Academic Exchange Quarterly Fall 2011 ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 15, Issue 3
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Growth of Online Education in a Community College
Katherine
M. Conway, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY
Alyse Hachey,
Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY
Claire
Wladis, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY
Conway, Ph.D. is a Professor of Business; Hachey, Ph.D. is a Professor of Teacher Education and Wladis is a Professor of Math. All three faculty members teach in the online environment and have
served on the college’s Distance Learning Taskforce.
Abstract
This case study examines the evolution of online education
at a large urban community college. It outlines issues related to course
development, administration, student and faculty support. Online course enrollment, student and faculty
perceptions and organizational issues were evaluated a decade after online
education was introduced at the college.
At both the inception of online education and in order to expand successfully,
external funding was crucial for program success.
Introduction
In
the Fall of 2009, there were over 19 million enrollments in online learning
programs in almost 3,000 colleges and universities throughout the United States; this is expected to grow as technology
evolves and the demand for higher education continues (Allen & Seaman,
2010; Parsad & Lewis, 2008). Online learning is offered through many
mediums including the internet, email, video and teleconferencing (Distance
Education, Guidelines for Good Practice, 2000).
It is also offered through a variety of purveyors including degree and
non-degree granting institutions, traditional not-for-profits as well as
proprietary corporations, and runs the gamut from corporate training modules to
complete baccalaureate, master and doctoral degrees (Eaton, 2002).
Online
learning is particularly prevalent at community colleges, where almost half of
all E-learning programs are offered and which
have the highest participation rate (97%) of all higher education institutions
in offering courses online (Parsad & Lewis, 2008;
Ruth, Sammons, & Poulin, 2007). The rapid growth of online learning has
raised a number of issues including accreditation, faculty workload, student
support services and course ownership. Faced with the growth in demand for online
courses, community colleges must determine the necessary organizational
structure needed to provide a quality educational experience and address the
issues outlined above.
A
number of organizations have created best practice guidelines outlining
criteria for teaching and learning effectiveness, faculty and student
satisfaction, cost effectiveness and access (Distance Education, Guidelines for
Good Practice, 2000; Moore & Lorenzo, 2002; Phipps & Merisotis, 1999) but there is a dearth of literature on the
optimal organizational structure for offering online courses within the
existing community college setting. A
better understanding of the organizational structure for online programs
currently existing within colleges is important if colleges are going to
maintain quality and successfully plan for the future. Space planning, hiring of both faculty and
support staff; evaluation and assessment, and course development all need to be
addressed as part of a long term strategy.
This
case study reflects on the lessons learned at one community college after
almost a decade of offering online courses, and the issues the college faced as
it sought to expand its online program.
Institutional
Background
The
community college profiled in this study is large, with more than 23,500 students
enrolled in credit bearing courses leading to the associates’ degree. The college is part of a multi-campus
The Evolution of
Online Learning at the College
In
the spring of 2001, the college piloted six courses online using Blackboard Course
Management software. Faculty were
trained and supported via a grant from the Sloan Foundation, and initially
faculty were given the choice of taking release time or receiving a payment of $3000
for course development. As additional faculty received training, the number of
online courses offered grew to more than 80 across a dozen disciplines and culminated
in the offering of a fully online associate degree in liberal arts by 2008. Over
80% of the online courses are offered on an asynchronous basis, in keeping with
national norms. The largest numbers of the
college’s online courses are offered in the social sciences.
Despite
annual growth in online course offerings at the college of 10% a year, by 2009,
87% of all courses offered still had no online component. Additionally, the annual
growth rate of 10% was considerably lower than national trends which show online
courses growing at a rate of 30%. Approximately
4% of students at the college enrolled in online courses, a number that was
also significantly below national norms, as almost 30% of all students take at
least one online course nationally (Allen & Seaman, 2010).
One
notable area of success for the college was attrition in online courses, which is
below national norms. Attrition in
online courses at the College has consistently been in the 20-26% range,
compared to the national 30-40% rate (Tyler-Smith, 2006). The lower attrition
rate is attributed to the several prerequisites for online students, including
a minimum grade point average requirement.
By 2009, the
college sought to increase online course offerings and enrollments, motivated
in part by enrollment demands exceeding the college’s physical space. The desire to increase online offerings is typical
of higher education today; almost two-thirds of chief academic officers
surveyed said that online learning was a critical part of their institution’s
long term strategy (Allen & Seaman, 2010).
The administration projected that if current enrollment patterns and new
online course offerings continued at the college’s historical rate, the college
would have a shortfall of 25 online courses in the coming five years, a number
that would grow exponentially if the college had online enrollment penetration
matching the national norms.
In an effort to
identify barriers to online course growth, the college convened a task force in
early 2009 to evaluate its online program and to make suggestions for the
future. The task force was comprised of
faculty, students and administrative staff.
Organizational
Structure
The
coordination of the existing online courses was overseen by a faculty member,
the Distance Learning Coordinator (the Coordinator), who was granted partial
release time. The Coordinator reported
to the Dean of Instruction and Curriculum (the Dean), who in turn reported to the
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs (SVP), who has oversight of all
academic offerings . The Coordinator
acted as a liaison between the administration and the faculty. Several other areas important to the online
environment, namely ETutoring services, the Office of
Instructional Technology and the Office of Advisement and Transfer, also
reported to the Dean. The Office of Instructional Technology assisted
with course design and training; had responsibility for monitoring enrollments
in online courses; worked with faculty to contact students who failed to log on
at the start of the semester; and distributed and collected student evaluations.
ETutoring services and the Office of Advisement and
Transfer made no distinction in the services they offered for online versus
traditional students. The
Barriers to
Growth
In
an effort to evaluate the current status of its online offerings, the task
force reviewed the current literature on online education, spoke with
administrators of online programs at peer institutions, used data from the
Office of Institutional Research on enrollment and attrition in online courses,
and surveyed and held focus groups with both faculty and students. The following issues were identified as
inhibiting the growth of online education at the college:
Faculty Workload
In
a series of faculty focus groups, the dominant theme among faculty teaching
online was the burden of large class size in the online environment. The college had an enrollment cap of 30 students
in online courses. A review of the
literature suggests that an optimal online class size varies between 15-20
students (Colwell & Jenks, 2004) and numerous studies have suggested that
faculty spend more time on course preparation in the online environment (McKenzie,
Mims, Bennett & Waugh, 2000).
Faculty workload was also impacted by the additional requirement that
faculty monitor student attendance in the online environment and contact staff
in the Office of Instructional Technology to report students who failed to log
on.
Course Design
and Development
Faculty appreciated the Blackboard training provided but felt that it was insufficient, a theme common in the literature (McKenzie, et al., 2000). Faculty who were currently teaching online wanted assistance in order to keep their courses up to date technologically, but saw themselves primarily as content experts not course design experts. Additionally, all of the training was offered in a traditional classroom setting, and faculty felt that online modules could be used as well.
Perceived
Scrutiny of Online Courses
Despite
withdrawal rates below the national norms for online courses, withdrawal in the
online environment is higher than in traditional face to face classes at the
college. On average, withdrawal in
online courses is 7.5 percentage points higher than in traditional courses
offered at the college. The
administration had in a limited number of cases prevented the offering of a
course if past semester withdrawal rates were deemed “too high”.
Faculty
expressed concern about course evaluations which were considered as part of the
annual review process for both tenure and promotion, but which were not
designed for an online environment. Students, who were emailed evaluations, had
low response rates, which when combined with higher than normal withdrawal
rates in online courses, often resulted in lower overall course ratings for
faculty teaching the same course in an online environment versus a traditional
classroom. Additionally, there was no
peer observation mechanism in place for an online course, and observations were
another crucial part of the process for tenure and review.
Lastly,
faculty were critical of the online course approval process, which required
peer reviews and a presentation to the SVP of Academic Affairs, procedures that
did not exist for traditional classroom courses.
Student
Dissatisfaction
In
a fall 2008 survey of students enrolled in online courses at the college, a quarter
of the students said they did not intend to take an online course but that it
was the only option available to meet their scheduling needs. This lack of commitment to an online course
could contribute to attrition, particularly when students subsequently learn of
the significant demands on their time that an online course requires. Two-thirds of the students surveyed said that
the online course was much more work than they expected and more than half of
the students said the course required a bigger time commitment than they
expected. Each semester the college
also surveyed students who withdrew from online courses. Both first-time online students and repeat
online students most often cited personal problems (39%) as the reason for
their withdrawal from an online course.
Technical
Problems/Support
Both
students and faculty alike cited technical issues as a problem. The year before the taskforce was convened
Blackboard was unavailable for almost three weeks at the start of the fall
semester. A lack of centralized
administrative oversight of the college’s computing operations led to
significant downtime and slow rates of response to help desk queries. Additionally, the decentralized nature of the
college’s various computer related functions often confused both students and
faculty as to where and how to request and receive technical support.
Enrollment
Restrictions
Students
wishing to enroll in an online course had to have a minimum 2.0 grade point average,
could not be first semester freshmen and could not take more than two online
courses in a semester. An online
tutorial, assessing readiness to enroll in an online course, was recommended
but not required.
Faculty
Restrictions
Faculty
members who wanted to develop an online course were required, regardless of
their technological background or prior experience at other institutions, to
attend weekly training classes on Fridays throughout the prior semester. Faculty members who taught an online course
but who experienced withdrawal rates above 35% for two consecutive semesters
were required to undergo additional training.
Withdrawal rates were negatively impacted by students who enrolled in
the online class, never logged on, and subsequently withdrew. Adjunct faculty members were not allowed to
teach in the online environment.
Outcomes
To address some of the issues
raised by faculty, staff and students, the task force compiled a list of
recommendations to improve online learning at the college of which the foremost
was more cohesive management. The
college determined that additional funding would be necessary for staffing in
order to implement many of the task force recommendations and a decision was
made to apply for grant funding. The
college submitted a proposal to U.S. Department of Education and was awarded a 
Developing
Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program - Title V grant of $575,000 per annum for
a 5-year period. The college agreed
to provide $355,000 annually in personnel support, as part of the grant.
After
being awarded the grant, the first step was to hire a full-time Director of E-Learning,
who in turn was authorized to hire instructional course designers to provide
faculty with additional support. The
college also reconfigured space to create a centralized E-Learning office suite
where technical support and instructional designers, as well as the Director of
ELearning, are located. This move sent a
clear message to the college community that E-Learning was valued and would
continue to be important in the future. Additional
hires included a Help Desk Supervisor and two E-Advisors, to assist students
with virtual academic support. .
Money
was also set aside to support faculty research in online education. A competitive E-Learning grant was created by
the new E-Learning Director with the assistance of an ad hoc committee. In the first year, seven faculty members applied
for the grants and four were awarded.
The grants provide for a summer stipend of $4000, and the awardees’
agreed to submit a research article on E-Learning, as well as to mentor a less
experienced faculty member. Prior to
establishing the E-Learning grant program, at least one faculty study on
student grade point averages and the correlation to online success was
conducted as an outgrowth of the task force initiative.
In
addition to online course design support, faculty workload was addressed by
implementing a new cap on class size of 25 students (down from 30). To mitigate
concerns about assessment of faculty performance, a faculty led group designed a
new faculty evaluation form specifically for the online environment. The course
approval process for faculty was also streamlined. The E-Learning Director, working with a
faculty focus group, implemented the use of a Quality Matters rubric.
A
Faculty Advisory Network was convened, with administratively appointed
experienced online faculty serving as E-learning liaisons for their
departments. Additionally, working closely with the college’s Teaching and
Lastly,
the college also migrated to the University server (previously it ran its own),
which resulted in fewer problems with Blackboard availability.
Conclusion
A
key component of both the startup and the expansion of the online program at
this community college was grant funding, which initially provided support for
training and later enabled the college to expand during an economic
downturn. The college administration, by
seeking input from all members of the college constituency, showed a willingness
to rethink processes and its organizational structure.
In
particular, the addition of an E-Learning Director and a centralized E-learning
office has revitalized the online education efforts at the college. The college has successfully applied for and
won several smaller grants and the number of new online courses, both hybrid
and asynchronous has increased by more than 60% in the past year.
References
Allen, I.E. & Seaman, J.
(2010). Class Differences: Online Education in the
Colwell, J.L.
& Jenks, C.F. (2004). The upper limit: the issues for faculty
in setting class size in online courses. http://www.ipfw.edu/tohe/Papers/Nov%2010/015__the%20upper%20limit.pdf
Distance Learning Task Force Report. (2009). April
21, 2009. Borough of
Distance Education, Guidelines for Good Practice,
2000.
(Report No. 36-0693). American Federation of Teachers, Washington, D.C.
http://www.umsl.edu/technology/frc/pdfs/guidlines_for_good_practice_DL.pdf
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(2002). Maintaining the delicate balance: Distance learning, higher education
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Lewis, L. (2008). Distance Education at Degree-Granting Postsecondary
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