Se ha dado a conocer en dias recientes el Informe de la Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU)-Sloan National Commission on Online Learning sobre la enseñanza y el aprendizaje en línea en los EE.UU.
Sendos artículos del Chronicle of Higher Education e Inside Higher Ed –que se transciben más abajo– analizan las conclusiones de este Informe, publicado en dos volúmenes que se pueden bajar aquí de la página de APLU.
The APLU-Sloan National Commission on Online Learning was formed in May 2007 to engage the A۰P۰L۰U Presidents and Chancellors in a discussion about the utility of online education as a means to achieve broader institutional priorities, such as diversity, retention, internationalization and accountability. The Commission surveyed the leaders of A۰P۰L۰U’s member institutions in May 2007 to discern their attitudes toward online learning and their experiences in utilizing online learning as a strategic tool. Over the next year, A۰P۰L۰U will convene focus groups of Presidents and Chancellors from discrete subsets of public colleges and universities to further explore the viability of online learning as a strategic tool and to develop the resources university leaders require to expand their online learning offerings and capabilities.
Professors Embrace Online Courses Despite Qualms About Quality
By Marc Parry, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 31, 2009
They worry about the quality of online courses, say teaching them takes more effort, and grouse about insufficient support. Yet large numbers of professors still put in the time to teach online. And despite the broad suspicion about quality, a majority of faculty members have recommended online courses to students.
That is the complicated picture that emerges in “The Paradox of Faculty Voices: Views and Experiences With Online Learning,” part of a two-volume national study released today by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities—Sloan National Commission on Online Learning.
The major survey of public colleges and universities found that 70 percent of all faculty members believe the learning outcomes of online courses to be either inferior or somewhat inferior, compared with face-to-face instruction.
Professors with online experience are less pessimistic. Among those who have taught or developed an online course, the majority rated the medium’s effectiveness as being as good as or better than face to face. But in a potentially controversial finding, even among professors who have taught online, fully 48 percent feel it is either inferior or somewhat inferior.
The picture gets more complicated when it comes to what professors do, rather than only perceive. The majority of those who feel the learning outcomes of online education are somewhat inferior have recommended online courses to students.
The debate about the quality of online instruction is nothing new. But the scale of this study makes it significant. Responses came from more than 10,700 faculty members at 69 public colleges and universities across the country, a sector that accounts for much of the rapidly growing online market.
Recognition Deficit
When it comes to universities’ support for online learning, the report showed broad faculty dissatisfaction. That was especially the case regarding incentives for developing and teaching courses. Also rated poor: recognition for online work in tenure and promotion.
Jack M. Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts and chairman of the commission that issued the report, described the findings about online support for such learning as “a call to action.” when asked about them in a conference call with reporters.
“Institutions are going to have to do a better job of providing the support to the faculty—and, by the way, to the students as well,” said Mr. Wilson.
The report also punctures the prevailing notion that older professors aren’t as involved with online instruction. Veteran professors—those who have taught for more than 20 years—are teaching online at rates equivalent to less-experienced faculty members, it found.
The report raises many questions. Why do so many professors feel the online medium is inferior? And how inferior?
And why—given their quality concerns and belief that it takes more effort to develop and teach online courses—do so many do it?
More than 36 percent of faculty members have experience either teaching or developing an online course, according to the report, fresh evidence of the mainstreaming of online education. A large majority of survey respondents pointed to student needs as a “primary motivator” for teaching online.
Professors judge online education with somewhat different criteria, said Jeff Seaman, author of the report and a co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, which carried out the survey for the commission.
“The access issues trump everything else,” he said. “The ability to get somebody in a course that they would not ordinarily be able to take, to finish that degree, to pursue that career, to do whatever, is sufficient.”
Tenure Issues
Even for online- learning enthusiasts, broadly held negative perceptions can have an influence. Tenured colleagues or department chairs will in some cases advise professors to give up their online teaching if they want to get on a tenure track, said Janet Poley, president of the American Distance Education Consortium.
“Because the perception is that, if the online teaching is going to take more time than face to face, what they should be doing is teaching face to face and getting their research projects started,” Ms. Poley said. She added, “If the incentives aren’t matched up administratively, then you’re going to have people who at a minimum are frustrated.”
The report argues that universities will need to involve a larger share of the faculty to meet the continued demand for online programs. And to do that, it says, “they will need to find ways to address the time-and-effort issue and make it as easy—and as rewarding—as possible for faculty to engage in online learning.”
One veteran distance-education researcher argued that faculty members require instructional-design help but questioned the need for financial carrots.
“I don’t necessarily believe that I need additional incentives beyond strong support,” said Chère Gibson, a University of Wisconsin at Madison professor emerita. “Nobody paid me the first time to develop my face-to-face class.”
Thomas L. Russell maintains a Web site called The No Significant Difference Phenomenon that compiles studies comparing distance and traditional education. He chalked up professors’ negative online perceptions about online learning to a different source.
“I think deep down inside they don’t want it to replace them,” he said. “They’re fearful.”
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Going For Distance
Inside Higher Ed, August 31, 2009
Online education is no longer a peripheral phenomenon at public universities, but many academic administrators are still treating it that way.
So says a comprehensive study released today by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the Sloan National Commission on Online Learning, which gathered survey responses from more than 10,700 faculty members and 231 interviews with administrators, professors, and students at APLU institutions.
“I think it’s a call to action,” said Jack Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts and chair of the Sloan online learning commission. “The leadership of universities has been trying to understand exactly how [online education] fits into their strategic plans, and what this shows is that faculty are ahead of the institutions in these online goals.”
According to the study, professors are open to teaching online courses (defined in the study as courses where at least 80 percent of the course is administered on the Web), but do not believe they are receiving adequate support from their bosses. On the whole, respondents to the faculty survey rated public universities “below average” in seven of eight categories related to online education, including support for online course development and delivery, protection of intellectual property, incentives for developing and delivering online courses, and consideration of online teaching activity in promotion and tenure decisions.
Still, more than a third of the faculty respondents had developed and taught an online course.
“The urban legend out there was that many faculty out there don’t want to participate” in online education, said Wilson. “Contrary to popular myths, faculty at all ages and levels are participating.”
Indeed, neither seniority nor tenure status held a significant bearing on whether a professor had ever developed or taught an online course. At the time the survey was administered, there were more professors with at least 20 years’ experience teaching an online course than professors with five years’ experience or less.
This despite the fact that developing and teaching a course online is more taxing than doing the same in a classroom — according to the survey respondents, teaching online isn’t easy. “Faculty who get involved in online teaching have to be more reflective about their teaching,” Wilson said. Professors need to organize lecture notes and other materials with more care. They get more feedback from students. It’s more apparent when a student is falling behind and needs special attention.
Almost two-thirds of the faculty said it takes more effort to teach a course online than in a classroom, while 85 percent said more effort is required to develop one. While younger professors seem to have an easier time teaching online than older ones, more than half of respondents from the youngest faculty group agreed it was more time-consuming. Nearly 70 percent of all professors cited the extra effort necessary to develop Web courses as a crucial barrier to teaching online.
So if teaching an online course is a ton of work and support from administrators is lacking, why bother doing it? Most professors said they are motivated by their students’ need for flexible access to course materials, and a belief that the Web allows them to reach certain types of student more effectively.
“As a faculty member, when you’re teaching online, suddenly you have to be teaching 24/7,” said Samuel Smith, president emeritus of Washington State University. “…It’s more difficult, but the students get more contact.”
Given the extra work, more than 60 percent of faculty see inadequate compensation as a barrier to the further development of online courses. “If these rates of participation among faculty are going to continue to grow, institutions will have do a better job acknowledging the additional time and effort on the part of the faculty member,” said Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group and the survey’s lead researcher. For some, that might mean that their online work should figure into tenure and promotion decisions. For others, “acknowledgment” might equate to some extra cash in their paycheck.
This is not a new request — nor is the fact that it takes longer to develop and administer a college course online a new revelation. The American Federation of Teachers report on guidelines for good practice in distance education acknowledges that it takes “anywhere from 66 to 500 percent longer” to prepare an online course than a face-to-face one, and “additional compensation should be provided to faculty to meet the extensive time commitments of distance education.” The report noted that only half of the faculty it surveyed reported receiving extra compensation. That was in 2000.
The authors of today’s APLU study conclude by recommending that public universities not only institute policies that “acknowledge and recognize” professors’ online education efforts, but also work develop “mechanisms that effectively incorporate online learning into the fabric and missions of the institutions.”
“It’s now a factual statement that online learning is woven into the fabric of higher education,” Wilson said. “It has grown faster over the last six years than any other sector of higher education … and it will keep growing.”
— Steve Kolowich
© Copyright 2009 Inside Higher Ed