Distance Learning Growth and Change Management in Traditional Institutions

Distance Learning Growth and Change Management in Traditional Institutions Peter J. Shapiro, Ph.D. Director of Instructional Technology and Coordinator of CIT SunGard Higher Education/Bergen Community College Carlos R. Morales, Ph.D. Executive Director of Academic Technology Lock Haven University Susan C. Biro, Ed.D. Director of Distance Learning Carroll Community College Introduction Higher education has demonstrated a long, successful history in providing flexible and convenient distance learning options for students (Holmberg, 2002; Moore and Kearsley, 1996); however, increasing demand for online courses means institutions will remain challenged with implementing processes that allow for manageable and successful scaling up of online courses or entire degree programs. State of Distance Learning Fiscal, infrastructure and human resources are some of the main challenges affecting distance education and the enterprise (Belanger & Jordan, 2000). Addressing the fiscal challenge requires us to focus on developing incentives for faculty, negotiating continuously shrinking budgets and allocating funding for training, professional development and expanding student services. The fiscal burden of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in some institutions is seen by many administrators as more of a barrier than a mutual agreement to advance a common cause. A CBA can be a limiting factor, setting academic load, faculty pay rates, development stipends, conditions for compensation, and copyright ownership, possibly impacting an institution s flexibility or ability to expand. The infrastructure to support continued growth in distance education continues to be of great concern to administrators. Selecting a suitable learning management system (LMS), and planning for the expense of outsourcing or hiring personnel to properly maintain an in-house implementation, is a painstaking undertaking that must be re-evaluated every three or four years. Commercial, proprietary systems are constantly being challenged by better open source alternatives. It has been difficult to attract faculty who envision distance education as a tool to reach more diverse students while addressing multiple learning styles. The recognition of faculty commitment to develop and advance distance education for their subject and academic departments for the tenure and promotion process, is key to fostering concerted growth and scaling of distance education programs independent of its delivery method, audience and scope (Panda, 2003; Laws, Howell & Lindsay, 2003;). Higher education distance learning online course enrollment figures in the United States have increased steadily over the last several years, outpacing overall higher education enrollments (Allen and Seaman, 2008). Administrators of distance learning programs, offices and support units at two-year and four-year institutions find themselves in a scenario where they are attempting to keep up with the demand for seats. To continually expand enrollment requires a flexibility that may not be resident at a given institution. Depending upon how an institution plans, staffs and implements online courses and programs would be Copyright 2009 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 1

an appropriate predictor for how they can meet an ever expanding need for open online seats. The type of flexibility needed to expand distance offerings should be grounded in the program planning skills of administrators and faculty alike, but oftentimes can happen reactively, thus damaging the sustainability of these programs (Distance Education Report, 2006; Katz and Oblinger, 2000). This paper looks briefly at three very different institutions all of which look to expand online course and program offerings. Each program has a story to tell, and through a brief history and retelling of the issues, each attempts to find a way to scale offerings. Over time, can higher education institutions learn how to change how they operate and find the best way to expand their offerings to meet stated needs? Context and Setting Located in a major metropolitan area with a current credit enrollment of over 15,000 students, Bergen Community College is a two-year public institution with over a decade of online course history. The responsibility for distance learning is distributed at the department level but supported centrally. Traditional faculty were trained to deliver online courses, but as they left the college, it became difficult to replace these individuals (and continue to grow) with interested current faculty. The model, while enabling a high amount of freedom, was not a scalable one. Today, Bergen Community College offers over 150 course sections a semester. Approximately 80% of students taking online courses also take oncampus courses so the vast majority of students are flexing their schedules. Online enrollments expand at a much higher percentage than on campus courses without any external marketing, and yet, cannot provide enough sections to meet perceived demand. It has become clear that an institutional approach to scaling and staffing new online course sections is necessary to serve the needs of its students. Carroll Community College is a two-year public institution that serves more than 13,000 students annually, of which nearly 5,000 are full-time credit students. Carroll has offered distance learning courses since 2002 in formats that include online, hybrid, and online combined with video. The college currently does not offer a complete online degree, although the General Education program is only two courses away from being available in both onsite and online formats. One stated goal is to recruit local students who are in search of an online degree, but unaware that Carroll can offer the same flexibility as the larger, perhaps better known or marketed online schools. The college is about to undertake a program review of its distance learning offerings. There will also be recommendations related to staffing, technology needs, budgets, faculty training, and student support. The development of a cohesive institutional plan for distance learning is in the discussion stage. Lock Haven University (LHU) is a small, rural, liberal arts institution with a limited number of graduate programs. Distance education offerings play a significant role with 4 graduate programs and more than 70 online courses, 100+ hybrid and web assisted courses and 45+ ITV courses. Distance education efforts began in 1997 with less than 5 courses. The programs have consistently drawn interest from in-state as well as from other states and overseas. As of spring 2009, 2400 students were enrolled in online courses. For academic year (AY) 2008-09 LHU distance education activities increased by 28% for online courses with a 62% growth in student enrollments compared with AY 2007-2008, with the largest growth seen historically during summer sessions. Challenges with funding and the limitations of the faculty collective bargaining agreement (CBA) makes it more complex to forecast and plan for growth and scalability of distance education programs, limiting the number of adjunct faculty to 10%. Comparison to Recent Literature Bates (2000) refers to the agrarian model when he recounts how institutions of higher education still reflect a preindustrial age. For instance, the semester system with the long summer break reflects the origin of the land grant universities, where students had to return home for the harvesting, to tend to the Copyright 2009 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 2

crops (p. 39). Berge (2005) refers to the Post-Fordian perspective describing schools and workplaces as designed socially, politically, and technologically for the industrial era (p. 14). Implementing a change from either of these types of systems, or the management of classes and schedules would take a tremendous amount of inertia and require cross institution cooperation at a very high level of participation. Managing technological change, like the move to teaching with technology is a complicated task. Some institutions are successful in creating a central unit responsible, while others distribute the responsibilities back to the academic departments. Some have even created a separate silo so that the structure of a new e- organization would not be stifled by the culture of the institution. The issue here is that the institutional culture never changes (Bates, 2000). The Monroe Model speaks to the success at Monroe Community College in keeping a distributed system of distance education management but tying together all units that provide academic and student services, training, instructional design, library, and technical services into a team that works together to support one another and its faculty (Fetzer, 2003). Piña (2008) studied 30 factors found to influence the institutionalization of innovations in higher education. Surveying administrators and faculty members, Piña found fundamental differences in priorities set by associate degree granting institutions in distance learning program structure, as opposed to those schools that offered graduate degree programs. Community colleges seem much more interested in focusing on courses than programs. Encouraging faculty participation in distance education through professional incentives to teach online was considered the most consistent weakness. Monetary incentives take a back seat to enhancing tenure portfolios, especially at community colleges where excessive teaching loads discourage teaching online in addition to a full load. At other institutions the pressure to get tenure is such that recognition in the tenure and promotion process would be advantageous in encouraging more faculty to teach online. Recommendations and Conclusions Higher education institutions value distance education as a viable way to address underserved populations, increase the number of programs, allow the flexing of student schedules, but is still challenged by a lack of perceived leadership and enterprise planning strategies. The development of cohesive strategic plans, program advertising, supporting staff, fiscal issues and technical infrastructure are all needed to keep up with immediate growth as well as the forecasts (Allen and Seaman, 2008; Cervero and Wilson, 1994; Piña 2008). Higher education institutions should consider the possibility of separating distance education operations by creating virtual campuses with some levels of autonomy. This independence could focus on three main aspects: strategic planning, marketing and faculty hiring, providing increased flexibility and efficiencies to expand the venture. However, a careful balance would be needed in the case of a separate virtual campus so distance faculty, students, and courses would not become marginalized from the greater institution. A strategic plan that clearly outlines the value and placement of distance programs would provide the foundation for discreet administrative and academic services focused solely on online learning. Giving all areas of campus governance an opportunity to be a part of this process will help to instill a sense of ownership by the campus as a whole. References Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2008). Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2009, from http://www.sloanc.org/publications/survey/pdf/staying_the_course.pdf Bates, A. W. (2000). Managing technological change: Strategies for college and university leaders. San Copyright 2009 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 3

Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Belanger, F., & Jordan, D. (2000). Evaluation and implementation of distance learning; technologies, tools and techniques. Hershey: Idea Group Publishing. Berge, Z. L. (2005). Taking the distance out of distance education. In G. Kearsley, (Ed.), Online learning: Personal reflections on the transformation of education (pp. 12-25). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Cervero, R. M., & Wilson, A. L. (1994). Planning responsibly for adult education: A guide to negotiating power and interests. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Fetzner, M. J. (2003). Institutional support for online faculty: Expanding the model. In Elements of quality online education: Practice and direction: Volume 4 in the SLOAN-C series (pp. 229-241). Needham, MA: The Sloan Consortium. Holmberg, B. (2005). Theory and practice of distance education (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance education: A systems view (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. Katz, R. N., & Oblinger, D. G. (Eds.). (2000). The "e" is for everything: E-commerce, e-business, and e- learning in higher education. Educause Leadership Strategies, no. 2. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Laws, R. D., Howell, S. L., & Lindsay.N K. (2003). Scalability in Distance Education: "Can we have our cake and eat it too?". Online Journal Of Distance Learning Administration, 6(4). Retrieved February 28, 2009, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter64/laws64.htm Panda, S. (2003). Planning & management in distance education (Open and Flexible Learning Series). Kogan Page, London and Stirling. Parker, A. (2003). Motivation and incentives for distance faculty. Retrieved on February 26, 2009, from www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall63/parker63.htm Piña, A. A. (2008). How institutionalized is distance learning? A study of institutional role, locale and academic level. Online Journal Of Distance Learning Administration, 11(1). Retrieved February 7, 2009, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring111/pina111.html Planning reaps variety of benefits for distance programs. Distance Education Report (2006, July 1). 10(11), 3 Sustainable success: Lining programs up with university priorities. Distance Education Report (2006, May 1). 10(9), 8. Author Summaries Dr. Peter J. Shapiro is Director of Instructional Technologies for SunGard Higher Education and Coordinator of the Center for Instructional Technology and Distance Learning at Bergen Community College. Shapiro is a Quality Matters Master Reviewer, and has authored journal articles and presented at conferences regarding faculty development for teaching online, and the institutional strategy necessary for these programs to succeed. He has over 20 years of higher education experience, including an 11 year Copyright 2009 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 4

involvement in the management, design and delivery of online courses. Address: Center for Instructional Technology and DL Bergen Community College 400 Paramus Road Paramus, NJ 07652 E-mail: pshapiro@bergen.edu URL: http://www.bergen.edu/cit Phone: 201.612.5574 Fax: 201.612.6710 Dr. Carlos R. Morales is Executive Director of Academic Technology at Lock Haven University. As such he provides leadership, vision and planning for the delivery of online courses, academic technology, faculty development and the STEP initiative. Dr. Morales is an experienced educator both in face-to-face and in the online classroom. Carlos' expertise and service extends to regional and national level and his involvement includes participation with national and international organizations related to technology in education. He is a graduate of the Frye Leadership Institute (2009). Address: Office of Academic Technology Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania Lock Haven, PA 17745 Email: cmorales@lhup.edu url: http://www.lhup.edu/acadtech Phone: 570-484-2404 Fax: 570-484-2981 Dr. Susan C. Biro is Director of Distance Learning at Carroll Community College. She has worked in higher education for nearly 10 years, primarily in distance learning program management and faculty development. Biro has held administrative positions at Widener University, Fordham University, and Berkeley College. She has taught in onsite, online, and hybrid formats. Biro has presented at international, national, and regional conferences on topics related to online faculty development and support, distance learning, and supporting online learners. She has also published peer-reviewed journal articles and served previously as assistant editor for Perspectives: The New York Journal of Adult Learning. Address: Carroll Community College Distance Learning Office L192 1601 Washington Avenue Westminster, MD 21157 E-mail: sbiro@carrollcc.edu url: http://www.carrollcc.edu/courses/online/default.asp Phone: 410.386.8419 Fax: 410-386-8331 Copyright 2009 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 5