Issue Contents

Student Learning and Student Services: Policy Issues

Claudine SchWeber, Ph.D.
Chair, Doctor of Management Program
University of Maryland University College

An increasing number of students in the United States are involved in online education. By fall 2004, approximately 2.6 million students were estimated to be enrolled in at least one online course, an average growth rate of 24.8% from 2003-04; this figure represents 5% increase over the 2002-03 growth rate. The consequence of this continuing expansion of the e-learning population is that policies with respect to student learning/academic programs will need to be updated or developed; and policies and practices with respect to existing student services, which often provide different support for onsite and distance students or minimize online services, will need to fit the realities of online learning. Given the technological world of the 21st century, it would behoove institutions if such policies applied to all students and services were online.

What are the student areas which require policies for online learning to be effective? Issues in four areas seem to dominate: student learning, student services, 24/7 support and outsourcing, and multi-campus/system alignment. Each points to several policy issues, often inter-linked, that need discussion, decisions and implementation practices.

Within the four broad policy issues that affect online student learning and student services, institutions need to decide: whether online/ blended academic offerings will be individual courses, programs or degrees; whether online services will be available only to distance students or to everyone; whether the services will be available 24/7 or at specified hours, in house or by an external company; whether there will be a differential fee structure for distance and onsite coursework. With respect to multi-campus/system alignment issues, questions about residency, ease of transferability, fees and campus pay-backs need to be addressed quickly. The responses to these questions will reveal how the institution sees itself and its role in higher education in the decades to come.

Join Claudine SchWeber in the Sloan-C online workshop: Student Services, October 29- December 8. 

Sloan-C Annual Awards for Excellence, Effective Practices, and Program Profile

Each year at the annual conference in November, Sloan-C recognizes trailblazers in online education. This year, on November 8th, at the 12th Sloan-C Annual International Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks: The Power of Online Learning: Realizing the Vision, an awards ceremony rewards the accomplishments of individuals and organizations that are moving the field forward. The University of Maryland University College receives the award for Excellence in Faculty Development for Online Teaching for its Teaching with WebTycho Training Course that successfully trains new faculty to become competent online instructors in a cost-effective manner. Excellence in Online Teaching awards recognize Bill McCarthy of Quinsigamond Community College for his Response to Terrorism online course that provides instruction to students in the fundamentals of preparing a community for terrorism in the 21st century and to Susan Oaks of Empire State College for her ten years of developing courses and mentoring colleagues. Karen Swan, of Kent State University, receives the award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Learning by an Individual scholarly work on online learning and ubiquitous computing. The award for Most Outstanding Online Teaching & Learning Program goes to The Pennsylvania State University's Basic and Advanced Certificates in Turfgrass Management and BS in Turfgrass Science which have enabled hundreds of turfgrass professionals to obtain the knowledge and skills they need to perform at the highest level in their jobs and to advance in their careers. Effective Practice Awards will be made to Kent State University for its Learning Theories course that combines problem based learning with personalized instruction; to Ohio State University, for its Introductory Statistical Concepts course which enables different course sections to accommodate different learning styles; and to WISE, a collaborative distance education model for library and information science. In a new category for awards to recognize programs that demonstrate excellence using metrics based on the Sloan-C Quality Framework, the first Program Profile Award, goes to the University of Michigan's Master of Engineering in Global Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering, an academic/corporate partnership program that engages more than 30 partner schools in delivering specialized online education.

The Sloan-C Excellence Awards Selection Committee for 2006 was comprised of Judith S. Eaton, President, Council for Higher Education Accreditation; Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Distinguished Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology (2004 Sloan-C Award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Learning by an Individual); John V. Lombardi, President, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Joseph McDonald, President, Salish-Kootenai College; William Messner, President, Holyoke Community College; Burks Oakley II, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Illinois (2003 Award for Most outstanding Achievement in Online Teaching & Learning by an Individual); Gerardo de los Santos, President, League for Innovation in the Community College; Charles Dziuban, Professor - Educational Foundations, University of Central Florida (2005 Sloan-C Award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Teaching Learning by an Individual); Eric E. Fredericksen, Associate Vice Provost and Director of Academic Technology Services at the University of Rochester served as the non-voting committee chair. The Sloan-C Effective Practice and Program Profile Awards were selected by the Sloan-C editors for effective practices: Dr. Tana Bishop of the University of Maryland University College, Dr. Melody Thompson of The Pennsylvania State University World Campus, Dr. Peter Shea of the State University of New York University at Albany, Mr. John Sener of Sener Learning Services, and Dr. Karen Swan of Kent State University.

Details about the awards are available at http://www.sloan-c.org/aboutus/awards.asp.

Making the Grade - Fourth Annual Sloan Survey Report on Online Education

The fourth annual Sloan report on online education, Making the Grade, Online Education in the United States, 2006, will be released during the 12th Annual Sloan-C Conference in Orlando, November 8 - 10, 2006. Like the previous reports in this series, the full text will be available as a free download from the Sloan-C web site at http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/index.asp. All survey respondents will also receive an email announcing the publication with a link to download the report.

This year's report is the first to realize the benefits of the Sloan-College Board data collection partnership, greatly expanding the survey's coverage. Previous reports in this series have raised a number of issues:

• Online enrollments have shown substantial growth every year. Will this year finally show the beginning of a plateau, or has growth continued unabated?
• The 2003 and 2004 surveys asked Chief Academic Officer's (CAO) to judge the quality of their online offerings compared to face-to-face, with a majority reporting that online was the same or superior. The CAOs are again asked to rate the relative quality of the two formats -- has their opinion changed?
• An increasing number of schools have rated online education as critical for their long-term strategy in each year of the study. Will the trend continue?

The first Sloan Survey report special edition was released during this past year. In partnership with the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005, Southern Edition, was published (free download at http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/southern05.asp). This volume duplicated the topics in the national report for the sixteen-sate southern region. Based on the success of this first special edition, the 2006 survey project will publish three special reports: A Southern Edition (in partnership with SREB), a Midwest Edition (in partnership with the Midwestern Higher Education Compact), and a National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges Edition. These editions will be available a few months after the publication of the national edition.

Also scheduled to be released soon after the 12th Annual Sloan-C Conference is the first Sloan survey report on blended learning. Entitled Blending In: The Extent and Promise of Blended Education in the United States, 2005, this volume examines what institutions are offering blended instruction, how the extent of blended courses and programs compares to both face-to-face and online offerings, and what opinions Chief Academic Offers hold about the promise of blended instruction. The full text of this report will also be available as a free download from the Sloan-C web site when it is published.

Learn From the Experts - The Sloan-C 2006 Workshop Series

Blended Learning - What the Research Says... (Webinar) - November 16, 2pm

In anticipation of an upcoming book release focused on blended learning that will include research from over 15 institutions, 5 authors from the book will sit on a panel, present on their research, and take questions from the attendees. Registration is free, but only open to Free Level and Premium Sloan-C Members (both institutional and individual).

Details and registration.

Student Services - November 29 - December 8

Successful online learning programs provide students with access not only to instruction, but to a wide range of support services. This workshop will explore ways in which technology has automated the student's total learning experience, spilling over to the rest of the university such as administration, academic counseling, marketing, and technical support. Online programs are no longer islands unto themselves; institutional best practices dictate when approached holistically, both the college/university and the student benefit.

Details and registration.

The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is composed of institutions and organizations dedicated to continually improving the quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs, according to their own distinctive missions, so that education becomes a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines.

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