone at Telelearning '99 in Austin, Texas).
A preliminary survey was conducted electronically of approximately 20 of the entities on the list in spring 2001 to identify the range of services offered by them and develop an instrument which could be used to later survey the larger group. The preliminary study resulted in the identification of categories used to develop a matrix used in the final survey of entities (virtual assessment tool). The following six criteria comprised the matrix for the study of the virtual universities:
Three student research assistants were identified as "virtual campus website reviewers" to conduct the survey of virtual universities using the virtual assessment tool. Research assistants were recent graduates of universities with a baccalaureate degree. Research assistants were trained in the use of the virtual assessment tool, including how to review websites, common search strategies, methods for keeping a log of information gathered in review of sites, etc. While surveying the virtual campuses, research assistants made a separate list of all sites that provided any electronic (online) resources for faculty or staff. They also created a list of topics found at faculty resource pages. In this way, the research assistants created an initial faculty resource survey instrument. A preliminary survey of 13 of the sites providing some online faculty/staff services were then visited by the research assistants electronically to identify the range of services offered. In addition, research assistants identified a few additional faculty resource websites, not part of virtual universities per se, that contained useful information for faculty/staff in distance education. They found these sites through search engines or links from campus sites. The research assistants completed the survey work from July 30, 2001 through August 20, 2001. The average time to review each virtual campus website was approximately 30 minutes - 1 hour. The average time to review each faculty resource website was approximately 15 minutes - 30 minutes. In October 2001, the authors reviewed the entire list of 27 virtual universities/consortia identified on Table 1 to have faculty resources, and refined the initial faculty resource categories. Limitations of the Study This study used recent college graduate/research assistants to review websites for information following a standard protocol; they were not experts in distance education. The research assistants did not visit all sites to verify the findings of one another; the group of sites was divided up among the research assistants. Therefore, some differences in judgements may have been brought to the website reviews by different reviewers although every effort was made to train the research assistants in the common protocol (use of the website assessment tool). Also, since websites are being updated continually, research conducted on a group of websites should be viewed as only a "snapshot" in time. To more accurately assess developments or "trends" in the growing use of faculty online centers, additional snapshots of these websites should be taken at intervals in the future. Findings
Overall, the virtual universities/collectives surveyed are offering a range of online services that appear to be primarily serving students; i.e., the majority are providing information about distance education "courses" and "services" for students. This is not surprising since the mission of the virtual universities is to provide distance education access to students. Somewhat fewer of the virtual universities are offering information on degree and certificate programs. Even fewer are offering services to faculty/staff. However, we believe that the latter services are more recent developments in distance education – and may reflect the beginning of a new trend in distance education. Finally, fewer are offering information on policies and procedures.
A review of 27 sites, from the original 62 sites reviewed above, revealed a range of services being offered in the support of faculty/staff in distance education. To report these data, a matrix of 18 possible services were identified:
Implications The survey of virtual universities reveals that the first order of business appears to be to serve students, i.e., to provide information about college-level courses to students. Information is being provided through a mixture of modes including both lists of courses and searchable databases, although searchable databases are the predominant mode. A second high priority is clearly to provide some services to students. Services are being provided through both centralized and distributed (to the partners) methods. A somewhat smaller number of these entities are providing information about degree programs to students. This is an interesting finding, but could relate to the large number of two-year college providers, for whom degree programs are not perhaps as high priority outcome as would be expected for the four-year colleges and universities. A smaller number of these organizations are providing online services to faculty/staff. However, many are – and this suggests that more are likely to move in this direction in the future. Finally, a smaller number of the organizations are providing information about policies and practices. Based on this research, we expect numerous state educational systems and virtual consortia to direct their focus in several important directions:
Summary As postsecondary distance education expands, and as on-campus courses incorporate more instructional technology (e-mail, listservs, web pages, threaded discussions, online registration/grading/transcription, multimedia, course portals), we expect that traditional teaching/learning centers will naturally begin to include a growing focus on helping faculty improve both synchronous and asynchronous teaching/learning, and that faculty centers at virtual consortia and those on campuses will increasingly offer similar services for distance education faculty and staff. There are numerous implications for virtual universities/collectives like the Oregon Network for Education. Specifically, online centers could provide teaching and course development support, information, and knowledge-sharing for K-20 distance education faculty and staff at a common website. These materials could encompass best practices and lessons learned about various aspects of distance education teaching/learning, focusing primarily on online and video-based teaching in the public schools, postsecondary institutions, and community-based training/development. The type of services identified for possible inclusion at online faculty/staff centers might include:
Areas for Further Research To determine if faculty/staff online centers for distance education are a growing trend, it would be important to repeat this study at a future time using these data as baseline. Studies of faculty/staff use rates and satisfaction with online services are also areas for further research. References Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac Issue 2001-2. (August 31, 2001). "The 50 states and the District of Columbia." Statewide virtual universities. 158(1), 37-95. Morihara, B. (1999). University web teaching practice and pedagogy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Oregon State University, Corvallis. Olcott, D. & Schmidt, K. (2000). Redefining faculty policies and practices for the Knowledge Age. In D.E. Hanna & Associates (Ed.). Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition: Choices and Challenges. (pp. 259-281). Madison, WI: Atwood. Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom: The realities of online teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Online References SHEEO (State Higher Education Executive Officers) Higher Education LinksStatewide Virtual Colleges/Universities; Distance Education Clearinghouses U.S. Teaching and Learning Centers |
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