Building a Better Buy-in:

Transcription

1 Building a Better Buy-in: Toward a university-wide community of online course quality assurance Su Swarat, Marsha Orr & Nik Gorman OLC Conference

2 The two most fundamental questions that this series of reports was initially designed to address were what institutions offer online courses? and how many students are taking them? Recently the National Center for Education Statistics Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 3 added distance education to the wealth of other data that they collect and report on US higher education institutions. The IPEDS data has several very important advantages over Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) data collection, chief among them that the results are not based on a survey sample, but represent the full universe of all higher educational institutions. (See Transitioning to IPEDS Data for a more detailed discussion of the advantages and problems.) Online learning: Nationwide Understanding how the new IPEDS-derived numbers compare with BSRG time series requires that data be collected from both sources and compared. This year BSRG has continued to collect full information from all higher education institutions on the status of their online offerings, as well as collecting online enrollment 5,257,279 data from a sufficiently large sample (600+) institutions 70.7% to allow the results from Students the IPEDS data to be compared with estimates Institutions using previous data and methods. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% INSTITUTION HAS DISTANCE STUDENTS BY OVERALL ENROLLMENT % Under 1,000 1,000-4,999 5,000-9,999 10,000-19,999 20,000 + The most recent IPEDS data show that 70.7% of all currently active, degreegranting institutions that are open to the public have some distance offerings. There is a strong relationship between the size of the institution (as measured by the total number of students enrolled) and the proportion with distance offerings. Over 95% of institutions with 5,000 of more total students reported distance offerings. This drops to 83.6% for institutions with between 1,000 and 4,999 students, and down to 47.5% of those with less than 1,000 total students. (Data source: IPEDS 2013)

3 CSUF context (as of Fall 2014)

4 Online learning: CSUF 16 Degree programs 18 Online certificate programs 2 Online degree completion programs 275 State-support online courses # of CSUF students enrolled in state-support online courses Fall 2012 Fall 2013 Fall 2014 (Data source: CSUF IRAS 2014)

5 Online vs. F2F (Data source: Babson Survey Research Group, 2014)

6 constraints. The millions of students taking online courses today is ample evidence that this modality is meeting a clear demand on the part of students. A continuing failure of online education has been its inability to convince its most important audience higher education faculty members of its worth. The lack of acceptance of online among faculty has not shown any significant change in over a decade the results from reports five or ten years ago are virtually the same as current results. For all of this time there has not been a majority of any group of higher education institutions that report that their faculty accept the value and legitimacy Faculty of online education. acceptance? Current results, if anything, show that the problem is getting worse. FACULTY AT MY SCHOOL ACCEPT THE VALUE AND LEGITIMACY OF ONLINE EDUCATION FALL 2002 TO FALL % 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Fall 2002 Fall 2004 Fall 2005 Fall 2006 Fall 2007 Fall 2009 Fall 2011 Fall 2012 Fall 2014 Only 27.6% of chief academic officers reported that their faculty accepted online instruction in This proportion showed some improvement over time, reaching a high of 33.5% in The slow increase was short-lived, however. Today, the rate is nearly back to where it began; 28.0% of academic leaders say that their faculty accept the value and legitimacy of online education. (Data source: Babson Survey Research Group, 2014) The more intensive the online presence is at an institution, the more likely faculty

7 CSU grant: Quality assurance program for online courses 1. Understanding faculty needs 2. Building a community of online learning leaders ~$20,000 per grant cycle Currently in 3 rd cycle

8 Quality Matters a faculty-centered, peer review process that is designed to certify the quality of online and blended courses. 3 primary components: QM rubric Peer review Professional development (Source:

9 Quality Matters 8 General standards Course overview & intro Learning objectives Assessment & measurement Instructional materials Course activities/interaction Course technology Learner support Accessibility & usability 43 Total standards: 21 considered essential Alignment

10 Our progress thus far Starting the community Establishing the community Understanding faculty needs Expanding the community Responding to faculty needs Spring Faculty primarily from School of Nursing Faculty & Staff from 8 Colleges Faculty from 7 Colleges

11 Community building activities QM training: Online or F2F QM course certification Monthly group meetings Online resources sharing Campus-wide dissemination

12 Supported three School of Nursing faculty in preparing their online courses for QM Certification. Involved instructional designers from the University's Extended Education Department. Engaged Faculty QM Leaders in the University-wide Teaching Titans Day, Assessment Conference, and Assessment Forum. Held monthly networking meetings for faculty and instructional designer QM Leaders. Developed a Dropbox repository of QM materials and online learning topics. ssment ogram Conference for Faculty Online Feedback Courses ic Year te University, Fullerton ontentbuilder.merlot.org/toolkit/html/snapshot.php?id= Faculty feedback Teaching Titans Day wide representation of all Colleges, engaging faculty in preparing courses for QM course certification, and developing a tributed and used by an international education community. The MERLOT collection of open resources spans across a ws, member comments, learning exercises and other valuable information and metadata associated with the I completed one day workshops on QM as well as on Cal State's own QOLT rubric early in the semester and have learned a lot about the flaws of my own assumptions in course design. I was able to make significant improvements both in my subsequent online courses AS WELL AS my on-campus seminars where a well-designed course Assistant Professor website and online resources are just as much part of students' Dr. Volker Janssen expectations. I shared my own QM lessons with my department and Online Mathematics Education offered tips on how to use QM as a self-assessment tool, an application my colleagues embraced wholeheartedly. I also had the opportunity to share some of my own College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics improvements with faculty from across the Fullerton campus at our Titan Teaching Day on sment Conference Activity April 8th, I look forward to improving my online course further and receive I have been teaching online and blended courses for the certification past 10 in the academic year. years. Before I came to CSU Fullerton, my main responsibility was Results of the Needs Assessment the deliver the Surveys content for rather CSUF than Colleges develop the vehicle in which the ce. content is delivered. My experience with the quality assurance s. project has changed my focus as I continue to develop courses. User e of Communication Assistant Professor e. and accessibility friendly courses are as important as the content. I Assessment Summary will continue to improve the my online and blended courses in hopes Art and Animation e of the Arts to certify each as they are developed. College of the Arts Assessment Summary ach Dr. Cherie Ichinose Satisfactory feedback so far Quality Matters (QM) Leaders Associate Professor History College of Humanities and Social Sciences Presenter on Quality Matters at Teaching Titans Day. Page 3 of 5 Page 1 of 5

13 Faculty needs assessment Anonymous survey distributed by college faculty leaders Quantitative ratings (6 point scale) Open-ended questions SPSS Nvivo Please describe any other barriers or facilitators to online or web-enhanced instruction that you have experienced in your course (if applicable). If you indicated that you cannot teach online or hybrid courses as part of your typical teaching load, please briefly explain the barriers to teaching your courses online. In your opinion, what is the most significant barrier that prevents people from wanting to teaching online classes (that is about wanting to, not about being able to).

14 Faculty interest in online teaching 30% Moderate level of interest Percentage of Faculty Ratings 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Teach Fully Online Teach hybrid Interested online Interested hybrid Not interested online Not interested hybrid Cannot teach online Cannot teach hybrid

15 Faculty confidence in online teaching 100% Lower level of confidence in online settings Percentage of Faculty Ratings 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% Very Unconfident Unconfident Somewhat Unconfident Somewhat Confident Confident Very Confident 0% Design curriculum F2F Design curriculum Online Assess SLOs F2F Assess SLOs Online

16 Faculty barriers to online teaching Percentage of Faculty Ratings 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Strongly Disagree Disagree Somewhat Disagree Somewhat Agree Agree Strongly Agree - Beliefs about online teaching - Extra time/effort - Recognition of time/effort

17 What do faculty say: Doubts about online teaching Theme Aversion/Dislike for Online Teaching Desire for F2F Interaction Doubts about Quality of Online Learning Example comment I have a general disinclination towards online activities. I enjoy working with students face to face, so the loss of one of the main draws of this job is a barrier. lack of standards for online courses Many faculty do not require the same amount of work, or cover the same amount of materials in their online courses

18 What do faculty say: Extra time requirement Theme Course Development Course Administration Course Improvement Example comment the amount of time and preparation involved in setting the course up for the first time the amount of time needed to properly monitor and evaluate online discussion ; (time involved) to be compliant with the highest disability standards I ve never really had the time (for learning new software and techniques that could improve my online courses) to make them as good as I d like.

19 What do faculty say: Lack of incentives and institutional support Theme Lack of Recognition, Extra Time/Effort Lack of Support, Collegial Lack of Support, Administrative Example comment the department and college also declined to acknowledge or credit the enormous amount of course development I ve done over the past five years to go from fully in-person classes to hybrid and online formats Lack of support by people educated in the pedagogy of online teaching. My division has not made online classes a priority. In fact, they have created an atmosphere that (is) rather hostile to it.

20 Our progress thus far Starting the community Establishing the community Understanding faculty needs Expanding the community Responding to faculty needs Spring Faculty primarily from School of Nursing Faculty & Staff from 8 Colleges Faculty from 7 Colleges

21 Strategies moving forward ADDRESSING BARRIERS: Belief Time/Effort Recognition/Support Faculty expertise development Community building activities Campus technology experts and support Video on online teaching INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

22 Questions: