Models of Online Courses
Robin Mason
Institute of Educational Technology,
The Open University
This paper is reprinted with permission from the conference proceedings,
"Networked Lifelong Learning: Innovative Approaches to Education and Training
Through the Internet" edited by L. Banks, C. Graebner, and D. McConnell.
University of Sheffield, 1998.
Abstract
I propose a rather simple framework within which to consider the very
wide range of existing online courses. The mystification surrounding the term
"online course" arises because it is used indiscriminately to apply
to nearly any course which makes even a passing use of the Internet, as well
as to those where every aspect of the course is only accessible electronically.
Of course categories are invidious to many who immediately cite applications
which do not fit easily into the framework. Nevertheless, I think it is useful
to begin to define the online educational world if only for others to redefine
for themselves.
I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
Painful as it is to remember, most of the first online courses were
delivered on command-line systems which required skill and patience from even the
dedicated user, let alone the intrepid novice. A perusal of early literature on computer
conferencing and Internet access to databases produces a litany of concerns about training
materials, help desk queries, and front-end programs, as well as discussions about how
best to help new users become active participants [1],[2].
Instructions for using the evocatively named Archie, Veronica and
Gopher filled whole books [3], but notwithstanding, were
actually used by some course providers to give students access to resources, papers and
databases of information.
Early MOOs (Multi user dungeon, Object Oriented), which provided
real-time text-based communication spaces, were equally arcane, and very few sustained
educational applications ever emerged out of this essentially game-playing environment.
Nevertheless, these three elements: asynchronous group and individual
messaging, access to course materials, and real-time interactive events, form the backbone
of what continues to constitute the world of online courses. During the 90s, perhaps the
most extensive developments have taken place in the area of access to course materials.
Communication, whether real-time or asynchronous, and whether one-to-one or many-to-many,
has merely become easier.
Newer conferencing systems became available in the early nineties and
these provided a Windows interface to messaging. Training in the technicalities of using
such systems has been less and less problematic and occupies almost a negligible amount of
the course time. The advent of the Web and its phenomenal growth has similarly reduced the
training overhead for accessing course content [4].
Web-based conferencing systems and the support for audio and video on
the Web complete the current picture of an integrated environment for delivering course
content and participant interaction and support through one logon sequence. Web-in-a-box
software now takes this environment and packages it for the coal-face educator who
doesn't want to be bothered with html and needs simple administrative and assessment
facilities for tracking student progress.
Figures 1 and 2 demonstrate this technological journey from command
line frustration to user empowerment. Of course, this relative improvement in access and
usability has merely allowed other problems in creating online learning environments to
emerge more clearly. These will be the focus for the rest of the paper.
Figure 1. Command-line Conferencing.
Figure 2. Virtual-U.
II. PEDAGOGICAL EVOLUTION
My use of the term pedagogical evolution is not meant to imply a notion
of teaching getting better and better, or of the invention of new and different methods.
Rather I mean to suggest the experience of working with the technology (itself a moving
target) and with course participants to arrive at new perspectives on how learning is best
encouraged and supported in the online environment. All of the elements I am about to
discuss are very familiar educational approaches - they are simply being adapted and
re-discovered in their online form.
A. Structure Discussions
Many of the early online teachers were dazzled by the new opportunity of
group communication with students at a distance. Because unlimited, interactive,
time-independent discussion was technically possible, both students and tutors
expected it would happen. The fact that educationally beneficial, dynamic and
all-inclusive discussions are far from commonplace events in face-to-face teaching,
should have prevented the growth of this unreal expectation for the online environment,
which almost all early adopters experienced. While the technology tends to support
a certain degree of egalitarian participation, and does allow users the freedom
to input messages at their convenience, the conditions which are needed to produce
good educational discussions are far more complex, more people-dependent and
more educationally determined than mere technology will ever influence very
significantly.
Most online educators have realized that generating good discussions
online takes careful planning and structuring. Breaking large numbers of students into
small groups (typically under ten), providing specific tasks (such as searching for
answers to set questions in readings or Web resources) and setting timelines for
discussion - all of these elements are increasingly used and adapted to the online
environment to give structure and to help the learner to take an active part. Free-for-all
open discussions have largely been abandoned for serious teaching purposes, although they
continue to flourish in social areas.
B. Collaborative activities
As the online medium matures and many more educators adapt their subject
areas to the environment, examples of collaborative activities and assignments
are growing and leading to a climate of acceptance for innovative ideas in how
groups of distance learners can work together online. The Web often acts as
the resource around which the activities are designed, in some cases using course-specific
materials and readings provided by the tutor, and in other cases using the vast
materials from other Web sites worldwide. Students are often asked to construct
a group Web site as the focus for their joint work. Alternatively they could
be asked to work through problems, experiments or simulations presented online
and to compare their solutions. Whereas early collaborative activities were
largely restricted to discursive areas of the curriculum or to joint writing
assignments, the Web with its multimedia capabilities has now extended the potential
for collaborative work into the image-dependent subjects like science, technology
and mathematics [5].
Peer commenting on work which normally would have been seen only by the
tutor, is an area of group activity well supported by current technologies. Students
submit their work to a file area or Web space so that other students on the course can
read and comment on it. Just as the online environment breaks down the barriers to the
lecture room walls and makes the teacher more visible, so it does for students as well
when their work is open to view and critique in this way by their peers. A number of
evaluations of courses which involve peer commenting report on the educational advantages
[6].
Because it tends to require more initiative, more time and more
dependence on others, group work is rather more popular with teachers than with students!
When integrated with assessment and examination, however, the evidence is that most
students do overcome their inhibitions and play their part in joint activities. In fact,
there is a veritable explosion of interest in collaborative work at tertiary and
professional updating level, as the technology improves to support it, as employers
increasingly demand it, and as educators re-discover its value in the learning process.
C. Online assessment
The ease with which students can now submit assignments electronically and take self
tests and even examinations online, has led many institutions to exploit the technology to
globalize their courses and in some cases to relieve tutors of the more tedious aspects of
marking. Web-in-a-box software customized for education offers forms for easy creation of
multiple choice tests as well as assignment submission systems and record keeping
facilities. A number of firms market software for developing more complex assessment
processes, and these can be used to conduct surveys and collect other forms of data from
users.
Current assessment procedures in higher education are long overdue for
a rethink. They are particularly ill suited to the digital age in which using information
is more important than remembering it, and where reusing material should be viewed as a
skill to be encouraged, not as academic plagiarism to be despised. Many online courses are
leading the way in devising assignments and assessment procedures which reflect the call
for higher education to teach IT literacy, team working ability and knowledge management
skills.
D. Interactive course materials
Early computer-based learning programs tend to be dismissed now as page turning
devices which fall far short of the interactive, user-centered claims originally made for
them. Although the technology exists to design and produce teaching material which offers
the learner genuine choice of learning routes and methods, a range of video, audio and
text materials, and opportunities to interact meaningfully with content, the resulting
course materials are often prohibitively expensive to prepare. Apart from the financial
resource needed, what is also essential is educational design expertise. Technology is
rarely the problem - and equally rarely the solution! Sharing computer-based teaching
material amongst consortia or on a commercial basis, is the holy grail - much talked
of and aspired to even in funded programs, but so difficult to achieve. The Web and to
some extent CD-ROMs overcome the early interoperability problems in sharing computer-based
software, and quality of teaching material is now the major stumbling block. Many
computer-based teaching programs whether stand alone, on an Intranet or the Web, fall into
one of two categories: all glitz and no substance, or content which reflects a
rote-learning, right/wrong approach to learning.
The lifelong learning movement with its emphasis on just-in-time
learning and a customer-centered approach has helped to develop the interest in online
courses using a resource-based model. The underlying aim of such courses is learning how
to learn; that is, facilitating knowledge management skills such as searching, selecting
and synthesizing information, discovering how and where to find answers and solutions, and
understanding, transforming and presenting ideas. The Web provides both the cause and the
means for doing this.
E. An online pedagogy
Current approaches to teaching and learning in higher education are dominated by the
following: the importance of interactivity in the learning process, the changing role of
the teacher from sage to guide, the need for knowledge management skills and for team
working abilities, and the move towards resource-based rather than packaged learning. All
of these elements figure strongly in the literature of online educators [7]. In fact, I would contend that online courses are driving
pedagogical evolution in higher education generally, because of the rush to digitize,
virtualize and globalize the campus.
III. ONLINE COURSE MODELS
I am going to propose a rather simple framework within which to
consider the very wide range of existing online courses. The mystification surrounding the
term "online course" arises because it is used indiscriminately to apply to
nearly any course which makes even a passing use of the Internet, as well as to those
where every aspect of the course is only accessible electronically. Of course categories
are invidious to many who immediately cite applications which do not fit easily into the
framework. Furthermore, my thinking, and hence my categorizations are heavily influenced
by a distance teaching background, and those from either a campus or training environment
probably conceptualize the field differently. Nevertheless, I think it is useful to begin
to define the online educational world if only for others to redefine for themselves.
A. Content + Support Model
This model is the earliest and most extensive category of online course. It relies on
the separation between course content (which is probably delivered in print or possibly
now as a course package on the Web) and tutorial support (which in its simplest form is
delivered by email or alternatively by computer conferencing). The model supports the
notion of relatively unchanging content materials which can be tutored by other teachers
than the content authors. Rudimentary amounts of collaborative activity amongst students,
peer commenting and online assessments can be supported by computer conferencing. However,
these online elements tend to be added onto the course and students of such courses
frequently report conflicts with learning the materials and participating in the online
activities. Considering the course as a whole, the online component represents no more
than about 20% of the students' study time in this model.
Where the course content consists of structured Web pages, the division
between content to be mastered and engagement with discussion is sometimes reduced. This
relatively new adaptation of the content + support model and the advent of Web
conferencing are beginning to blur this category with either of the next two. However,
even when the course content is online as well as the tutorial support, I think it is
still useful to consider the distinctive characteristics of the very many courses where
there is a strong division between content and support.
B. Wrap Around Model
My next category defines those courses which consist of tailor made materials
(study guide, activities and discussion) wrapped around existing materials (textbooks,
CD-ROM resources or tutorials). I categorize this as the 50/50 model because
the online interactions and discussions occupy about half of the students'
time, while the predetermined content occupies the other half. This model tends
to favor a resource-based approach to learning, giving more freedom and responsibility
to the students to interpret the course for themselves. The tutor's or
teacher's role is also more extensive than that in the first model, because
less of the course is pre-determined and more is created each time the course
is delivered, through the discussions and activities.
Real time online events sometimes feature in this model (as well as in
the next). Screen sharing software is often used for problem-solving areas of the
curriculum so that tutors can help students on a one-to-one, or one-to-small group basis.
One-way audio lectures accompanied by Web-based overheads is another way of adding a live
dimension to the course. Students can interact through posting email questions. As
technology improves, these events will include video as well as audio.
C. Integrated Model
The third model is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the first. The course
consists of collaborative activities, learning resources and joint assignments. The heart
of the course takes place online through discussion, accessing and processing information
and carrying out tasks. The course contents are fluid and dynamic as they are largely
determined by the individual and group activity. In a sense, the integrated model
dissolves the distinction between content and support, and is dependent on the creation of
a learning community.
Real time communication, in some cases initiated by the participants,
might be video-, audio- or text-based and would support small group activities and tasks.
IV. EXAMPLES OF COURSE MODELS FROM THE UKOU
The content+support model is used extensively at the UK Open
University, where content is prepared by central academics and tutored by part-time
associate lecturer staff. This model has been adapted to the online world by decreasing
postal, phone and face-to-face contact in favor of interaction via computer conferencing.
Large scale examples include the Technology Foundation course with over 5000 students
using FirstClass for contact with their tutor, with other students and to a limited degree
with course concepts in content-related conferences. In other courses, such as the second
level Information Technology course, DT200, students are required to carry out two joint
assignments and to send one of them in electronically. Courses in the Open Business School
also use FirstClass, some with an associated Web site, alumni activity and groupings based
on business interests. In all, nearly 40,000 students use computer conferencing as a
support medium on courses delivered largely through print.
A Web-based version of this model has been piloted by the OU's
Institute of Educational Technology, although it is relatively common elsewhere. This
course consists of about 100 Web pages containing information, exercises, links to other
sites and a set of tasks for the student to carry out. The students, in this case a
rolling intake joining at their convenience, work through the materials and send in their
assignments for the tutor to mark and comment on. This version of the model is
particularly appropriate for short courses and for professional updating or training
courses. It is also possible to add Web conferencing to the process for those who want
more communal support.
Figure 3 is a page from this Web course showing the map of the course
contents.
Figure 3. Map of a Web-based Course.
Less well known OU courses use the wrap-around model. The most long
standing course is in artificial intelligence and Lisp programming, DM863, and consists of
a textbook and extensive interaction on FirstClass with the tutor and other students.
Currently, several web-based wrap-around courses are in the planning stages.
The essence of the content+support model is that it can achieve
unprecedented economies of scale. Relatively high course development costs can be offset
against relatively low presentation costs, and as the number of students in the course
rises, the per-student cost of the course falls. This simple formula becomes more
complicated with the wrap-around model. Using a textbook or other existing materials
reduces the preparation costs, but increases the presentation costs, as the tutors have a
greater responsibility to create the course through their interactions with students. As
student numbers increase, costs (of tutors) rise incrementally. Of course tutor costs also
rise with student numbers on the content+support model, but these costs are relatively
small in relation to the development costs of the course materials. Wrap-around courses
may require a higher ratio of tutors to students or possibly a higher rate of payment due
to their greater responsibility in creating the course. Nevertheless, for small courses in
niche subjects, this is a very cost effective model.
Figure 4 shows a screen from the FirstClass conferencing environment
set up to accompany a textbook.
Figure 4. Online environment of a Lisp Programming Course.
As the collaborative, task oriented, discussion-based components of an
online course increase, so the content of the course is increasingly determined by the
group. Resources are of course provided at the outset, but the selection of materials and
the interpretation of the tasks form the stuff of the course. This is what I call the
integrated model.
The only OU course which approaches this model is the second year of
the Masters in Open and Distance Education, designed and tutored by the Institute of
Educational Technology. This course is largely based on collaborative and individual
activities carried out on the Web using papers, external links and other resources
supplied by the course team. Each of the assignments requires students to integrate
comments from discussion conferences into their work, and the final examinable component
(in the form of an extended essay) requires students to reflect on what they have learned
from the various elements of the course: discussion, activities, reading and joint work.
Real time events will be run using various technologies as they become available over the
life of the course. The first real time session involved peer marking of one student
assignment over a 24 hours period to accommodate different time zones and availabilities.
Figure 5 shows a Web page from this course.
Figure 5. IET's Web-based H802.
The design of this course has arisen from extensive experience in
running short online courses in technology-based education for professional updating.
Various approaches to creating interactive learning environments have emerged from the
experience of a dozen members of staff, and the most successful elements have been applied
to the MA: structured activities such as debates with individual roles, Web searches with
specific targets, peer commenting on written work, and incentives to engage in discussion.
The aim of the integrated model is to build on the inputs of the
students within the carefully constructed online environment to create a self-sustaining
learning community. To make this model equally achievable on a large scale, as it has been
shown to be on a small scale, will be the ultimate OU test.
V. ISSUES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ONLINE
The issues which I think are the most central to discussions of online
teaching have already been mentioned, but I will draw them together here:
• collaborative working - designing activities for all the curriculum
areas, coping strategies for handling non-participators, building on
the advantages of online technologies and avoiding their disadvantages
• rolling intake versus cohort system - appealing to the market
for just-in-time learning without losing the advantages of collaborative
working, setting up administrative systems to handle a rolling intake
• tutor workload - designing online structures which maximize
the input of the teacher, yet do not leave students floundering in mutual
ignorance, developing tutors' online facilitation skills
• motivation of students - finding incentives for students to
participate actively, providing some synchronous events to maintain
their interest and enthusiasm, supporting them in taking responsibility
for their learning
• sustainable models for online education - developing successful
cost-effective approaches to online learning, and for the UKOU, scalable
systems which are successful with large numbers of students
VI. NEW LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
I said in the introduction that I would indicate the ways in which
online courses are leading the development of new learning environments. These apply
particularly to adults studying at a distance, and particularly at postgraduate or
professional development level. Nevertheless, I suspect that we will begin to see this
direction reflected in undergraduate and campus-based courses with an online component.
The following two concepts best define my thinking about the nature of new learning
environments:
• break down of the distinction between teacher and taught
It is well known in the teaching profession that the best way to learn
something is to teach it. Just as the Web turns everyone into a publisher, so online
courses give everyone the opportunity to be the teacher. Computer conferencing is the
ideal medium to realize the teaching potential of the student, to the advantage of all
participants. This is hardly a new discovery, merely an adaptation of the seminar to the
online environment. It is not a cheap ticket to reducing the cost of the traditional
teacher, however. Designing successful learning structures online does take skill and
experience, and online courses do not run themselves. It is in my third, "integrated
model" where this distinction is most blurred, as it provides the greatest
opportunities for multiple teaching and learning roles.
• collective construction of the course
The online environment, with its resources, places to interact and
people to contact, can form the backdrop against which a learning community comes together
briefly to collaborate in a shared course. This ideal may only be tasted on a few courses
and usually towards the end, as people realize what they are about to lose. Nevertheless,
the idea of collective construction of a course can act as a guiding principle for course
designers and participants, as the technology and the pedagogy are available to support
it. The notion of co-constructing a course is not an excuse for teachers to entirely
abdicate their traditional role. In my experience, it must always be a delicate balance
between good preparation on the part of the course designers and yet willingness to work
on the fly, and to adapt to the evolving group dynamic. It involves a real understanding
of the purpose of a course and the ability to realize this in the form of challenging
activities and group processes. Twenty-five years ago, the OU established its reputation
on its ability to apply these principles to writing out-standing learning materials in
print. The challenge now is to develop similar excellence in designing online courses.
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