Many Professors Are Optimistic on Distance Learning, Survey Finds

July 7, 2000. Chronicle of higher education

Many Professors Are Optimistic on Distance Learning, Survey Finds
By SARAH CARR

A survey of college faculty members who belong to the nation's largest teachers' union has found that they are enthusiastic about the experience and benefits of teaching distance-education courses, although they see a few perils on the horizon.

The survey, released last month, found that faculty members worried about the amount of time it takes to prepare and teach a distance-education course. Respondents also predicted that faculty members would have to do more work for the same amount of pay as a result of the proliferation of distance education.

"The zest for distance learning is tinged with some apprehension for the future," said Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, which conducted the telephone survey of members in higher education. "They are worried that the preparation takes more time, their workloads will increase, but salaries will remain the same."

The study was conducted in February and March. The union, which has 85,000 members in higher education, said it tried to contact all of those for whom it had telephone numbers.

But the survey reached only a small fraction of that group, comprising responses from 402 faculty members who had taught distance-learning courses and 130 who had not.

Attitudes toward distance education were more favorable among those who had taught distance-learning courses, 72 percent of whom said they were positive about distance learning, compared with 51 percent of faculty members who had not taught distance classes.

The report, "A Survey of Traditional and Distance Learning Higher Education Members," is the third in a series the N.E.A. has undertaken in order to gauge national trends and attitudes related to distance learning. Faculty members at a range of institutions were interviewed.

Mr. Chase said the results indicated that faculty members were less divided over the issue of distance learning than some onlookers believe.

"For those who continue to divide higher education into two camps, modernizers and Luddites, the poll will probably be a surprise," said Mr. Chase, the N.E.A. president.

The faculty members were also asked how they communicate with students in distance courses and about the characteristics of the students they teach.

Janet Grensky, the president of Abacus Associates, a consulting firm that conducted the poll for the association, said she was surprised that online instructors had reported that as many of the students were under the age of 25 as over.

"I think there is a myth out there that distance learning is just for older students or for part-time students," she said.

The results also indicate that the overwhelming majority of students taking virtual courses live in the same state as their instructor and college, despite the widespread belief that many instructors reach a national -- or even an international -- audience of students.

The survey shows that faculty members are happiest teaching distance-education courses for which there are enrollment limits.

The report can be downloaded from the N.E.A.'s Web site (http://www.nea.org/nr/nr000614.html).

Harvard U. Institute Unveils Software That Helps Build Academic Sites

July 30, 2010, 03:38 PM ET : Chronicle for Higher education

Harvard U. Institute Unveils Software That Helps Build Academic Sites
By Sophia Li

Last week, a team at Harvard University rolled out the latest release of a program that helps researchers create their own Web sites. The open-source software, OpenScholar, seeks to make building and customizing Web sites simple and straightforward, even for academics who aren't tech-savvy.

There are currently two versions of the software: one for scholars to create a personal Web site and one for researchers to build a project Web site.

Though faculty members often have Web sites created for them by their department's staff, OpenScholar was created to help academics make their own Web sites by automating most of the process, said Gary King, the director of Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the project's principal investigator.

"It’s about making the technology accessible to people," said Ferdinand Alimadhi, a programmer and Web developer at the institute and the project lead on OpenScholar.

To use the tool, an institution's informational-technology staff must first install OpenScholar, Mr. Alimadhi said. Then, researchers can register online to create their own Web site, selecting the features they want on their site from OpenScholar's menu of options, which is tailored to professors.

For faculty who are building personal Web sites, the available plug-ins include pages that display their curriculum vitae, a list of courses they teach, and a list of publications that can be exported in XML or BibTex format. The software's project version offers similar options, such as pages for publications, presentations, and a list of people who are part of the research team.

OpenScholar began as a Harvard-only project in May 2009, Mr. Alimadhi said. Because the feedback was so positive, he and his colleagues made the software open-source and available through Drupal, a free and open-source platform for building Web sites.

Since OpenScholar's first release last fall, he and his team have continued to tweak the program, based on comments from the Drupal community and the 200-odd members at Harvard who have tried it. The project team is also planning to release a version of the software for departments in the fall, Mr. King said.

So far, Harvard is the only university to have put the software in place, but the OpenScholar team has begun to approach other universities about installing the software. About 20 institutions are considering OpenScholar, including Duke University, the University of California at Merced, and the University of Michigan's medical school, Mr. Alimadhi said.

Distance Education's Rate of Growth Doubles at Community College.By Mary Helen Miller.Chronicle of higher education. April 13, 2010

This article talks about the growth of students in the distance education in community colleges.When distance education first became common about 10 years ago, completion rates for online courses were about 50 percent, but survey findings indicate that they are now up to 72 percent. For face-to-face learning, completion rates are only a little higher, at 76 percent.

According to the study conducted by the the Instructional Technology Council, for the 2008-9 academic year, enrollment in distance learning at community colleges grew 22 percent over the 2007-8 academic year, up from a growth rate of 11 percent in the previous year.

Flash drives

Hendry, Erica. At Distance - Learning College, Flash Drive Replaces course - Management System. Chronicle of Higher Education. August 21, 2009.

This article talks about using flash drives instead of online to complete the course work. At the Thomas Edison State College (aTrenton-based distance - education institution) they have an option of using 2GB flash drive instead of a course-management system to prepare for and complete their classes.
The flash drives are part of the college's Mobile Learning Initiative, developed after it discovered many of its students who were stationed with the military or frequently traveling couldn't access a course-management system on a regular basis.
The college piloted the flash drives this spring in 15 "FlashTrack" courses, which include the "Science of Nutrition," "Social Gerontology," and "Principles of Finance." Each flash drive contained Open Office versions of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs; media players; and folders containing course material. At the end of the class, students took a high-stakes test as they would in any other online course to complete the course.
The college has combined both of those technologies to offer the flash drives they will distribute to all students this fall.
In this generation of flash drives, the college hopes to install technology that will allow the flash drive to automatically connect to a folder hosted by the college, so students can submit assignments whenever the flash drive detects an Internet connection.

Non traditional students

I work in a community college library for the past eight years and come across students from different walks of life. As I am the Health Informatics Science librarian, I sometimes help them find books according to their needs. Our college has an average of 8,000 students enrolled each semester. College students are not what they used to be during these days. I can see the population of nontraditional students is growing every semester. Nontraditional students can be: a person who is of an ethnic minority group, who is low-income, who is a senior citizen, who speaks English as a second language, who is a recent immigrant, who is an international student, or in some way contextually disadvantaged. They are different from other traditional students in learning styles, familiarity with technology, and expectations of and experience with libraries and research. Most of these students work full time and want to go back to school to get better jobs. So they usually take online classes so that they can study whenever they find time. When they come to the library they expect us to do everything from homework to writing paper for them.First thing they say is that they do not know anything about computer. Even so, at the same time I can see that they have abundant real world experience with them, and they are very much goal oriented and very eager to improve their career opportunities. Some of the students are not fully computer literate and so they come to the library to get help with their homework. So, when they come to our library, I try to help them in any way I can. Sometimes they come every day asking the same questions. So, I create PPT tutorials with lots of screenshots and details and give it to them so that they can refer to it at home. I try to be patient and spend more time with them to explain everything in detail. Because I myself am a nontraditional student and I know how they feel!Taking online courses is very difficult for them but still they are very eager to take the classes. We also have a online librarian to help them find articles and books for their research. She communicates with them through email or phone. Our technicians help them with their research paper formatting and work cite through email or phone.