By far, my favorite submission was from Catherine Kelley of Fairleigh Dickinson University.   It is far too true:

There will be a new gadget released that will take the consumer market by storm. People will line up for hours in order to get one. A small university that nobody ever heard of will provide the device to its entire freshman class and thus gain national publicity. Higher education analysts will herald this new device as the thing we have all been waiting for, that will serve to engage students, deepen learning, improve enrollment, and reduce cost. Important thinkers will argue that we need to use this device in our teaching in order to reach the younger generation, who now expect it. Technology companies will figure out clever ways to integrate their product with the new device. The device will be the hot raffle item at Educause. (ref The Onion – sorry, I couldn’t help myself. http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-device-desirable-old-device-undesirable,2862/)

Been there.  Love it!

Myk Garn, SREB, holding his treasured "WCET Seeing the Future" badge for insightful predicting for 2011.

I tried my best to make a compilation of the predictions.  Below I have them listed.  For those with more than one submission, I put the number in parentheses:

• A greater moved to competency-based education, including attention to the developing concept of offering many more “badges” at the sub-degree level (5).
• Adoption of open educational resources will expand greatly and there will be additional tension with proprietary providers (3).
• New elearning-based colleges will emerge (2).
• Accreditation will face additional attacks and adverse consequences (2).
• A significant number of colleges will shift to the new LMS products announced last year or yet-to-be-announced in 2012 (2).
• There will be more federal and state legislation of distance education.
• ‘Student learning rights’ will be debated.
• There will be a noticeable increase in the use of ‘star’ faculty as a marketing tool to recruit students.
• Mobile apps will improve, including tactile and smelling sensors.
• 2012 will be the year of the hybrid course.
• A state will make an institution an “example case” in state authorization.
• There will be more doubts raised about the worth of higher education.
• Most colleges will struggle mightily to address the question of affordability.

Here are the full predictions with their authors noted:

In 2012 there will be three or more new entrants into the low-cost degree segment (sim. WGU), with either competency based degrees or other efficiency-oriented methods of development and delivery (sim. StraighterLine).

Richard Hezel
President & CEO
Hezel Associates

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In 2012 we will see the vast majority of new learning platform wins for online programs to go to multi-tenant cloud providers.

Phil Hill
Executive Vice President
Delta Initiative, Inc.

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I foresee many universities developing their own versions and brands of “competency-based education” as a response to the growth of WGU to additional states. This will be healthy for higher education as the nature of what constitutes “learning” will be re-examined and re-assessed.

Marie A. Cini
Vice President & Dean
The Undergraduate School
University of Maryland University College Adelphi, MD

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I have two major predictions for 2012:

(1) Mobile smartphones and tablets will incorporate more sensory tactile and augmented reality screen features for learning as well as the introduction of sensory odors/smell features for teaching and learning.

“NASA isn’t just good for bringing you awesome space pictures; they can now help you figure out, via your iPhone, if that really is gas you’re smelling. Their chemical-sniffing device is about the size of a postage stamp and plugs into the iPhone to collect and transmit data from its sensor. It uses a “sample jet” to detect chemicals like ammonia, chlorine gas, and methane, even in low concentration. The device’s multiple-channel silicon-based sensing chip consists of 64 nanosensors; after analyzing a sample it can send data via a telephone network or Wi-Fi.”

(2) Someone will develop a “converter app” that will allow downloading of any app (Apple or Android) on any device.

Robbie K. Melton
Associate Vice Chancellor
Academic Affairs
Tennessee Board of Regents

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2012 will be known as the year of the hybrid course, as increasing numbers of students achieve learning objectives through a combination of online assignments and in-class discussions.  Many hybrid courses will decrease class utilization by one-third (going to a twice-weekly class format).  Yet, the definition of the credit hour will remain based primarily on seat time (what I would have learned in thrice-weekly lectures).

Chuck Wight
Assoc. VP for Academic Affairs
University of Utah

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I think that competency-based education will be of more interest as well as the idea that learners cannot be held back by the cohorts that they are placed within traditional educational models.  Students will become more aware of other models of learning that either can accelerate them when they attain mastery or decelerate them when they are meeting up against obstacles or finding that the learning takes longer than expected.

Alice Stefaniak
Learning Resource Specialist
Western Governors University

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Here are my predictions – some serious, some tongue in cheek. Some are way out on a limb but I think plausible.

1. The Federal government will come out with at least one new rule or regulation that will make us gnash our collective teeth for at least six months. This rule or regulation will demonstrate considerable ignorance about distance learning, the Internet, or both. If implemented, it will costs us a lot of money. WCET will rally the troops to fight this rule or regulation, and it will be temporarily stalled. (oh wait, this already happened!! But I have no doubt at all that it could happen again.)
2. There will be at least one major scandal involving the State Authorization issue. I.e., there will be a high-profile court case (or at least a major news story) involving a university that has not obtained appropriate authorization. Examples Will Be Made. Laggards will finally get the point.
3. Another major scandal will involve accreditation. A high-profile institution will be put on probation by its accrediting agency, or a regional accrediting agency will lose its charter, or both.
4. The big technology story of 2012 will be the ongoing fight between Open Stuff and Stuff that is Clamped Firmly Shut. This story is not new, but it will escalate dramatically in 2012. At least one major newspaper (possible) or other substantial publishing entity (more likely) will shut down for good, which will fuel this discussion even more. The discussion will get more & more ugly. There will be serious and ever more clever attempts to shut down the free exchange of ideas on the Internet. (sounds like SOPA, which I know is just about dead – but there is more coming – I have no doubt of that at all.) I’m a little afraid about how this will play out. I see it as the Titans escaping from the Titanic and defending their leaky lifeboats with heavy artillery. (but they’re still going down.)
5. A major higher-ed technology company will be discovered to be in a state of financial crisis far deeper than anybody suspected, because of pressure from open source competitors. See prediction #4, above – it’s the same thing, really.
6. There will be a major scandal having to do with privacy or security involving Facebook. (a hack or data leak or something like it.) As a result of this scandal, people will almost entirely stop using Facebook.

Catherine L. Kelley
Associate Provost for Educational Resources and Assessment
Fairleigh Dickinson University

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–Learner Analytics will become increasingly important in E-learning to measure student success, Faculty participation and to develop new methods of teaching at a distance.

–Student Services online- As E-learning divisions and schools as part of our institutions grow, new and innovative solutions need to be created to have the same services as our face to face. Library-(do we need a Digital Librarian?) Tutoring, advisement, linking to student clubs and the list goes on.

Patricia D. Fenn
Executive Director of E-Learning
Ocean County College

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This may fall more into the category of my hope rather than my prediction, but here goes:

2012 will see recognition by colleges and universities that badges and certifications, where they may be created from  the reverse engineering of a degree into courses and then into specific, measurable learning objectives of the courses, does not threaten the integrity of a degree, undermine the contributions of curriculum committees, or devalue  the expertise of faculty.  Instead, the ability to measure and recognize (e.g. badges and certifications) the accomplishment of learning objectives within courses can be a way to motivate students, provide for a more flexible path towards degree attainment, create more revenue opportunities with stand-alone certificate modules, reinvent the course as a more cost effective way to attain a degree than the cobbling together of certificates, and (for all these reasons)  better demonstrate to employers and the public of the worth of a college degree.

Deb Adair
Quality Matters

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From my vantage point as a “retiree”, I do not feel qualified to make any predictions about the ins and outs of evolving technology but I do have the advantage of being sufficiently removed from the “action” to see the broader landscape…here goes.

Because it is an election year, I think the general higher education landscape will be relatively quiet in 2012.  But in 2013, I predict some long standing issues will begin to be addressed.  No one is going to do anything but make “noise” this year but NEXT year, some of the real frustrations about the state of higher education will finally draw action.  By that I mean, there will be consequences.  What are the key issues which might be targeted in 2013?

Questions about what is higher education supposed to do for young people?  (Increasingly, the business community says graduates are not prepared to work, have little understanding of the business culture and in fact, have to be “retooled” by the community itself.)

The issue of accreditation…..it may become irrelevant as new procedures are developed which gain legitimacy over the “old ways”.

The growth of open source learning and what to do about it…that could really explode NEXT year.

I realize you are asking about 2012…but please share my comments…cause I think we are in a “talk but hold” situation over the coming months.

Fran Kelly
Retired (Yet Active) Sage

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I would like to add the following 2012 predictions to your list:

• 1-2 community college systems will announce their plans to launch an open course project similar to Washington’s Open Course Library
• Desire2Learn, SoftChalk, and Instructure will be sold  at some point this year
• More institutions will require students to use e-textbooks or print them at a reduced cost

Kelvin Bentley
Senior Strategy Consultant, Expanded Presence
Blackboard, Inc

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1. Legislators will begin to share “model policy” templates to direct online learning development in higher education as they have been in K12.
2. The issues of “student learning rights” will get more discussion in postsecondary forums driven by the K12 efforts in California and the 10 Elements of the Digital Learning Now agenda.
3. Online providers will begin to recruit “star” faculty who will draw students into their programs.
4. An online provider will begin marketing to adjunct faculty the ability to start their own storefront for offering courses creating an online university that is a collection of independent contract educators.
5. Emphasis on establishing explicit, measurable competencies for college courses will increase.
6. New assessment tools that use technology to measure verbal input, context in writing and media in e-portfolios will see greater use and acceptance.

Myk Garn
Director, Educational Technology
Southern Regional Education Board

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Finally, I thought I would take a shot at it:

• A few accredited institutions will aggressively pursue creating and offering competency-based “badges” for subsections of their curriculum.
• A few institutions will make real headway in addressing the ever-growing question of the affordability of higher education.  Most will talk about the issue, but make no real strides at improvement.

If you have comments on any of these prognostications or you wish to add your own, please do so in the comment section.

Let’s see what happens in the coming year and review the results in 2013.  Have a great year.

Russ Poulin
Deputy Director, Research & Analysis
WCET – WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies
rpoulin@wiche.edu

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We encourage all WCET members and the online higher education community as a whole to educate yourself on these issues, and what they mean for the operations of your online programs, your websites and your own web usage.  Once you have come to your conclusions, make sure your voice is heard.  Share your opinions with your representatives.

Wordpress.com homepage January 18, 2012

Here are some resources to help you learn what SOPA and PIPA mean for you.

• Advice from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• WordPress.com news – as a 4 minute 20 second video that is well worth the short amount of time it takes to watch it.
• Google’s Take Action Page – has a fantastic infographic
• Want to Boycott SOPA supporters? There’s an App for that.
• Gizmodo explains, What is SOPA?
• Cnet looks at How SOPA would affect you – FAQ
• Lifehacker – All about PIPA and SOPA, the Bills that ant to censor your internet.
• Marketing guru Seth Godin weighs in with Learning Leadership from Congress.

We have followed this idea from when it was first announced last summer.  On first glance, many of our initial reservations are confirmed, we found a few things that we like, and see a new concern.  We’ll give you some background and our initial reactions.

WCET’s History with the US News Rankings

In July, WCET hosted a webcast with Bob Morse and Eric Brooks from US News and World Report to try to better understand how these rankings would work.  We came away almost as empty-handed as we went into the conversation.  The one nugget we carried out was that while the methodology for determining the rankings had yet to be set, data was being collected and this first survey and ranking would advise the methodology for future rankings.  In early September, we followed up with a blog post to share our impressions, as well as those from some of our higher education friends.  To say the least, we were not hopeful at that time that the process would produce useful results.

One of our members, Capella University’s President Deborah Bushway, wrote an article for the Huffington Post about why Capella would not be participating in the US New Rankings.   We heard from several other members that they would not be participating for many of the same reasons Dr. Bushway cites – the focus on inputs rather than outputs and the lack of a ranking methodology.

What We Observe Now that the Rankings are Released

Judging online programs like produce at a county fair...appearance over substance.

The rankings were just released, so we will give you our initial reaction to what has been published:

‘Honor Roll’ Not Rankings.  We were glad to see that they used an ‘Honor Roll’ for the top programs in each section.  Given the imprecise science of rankings, this makes more sense than an absolute ordinal scale.  Even so, they went ahead and ranked within each subcategory.

Small Number of Usable Surveys.  US News sent out nearly 2,000 surveys and received 969 responses for the Online Bachelor’s Degree category. Yet, few responses were usable. The Bachelor’s Degree rankings had the most responses (194) and not all of those could be used.  Many institutions appear to be in the final rankings even though they were not able to respond to all of the subcategories.

Overall Methodology is Still Questionable.  The small number of useful surveys speaks to the scattershot methodology used by US News.  We would have thought that they would have engaged experts to develop questions and then pilot test the survey on a sample of institutions.   Instead they seemed to develop questions and assign point values based on “interviews with decision makers in high-enrollment online bachelor’s degree programs, online education literature reviews, and pre-existing U.S. News ranking practices.”  They did interview people at distance education programs, but that is far different than fully engaging people cognizant of online education policies in developing the questions.  As a result, this survey became a large-scale pilot test with questions that many institutions could not or would not answer.

Questions Focused on Inputs, Not Outcomes.  The survey is almost completely focused on inputs to the educational experience. With the focus on outcomes by accreditors, the Department of Education, and institutions, this seems like a major problem.

Scattershot Question Asking.  From the methodology: “Once the survey deadline passed, U.S. News analyzed the quantity and quality of data collected to determine which questions could be used for rankings.”  Instead of focusing on a few pre-tested questions that would lead to assessing quality, the survey was a smorgasbord of questions that they decided whether or not to use in the end.  That’s a fairly disrespectful use of staff time at our nation’s colleges and universities.  Also, institutional personnel could have suffered from ‘survey fatigue’ and not answered some questions only to learn later that they skipped a crucial question.

Specific Questions Showed Lack of Knowledge about Online Education.  There were several head-scratching examples of questions and weightings.  There were several places where there was no understanding of the nuance of what actually happens on campus.  Here are a couple examples that we found in our short time analyzing the results:

• The criterion “training required in online teaching best practices before instructors are allowed to teach” is scored on an affirmative response receiving the full 10 points.  Presumably a negative response receives zero.  This misses the wide array of possibilities in between. It is often hard to get a faculty requirement such as this.  There are many effective non-required faculty development efforts.  Is a one-hour cursory required training session worth 10 points, while an in-depth training experience that 80% of faculty complete worth nothing?
• Why does “Corresponding undergraduate programs ABET accredited” rate 20 out of 100 points in the “Student engagement and accreditation ranking?”  It might be a valid criteria (or might not), but why is it paired with student engagement issues?  Nowhere else to put it?
• Under the Bachelors survey section on “Student engagement and assessment ranking” the “Additional indicators (2)” criterion scores several aspects of faculty feedback availability and timing.  This assumes a model that not all institutions are using.

Many have said that it is important to measure online learning, but it is essential to use the correct tool.  A ruler is a valid measuring tool, but there are better options if you are trying to determine someone’s weight.

Honor Roll Weirdness.  While we like that they use the Honor Role, we found some oddities. The way onto this list is: “A program made the Top Online Bachelor’s Degrees Honor Roll if it was ranked in the top one third of all three indicators: faculty credentials and training, student engagement and assessment, and student services and technology.”  Only 55 of the 194 responding institutions were able to be ranked in the “faculty credentials and training” category.  The questions this raises:

• If it was so difficult for institutions, was it a valid set of criteria?
• Institutions were penalized or helped by the small number completing the faculty section.  For example, Central Michigan University fell just beyond the top-third in the faculty section, but was in the top third for the other two categories. If just a small handful of institutions had answered the faculty section to US News’ satisfaction, they would have made the Honor Roll. In essence they were penalized by the vagaries of how many answered and the difficulty in answering this section

Pushing Students to a Lead Aggregation Tool.  When you get to the US News site, they prominently display a link to their “Degree Finder Tool.”  This is one of those annoying lead aggregation sites, that asks for your email address on the third page. They sell these leads and the person who gives their contact information will undoubtedly get bombarded by recruiters.

Conclusions

A recent Washington Post article highlights the pervasive proliferation of rankings – the oldest and well known such as the US News rankings to the downright silly like the hairiest students.  The methodologies for collecting data for these rankings vary from surveys of college administrators to allowing anyone with an email address to rate, rank, grade, or otherwise comment on the rigor, friendliness, drugginess, or hairiness of a college.

Of course, a single ranking on a basketful of criteria is a questionable undertaking in any case.  How would you rank the best food, car, pet, or television show?  Certainly, you have your opinion, but would that be the same opinion held by your spouse, your parents, your children, that weird neighbor down the street, or someone from a completely different geographic and economic background?

In short, there is an absurdity to many of these rankings and the fact that no matter how much any of us may hate them, there’s not much we can do about them.

Or is there?  If we were to create a culture of transparency throughout higher education, with institutions sharing data openly, publicly and giving students tools to make informed decisions, would the rankings live on?  If we were accountable to ourselves and our students, would we need to use the arbitrary rankings in our marketing?

For now, these rankings are a part of our world, they infiltrate the work that we do and unduly influence our students.  At the very least we should strive to understand them.

Bottom line:  US News and the rest of us can do better.

Blog Post co-authored by:

Russ Poulin, Deputy Director, Research & Analysis, rpoulin@wiche.edu
Cali Morrison, Manager, Major Grants, cmorrison@wiche.edu

WCET:  wcet.wiche.edu

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Photo Credit:  Morgue File http://morguefile.com/archive/display/222769

Now, it’s a year later.  The crystal balls for some of our prognosticators must have been highly polished as they did quite well.  In this post we’ll review some of the predictions and ask you to make your own predictions for 2012.

In descending order, her are the top six predictions that were made:

#6 Budget Pressures Will Change What We Do

Linda Thor, Chancellor, Foothill-De Anza Community College District, and former WCET Executive Committee Member predicted that: “the intersection of two pressures–budget reductions and the completion agenda–will finally lead higher education faculty and staff to collaborate across institutions to scale best practices and reduce unnecessary duplication in elearning.”

Shine your crystal ball and make your prediction about elearning for 2012

Rhonda Epper, Assistant Provost, Colorado Community College System, Chair of the WCET Executive Committee predicted that:  “As institutional budgets remain constrained in 2011, policy leaders will increasingly look to online learning as a solution to providing access to greater numbers of students.  At the same time, we will see more backlash and questioning of the quality of online learning as a result of the fallout from improprieties in the for-profit sector, as well as from traditional faculty who are: a) concerned about job security, or b) genuinely concerned with the unchecked growth and quality of online learning.”

David Cillay, Executive Director, Center for Distance and Professional Education, Washington State University predicted that “as budgets get tighter, colleges and universities will look to online and continuing education as a solution for this shortfall. This will result in closer alignment of online and continuing education units with the general university.”

It probably was not difficult to foresee that the recession and related budget woes would have a significant impact on elearning, but each of these experts envisioned different results. Whether it was Congressional hearings, the Department of Education, faculty, or the press, we heard plenty of questions about distance education.  David Cillay’s prediction about the alignment of online and continuing education units fits in with the Managing Online Education survey results that most institutions are undergoing restructuring of these activities.

#5 State Authorization Regulation’s Impact is Different than What We Originally Thought

Bruce Chaloux, Director, Student Access Programs and Services and Director, SREB’s Electronic Campus, Southern Regional Education Board predicted that “the recent hullabaloo over the federal regulations concerning out-of-state approval/licensure will not have the kind of impact that many are fearing. Creative strategies for out-of-state licensure/approval that focus on reciprocity across state and regional boundaries will win out. A workable framework will be established upon which to build such a process.”

Remember that this was written late in 2010 and we were still trying to figure out the meaning of ‘state authorization’  Despite what some may say (or hope), this issue has not gone away. Authorization did have an impact in 2011, but maybe not what we expected. Certainly, both Bruce and I were consumed by this issue at times last year and we jointly attended numerous meetings about it. We are both greatly involved in the current efforts to create reciprocity agreements.  Unfortunately, such agreements are not easy and will take some time.  In any case…even if the federal regulation is on hold or repealed, the states still expect you to follow their laws. State authorization isn’t going away.  More to come on it…and other regulations…in 2012.

#4 Mobile Technologies will Have a Growing Educational Impact

Ellen Wagner, WCET’s Executive Director, also predicted that: “Mobile learning in all of its rich and nuanced forms will finally become an obvious, self-evident solution for learning because we are finally focusing on meeting the needs of learners who are mobile.”

Rhonda Epper predicted that: “eBooks will continue to gain traction as students become increasingly comfortable with the digital format.”

In 2011, mobile versions of course management systems were released, ipads and tablet computers exploded have captured the market, and even grandmas and grandpas are getting  ebook readers or smartphones.   While most institutions are still trying to figure out how to implement mobile learning, the foundation has been laid for even more use of mobile devices in education.

#3 “Openness” was Everywhere in 2011

David Porter, Executive Director, BCcampus predicted that “all the good work that has happened on the “open frontier” supported initially by individual leaders and special projects will begin to coalesce around a federation of practitioners who *will* agree on a core set of principles and practices to make “open” a sustainable mainstream model of practice.”

Cable Green, Director of Global Learning, Creative Commons (formerly Director of eLearning & Open Education, Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges) hoped that K-20 educational institutions make “open licensing on all publicly funded content” the default… rather than the exception.

Scott Leslie, Client Services Manager, BCcampus and “Raving Educational Technologist” predicted that 2011 will be the year of the OpenTextbook. Textbook costs are out of sight, the economy is not going to get significantly better, and institutions and students are going to need to look to any place they can cut costs. This is prime, and unlike other OER projects in the past, there is a real and pressing internal economic need and motivator to make this happen…2011 will represent the year when this approach “crosses the chasm” – not only will we see many more new OpenTextbook projects, but we will see new authoring platforms and strategies that include campus bookstores and libraries.

Paul Stacey, yet another BCcampus colleague, wrote a spectacular review of last year as “The Year of Open.”  In that blog piece, he chronicles the many advances in open content, OER, MOOC, open licensing, open textbooks, and many more.  To continue the forward momentum of the open movement, Creative Commons hired Cable Green as their full-time educational evangelist. The U.S. Department of Labor announced the first recipients of its massive TAACCCT grants creating open courses and opponents moved to kill it.  On the open textbook front, the idea of cutting students costs by replacing materials from publishers gained steam.  In the last couple weeks, legislators in California and Washington announced their intention to introduce legislation supporting online texts in selected subjects.

#2 Analytics Will be the Buzz Phrase of the Year

Ellen Wagner, WCET’s Executive Director, predicted that “Analytics will be the buzz phrase of the year. Much in the way that term ‘Web 2.0’ became a cliché of the past five years, the word ‘analytics’ will become a cliché for this next five.”

Phil Ice, Director of Course Design, Research and Development, American Public University System predicted that “Over the last eighteen months there has been a great deal of talk about predictive analytics for elearning. While there are some decent products in the market, the fact is that there are none that are truly predictive. Rather current, commercially available applications rely on basic descriptive or inferential techniques. By the end of this year I think that will change. The first few, truly predictive products will come to market. They will likely be far from perfect, but they will give practitioners and administrators a taste of what is possible.”

It helps that Ellen and Phil had a major project for WCET in mind.  The first phase of that project was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the results will be released in the coming months.  With the release of the film ‘Moneyball’ in 2011, the Chronicle, the Horizon Report, and others helped to make this a buzz phrase known to more than just the data geeks.  It wasn’t just Brad Pitt that made statistics sexy. As to Phil’s prediction on products, several sessions at the WCET Annual Conference featured the work of institutions demonstrating their analytic tools and how they convert the results into actionable information.

#1 Khan Academy will Adopt Alternative Credentialing (and Others Follow)

Myk Garn, Director, Educational Technology, Southern Regional Education Board and Co-leader of WCET’s Forging the Future Workshop predicted that: “The Khan Academy will begin awarding certificates of completion for its lessons and will enable learners to assemble lessons into course and programs of their own design. Plans will be announced for “micro-credentials” awarded for course sets.  Because lessons remain free, no federal support will be needed, so Kahn announces it will not seek accreditation but will rely on “market validation” of learner-designed credentials.  The Gates Foundation doubles its support.”

Indeed, the Khan Academy, joined the 2011-craze of offering “badges” to those who successfully master content.  Not part of the prediction was the move by Mozilla and the MacArthur Foundation to create Open Badges.  While the Gates Foundation, which previously contributed $2M, did not double its support, the O’Sullivan Foundation gave $5M in November “to grow the faculty of the Khan Academy; extend the content to include crowd-sourced contributions; and to develop curricula for a blended physical and virtual academic experience.”

Congratulations to Myk Garn for the #1 prediction for 2011.  The choice was made by WCET staff using the time-honored “we know it when we see it” criteria.  As a result, Dr. Garn will receive the first “WCET Seeing the Future” badge and all the rights, privileges, and honors appertaining thereto.  Good thing we have him co-leading our Forging the Future workshop again in 2012.

Make Your Prediction for 2012

You are invited to join in the fun for 2012.  Predict something that will happen this year regarding teaching, learning, technology, business of e-learning policy, regulations, student behavior, or other related items. You can submit your entry as a comment to this blog post or by sending an email to me at rpoulin@wiche.edu with the subject “2012 Prediction” by January 18  January 20.

Polish your crystal ball and join the fun.

Happy New Year from all of us at WCET.

Russ Poulin
Deputy Director, Research & Analysis
WCET – WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies
rpoulin@wiche.edu

Support our work.  Join WCET.

Photo Credit:  Morgue File – http://morguefile.com/archive/display/745798

Mark your calendar for the 2012 Conference and Forging the Future 2, October 31-November 3, 2012.

Hae Okimoto, Director of Academic Technologies University of Hawai'i System

Myk Garn, Director, Educational Technology Southern Regional Education Board

This fall we have convened over 60 educational technology leaders from more than 30 states through two separate workshops, in an examination of what role technology can play in making Baccalaureate degrees significantly more affordable.  Using the target price of $10,000 suggested by Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2011, and working in teams, the experts identified the issues, trends, and uncertainties surrounding affordability today – and looked at events that could potentially alter affordability in the future.

The results of the investigation give us both tactics that are immediately available to increase affordability using our current fiscal structures and suggest ways we can dramatically increase affordability in the future.  In the former we can reduce the cost of a degree, in the latter, the time-to-degree.

Through Forging the Future, a full day workshop held in conjunction with the WCET Annual Conference in Denver, CO, October 26-29, 2011, participants (online higher education leaders from more than 20 institutions across the U.S.) delved into the possibility of the $10,000 degree.  They were asked to rate the importance and predictability of the factors and the results were plotted to identify factors that were highly important and predictable (trends) and those that were highly important but less predictable (uncertainties).

Following are some of the highlights assimilated from both the Forging the Future workshop and the Southern Regional Education Board workshop also focused on the affordability topic.

Trends Impacting an Affordable Baccalaureate Degree.

In the face of increasing pressure for accountability and competition, universities can be expected to develop more partnerships among K-12 schools, community colleges, other universities, and external providers.  Online learning, a competency-based curriculum, and advancement with mastery are the primary innovation trends that are already available in meeting the desired outcome of affordability.

Interestingly experts almost universally rejected developing a new entity with an express purpose of offering an affordable degree (the virtual university option).  Apparently we have been down that road already.

Leading Trends Impacting Affordability

• Competition between public institutions and among public and for-profit institutions would increase.
• Legislative emphasis on outcomes and affordability will increase driven, in part, by the impact of the implementation of common core state standards in the K12 sector and the new generation assessments being developed to measure outcomes.
• Partnerships among K-12, community colleges, and universities are critical to degree affordability and will become more common. Partnerships with educational management organizations (EMOs) will increase in importance as well.
• Online learning options, driven by increasing needs to work, learn, and study where ever students are and whenever they want, will continue to increase.  Shifting to digital content and establishing robust online student support services are critical to success.
• Implementation of competency-based teaching and learning models are critical to affordability and the emphasis will continue to grow

Uncertainties in Increasing Academic Affordability

• Economic outlook.  Challenges of the “new normal” budgeting where current reductions will continue and in some cases worsen.
• Pressure from the public and policymakers are critical driving factors but the intensity of that pressure is not certain.
• The cost of purchasing (and developing) the technology needed to support or drive change is expected to be significant, but nobody knows for sure which technologies are needed nor what they will truly cost.
• The differential between the high speed at which technology is driving change across the education sector and the slow speed of cultural change at academic institutions give rise to significant concerns.
• Faculty attitudes, participation, and support are among the most critical factors in affordability.  The role of faculty will increase over the next three years, but it is highly uncertain whether they will support or resist changes.

Tactics for Today

Because affordability is an issue with significant current implications for institutions, workshop participants identified several tactics that would be effective in reducing costs in the short term:

• Earning college credit in high school.
  

  Image Credit: jscreationzs

• Greater alignment between K-12 and higher education.
• Dual credit between K-12 and community colleges.
• 2+2 programs between community colleges and universities.
• Credit for prior learning.
• Conversion from textbooks to digital content.

Deep Concerns for the Future

The experts observed that, once you accept the premise of offering a four-year degree at a target cost of $10,000, you are stuck with a simple and depressing equation. No matter how clever or complicated the calculus or how you play the fiscal shell game of shifting costs among the campus, student, and state, the biggest reduction would need to be in costs of faculty.  While technology could reduce costs modestly (such as through transition to digital OER content), reducing the cost of instruction is where the burden would fall.

This observation was captured in the inevitable conclusion, “If you want a cheaper degree…you need to get cheaper faculty.”

Towards a Better Solution (and Return on Investment)

As can be imagined, this was neither a palatable nor acceptable solution to the experts.  And this is where the thinking got interesting.  The affordability constraints academia deals with are epitomized in the “iron triangle” of cost, quality, and time.  Adjusting one impacts the others.

Reexamining the strictures of the triangle, our experts chose to rethink not quality (as proxy for the cost of faculty) but time as the nexus for innovation.  We need to change our concept of a baccalaureate degree from a credential awarded after 120 credit hours of instruction to a credential earned after 120 credits of demonstrated competencies. Key to this capability is developing the pedagogical infrastructure of competencies and correlated assessments that enable validation of learning and advancement upon mastery.

Technology will be an instrumental part of a competency-based model. Research shows technology enables students to learn at the same level of quality – in less time.  When students can complete coursework in perhaps half the time, it now becomes conceivable to leverage technology to reduce the time to degree.

Strategies for Change

In summary, the most self-evident conclusion is that, if an institution is preparing to invest in a transformative change initiative, the best focus may not be to fund more faculty development of technology infused courses. The only “bolts on” technology (and its accompanying costs) to a model that is already affordability-challenged.  The opportunity for changing the time factor in the baccalaureate process is real. It was revealed by the work of 60 experts this fall, that when an institution focuses on just four key actions they will provide the pedagogical infrastructure for true transformation.

These four actions are:

1. Establish competency-based instruction across the institution.
2. Develop assessments and robust assessment engines correlated to those competencies.
3. Create the technological and analytical platforms that support independent, personalized learning paths for all students
4. Implement the ability to advance individually upon mastery instead of by course or credit hour.

Observations

First the good news.  Technology can help address affordability in the ways we do things now.  Dual-credit, early college, 2+2 programs between community colleges and universities all are proven ways to reduce cost while maintaining quality.  More importantly, the real potential lies in doing things differently…for most institutions.  There are already successful examples of competency-based advancement upon mastery institutions (Western Governors University comes to mind).

And the bad news?  Technology does not care if we succeed or not.  That is the challenge.  Can our culture move at the speed of technology?  Is there a pace at which we can survive the revolution?  The scenarios developed by the experts of the Forging the Future workshop tell us yes.  Higher education is resilient, resourceful, and can actually be pretty innovative.

The Problem

Transparency by Design (TbD) member institutions recognized that the national metrics for measuring learner retention and completion, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Graduation Rate Survey (GRS) were not capturing the majority of their students – those learners returning to college and attending part-time.   The IPEDS GRS takes those students who enter into an institution as first-time, full-time students, puts them in a cohort and looks at where they are at 100% and 150% of  “normal time” (defined as 4 and 6 years for a bachelors degree, for example).  The problem here is that this cohort only comprises a small percentage of students at TbD member institutions.  For one institution, none of their students fit into this category.  So, when journalists and legislators and students are talking about and considering the performance of an institution based on the IPEDS GRS, they are not considering the whole picture for many institutions.

The Process

Coming to a solution for capturing a greater proportion of students was no simple task.  TbD institutions span a wide range of institutional model – some are more traditional online or hybrid programs, some are competency based, some are degree completion and some are primarily graduate. Trying to accommodate all of these institutions, how they count students as enrolled and still have a metric that is understandable for a person without an advanced degree in statistics was a challenge.  The learner progress committee* considered models that looked more deeply at the moment a student becomes a student, models that would account for more of the ‘swirl’, or in other words students who transfer in and out and back in, but each of those models was met with barriers to comparability and validity.  In pilots the metric was not being applied consistently across institutions and therefore the resulting reports were not truly comparable across institutions.

The Solution

After several unsuccessful pilot metrics, the learner progress committee decided to build from a widely recognized and accepted methodology with a construct that can be reliably replicated at many different institutions.   The IPEDS GRS provided the base needed to build Learner Progress.  However, in contrast to the GRS, the Learner Progress metrics include transfer-in and part-time students in the cohort in addition to first-time, full-time students.  All other parameters for cohort development remain the same.  This helps the learner progress metric maintain the face validity of the graduation rate survey while capturing a more accurate picture of the adult learner.

Regis University Learner Retention Report

Learner Progress is divided into two distinct categories – Learner Retention and Learner Completion.  Learner retention reports the percentage of students who remain enrolled or complete a degree/certificate after one year.  Institutions have the opportunity to report learner retention at the degree level, which is preferred, or for those who are not able to report at the degree level, they may report at the institution-wide level. Learner completion reports the percentage of the cohort which completed a degree within 150% and 200% of ‘normal time,’ as defined by IPEDS (for example, ‘normal time’ for a bachelors degree is 4 years).  Another interesting piece of learner completion is the opportunity for institutions which have transfer as a core part of their mission to report out the percentage of the cohort which has successfully transferred to another institution at 150% of normal time.  We currently do not have any institutions tracking and reporting this data but the purpose was to be more inclusive of community colleges. There are currently 67% of institutions involved in the Transparency by Design initiative reporting this data on the College Choices for Adults website.

What’s next

TbD challenges accrediting bodies, federal regulators, and reciprocity compacts to adopt this metric into their quality standards and adult learners to stand up and demand to be counted and provided with data that is reflective of their situation to help inform their educational pathways.   As always, TbD challenges institutions serving adult learners at a distance to set themselves apart from the crowd by reporting this and other data VOLUNTARILY on the College Choices for Adults website.

*This blog would not be complete without a special thank you to the Learner Progress Committee who put many hours of work into this effort: David Hemenway, Charter Oak State College; Kim Pearce, Capella University; Lisa Daniels, Excelsior College; Jennifer Mauldin, Regis University; Linda Van Volkenburgh; Union Institute & University; Dave Becher, American Public University System; Karen Paulson, NCHEMS; and Russ Poulin and Cali Morrison, WCET.

In a WCET blog by Diane Goldsmith last summer (at that time WCET’s Steering Committee Chair), Diane ruminated on the persistent and short-sighted criticism from various quarters about the quality of online learning.  Diane suggested it’s time online educators become more aggressive in response to such criticism.

We agree.  (And implications of recent books like Academically Adriftmake a pretty clear argument that renewed attention to quality of education is not solely in the province of the “online” educator.) However, as ePortfolio researchers, from our vantage the debate has even more interesting implications.  After all, almost all educational experiences, no matter where they occur, are now online to some degree.  Since most new human knowledge is available online, most research uses digital instrumentation and online databases.  Most formal educational experiences involve to some degree email, the search and social capabilities of the Web, and many other Web-based applications.

Gary Brown, Portland State University

The Web and the Internet extend learning beyond the walls of the classroom, but even in the classroom, some of the interaction and group work may well involve online applications.  Maybe more importantly and as recently identified by David Brooks in the Chronicle of Higher Education, , our web presence is increasingly inseparable from our professional identities.  As Brooks observes:

The process of crafting my teaching portfolio and developing an online version challenged me to clarify my intellectual concerns, to sift through my thoughts about teaching, and to hone my research ideas and conclusions, as well as to become a bit more tech savvy.  (Para 21).

If as educators we are redefining ourselves digitally, it hardly makes sense to hold fast to an increasingly arbitrary distinction. And could we ever really claim that important academic learning does not occur outside of the curriculum and classroom?

The presumption that students in a completely online course cannot have the real-life social interactions and informal learning opportunities is, ironically, an unreal argument.  Imaginatively designed courses leverage the experiences learners have wherever they reside. Distributed learners, after all, don’t just spontaneously coalesce from a cloud of pixels simply because they have walked into a classroom. And even the most die-hard traditionalist will admit that a successful learner must log focused hours reading, writing, studying, and thinking outside of the classroom.

Trent Batson, AAEEBL

An inclusive view of online and onsite understands that even an onsite course might also be essentially completely online as in, for example, a studio-writing course –one that teaches writing through writing.  And, an online course can in fact be more interactive and student-centered than many courses taught on a campus, for instance a distributed service learning project in which students collaborate online to solve real problems in the communities where they live.

Mode of delivery and quality are largely unrelated.  Learning design is the salient factor.

Though it is not entirely understood yet in many (and often critical) quarters, the debate between online and traditional courses is over. Pondering the evolution of the change, however, we are reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s observation that transformations that attend new technologies are usually over estimated in the short run and underestimated in the long run.

Think of the subtle but profound shift in our world that accompanied the spread of mobile phones—we no longer call a place in search of a person.  We call the person.  We don’t ask, “Is Diane there?”  We say, “Hi Diane, where are you?”

The emergence of ePortfolios embodies a similar distinction and, as a technology being implemented in both traditional and online courses, brings us back to the transpiring transformation. With ePortfolios we no longer teach a class presuming the presence of a learner; we teach learners whose learning extends beyond the boundaries of our classes—in space and in time.

A student focused ePortfolio dissolves boundaries by helping students integrate their experience among courses and life.  (See Helen Barrett’s work–http://electronicportfolios.com/ for examples of ePortfolios that cross generations.)  With ePortfolios, the locus of learning is not bounded by brick or LMS. Learning is not contained in a single body of disciplinary content. We no longer focus our teaching on a room full of students situated in a single time and place; we contribute to the lifelong learning of students.

ePortfolios embody the potential of profound long range change.  They are mobile, staying with the student, and they help us see that all learning now has become untethered from a single locus.

Unlike the traditional versus online debate, it is a distinction that matters.

Gary Brown
Director, Center for Online Learning
Portland State University
browng@pdx.edu

Trent Batson
Executive Director
The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-based Learning
trentbatson@mac.com

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ON TO THE POST — I first met Jo Kroll at WCET’s old Institute for Managing Distance Education several years ago.  Since then, I’ve followed her career and noticed that every institution where she served improved their online offerings and enrollments dramatically in a short time.  Jo is a whirlwind.  When we chatted about what she had accomplished in one year, I wanted her to share it with you.  Remember she did this all in one year and in Joplin, Missouri – the site of the devastating tornado in May 2011.  The faculty had other priorities on their mind, but Jo kept them moving forward. – Russ Poulin (rpoulin@wiche.edu)

A few weeks ago Russ Poulin emailed me and asked me if I would be willing to write about the what, how, and why Missouri Southern State University(MSSU) is doing what we are doing with regards to online learning. Of course I replied – certainly!  If you know Russ very well you know that this was not a tough decision. Russ is (and has been for many years) the first person I turn to when I have had a need, question, or request. I am sure this has been the case for many of you. So, to return a favor is a pleasure.

Jo Kroll,Dean, Graduate Studies and Lifelong Learning, Missouri Southern State University

What has been a tough decision is where to begin.  For those of you who may not know me, I have worked in the field of higher education for more than 20 years, and specifically in the areas of instructional technology and distance education. Over this time period, I have worked for traditional land-grant universities, a community college, privates and for-profits, and military education organizations.  It is through my experiences within these environments, continued research, and an on-going pursuit of information in my chosen field that I have acquired the skills and knowledge to do what I am about to describe. Let me add, however, one disclaimer; the world of higher education is changing daily. What works today may not and probably will not, be what works tomorrow.  My approach has always been to do what works best for: the students – at the current time and foreseeable future, and the institution.

While there are many areas where change is taking place on the MSSU campus (and specifically MSSU Online) the focus of this discussion will be centered on the redesigning of all online courses.  We chose to redesign the online courses for three basic reasons: 1) accessibility, 2) consistency of learning outcomes, and 3) scalability.

Why Course Redesign?

Accessibility

MSSU Online courses incorporate PowerPoint presentations, audio and video objects, graphics, images, and PDF documents. Many of these instructional elements were not accessible to students with sight or hearing disabilities.  Keeping with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments, and to ensure that we are making good on our promise – to provide a quality learning experience anytime, anywhere, to any one – the online courses required review, re-working, and the incorporation of newer technologies to ensure equal access to all. To that end, captioning has been added to all audio and video objects, audio with captioning has been added to all PowerPoint Presentations, graphics, images, and PDF documents.

We are now in the process of examining mobile technologies so that course objects and materials can be downloaded into mobile devices via apps and used by all students; including students with the above mentioned disabilities.

Consistency of Learning Outcomes

Like many traditional universities, faculty have been the sole decision makers on the MSSU campus with regards to what students should learn.  While I will make no arguments against this philosophy, I do want to point out where the landmines are hidden.

After an in-depth review of all MSSU online courses it was apparent that there had been little or no basic instructional design principles incorporated into the course design and development process of the online courses being developed and offered. Every online course was different: different format, different structure, different navigation, and different technologies used with different levels of interaction (if any). Within the content of each course, often within the same course taught by two or more different instructors, there were differences in the stated objectives for the course, the assessment measures, and the content covered. In other words, content across several sections of the same course being taught by different faculty could not be accurately measured because the content differed based on the instructor and what that instructor believed students should learn.

So, the first order of business was to hire an instructional designer and begin the redesign of all online courses.  We did not remove or diminish the faculty’s decision making responsibility with regards to what students should learn. What we have done is to have each academic department identify faculty who are the foremost subject matter expert(s) (SMEs) in each department and have that SME (or group of SMEs) work with the instructional designer to redesign the course content – using one departmental approved syllabus, aligned with the overall program goals and objectives.

We have also designed and developed a course template based on best practices and research. Every online course, as it is redesigned, is formatted into this template. This standard template provides the student with a common look and feel across all courses. This simple standardization of the template removes a great deal of frustration for the student. Students now can concentrate on learning the content instead of spending valuable time locating course materials and resources. Students also now know ahead of time (before the course begins) where they will post assignments, when and where the discussion will take place, and how to contact the instructor, help desk, and student support services.

Online SMEs do what they do best. Workings with a professional instructional designer faculty in the role of subject matter experts write course content.  The instructional designer ensures alignment between objectives, assessment, and content.  Once the content is compete, the instructional design team and assistants upload the content into the course template.

There are some cases where the academic departments may not have a subject matter expert available to redesign a course, or courses, due to workloads and time constraints. In these instances, the academic departments have made the decision to recruit outside the campus community and hire qualified SMEs to redesign a specific course or list of courses. Again, this decision is made by the faculty within an academic department. The curriculum and final syllabus are reviewed and approved by the academic department and its faculty.

Scalability

The final reason for redesigning online courses is scalability. Previously, the faculty member that designed and developed an online course was the only instructor that could teach that specific course. If another qualified faculty member decided (or was asked) to teach the same online course they had to design and develop the online course for their use.  This restricted the number of courses/sections that could be offered and taught each term.  Enrollments were growing. Demands for additional course sections were on the rise. Students were being turned away.

With the new process courses are designed in such a way that the course can be duplicated many times over to offer multiple sections. Adjuncts can now be recruited and hired to teach additional sections of an online course.  Scalability also reduces the cost of offering a course and ultimately an entire degree program.

Again, the academic departments and the faculty decide who will teach an online course. MSSU Online recruits potential online adjuncts, prepares the required hiring portfolio (resume/vitae, transcripts, letters of recommendations, etc…) then places all of the potential adjunct’s materials in an online database (that has been designed specifically for this use). Afterwards, deans, department heads, and faculty go into the shared online adjunct database, review the materials, and identify those individuals that are qualified and credentialed to teach a course(s) for that department. Once the individual has been approved to teach they are contacted by MSSU Online and scheduled for the online faculty training – an ongoing four week totally online training program.

We now have a pool of approximately 800 credentialed and fully trained online faculty. Once a course section fills (reaches 30 students) we open another section, contact the credentialed online instructor (from the database), and begin enrolling students in the new section. All of this now takes place in about 15 minutes.

The end result is to be in a position to offer the online course and/or programs (degree and/or certificate) that students need at a price that they can afford – all while dealing with reductions in state funding and increased competition.

Of course we still have bumps in the road from time-to-time. This is just life in world of online learning. We have, however, accomplished a great deal in a short period of time (for a traditional university). As a result enrollments are climbing significantly. Students are never turned away and of most importance, every student receives a high quality, highly interactive learning experience – when and where they need to learn – and student services are centered around what the student’s need and when they need it.

Additional Improvements to Online Offering and Student Experience

Other changes that MSSU Online has made over the past year (and are continuing to make) are:

• Implemented a Concierge program for enhanced online student services – including prospect, recruitment, admissions, enrollment, financial aid, program placement, persistence and retention, tutoring, mentoring, career and alumni services.
• Implemented  constituent relationship management.
• Implemented workflows for each of the MSSU Online staff members.
• Implemented data driven decision making process for enrollment predictions, courses/programs to be offered, adjuncts needed, etc…
• Implemented on-going online faculty training, services, and professional development opportunities.
• Implemented Social communities: Facebook, Twitter, text messaging.
• Implemented behavior monitoring – web use analytics and behavior within online courses.
• In process – standardized degree and certificate program plans.
• In process – State Authorization: 80% complete.
• In process – accelerated degree and certificate programs.
• In process – all courses to include e-texts and digital materials that can be used with mobile devises.
• In process – updating all technology infrastructure and technologies across the MSSU Campus.
• In process – Banner and Blackboard integration with Blackboard analytics.
• In process – target marketing based on national areas of need.
• In process – predictive analytics for student placement.

In the future, we are planning to add:

• International target marketing.
• Courses delivered in multiple languages.

I’m happy to have shared our experiences from the past year and am will ing to answer questions that any of you may have about our experiences.  I’l l monitor comments to this blog and respond or you can contact me directly at the address below.

Dr. Jo Kroll
Dean, Graduate Studies and Lifelong Learning
Missouri Southern State University
Kroll-J@mssu.edu

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As the federal regulatory scheme embodied in “rule 609” requiring state approval for all college operations drifts slowly downstream, caught in a variety of legal and political eddies, many colleges have decided that it is perfectly fine, even wise, to quietly do things the way they have always done, without worrying about those pesky state laws. This course of action is not wise.  It is profoundly stupid.

Although it is true that some states do not yet have appropriate processes in place to handle high-volume distance-education and so-called “hybrid” programs that have small on-ground components, they all will eventually and many do already. Recall Bill Cosby’s defining phrase from an early comedy skit about the great biblical flood: to the stubborn and dilatory Noah, God used the simple admonition “How Long Can You Tread Water?”

Alan Contreras - Recently retired from Oregon’s Office of Degree Authorization. Now a higher education consultant.

How long, and with what end in mind, do colleges in denial about state laws plan to tread water? The fact is that the law in states where you offer your programs has always applied to your activities. The fact that you hadn’t mentioned what you were doing to the states in which you were operating is evidence of managerial inattention, at best, not of proper operation and certainly not of latent wickedness by those Other States.

Some states regulate nondomestic offering of courses and programs through distance means, others do not.  That is a decision that states get to make under U.S. law, and pretending that it doesn’t really matter has consequences.

Consider the poor student who recently tried to get licensed to practice a profession in a WICHE member state. This student had taken courses online from a regionally-accredited institution based in another state. When he applied for professional licensure in his field, the state licensing board did what it is supposed to do—it checked to be sure that the program was operating legally under the laws of the state in which the student lived. It wasn’t.  For that reason, the student could not be licensed.  This led to a fair amount of hootin’ and hollerin’ among a pack of unhappy lawyers whose howling at the moon has been largely ineffectual.

In this situation, where does the aggrieved student turn for recompense? The state licensing board has done nothing wrong – it followed state law.  The state college licensing agency did nothing wrong – it, too, followed state law. The only player that did not follow state law was the college, which makes it the logical target for litigation and public criticism by students whose money has been spent on a credential the utility of which is unexpectedly circumscribed. How exactly does this differ from the actions of those “bad-actor” for-profits who enroll students in programs without telling them that the degree they are getting is not useful?

I don’t know what the eventual outcome of this case will be, as it is still in progress, but I hope that the example offers a cautionary note as to the consequences of ignoring state law on a theory that no one really cares.

You may ask why we don’t have better interstate reciprocity for licensed professions.  Great question, but the answer needs to be addressed in another venue suited to that subject.  As for interstate reciprocity for college authorizations, that is in progress via a Lumina Foundation-funded project managed by the Council of State Governments and the Presidents Forum. WCET staff is involved in that process and WICHE is discussing ways to ensure that even small states with limited oversight capacity are eligible to join the new compact, thus making their domestic colleges eligible for the benefits of simplified interstate operation.

But what happens in the interim?  It will be two to three years before most states can join a new compact covering the interstate offer of online education. A few states may choose not to join. Do you try to work within the laws of states that expect you to do so or do you quietly resubmerge and hope no one notices your periscope until your state joins the new compact?

How long can you tread water? Are you prepared to defend any legal actions related to your illegal, yes, illegal activities in other states?  Offering college degrees without a license is even a criminal offense in some states – whether anyone prosecutes is not especially important when a state says that your college is violating the civil and criminal law – it’s true and it’s in the newspaper.

You can hardly sue another state for pointing out the truth about its own laws and politely asking that they be obeyed. But students in that state can sue you for failing to obtain necessary licenses before suckering them into paying you for a course or degree that is now in limbo or, in worst cases such as the one discussed above, has been declared invalid for use.

In at least one state, offering degree programs without a state license is a felony. Do you really want to spend your time explaining to your local daily or Inside Higher Education why your college has been accused of a crime? And again, you can’t screech that you are not a perp and sue the other state for defamation.  The fact is, you are a perp.

The obligation to obey the law applies to colleges just as it does to everyone else.  As far back as 1936 the nature of collegiate licensure and the obligation to obtain proper approvals was discussed in The Colleges and the Courts, a well-known book on legal issues affecting colleges. The modern restatement that I wrote for SHEEO in 2009 (The Legal Basis for Degree-Granting Authority in the United States) offers updated information but does not offer any changes to the fundamental interpretation of U.S. law. There is simply no excuse for a college to not know that it needs to be licensed.

In the west, the role of public systems and colleges is especially important, and such schools have developed the habit of thinking that because they are public, they have an open license to do whatever they want to in the way of distance learning programs.  They forget that they are only “public” in one state, unless they have a unique legal status such as Treasure Valley Community College’s cross-border campuses in Oregon and Idaho. Outside their home state, they are just another nondomestic provider and the nature of their ownership is usually irrelevant.

It is true that some states are not prepared to handle the flood of applications or requests for exemption that they are getting.  That’s fine.  If you contact a state and they say “buzz off, talk to us next year” then you have done all you can do, and you have their statement at hand in case the feds ask.  The feds understand this and they are not going to divot your Title IV aid because you could not get licensed in a state that is still figuring out what to do.

But many states are perfectly willing and able to handle your application.  Yes, you’d rather not apply and your budget didn’t include these inconvenient fees for licensure.  But you have to do it anyway.  It’s the law.

Alan Contreras
acontrer56@gmail.com
Alan’s Blog: http://oregonreview.blogspot.com/

Note:  Alan Contreras and Russ Poulin are two members of the drafting team developing the model state compact reciprocity language.  Many details are currently being worked out and we plan to have a version for public comment available this spring.

Russ Poulin
Deputy Director, Research & Analysis, WCET
rpoulin@wiche.edu

State Approval page:   http://wcet.wiche.edu/advance/state-approval
Twitter:  @wcet_info      State Authorization Hashtag: #stateauthorization

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What are other campuses doing about the issues that vex you?  How do you know?  There is only one way to find out, ask them.  And there is only one way for us share the answers — if you respond when asked.

For the third year, WCET is partnering with the Campus Computing Project to conduct the Managing Online Education survey.  The survey focuses on the instructional, operational, and technology infrastructure of online education programs of institutions throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Highlights of the results of the 2010 survey included:

• Just over half of the institutions require faculty to take mandatory training before teaching an online class.
• Almost three-quarters cited “faculty resistance” as a barrier to expanding their online programs.
• Online education organizations within a campus are in flux as 44 percent restructured their how they managed online education in the past two years and 59 percent plan to do so in the next two years.
• Only one-third of institutions offered their students 24*7 technical support.

In response to feedback from last years’ survey participants and those who used the results, we have made some changes to this year’s survey.  You will be glad to know that we cut some of the questions that were not producing interesting results and shortened the survey.  Additionally, after two years, we were seeing clear trends on some responses.  To delve deeper into those issues we added these new questions:

• How centralized or decentralized is your online learning organization?
• How engaged is your president and provost in the development or expansion of online education at your institution?
• Faculty resistance has been cited as a barrier in past surveys, what are the sources of that resistance?
• What percentage of the online tuition and fee revenue from online courses and programs revert back to the academic unit offering that course or program?
• Does your institution have a mandatory process to review and approve all new online courses and programs?

I bet you would like to know how your colleagues answer those and other questions.  Here’s where you come in…

YOUR INSTITUTION NEEDS TO RESPOND TO THE SURVEY.

<Sorry for yelling at you> To avoid confusion, we would like one response from each institution.  Given that some institutions are centralized, some are decentralized, and some laugh at the notion of organization, it is often difficult to know who is the correct person to invite to take the survey.  There is no common position of “chief elearning officer” like there is with a CIO.

How Do You Participate?

Review the 2011 Managing Online Education survey to see what questions are being asked. If you are not what passes for a “chief Elearning officer,” ask around at your institution to see if someone has received an invitation and is completing the survey.  If you need an invitation or have other questions about the survey, contact Casey Green at cgreen@campuscomputing.net.  He will help you out and get you access to the survey.  Survey responses must be submitted through the online survey software and not by completing the .pdf linked earlier in this paragraph.

The survey deadline is Friday, December 2  December 16 28.  I’m looking forward to your participation, seeing the results, and sharing them with you!  NOTE:  THE SURVEY DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO DECEMBER 16 28.

Thank you,

Russ

Russ Poulin
Deputy Director, WCET
rpoulin@wiche.edu
Twitter:  @wcet_info

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Photo/Graphic credit:  Sean MacEntee Some rights reserved: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/6289600762/