Home

Evaluating Attitudes of Deans of Engineering Toward ALN

printer friendly version

I. INTRODUCTION

On March 20, 2000, the opening sessions at the Engineering Dean's Institute held at Hilton Head, SC, were devoted to Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALNs). A three hour and 15 minute morning session entitled: "The Impact of Online Learning on Colleges of Engineering: Prospects for Change" was devoted to presentations and activities designed to assess the attitudes of Dean's of Engineering Colleges who attended the meeting. Some 130 Deans of Colleges of Engineering attended the morning sessions that consisted of three talks by Frank Mayadas, Haniph Latchman and John Bourne, followed by a strategy and tactic planning exercise. The outcome of the morning's activities was a list of strategies and tactics that the Deans would use in pursing ALN at their institutions. The results of this paper are instructive for the ALN community to see how one group of decision makers view ALN.

II. BACKGROUND

Organization of the Sessions
Figure 1 shows the organization of the morning sessions.

Figure 1. TimeTable for Morning Sessions.

III. METHOD

A. Online Survey
An online survey was provided to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) (the organizing society for the Engineering Deans Institute) and all Dean's registered for the meeting were asked to answer about a dozen questions that assessed their attitudes toward asynchronous learning networks and information-technology-based education. Each dean was asked to supply the Carnegie classification of his/her institution. The classification definitions were obtained from the Carnegie Foundation (http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/OurWork/Classification/CIHE94/defNotes...). Research I and II Institutions include the full range of programs from baccalaureate through Ph.D. and having more than 15.5 million per year in federal funding. Doctoral institutions have a full range of programs awarding 10 or more doctoral degrees per year. Comprehensive institutions offer degrees through the Master's degree. The "other" category in our analysis includes baccalaureate, associate degrees and others. These classifications were used at the meeting of the Engineering Deans Institute to group Deans from like categories for discussion.

B. Summary of Papers
At the opening session of the Engineering Deans Institute, three 20 minute presentations were given that are briefly summarized below.

1. Asynchronous Learning Networks, Dr. A. Frank Mayadas, Program Officer, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Dr. Mayadas is widely credited with starting the Asynchronous Learning Network movement through funding of programs at some 40 institutions of higher education in the United States. Dr. Mayadas defined ALN and traced the history of the Sloan programs including mentioning a series of important successes. He placed ALN in the context of higher education in general and emphasized the ability of ALN to provide learning to anyone, anywhere and at anytime.

2. Real ALN - Lessons Learned from the UF Experience, Dr. Haniph A. Latchman, Associate Professor, University of Florida. Dr. Latchman presented a series of case studies of what is actually being done with ALN at one institution - the University of Florida. He demonstrated how and for what ALN can be used. He concentrated on methods for providing lectures on demand via the Internet.

3. Building Agile Learning Environments for the Enterprise: the Future of ALN? Dr. John R. Bourne, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University. Dr. Bourne spoke about the future of ALN and the need to create learning systems that can adapt to the learner, and that are integrated into the infrastructure of the institution.

C. Method for Break-out Session
After completion of the three presentations described above, the Deans were reorganized from a lecture format into groups of approximately 10 per group, organized by Carnegie Classification. The Deans were first asked if they planned to go forward with ALN at their institutions. Most of them answered "yes" (there was one "no" vote). For those who would go forward with ALN, the Deans were asked to consider the overarching goal: "I want to improve Engineering Education using Online Learning."

Next, the strategic directions listed in Table 1 were handed out as examples. The Deans were asked to examine these directions and to brainstorm the types of strategic directions they could have for their own institutions. Some of the directions given were added to the list as possible distractors to see if the Deans understood the messages from the presentations given earlier. The rationale for separation into different Carnegie Classifications was to see if the types of strategic directions selected by the Deans would differ at the different types of institutions. At the end of 20 minutes, the Deans were asked to list the top three strategic directions mentioned in the discussions at their group.

Table 1. Examples of Strategic Directions.

Next, the Deans were asked to examine the set of tactical approaches to implementing ALN that might be made. They discussed their prospective tactics and listed the top three tactics as shown in Group 2 mentioned at their group.

Table 2. Possible Tactical Approaches.

Finally, to complete the session, the strategic directions and tactics selected by each group were presented to the entire group of Deans.

IV. RESULTS

A. Survey Results
The results from the online survey are presented in Table 3. The number of Deans responding to each question is shown in the parentheses following each choice.

Table 3. Online Survey Results.

B. Results from Strategic Directions and Tactical Approaches
In the breakout session, 12 groups of Deans were constituted. Data from 11 groups is shown in Tables 4 - 7 providing a total of 88 responses. One group did not indicate which type of institution the participants came from and hence is not included. We have grouped the participants' responses into four major categories, one each in Tables 4 - 7. The number of deans participating in each group is shown in parentheses after the category. All the deans that participated in this activity indicated that they would move forward with implementing ALN at their institution.

The Deans were asked to supply three strategic directions and three tactical approaches. As shown in Tables 4 and 5, some supplied more than the called-for number. The responses in the tabulations below are broken out by Carnegie classification, and within that category, by each responding group of deans. Thus, in the Research I and II information shown in Table 4, there are responses from 4 groups of deans, tabulated by group.

Table 4. Strategic Directions and Tactical Approaches of Deans of Research I and II Institutions.

Table 5. Strategic Directions and Tactical Approaches of Deans of Doctoral Universities I and II.

Table 6. Strategic Directions and Tactical Approaches of Deans of Comprehensive Universities.

Table 7. Strategic Directions and Tactical Approaches of Deans of Other Institutions.

Table 8 shows the most often mentioned strategic directions and tactical approaches for the four types of institutions.

Table 8. Most Often Mentioned Strategic Directions and Tactical Approaches for the Four Types of Institutions.

In the case of the information supplied by the comprehensive university group, the first item mentioned was selected since there was only one group of Deans in this category.

V. DISCUSSION

From the pre-Institute online survey, we learned that the Engineering Deans were somewhat familiar with ALN and felt that information technology would become part of their routine classroom activities soon. Most would extend the classroom via the Internet and felt that there was value to providing online learning. Only a small minority of Deans did not plan to offer online courses, and most felt that faculty were ready to become engaged. The infrastructure for ALN appears to be in place at most institutions and students have computers. Surprisingly, most Deans felt that online learning could help their financial situations by generating significant new income. However, about one third of the respondents said they would not engage new populations via ALN. Many deans felt that students could learn better and more quickly and that tapping the life-long learning market was an attractive possibility.

Of the 130 Deans who registered for the Engineering Deans Institute, 100 attended both the lectures and breakout sessions and completed the activities described in this paper. Several interesting observations can be made from the data.

From the strategic directions and tactical approaches exercise, the most mentioned strategic direction for the research schools was to increase the number of learners by providing incentives to faculty. In contrast, the Doctoral and Comprehensive schools (4 groups) most often mentioned strategic direction was to improve the way students learn. Improving the way students learn was also mentioned by one of the groups of the research institutions. Perhaps predictably, the Deans from "other" institutions were most interested in increasing access and teaching faculty about ALN. It is clear from these results that more effort needs to be expended in understanding how to effectively use ALN in Colleges of Engineering.

VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank the Dean Nino Masnari of North Carolina State University for the invitation to organize the sessions at the Engineering Dean's Institute, Dean Kenneth Galloway of Vanderbilt University for supplying funding to attend the Institute, Arthur Brodersen for discussions of strategic approaches and tactical directions and Joy Holly for artwork for the slides presented. The ASEE is thanked for giving their permission to publish the results of this effort.