Online Education

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Online Education

• An International Analysis
• of Web-based Education
• and
• Strategic Recommendations
• for Decision Makers
• Morten Flate Paulsen
• http//home.nettskolen.com/morten/

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The NKI Internet College (www.nettskolen.com)
Number of course enrollments

• 2500 students in 15 countries
• 150 online courses
• 75 online tutors

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SPICE (www.nettskolen.com/spice)

• Specialization Program in International Online
  Education
• SPICE 601 Introduction to International Online
  Education
• SPICE 602 Design and Development of Online
  Courses
• SPICE 603 Online Teaching and Learning
• SPICE 604 Administration Systems and Support
  Services for Online Education
• SPICE 605 International and Comparative Online
  Education

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The CISAER Project (www.nettskolen.com/cisaer)

• European Leonardo da Vinci program
• International survey and analysis of courses on
  the Internet
• Strategic recommendations
• Based on
• literature reviews,
• catalogue data from 130 institutions in 26
  countries (March 98 - Feb. 99)
• 72 interviews with key persons at these
  institutions (spring 99)
• Analysis written spring 2000.

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• PORTALS

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(No Transcript)
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Distribution of Institutions in CISAER
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Global Issues

• Globally, there are more than 100.000 online
  courses available on the Internet
• The survey indicates that institutions in Europe
  (60.8), North America (21.5), and Australia
  with New Zealand (7.7) overwhelmingly outnumbers
  institutions in South America (3.1), Asia
  (3.1), and Africa (0.8).
• Many more entries from North America could be
  included, since the listing from this area was
  intentionally partial.
• Among the 130 catalogue entries, 45.4 were from
  the English language countries USA, UK,
  Australia, Canada, and Ireland.
• There is a steady growth of institutions that
  offer online courses to students in other
  countries, and the analysis presents many
  examples of international collaboration and
  thinking. However, most of the global initiatives
  seem to be experiments and ambitions rather than
  main priorities.

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Most Institutions have few courses and students

• A large number of the institutions offer few web
  courses
• 23.1 of the institutions report to have only one
  web-course
• 46.2 of them report to offer less than 5 courses
• Only four institutions reported to have 100
  courses or more
• And few online students
• 29.3 of the institutions report that they have
  100 or fewer students
• Only four institutions reported to have more than
  5000 students.
• From the low course- and enrollment numbers, one
  can infer that much of the activities are
  experimental and not pivotal for the
  institutions.

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Courses and Institutions

• There is a dominance of web-courses in the fields
  of computer and information sciences and by
  courses in education.
• Web courses cover a very broad range of subjects.
• The number of subject areas that was offered
  varied considerably between the institutions.
  Nearly half of the institutions offer courses in
  only one category and only five offered courses
  in five or more categories.
• None of the surveyed institutions seem to provide
  enough online courses and support services that
  this analysis would characterize them as virtual
  or online universities.
• The survey shows that 60.0 of the 130
  institutions belong to the university and college
  sector, 10.0 to the traditional open university
  and distance education sector, and 9.2 were
  classified as companies or corporations.

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Administrative systems

• An online college may have to handle
• thousands of students and hundreds of teachers,
• hundreds of courses with password restricted web
  pages and discussion forums
• class lists and student presentations
• It should also be integrated with
• administrative systems for the dispatch of
  textbooks,
• handling of tuition and examination fees,
• and organization of local examinations.
• This is a major challenge for many traditional
  institutions.

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Administrative options

• The simplest is probably to collaborate with an
  institution that already has a functional
  administrative system.
• Another solution, which requires more technical
  competence, is to develop an in-house system.
• The third option is to purchase a standard system
  for online education. These standard systems are
  continuously being improved, but they may still
  need much local adaptation. They may only meet
  some of the administrative needs, and they could
  place some pedagogical limitations on the
  courses.

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Administrative solutions

• A discouraging, but important observation is that
  a number of institutions do not use the web for
  administrative purposes.
• Outsourcing is an option that does not seem to be
  much used, only one instance was identified.
• Many of the institutions have developed in-house
  administrative solutions in combinations with
  standard Internet software.
• The standard administrative systems that were
  mentioned in the interviews were FirstClass,
  WebCT, and Lotus Notes.

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Some Standard Administrative Systems
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Financial Issues

• The tuition fees for web-courses seem to vary
  considerably among institutions and courses.
• Some courses are free and open to everyone,
• Others seem to have full or partial external
  funding.
• Tuition fees seem not to be very different from
  fees in traditional courses.
• The analysis has revealed few, if any, examples
  of institutions with substantial income from
  student fees.
• Likewise, there are few institutions that can
  claim that provision of web-based courses has
  been an economic success, if they disregard
  external research and development grants.

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Teaching Functions

• An analysis of the interviews indicates that the
  tutors at least conduct the following functions
• Organizational functions structure discussions,
  pacing, put forward initiatives
• Social functions monitor groups
• Intellectual functions answer questions, guiding
  students on the Internet
• Assessment functions give feedback to
  assignments, correct submissions

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Course Development

• Some institutions have course development teams
  others use the tutor as the sole designer of a
  course.
• The different models probably have implications
  for both quality control and development time.

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Accreditation

• Degrees, diplomas, certificates, and statements
  of completions are all widely used
• The accreditation seems to be the same
  independent on whether the course or program is
  offered online or not
• Accreditation could be an important competitive
  advantage
• Collaboration with institutions in other
  countries could result in bilateral
  accreditation.

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Assessment

• Summative assessment of online courses is very
  traditional and often has a face-to-face
  component
• Formative assessment is more experimental and
  based on online activities.
• Most institutions apply several assessment
  methods in a course or program.
• Tutor assessment is the most common form of
  assessment.
• There are many examples of self-assessment
• Computer assessment is relatively scarce, but we
  found several examples of online quizzes,
  multiple choice tests, and interactive exercises.
• Peer assessment is relatively scarce.
• Some courses have no assessment simply because
  they are self-study courses with no tutors.

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Enrollment and Progress Flexibility

• The two main models are
• Group enrollment and progress
• Individual enrollment and progress
• The models represent different strategies that
  have important consequences for marketing,
  administrative systems, and pedagogical
  approaches.
• Group based enrollment and progression is
  predominant
• 46 institutions used the group model
• 12 followed the individual model
• 11 institutions offered both models

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Traditional thinking, collaborative learning, or
rigidity?

• The preponderance of the group model could come
  from conventional thinking that sustains the
  semester and term system in traditional
  educational systems.
• It is possible that the institutions have a
  well-considered perception that teamwork and
  collaborative learning is hard to achieve with
  individual enrollment and progress.
• One can argue that many students prefer
  individual flexibility and that many institutions
  lack systems, structures, and competence on
  individual enrollment and progression.
• If so, one may hypothesize that open universities
  and distance teaching institutions should be more
  disposed of individual flexibility than
  traditional universities and colleges. However,
  the analysis has not found evidence to support
  this hypothesis.

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Future Development

• The interest in online education is high, and it
  seems to proliferate rapidly and globally.
• A Canadian competitive analysis shows that the
  primary expansion strategies are more and diverse
  programs, international students, and new and
  nice markets such as corporate training.
• The CISAER interviewees foresaw a future with
  more web-courses, additional online services,
  better quality of the courses, enhanced focus on
  teacher training, further collaborations with
  other institutions, and additional organizational
  consequences.

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Financial Barriers

• The financial barriers are important. The
  analysis showed that few institutions had
  substantial income from student fees. At the same
  time, the cost of development and maintenance
  could be high. In addition, national regulations
  in some countries deny institutions the
  opportunity to charge tuition fees.

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Assessment Barriers

• The interviews testify that there are a number of
  barriers to effective use of online assessment.
  Among them are public and institutional
  regulations, traditions for physical attendance,
  technical limitations, student identification,
  and detection of plagiarized digital material.

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Strategic Recommendations

• 1. Promote national and international
  harmonization of degrees, certificates, credits,
  and grades to facilitate online mobility of
  students
• 2. Oppose national regulations that inhibits
  institutions from charging tuition fees
• 3. Focus on cost effective online education
• 4. Develop better systems for administration of
  online education
• 5. Support initiatives for training of online
  teachers, administrators, and instructional
  designers
• 6. Oppose regulations and attitudes that inhibits
  online assessment
• 7. Support further research on online pedagogy
  and didactics
• 8. Develop and implement strategies to reduce the
  workload of online teachers