Instructional content in higher education used to be a simple matter: the Instructor selected a textbook (or three), maybe put together a set of photocopied readings, and added his or her own course notes. But as all-things-digital washes over higher education, the challenge of pulling together the very best instructional resources for students has become increasingly complex. Options now include ebooks, OER, self-publishing, LMS-based content, digital textbook supplements, freemium textbooks, digital course packs, print-on-demand, library subscription services, custom-publishing, college intellectual property rules, and the still complex world of Internet copyright laws. The choices we make for instructional content can have a significant impact on the cost and quality of learning, but also on the institution’s administrative costs and service quality. How quickly and at what price, for example, can we get instructional content into the hands of our students and at what costs to the institution? Decisions about instructional content for courses have traditionally been handled by Instructors. But it’s not always feasible for the Instructor to know all of the possible options available. Nor do they often have the capacity to determine if there are benefits to coordinating their content needs with colleagues in other parts of the institution. "Content Strategy" It’s time for a more coordinated, institutional approach to managing instructional content. The field of "Content Strategy" - while currently focussed on marketing - offers a good starting point. Content Strategy, according to one its evangelists, Kristina Halvorson, is "the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content." The field tries to bring order to a under-appreciated, often uncoordinated set of practices that includes editorial, search-engine optimization, content management, metadata strategy, financial management, content distribution channels strategies, and more. I believe the field of Content Strategy can be retrofit to instructional content and provide a framework that will lower costs, improve services and increase quality. As a first step, I recommend taking an inventory of current practices and resources: how are we currently producing, acquiring, managing and distributing instructional content within our institution? What units within your university deal with instructional content? (e.g. Libraries distance education, bookstores, individual instructors, academic departments, marketing.) What software applications are currently being used to produce and manage content? (e.g. Content management systems, learning management systems, publisher websites, faculty blogs, wikis.) From whom is the university sourcing content, and what are the processes used to source content? (e.g. Library subscriptions, textbook publishers, instructors, simulation companies.) Who within the institution is producing content? (e.g. Instructors, academic departments, marketing.) How do the various units within the institution communicate with each other about their content practices? Do they? With a better grasp of the big picture, you’ll start to see opportunities to share resources, identify leading practices that should be emulated, and recognize potential risks. More to come. Resources For more information about the field of Content Strategy, check out the following sites: The Discipline of Content Strategy by Kristina Halvorson The Content Strategist Books on Content Strategy and Content Management  

Two findings stand out in WCET’s latest Managing Online Education survey: how course content is produced and acquired; and course completion rates. WCET (the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies) conducted the 2013 survey in partnership with BCcampus, Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium, and eCampusAlberta. Course content: limitations of the in-house model Results of their survey shows that the "vast majority of online courses use content that is developed in-house by faculty." Approximately "60 percent use open content, but it is used only in a small number of courses." The dependence on in-house content for online courses fits neatly with the traditional organization of higher education: faculty are charged with serving as one-person providers for most aspects of a student’s experience, including content. And this model reinforces and reflects the notion that faculty are not merely teachers, but subject matter experts. But of course, technology makes it increasingly simple and convenient to acquire content from other sources. This isn’t a new phenomenon; the process of unbundling the production and distribution of information begins with the printing press. The downside of this reliance on in-house content development is that it places an extraordinary cap on the kinds of materials that can be produced and subsequently used by students to learn. More sophisticated materials that draw on rich media, predictive modelling and other properties that are dependent on higher levels of investment and a true division of labor, simply can’t be produced economically via the in-house model. The relatively light take-up of open content is interesting on two levels. Open content initiatives have been around for a decade and a half. Increasing the frequency with which faculty share materials is logical. And we expect adoption of open content to continue to grow. But the growth will likely remain limited until the shared materials are consistently of higher quality, which in turn, is dependent on moving away from the aforementioned in-house production model. Institutions don’t know their course completion rates The focus in the study on course completion rates is smart. While the retention rates cited in the study are not particularly surprising, the authors rightly draw attention to what might be the more important issue: many institutions didn’t know their completion rates. "65 percent were not able to provide an on-campus rate and 55 percent did not report an online rate." Course completion rates are a particularly obvious marker of academic success. And it is information that is relatively simple to capture. It’s the low hanging fruit of institutional analytics. The apparent lack of attention to even the most obvious and important information is somewhat alarming. As the report notes, "if institutions wish to improve course completion, they will need to collect these statistics. It’s hard to improve what is not measured." The full report: Managing Online Education, 2013  

MOOCs, big data, adaptive learning  and performance-based funding were some of the top trends and stories in higher ed and ed-tech in 2013. Here’s a list of links to some of the year-end roundups from industry influencers, news sites and organizations that offer news and analysis of developments in higher ed. What do  you think were the most important ed-tech trends of 2013? What are your predictions for 2014? Top 10 Higher Education State Policy Issues for 2013 American Association of State Colleges and Universities 10 Ed Tech Stories of 2013 Center for Digital Education The Idea Makers - Ten Tech Innovators 2013 The Chronicle of Higher Education Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2013 and Predictions Audrey Watters, Hack Education Top ed-tech stories of 2013 eCampus News The Top Digital/Edu Stories of 2013 Digital/Edu - Hechinger Report The Top Ten Higher Ed Stories of 2013 EdCentral Opportunities and Predictions, 2014 A.D. e-Literate  

When we shift the focus of higher education from the physical classroom to the digital environment, design becomes a much greater factor in creating successful student experiences. Design, here, refers to graphic and industrial design, where aesthetics and function merge. In previous posts -  Why design matters and Design and screen-based learning - I made a number of assertions: There’s a growing recognition that the ‘look and feel’ of products is fundamental to their value. Design is not merely about surface aesthetics. Design involves aligning the needs, sensibilities and behaviors of people with the things they use. The value of screen-based experiences (e.g., laptops, tablets, smartphones) is highly dependent on the quality of design. Design is a powerful tool for making it easier for us to live with technology’s  over-caffeinated rate of change. After centuries of classroom education, design can help us make the transition to digital education easier. For a variety of reasons, the software and content created for digital higher education has largely ignored the role of design - and it shows. However, there are five factors at play that may give the field of design a more central role in digital higher education in 2014. 1. Design and learner data The use of analytics is driven by a growing interest in measuring the efficacy of learning. As the education sector sharpens its focus on results of its investments and strategies, ambitious and innovative institutions are paying more attention to how courses are designed and developed. Well-designed courses can increase retention and improve learning. They are easier to use, allow students to focus on learning rather than courses logistics, reduce demands on support, and present the right instructional resources at the right time. Intelligently crafted analytics captures these improvements, which leads to greater attention to course design. 2. Design as a competitive differentiator Pundits have been talking about the highly competitive landscape of online higher education for almost 15 years. Yet, it is only recently that colleges find themselves offering very similar online programs as their competitors, and at similar prices. (For now, this is only acute in certain disciplines, such as business and nursing.) Real choice leads to real competition. And competition requires differentiation. Design is one of the few tangible ways - beyond price - that institutions can demonstrate the value of their online programs to prospective students. (For more on differentiation and the use of "surrogates of quality," see Lloyd Armstrong’s excellent post on competitive higher education). 3. Consumer-education apps crossover Educational technology has historically advanced less quickly than consumer technologies. This is also true in terms of the quality of design. But consumer-industry design is finding its way into education in two ways: Educators now regularly use consumer applications in their courses, such as Twitter, WordPress and Facebook. For more information on using Twitter in higher ed teaching, check out this article and YouTube video. Edtech vendors are adopting the qualities and characteristics of consumer technologies. An example is Instructure’s Canvas learning management system, which gained favorable reviews for its ease of use, and more broadly, its consumer-style user interface. 4. Big media investing in education There is growing interest in digital higher education among traditional media companies.  While many in education bristle at this trend, these corporations bring deep experience in packaging and delivering information-related products with high quality design.  Among them: News Corp. (Amplify), New York Times (The Learning Network), The Washington Post (Kaplan Inc.), Bertelsmann AG (Brandman University), and Condé Nast (Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design). 5. The rise of apps A 2010 Wired article by Chris Anderson, "The Web is Dead" makes the point that more people are accessing the Internet from applications than browsers. Internet traffic is increasingly managed by applications like Netflix, Facebook, and Xbox. And as more people access the Internet via mobile devices, the trend will continue. Applications offer a superior user experience. Possibly more so than any other consumer product category, applications compete on the basis of design.  Consider task management apps. These tools compete largely on the quality of the experience they offer; the way they manage and display information. The actual information available through these tools is pretty much the same, but the user experience isn’t. The consumer can quickly and easily switch from one app to another in seconds, without disruption. Design is the difference between success and failure. These five factors - for different reasons and in different ways - are elevating the role of design in digital higher education, and specifically, in the course design and development process. Those institutions that find ways to leverage design to improve their digital learning programs will benefit.  

Andrew Rossi’s 2011 documentary, PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES, provided a glimpse into the changes going in newspaper journalism, one of the key institutions of the modern era. In Ivory Tower, his latest documentary that premiered at Sundance this week, Rossi turns his attention to the university. Based on his last effort, it should be interesting and ignite more conversations about the future of higher education. Below, Forbes contributor, Dorothy Pomerantz, interviews Rossi.  Her article can be found here: Is Higher Education Worth It? Documentary Filmmaker Andrew Rossi Investigates.  Other documentaries about higher education that you might want to check out: College Inc.  Declining by Degrees Radio Documentaries (multiple)

Historically, continuing education schools (CE) assumed responsibility for tackling some of the more important tasks facing universities. Online programs were often first tested in continuing education. CE catered to the non-traditional learner long before this group became the norm across higher ed. The financial model of CE forced these schools to be market focussed, well before the budget/tuition crisis hit higher ed proper. Things are not about to get any easier for CE, particularly for those schools that rely in whole or in part on non-credit programming. Alternative education providers - from outside of colleges and universities - are getting their acts together and are likely to capture a growing share of the non-credit education market. Examples include: General Assembly offers both f2f  (London, New York, Toronto) and online courses in the related fields of technology, small business and design. Codecademy provides free programming lessons on Python, JavaScript, PHP and more. Udemy  offers online courses on a number of practical subjects like Excel as well as general interest courses like "Capitalism in Crisis: The global economic crisis explained." Nomadic Learning offers a set of short courses (e.g. 5 hours in duration) on topics such as Critical Thinking and Strategic Thinking. "Maker" culture, which really took off in 2013, promotes the idea that we need to get back to "making stuff" (rather than just consuming or manipulating); it’s the ultimate in learn-by-doing. See here for more on their education dimensions of Maker culture. Alternative providers like these are growing in number. Course quality is improving and learners seem more inclined to accept the legitimacy of non-university learning providers. The days when colleges and universities could use their formidable reputations to reach into the non-credit market unchallenged are over, and the economics of the Internet makes it easier than ever for small companies to compete with the once dominant footprint of higher ed. Let’s be clear, we need these new learning providers. We are living through what appears to be a "jobless" economic recovery and people need a range of options - at different price points - in order to quickly retrain themselves for a rapidly changing job market. A robust and diverse continuing education market is a priority for the 21st century and our government leaders and regulators should be crafting policy to make it happen. In a second post on this subject, I will consider some of the tactics continuing education schools might explore as they adjust to the rise of alternative education providers.

NMC (New Media Consortium), in collaboration with ELI (Educause Learning Initiative) have released the eleventh edition of the Horizon Report, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Here’s some of what they wrote about Learning Analytics: Learning analytics is an educational application of "big data," a science that was originally used by businesses to analyze commercial activities, identify spending trends, and predict consumer behavior. The rise of the Internet drove research into big data and metrics as well as the proliferation of web tracking tools, enabling companies to build vast reserves of information they could study and apply to their marketing campaigns. Education is embarking on a similar pursuit into data science with the aim of improving student retention and providing a high quality, personalized experience for learners. Learning analytics research uses data analysis to inform decisions made on every tier of the educational system. Whereas analysts in business use consumer data to target potential customers and personalize advertising, learning analytics leverages student data to build better pedagogies, target at-risk student populations, and assess whether programs designed to improve retention have been effective and should be sustained outcomes for legislators and administrators that have profound impact. For educators and researchers, learning analytics has been crucial to gaining insights about student interaction with online texts and courseware. Students are beginning to experience the benefits of learning analytics as they engage with mobile and online platforms that track data to create responsive, personalized learning experiences.   This video accompanies the report:

In my first post on continuing education (CE), I argue that institutions that rely in part or in whole on non-credit programming would begin to lose its share of the student population to new educational providers outside of higher education. Emerging alternatives like Udemy, General Assembly, and Codecademy are marketing increasingly sophisticated learning experiences at prices far below university rates. Traditional universities are finding ways to successfully expand the reach and impact of the CE schools. Of course, not all tactics work for all universities, at all times. Strategies and tactics are always context-specific. The six tactics below are particularly relevant to comprehensive and selective institutions. 1. Develop hybrid programs in key disciplines to serve urban professionals. Comprehensive universities in major urban areas are well positioned to offer hybrid programs to urban and suburban professionals. If designed well, hybrid programs combine the best of web-based learning with socially engaging face-to-face learning in convenient locations, which older, elite institutions typically occupy. For adult learners, this model is easier to fit into their daily lives and blends familiar educational formats with the best use of technology. For the institution, hybrid programs make best use of prime real estate and quality instructors. Hybrid programs also expand the school’s capacity for online learning while serving students, who have historically sought out both web-based and lifelong learning. 2. Take the lead for the university on competency-based programs. Adult learners tend to be more pragmatic about their reasons for enrolling. The social dimensions of the university matter less to this group. They want to have a good experience, certainly, but learning is foremost. Their time is precious. For this reason, CE schools are well suited to offer competency-based programs that allow learners to progress at their own pace. To be sure, shifting to a competency-based education model is not easy to do in traditional institutions. But CE schools typically have the necessary independence to try new approaches. CE schools were created, after all, as separate units within the university precisely because the university "proper" could not easily incorporate different business models into the fold. And the obstacles specific to implementing competency-based programs - student loan and registration systems - are less challenging for many CE programs. But most importantly, the competency-based model brings into focus two key drivers of success in the adult education market: recognition of prior learning and convenience. 3. Expand the size of the total market by providing non-traditional learners low-risk opportunities to engage with the institution. The numbers of learners considering "taking a night class" far outnumber those who actually enroll in CE. The CE school can capture a greater share of the market by providing learners with educational opportunities that require less investment and risk (time and money). For example, rather than require enrolling in a four-month course, the CE school can develop multiple entry points for learners in key disciplines. This allows the hesitant learner to dip her toe in the discipline before committing more time and money. The key to this strategy is to ensure that these options are structured and promoted in such a way that each of the student’s engagement with the school leads easily to subsequent engagements. 4. Invest in instructor recruitment and support to maximize one of the school’s key advantages. Instructors represent a major portion of operating costs for CE schools. They are also a key driver of student satisfaction and repeat customers. The CE school, with its affiliation with a selective institution, is well positioned to secure high-quality instructors, who can drive growth. Professionals interested in part-time teaching work typically prefer to be affiliated with prestigious institutions, as it serves their broader social and professional objectives. The CE school can establish a competitive advantage in their markets by taking steps to ensure that their recruitment, support and supervision of instructors is best in class. 5. Partner with nationally-recognized organizations to expand the scope and appeal of new CE offerings. Prestigious universities are in a unique position to develop effective partnerships with other respected organizations and institutions. By offering events, courses and programs with carefully selected partners, CE schools can extend their reach into new subject areas and attract new learners. Ideal partners are those with a nationally-recognized brand, expertise in specific domains, and a desire to establish a presence in major urban markets like New York, Chicago and Toronto. Many well-known cultural, professional and educational institutions are exploring new revenue streams; representative partnerships include the Smithsonian Institute (science), MOMA (art), IDEO (design) and The New York Times (journalism). 6. Implement tools that allow students, faculty and the leadership to measure learning. Adult learners are driven by results. The quality and pace of learning is key to their satisfaction and, thus, to the success of the CE school. One way to increase the value to these students is to provide meaningful and immediate feedback on their learning progress through learning analytics. Data that explains in clear terms what the student knows (knowledge) and can do (skills) will help busy adult students become more effective and efficient learners, and guide them along a more direct path to achieving their educational goals.

Bo Sosnicki teaches general biology, Anatomy & Physiology, Microsoft Office applications and environmental science - all exclusively online - at community colleges and universities across the US. He has served as a faculty mentor for new online instructors and is a consultant to The Saylor Foundation. How did you first get into online teaching?   Around 2002, I was an adjunct at a few community colleges in Virginia, and was asked if I would like to design and offer online general biology courses. Since I had a background in course and lab design, as well as a strong technology background, I accepted. I then began to teach and design biology courses at a number of schools, including Carteret Community College, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Southeastern Community College, Coastal Carolina Community College, among others. What are the biggest changes you’ve encountered since you began teaching online? Finding new and innovative ways to communicate with students, faculty and administrators. With the advent of many tools, including e-mail, instant messengers, cell phones, discussion boards, chat rooms and live meeting areas, we can be in touch with each other constantly. I have not used social media, but many faculty and colleges have gone that route as well. The other big change has been the online curriculum. When we first started designing online classes, we basically put our typed lectures and Power Points into the course and let students go at them. Over the years we have added a lot more diverse, creative, and interactive capabilities. What’s been your migration process from textbooks to courseware? This is still evolving. It’s a work in progress. I do think courseware is much easier since the structure is already there and we can modify it. I can spend more time interacting with students. I have seen so many students in the on-campus classrooms, as well as the online environment, make little use of the paper or e-books. While teaching on campus, I asked a student why, after a month into the term, his textbook was still shrink- wrapped. He said he would get more money for it at the end of the term if it stayed that way. What are the biggest differences between textbooks and courseware? Interactivity and the ability to keep the content up-to-date. Web-based courseware like Acrobatiq’s makes the learning more interactive. And now assessments are possible, as well as the ability to track what students are doing. Changes in content do not happen a lot, but in the sciences, they can be drastic at times. If you keep a text for 2-3 years, new studies in climate change or progress in alternative energy sources are significant. Having up-to-date material without having to purchase the next version of the text would be great. After teaching biology online for 12+ years, what have you learned about getting creative with the curriculum and content?  Students all learn differently, so having many avenues to reach them is important. Going through one unit like mitosis, I like pairing written lecture material with short movies and activities, where students have to manipulate the chromosomes to show each stage. And then take quick assessments along the way. I like to do this in my on-campus courses as well. With mitosis and cell reproduction, bringing in the topic of cancer, which affects all of us, helps students see what they are learning means something. I use articles like The Median Isn’t the Message by scientist Stephen Jay Gould to discuss issues that they may have had in their lives. During your career, you’ve served as an online mentor. How do you help instructors teach more effectively online?   As a frontline defense, I fielded questions regarding teaching online, content, etc.  We also set up areas where departmental online faculty could share materials and experiences with each other. I always stress communication with students. Attention spans of the current generation can be short. Or the technology just makes it seem that way. You do have to construct your class using a diverse set of activities. You need to make modifications for cultural changes in our society, and give information in smaller bites, and allow students to stop and come back. What would you say to instructors, who care about improving student outcomes, but are reluctant to change what they’ve always done? Some faculty will never change. However, educational models are constantly changing and we need to do what is best for students and give them the tools to learn better. How would you like to see online learning evolve? What improvements would you like to see? I’d like to see the integration of different tools at a reasonable price. Up to this point, no LMS or courseware has made a complete package that integrates all of the possible tools, such as resident e-mail, chat, science labs, videos and virtual lectures. Also, the ability to pick and choose content and tools, and not pay for the entire set if it’s not needed.

Yes, the concept of "business model innovation" sounds like something a management consultant would conjure up. But I encourage you to suspend your initial reaction. The growing interest in business model innovation during the last five years is in response to challenging conditions facing a number of sectors, including higher education.  And the concept provides a useful framework for imagining new approaches. References to "business model" in Inside Higher Ed, 2005-2013                         A business model is simply the way in which an organization fulfills its mission; how it creates, markets and funds the goods and services it creates for stakeholders - whether they are waste management companies, families buying groceries or students pursuing degrees. Note: Using the business model concept does not imply that higher education is a business, or that it should be more businesslike. Every organization has a business model, whether it’s IBM or Greenpeace. It’s simply a way to analyze how different types of organizations operate. Business model innovation is a product of its time. In the 1980s, the watchword was "quality." (Ford’s slogan was "Quality is Job 1″).  Success was thought to be the result of creating better quality goods and services. More recently, "innovation" has ruled supreme. Quality alone is insufficient. Quality is merely the "price of entry," as Tom Peters said. Now, organizations need to become more creative; to "fail fast, fail often." Business model innovation takes the change imperative to a whole new level. It calls for organizations to not merely innovate with new and better offerings, but to reinvent themselves in order to survive. The concept took hold as we witnessed major 20th century companies and institutions falter: Kodak, General Motors and Sears, for example, as well as entire industries, such as music and journalism. By employing new business models, new organizations emerged and upended established industries. Craigslist cut deeply into newspaper advertising. Blogs pulled audiences away from magazines. Warehouse-style retailers like Home Depot made life difficult for many small retailers. Cirque du Soleil reinvented the circus by creating an entirely new category of entertainment and became a billion dollar company in the process. Components of Higher Education’s Business Model Most non-profit higher education institutions in North America operate under essentially the same business model. The differences lie in what they choose to emphasize. For example, some institutions place greater importance on faculty research than others. But most institutions only hire faculty, who have demonstrated the capacity to do university-level research and teach. Faculty are typically charged with doing both. Clay Christensen, and others, have argued most higher education institutions, regardless of ranking, share a common notion of what constitutes a great institution. Many seek to emulate the more prestigious institutions, thereby creating greater homogeneity in the sector. The elements of a business model can be divided in different ways. I’m using the approach developed by Alex Osterwalder, author and advisor on business model innovation, and others. BusinessModelGeneration.Com Market segments Who does the institution serve? Many universities focus on 18-24 year olds, who have recently graduated from high school. Some universities widen their focus with programs serving adults, who are returning to complete undergraduate degrees. Value proposition What are the reasons students and other turn to your institutions? E.g., Widely-recognized credentials that have value in the labor market; ranking as a top research university. Key activities Which activities are fundamental to your organization? E.g., Research, teaching, evaluating student performance, developing programs in subjects of value to society, and granting degrees. Revenue streams What are the sources of funds that make your institution sustainable and how do you capture these funds? E.g., Government capital grants, tuition, philanthropists and research grants. Channels How does your institution interact with stakeholders? E.g., Through on-campus teaching, conference participation, scholarly journals and media. Key partners What are the other organizations your institution partners with on a regular basis? E.g., Research granting organizations, private companies seeking research partners, and regulatory/accreditation bodies. Cost structure What are your main costs, and how do you go about paying for these costs? E.g., Faculty and instructor salaries, administrative staff, building maintenance and marketing. Key resources What are the key resources that every college and university must possess? E.g., Faculty, buildings and accreditation. Stakeholder relationships How does your organization build and maintain relationships with its key stakeholders? E.g. alumni organizations, university email systems, university social networking (Facebook), learning management systems, and media relations officers. In an upcoming post we will look at the conditions that enable colleges, universities and other educational organizations to carry out business model innovation. "Business Model Innovation in Higher Education, Part 2" Resources Business Model Innovation: A Blueprint for Higher Education Exploring Higher Education Business Models (If Such a Thing Exists) University Business Models and Online Practices:  A Third Way The Higher Education Business Model: Innovation and Financial Sustainability      

For "Part 1″, visit "Business Model Innovation in Higher Education, Part 1".  Concerns about the financial sustainability of higher education have become louder and more acute in the last couple of years. Student loan debt levels have reached new highs; operating costs continue to rise. This, coupled with the near-universal belief in the importance of higher education, and the potential of technology in the 21st century, has stimulated sincere interest in identifying new ways of "doing higher education." Previous commitments by higher educational leaders and policy makers to "improve quality" and "drive innovation" are being transcended by a growing interest in the concept and practice of business model innovation. The Value of Business Models The process of defining a business model has two core benefits: It creates clarity about how the institution operates and determines success. It makes identifying new ways of operating more likely. However, analysis of business models points to a difficult truth: it is extremely challenging and rare for an established organization − such as universities − to change its business model. Although the need for change may be strong, and the organization may have the necessary resources to enact change, history suggests that few organizations are capable of making significant changes to the business model. (For a breakdown of the various elements of a business model, see "Business Model Innovation in Higher Education, Part 1"). Consequently, new business models typically emerge from new entrants; those companies and institutions without entrenched practices. Examples of Business Model Innovation in Online Higher Education The higher education sector is structured so that it is next to impossible for new institutions to enter the market easily. This is due to high entry costs, accreditation delays, and deeply entrenched philosophies of education.  As a result, there are few truly "new entrants" in the market. Nevertheless, a few new enterprises have emerged. Below, are some of the enterprises that are employing new business models successfully in online higher education. Western Governors University. Launched in 1999, WGU offers competency-based, online programs, primarily for adult learners. Regularly cited as an example of institutional innovation. Southern New Hampshire University. Formerly New Hampshire College, SNHU reinvented itself as a primarily online, non-profit institution - using some of the tactics that drove growth among for-profit institutions over the past decade. Coursera. Founded by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Coursera draws on the resources of elite institutions to offer MOOCs to self-directed learners for free or low cost. StraigherLine. Founded in 2009, StraigherLine offers online courses than earn credit for $99 a month.  Courses are evaluated and recommended by the American Council on Education. Fullbridge XBA. An alternative to a traditional MBA, the program simulates the challenges of the 21st century workplace by providing a full time, lecture-free, immersive boot camp where collaborative learning is combined with fundamental business exercises and e-learning modules. Measurement of Learning as the Driver of Innovation If new business models represent one of the most promising ways to increase options for students, then the question becomes, "How can the sector go about enabling these new entrants?" While some, like StraighterLine CEO Burck Smith, believe new entrants should be able to offer college-level credit, most administrators, faculty and policy-makers will likely prefer more moderate changes. Any changes we choose to make need to be based on the measurement of learning. Let’s focus less on the source of learning - the input - and more on the impact and value that each provider of learning can generate. If we use learning outcomes as the guide for shaping policy, we will move in the right direction, toward an educational landscape in which the best learning solutions rise to the top. And those that rely on surrogates of quality - such as high tuition and exclusivity - will be forced to adopt new and better tactics for serving their learners.        

  When it comes to creating, funding and distributing instructional resources in digital higher education, there are two fundamental approaches being used today, each with its own set of practices and business models. The DIY (Do-It-Yourself) approach involves small-scale, low-cost development of online courseware, primarily by lone instructors, who are working with limited support and funds. The instructional materials are typically used only in a single course. This is essentially a cottage-industry approach; its origins based on the deeply ingrained traditional classroom model. In the ISS model (Investment, Specialists and Scale) approach, instructional materials are created by teams of professionals, with a wide range of skills, and draws on a far greater level of investment. Scalability of the materials is key: the expectation is that the materials will be used in dozens, if not hundreds, of courses. The ISS model assumes that individual instructors don’t typically have the time, resources or skill sets required to consistency produce high-quality online learning experiences for students. Read the full article at University Outlook Magazine. Page 48.  

Larry Rudiger, Senior Lecturer, at The University of Vermont (UVM), has been teaching psychology for almost 20 years. He has a long-standing interest in using the best, most effective instructional technology to improve teaching and learning. How did you first get into online teaching? In 2006, I was invited by the UMV’s College of Continuing and Distance Education to teach Introductory Psychology online, and have done so continuously since then. In 2008, I mounted a course in organizational behavior and have taught it during the past four summer terms. I’m teaching it now. I also developed a course in social psychology in 2008, which I’ve taught online three times. Finally, I converted Introductory Psychology to a self-paced, mastery-based format in the summer of 2012. This approach was developed by Diane Reddy and Ray Fleming at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Students progress through a series of about 30 modules, each equivalent to about one third of a conventional textbook chapter. They take a 10-item, 5-minute quiz and must miss no more than one question to proceed. If they need to re-take the quiz to meet that standard, there are different test questions. Diane and Ray are conducting a large scale randomized, controlled trial, and I’m confident that it will demonstrate what was shown on prior research: students do at least as well as those in a conventional course. And they have found better learning outcomes among students who are at risk to underperform. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered since you began teaching online? Well, first, the technology is still pretty limited in many ways. During the summer, having very close deadlines can be a challenge for students, particularly when storms sweep through a region and they lose power and Internet connectivity. Making a course self-paced helps, but I wouldn’t use that instructional design for all courses. I always build in bonus points, so if a student misses one or two deadlines, it won’t sink their grade. Anything to share about getting creative with the curriculum and content? I have students read four journal articles, and I offer coaching on how to do so. One of the articles has a sustainability angle, which is a UVM signature feature in many courses across the curriculum. For my supporting materials, I developed online ‘lectures’ that are a mix of talking heads (my head), and PowerPoints, with scripts and captions available to students. In addition, I have ‘concept checks,’ which review the points made in the presentation in a Q/A format. Students answer them, then immediately get feedback. Do you have any suggestions or tips to help instructors teach more effectively and connect with students in an online/hybrid environment? I’m most satisfied with the short videos in my self-paced course, as a mechanism to establish presence and personality. Then, I basically write a lot of e-mail. I keep track of all e-mail for a course with a single e-mail address used by me and the teaching assistants (I always have them and recommend them). That way, I’ve got a one-stop e-trail of mail sent and received to individual students. My other technique is a matter of philosophy: there’s no finger wagging. And you have to wag your finger while saying that! But seriously, I always assume that apparent disengagement is because of something that’s going wrong in the student’s life. I talk to them in terms of their plans and goals, and how are they progressing on those scores. If a student is inappropriate (this is rare), then first I address the issue. Then I let the student calm down a bit. Then I will reflect about the *impression* that the behavior would make on another instructor, or a boss, or whatever. So my coaching and feedback is about that: how can I help you always make the best possible impression? What would you say to instructors, who care about improving student outcomes, and are looking for a better alternative, but are reluctant to change what they’ve always done? First, be honest.  How good was your prior way of doing things, anyway? How do you know? How can you be so sure of the relationship between learning outcomes and something that you’ve historically done in person? Second, think about the time typically spent in the classroom. You’ll be spending that doing other things. But if you’re really worried, run a timer or something and again, be honest. Third, ask students! What’s working for them (or not)? But − and this is somewhat specific to Introductory Psychology − I really make a big push for the use of efficient learning techniques. I have been won over by the work coming out of of Elizabeth and Robert Bjork’s research lab at UCLA. I’ve had really interesting discussions (in-person and via e-mail) with students, who recognized their own resistance to changing how they learn, and I just try to help them be gentle with themselves.  How would you like to see online learning evolve? What improvements would you like to see? Basically, more truly effective learning tools and environments that are rationally tied to the type of material (or skills). More granular data on how students are performing on individual learning objectives; and continued use of emerging learning and memory research.  And further refinement of the learning environments pioneered by Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, now under development at Acrobatiq.       ​  

Long discussed, it appears that gamification is about to make its appearance in higher education. The idea is to leverage the addictive, engaging quality of games for educational purposes. Or for social issues. Aqua Republica (right), is one of the new "serious games" focused on raising awareness of our limited natural resources. Aqua Republica is an example of online "serious games" that help raise awareness of social issues. Many questions remain about how games will fit into higher ed, but it’s an exciting development. Just wish there was a better word than "gamification" to describe it. Learning analytics is another much-discussed innovation.  The  New Media Consortium’s 2014 Horizon Report on Higher Education reports that "students are beginning to experience the benefits of learning analytics as they engage with mobile and online platforms that track data to create responsive, personalized learning experiences." Analytics is less an innovation than a stimulus for innovation. Compare games to analytics.  Games typically offer a relatively prescribed set of uses. Each game allows individuals to learn certain things in certain ways. The prescribed quality of games is part of its value; features and resources are organized toward a particular end. This makes it more likely that the intended learning objective is met. Analytics is different. Its use is less prescribed. A student will interact with curriculum and other learners. This activity will produce information. But what we choose to do with that information can vary widely. The same data sets can be used in multiple ways, for multiple ends. It’s this multiplicity of uses that makes analytics less an innovation in the traditional sense, and more a stimulus for innovation. A single set of data can be used: by regulatory entities to analyze the impact of policy decisions to provide feedback to students to help them better understand how they learn most effectively by faculty to measure changes in new cohorts’ level of familiarity with the subject at the start of the semester by institutions seeking to allocate student support resources more effectively to reconfigure learning materials  in real-time to best suit the immediate and unique needs of each student There are many possible applications. Many more have yet to be conjured up by innovative educators. In a subsequent post, we’ll look at the importance of "institutional fit"  - how certain technologies fit more easily into the organizational design of higher education and how fit can influence its impact.  

Bill Cerbin is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning  at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in general, developmental, educational, cognitive and learning psychology for 30 years.  In June, Bill is co-teaching a faculty seminar, Improving Learning by Design, in a blended format. He is also the author of Exploring How Students Learn, a website providing resources, research findings and theoretical perspectives to help teachers better understand how students learn and inform their teaching. How did you first get into teaching online?   My first experience teaching online was years ago, using email to collect student writing assignments. This predates course management systems. A day before each class period, students emailed responses to several questions related to the reading assignment for that day. Their responses revealed their prior knowledge and misconceptions of the topic, which helped me decide what to do in class the next day - what concepts to highlight, what kind of practice might help to develop an idea. I still use this technique but with newer technology. Fast forward a few years. I currently direct the teaching center on my campus and we offer a three-week intensive online instructor training course. To maintain street credibility among faculty, I took the course in 2009. It was offered online, so participants essentially experienced what it’s like to be a student in an online course. The experience reaffirmed that good teaching and learning, regardless of the format, depend upon careful design. From your work as a Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, are there a few takeaways you can share with instructors? My experience with Carnegie underscored the importance of systematic inquiry into teaching and learning, regardless of the format or delivery mode of a course. The mode, format and context of teaching are always important, but so are differences in the level of students, the discipline, and intended learning outcomes. Systematic inquiry is a tool instructors can use to better understand how and why students learn from instruction, whether that takes place online or face-to-face. I can offer three other Carnegie-inspired ideas that are important for online teaching. 1. Focus first and foremost on learning. Unless you know clearly what you want students to know or to be able to do, you have little basis for deciding how to teach them.     2. Read what others have done before you. In our disciplinary research, we habitually study the field thoroughly and build on previous work. Too often in teaching we try an innovation without any empirical or theoretical rationale. Consequently, we miss the opportunity to learn from our predecessors, and we may produce something that has already been done and does little to advance teaching and learning.   3. Never underestimate the complexity of teaching and learning. There is a fair amount of simplistic thinking among pundits, who advocate for certain pedagogies or best practices in higher education. In their view, all you have to do is adopt the best practice and students will learn. But teaching and learning are inherently problematic.  Two former Carnegie colleagues, Steve Chew at Samford University, and Randy Bass at Georgetown, capture this idea in slightly different ways.  Both perspectives emphasize uncertainty as the norm, and that we need to carefully investigate teaching to determine not just whether it works, but how it supports or does not support learning.  Steve talks about teaching as an ill-structured problem, in which we always face uncertainties about students’ learning. There are multiple factors, such as students’ background knowledge of the subject, their skill and approach to learning, and their motivation that make the outcome of teaching uncertain.  Randy suggests that every time we teach a course it is an experiment. The syllabus is the hypothesis. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered since you began teaching online?  Technology overload and the conceptual transition from teaching face-to-face to an online format. To the annoyance of my colleagues, I have started using the phrase, Is technology working for us or are we working for technology? Course management systems are still clunky. Updating software, fiddling with glitches, and trying workarounds are time-consuming distractions. Some instructors initially imagine that an online course will be identical to their face-to-face class, with the same structure, rhythm, sequence, and assignments. For instance, an instructor whose customary mode of teaching is to lecture, may simply record the lectures for an online class, and use the same assignments and exams. However, teaching online can and should involve rethinking one’s assumptions and reasons for one’s instructional practices. Why lecture? What should a lecture consist of? What’s its purpose? How long should it be? Should it be students’ first exposure to the material or come later after they have read or engaged in an exercise? What are your creative solutions to those challenges? Perhaps teachers would be better served by attempting small-stakes innovations before adopting large-scale changes. For example, if you like trying out different technological tools, play with them and explore their features before adopting them for a class. More importantly, start with a need or problem you want to solve and then look for a technology that can help you. Teaching online is significantly different than traditional instruction. I recommend that instructors participate in a rigorous course in how to teach online, especially one that is well grounded in instructional design principles. Part of that experience should involve designing a unit or module for a course that can serve as a prototype when it comes time to fully plan and design an online course. A good training experience not only exposes instructors to various techniques, but also addresses underlying assumptions and beliefs about instructional practices and how they support learning. What are some of the authoritative sources of content you seek out (other than textbooks)? I look for: Authors in my field, who publish articles on topics suitable for an undergraduate course. Journals and periodicals that publish articles accessible to undergraduate students. Video and multimedia material from certain sources, e.g., TED Talks, specialized videos by researchers, and peer reviewed learning objects from sources like MERLOT. What would you say to instructors, who care about improving student outcomes, and are looking for a better alternative, but are reluctant to change what they’ve always done? I think most good teachers work to improve their practice. Having tried a lot of major changes over the years, I gradually discovered that it makes more sense to think small—identify an aspect of student learning to focus on rather than adopt an alternative pedagogy wholesale. Change sometimes is disruptive, does not work well initially and may arouse student resistance. However, by focusing on a specific learning problem, one reduces the workload and the risk if change does not work as anticipated. I would strongly advocate approaching the problem as a form of classroom inquiry or research. This will enable you to describe what you did and why, and most importantly, explain how or why students learned or did not learn from the experience. Do you have any suggestions or tips to help online instructors teach more effectively? As an experienced novice, I am still learning and thinking about ways to teach in online and blended formats. I would advocate approaching teaching from a perspective of cognitive empathy. Try to put yourself in the minds of students, who are unfamiliar with both the course structure and the content. How would you like to see online learning evolve? What improvements would you like to see? I am very interested in courseware that can scaffold student learning of foundational knowledge. We know a lot about the benefits of certain learning strategies, such as practice testing and distributed practice. We know about the benefits of targeted feedback. There are examples of pedagogical approaches that incorporate these ideas effectively, e.g., Peer Instruction by Eric Mazur. I would like to see courseware that focuses on the most difficult concepts in particular disciplines, and provides intelligent tutoring and feedback that help students revise misconceptions and deepen their understanding of core concepts.

A few years ago, a major survey asked university leaders if their online programs were profitable - 45% of respondents said they didn’t know. This is both odd and predictable. Odd because online education is not the type of initiative in which cost and revenue are less important - quite the opposite. Institutions typically pursue online learning for "business-like" reasons, such as increasing access, market reach, campus capacity issues, and cost management. At the same time, it’s predictable because defining costs in higher education is a murky process; full of ambiguity. "Profit" is calculated with social responsibility in mind. Most units are budget-based, rather than "cost recovery" or profit centers. University managers are often one step removed from major financial discussions. Many positions don’t require advanced financial literacy. Another factor is that there is simply a remarkable shortage of information about costs in online higher education. Over the next two months we will prepare a set of blog posts, whitepapers and articles that address costs in online higher education. We recognize that this is not a small undertaking; the issue of costs in online education is surprisingly complex and can be approached from a number of angles. Issues pertaining to costs include: Productivity Economies of scale The role of new business models that offer new cost structures Institutional differentiation and specialization Class size and instructional value The role of courseware and its capacity to reduce faculty workload Intellectual property University consortia Freemium and MOOCs Sharing courses to reduce duplication  . . . and more. As a first step, we’re sharing a list of articles and reports that address one or more aspects of the cost issue. The collection includes reports, opinion pieces, articles and news. They come from very different perspectives, from inside and outside of the academy. Please share other resources you’ve come across in the comments section below. Resources: A Starter List How Online Learning Affects Productivity, Cost and Quality in Higher Education: An Environmental Scan and Review of the Literature. 2013. Massive Open Online Forces. The Rise of Online Instruction will Upend the Economics of Higher Education. Economist. February 6, 2014. New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities by William G. Tierney and Guilbert C. Hentschke. 2007. One Business School is Itself a Case Study in the Economics of Online Education. Goldie Blumenstyk. Chronicle of Higher Education. October 1 2012. MOOCs and Economic Reality. Clay Shirky. Chronicle of HIgher Education. July 8 2013. The Online Evolution: When Technology Meets Tradition in Higher Education. Andrew Norton for Gratton Institute. 2013. The Coming Higher Ed Revolution. Stuart Butler. National Affairs. Winter 2012.  The Scary Economics of Higher Education. William Baldwin. Forbes. January 15 2013.  How Universities are becoming more labour intensive. Alex Usher. Higher Education Strategy. January 7 2014.  UC Strives to Compete in an Era of Free Courses. Alisha Azevedo. October 1 2012. Technology and the Broken Higher Education Cost Model: Insights from the Delta Cost Project. Rita Kirshstein and Jane Wellman. September 5 2012. Twelve Inconvenient Truths About Costs in American Higher Education. Richard Vedder. Center for College Affordability and Productivity. March 2012.  Managing Online Education. Campus Computing Project, 2010.  

Subimal Chatterjee, professor of marketing and associate dean of Binghamton University’s School of Management, has been teaching for more than 20 years. This semester, Dr. Chatterjee is using Acrobatiq’s Statistical Reasoning in a hybrid format for his freshman statistics course. What prompted you to move to an online/hybrid approach to statistics?   We were always unhappy with the way the statistics class was run. It was rated low in satisfaction by both students and instructors. Statistics, like calculus, is a foundation course. If students don’t grasp it, their knowledge deficit will only increase into their junior and senior years. After trying a couple of different approaches (self-paced options), we got it right this semester, with the hybrid format. How is the course organized? All the content is online. We meet each Wednesday to flip the course. We spend classroom time doing the homework. When students come to class, they must have completed the checkpoints for the week. This forces them to complete the reading, and attempt the problems before we meet. What are some of elements of the Statistical Reasoning courseware you find particularly effective? The content is very good and students have no difficulty following along. The system lays out the framework for where students need to go.  The built-in assessments are excellent. Each Wednesday, I will know exactly what area, and what questions, students had problems with. This is so useful to me. I can go into class and say, ‘Out of 50 questions, these 5 questions gave most of you problems. I’m going to start with these 5 questions.’ You’re into the 8th week of the course. What’s been the student feedback? You live and learn. Once you give the students all the materials, they do not want to come to class.  Only 12 students (out of 34) show up every Wednesday.  As we get into the tougher chapters (sampling distribution, for example), I believe that this number will go up.  The feedback from the students who do turn up is overwhelmingly positive - they believe that they are learning.  How’s it going from your perspective? I think some more tweaking will have to be done. To what extent do I force all students to attend the Wednesday classes?  Should I insist on attendance?  Clearly a few students, who are not attending could certainly benefit.  I can see from their checkpoints that they are not grasping the materials. How will you measure success? We’ll gauge student satisfaction with a survey at the end of the course. The final exam is May 17. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges to overcome in moving to an online/hybrid format? Faculty culture. It’s so different than the way faculty are used to doing things. Change is the hardest thing to do. We’re not asking instructors to create their own course.  Just to consume some outstanding new course options to supplement their teaching and solve new problems. Can you share some teaching tips for instructors transitioning from a textbook to courseware? If you use the courseware properly, you don’t need a textbook. Everything is there. Your lectures, your narrative - you don’t need anything more. And it saves time. We only meet once a week, instead of twice, so the time is already reduced by 50 percent. There’s more time for research. If you’re using courseware for the first time, invest the time upfront to know all the modules by the first day of class. Because students are working at their own pace, you can find that the smarter ones are ahead of you. I also recommend analyzing your grade book once a week. Catch those students falling behind and call or email them. When I look at The Learning Dashboard and see that students are having difficulty, I create a short video lecture and push the link to them. You can save a lot of time knowing early on where a student is struggling. Now you have a daily snapshot that assesses students in a way that really helps you and helps individual students. Any other suggestions? For any instructor teaching statistics, I recommend Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data by Charles Wheelan. This book is a fun introduction to why we study statistics. How would you like to see online learning evolve? What improvements would you like to see in the future? This is the future of education. The moment we talk about access to education, in five years, due to financial pressures and other developments, this is where we will be. What I sometimes fear is that by trying to broaden access, there might be a temptation to water down content.  That’s why it’s important to have content and assessments that adapt to different students. Not all people are motivated the same way. Or learn the same way. And of course, some people need an instructor to stand in front of them.            

The institution was already a leader in online education when Emma (not her real name) took on the new role at her university as the head of online learning. But the university’s new leadership wanted to take it to the next level and make online education a defining feature of the institution. She was the right person to lead the charge. A member of the faculty, she had recently spent several years as a high-level administrator, building a wide base of support. She was smart and personable. Her first step, like all good diplomats, was "consultation;" to sit down with as many people in the institution as possible. Between meetings, she plowed through the university’s online courses. A Rough Start She was surprised by what she learned during her review. The few well-designed courses were the exception. Not many presented a coherent set of learning outcomes. Assessments were unimaginative; mostly online versions of classroom assignments. Content regularly included slides from classroom lectures, which obviously added little value. When video was used, it was typically just unscripted webcam lectures, which were difficult for many students to follow. (One video apparently resembled an outtake from The Blair Witch Project). The quality of written content was uneven. Materials from publishers were plugged in randomly. Rich media was largely absent and many graphics appeared to be from copyright-protected sources. And despite the capacity of technology to capture and track learner performance, the use of learning analytics was limited. A Classroom Model Her experience was not unique among brick-and-mortar institutions in North America. The design and development of online higher education courses in traditional, non-profit institutions has followed the organizational, financial and distribution methods of traditional classroom education. Online education remains essentially a cottage industry, in which lone instructors are asked to be responsible for the bulk of online course design and development. Consequently, people with limited time, the wrong set of skills, and insufficient compensation build courses. And because the course materials are used for only one course at a single institution, investment is limited to what can be recouped through tuition from a single course delivered for a few semesters. A Way Forward As Emma saw it, in order to improve the quality of course design, faculty needed to spend less time trying to create their own courses from scratch and more time on high-level strategic matters - mapping the curriculum, course-related research, defining learning objectives, and providing meaningful support for learners. She believed a greater percentage of the course content should come from other sources. By relying more heavily on existing course materials, the cost of course development would decline and quality would rise. Her job was to make it easy for faculty to draw on "the best available" instructional resources - whether it came from other universities, consortia, vendors or open education resources (OER).  Faculty would continue to craft their own instructional content and activities, but only where they could produce material that was superior in value to what was available elsewhere. "My Stuff" Emma’s plans ran headlong into what many who work in online higher education learned long ago; there is often considerable pushback from some faculty on the idea of relying more heavily on instructional media and activities from outside sources. "They feel the need to be using their own stuff," as she put it to me. The "my stuff" logic is a by-product of two overlapping origins: Faculty are hired and promoted for being experts. It is this expertise that defines them as "more than teachers" of someone else’s curriculum, and justifies, in part, their relative prestige and autonomy.  The teaching function of the occupation model is thought to flow from the research function. And for this research work to be of value, it must be original. It follows, then, that what they teach should be original, as well. Hence, the pushback. It stems, secondly, from an understandable anxiety that arises from suggesting to faculty that they abdicate part of their current responsibilities to someone else. Many in academia have viewed the rise of educational technology as a threat to their labor market value. This was clearly expressed in the 1990s by critics like David Noble who argued that education technology was a "Trojan horse" that was designed to weaken and ultimately replace faculty labor. " . . .  faculty have much more in common with the historic plight of other skilled workers than they care to acknowledge. Like these others, their activity is being restructured, via the technology, in order to reduce their autonomy, independence, and control over their work and to place workplace knowledge and control as much as possible into the hands of the administration. As in other industries, the technology is being deployed by management primarily to discipline, deskill, and displace labor." (link) More recently, similar sentiments have been expressed about MOOCs. Gianpiero Petriglieri (great name, huh?), associate professor organizational behavior at INSEAD, described MOOCs as a tool of "academic colonialism," whereby more prestigious institutions become the source of curriculum for less prestigious institutions. "It is far more similar to colonialism, that is, disruption brought about by ‘the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker people or areas’ and simultaneously increasing its cultural reach and control of resources." (link) In response to the use of MOOCs at San Jose State University, philosophy professors wrote, "Let’s not kid ourselves; the administrators at the CSU are beginning a process of replacing faculty with cheap online education." (link) Of course, most professionals in higher education don’t hold these views. In technology, they see an opportunity to redefine their roles in ways that allow them to focus on higher-level activities, while providing students with the best possible experience. Faculty that have experience teaching online education are aware that course development is highly labor intensive, that compensation is insufficient, and that current practices significantly limits the type of instructional media that we can make available to students. They’ve learned first-hand that new models of instruction - including greater use of shared resources - doesn’t mean that faculty are made redundant; only that they can better focus their time and talents on those parts of the course in which they are most invested. Nevertheless, the state of affairs in online higher education has clung too long to its conventions. Online higher education can offer students much higher quality experiences if we seek out new approaches to course design and development. And in the process, slow down the rapid climb in operating costs and improve learning outcomes. But we need the political will to make it happen. In Part 2, we’ll look at the concept of the "best available;" how it relates to scale and costs in higher education, and what this new approach might entail. Emma, meanwhile, has gone back to the drawing board.              

Jeff Dykes is a science instructor teaching online biology and chemistry at Grays Harbor College and Wenatchee Valley College, in Washington State, and at Charter Oak State College. He has published numerous articles and won a Quality Matters (QM) award for his online chemistry course. How did you first get into teaching online courses? In 2000, I had a sense that teaching would be moving toward online classes and I didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity to be at the forefront of teaching online.  I contacted WashingtonOnline and entered their instructor course for online teaching.  I then sent out resumes and began teaching at several colleges, and developing courses and curriculum. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered since you began teaching online? In the beginning, I had very slow Internet connections and grading tests was a nightmare.  Just closing out one test and opening another took a long time.  Then multiply that by the number of students in a class - that translated into a great block of time each week just to grade tests.  Also, there’s little drag-and-drop technology in the learning platform.   I would rather see it like a computer desktop, where you can drag and drop files, wherever needed. What are some of the challenges of connecting with your students online? And how have you solved them? When I was in college I took a couple of independent study courses that were an early version of the online courses.  The problem was it was totally up to me when I would do the work, and that causes a lot of trouble.   Now, in my online classes, I try to follow the structure of an in-class course.   I split the course material into weekly sections that have firm assignments and due dates.  To connect with students I have done the typical discussion forum.  However, recently, I have asked students to search the Internet for videos that addresses a certain topic.  Students include the video in their posts and summarize the highlights.   This not only gets students interested in the post but also helps reinforce the current topic. What are you currently using for course content?  My online biology course is from Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative. My online chemistry uses an open source chemistry book, and other links to content.  The rest of my online courses use paper textbooks. What are some good examples of peer-reviewed online resources for science instructors? MIT and UCLA Berkeley are two sources of excellent online resources.  They provide video lectures for anyone to view.  These institutions have a history of quality and respect.  Khan Academy has begun to release peer-reviewed material, which is an excellent resource for instructors to direct students to for tutorial help. Have you served as a mentor to other faculty teaching online? I’m a member of the Distance Learning Committee at Charter Oak State College, and review courses and offer tips on improving the class.  I’ve done presentations to faculty groups, and joined online learning groups.  At times, I get calls from other faculty to troubleshoot an online learning platform. Do you have any suggestions or tips to help instructors teach more effectively and connect with students in an online/hybrid environment?   Show up every day to an online class; at least 5 or 6 times a week.   This is an active process.  I make an effort to post an announcement or answer student posts in the discussion forum, so that they know I am present each day. Deal with student’s technical and personal issues, as if they were your own family.  I treat students with respect and give them a break where needed. What would you say to instructors, who care about improving student outcomes, but are reluctant to change? Start with a small change.  Then evaluate the outcome.  Continue to make these small changes, and before long, you have an improved class and student outcomes. How would you like to see online learning evolve? What improvements would you like to see?​ I’d like to see better recording software and interfaces.  I use Tegrity to record PowerPoint lectures; it’s good, but has problems.  I would love to see better and more efficient grading features, such as those found in the Canvas Discussion Forum. For example, when I want to grade a discussion forum or a lab report I can go to my Canvas grade book and select the first student I wish to grade.  The student’s report is brought up (with the ability to annotate or write comments).  I review their work and I enter the points earned.  I can add an additional grading note and then click on the student next in line and repeat the process.   I really like the ability to have the student document linked to the grading all in one screen.      

Every month we ask our Learning Engineers to answer a question or two about their work in developing online learning environments. Most questions come from instructors, who are looking for new ways to engage students in their online, hybrid or flipped courses.  Here Kim Henry and Erin Czerwinski address questions about course content and design. Kim Henry, Learning Engineer and Course Development Manager  How do you develop content for Acrobatiq courseware? Courseware content development is driven by two primary elements:  A set of student-centered, measurable learning objectives that articulate the essential concepts and skills students acquire from engaging with the courseware,  And The Big Picture that represents the subject domain and provides a knowledge structure in which students relate the new concepts and skills being learned. The language used in learning objectives should capture the level at which learning is occurring and at which feedback is relevant. Learning objectives are designed to:  Communicate our intentions clearly to students and to colleagues  Provide a framework for selecting and organizing course content  Guide in decisions about assessment and evaluation methods  Provide a framework for selecting appropriate teaching and learning activities  Give students information for directing their learning efforts and monitoring their own progress Based on A.H. Miller (1987), Course Design for University Lecturers. New York: Nichols Publishing. Also see, C.I. Davidson & S. A. Ambrose (1994), The New Professor’s Handbook: A Guide to Teaching and Research in Engineering and Sciences. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company Inc. How do you determine how many learning objectives are needed in a course? A number of factors may influence the body of learning objectives for a particular course:  Standards set by a professional organization  Advances and/or trends in a field or domain  Role of the course in a sequence and/or curriculum  Expectations based on similar existing courses A small core team of learning engineers, subject matter experts (SMEs), course developers, and other stakeholders engage in a process of gathering all of the relevant information about a course and then synthesize it to determine:  High-level outcomes for the course  Key features of The Big Picture  Scope of the course, including major topics  Learning objectives for the course  Preliminary skills map for the course Once the scope of the course is identified and the learning objectives are written, an organization for the course can be formulated. The organization of Acrobatiq courses is based upon a unit/module structure where units are similar to chapters and modules similar to sections. Modules consist of logically clustered learning objectives. In general, the content development process is focused around the learning objectives and skills map. There are several primary "ingredients" that go into an Acrobatiq course. Formative and Summative ADAPTivities: These are activities that provide students with sufficient practice to support each learning objective’s skills and knowledge components. Formative ADAPTivities include "Learn By Doing" and "Did I Get This?" activities that provide students with opportunities to engage in active learning. Summative ADAPTivities are assessments that may occur at the end modules and/or units.   ADAPTivities are developed to capture and convey information, including "must cover" concepts and skills, as well as common misconceptions. Through various styles of interaction, ADAPTivities provide students with active learning experiences that include hints and targeted feedback. The primary purpose of exposition is to connect ADAPTivities. Generally, exposition is developed in one of two ways:  Exposition from existing content is reconstituted and combined with original exposition written by SMEs.  Original content written primarily by the SMEs on the development team. Erin Czerwinski, Learning Engineer How do you work with subject matter experts in developing course content? Historically, I have worked with subject matter experts (SMEs) to transform materials they developed in one format (paper or PowerPoint, for example) into new, dynamic content delivered through a learning platform. When working with SMEs, who are typically experienced teachers and authors in the subject domain, it’s helpful to be aware of something we call an "expert’s blind spot." SMEs know the subject so well they may not remember how they first struggled to understand and learn the concepts in their field. By asking these faculty experts a series of questions, we help them think from the students’ perspective. This enables us to identify students’ most common misconceptions, and where they struggle with the subject matter. All instructors who teach and design learning materials should be aware of their blind spots. By continually challenging your assumptions about the difficulty of the material you are teaching, you are in a much stronger position to develop course material that speaks directly to your students, and helps them learn faster and better.  What are some sources of instructional content available to all instructors? Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons are a couple of useful resources. These organizations offer access to search services that will help you find content (images, music and videos) from a variety of sources, and often include licensing or permissions information. Another great source of content is your peers.  Many faculty post domain-specific content they use on the Web. With any content, it is important to check if the materials are copyrighted and what permissions may be required to use it. You can also try creating your own content. For certain media elements, start simple, with something like the animation features in PowerPoint.  Or experiment with screen recording software like Camtasia and others.  Many types of software available for generating media are easier to use than you might think.  And for those technologies that are more difficult, look for free online tutorials. You might find this compilation of open and commercial tools for freelance instructional designers useful. One of the most important things to remember is that multimedia for the sake of having "multimedia" may not be helpful to your students.  Just because students like a video, doesn’t mean they necessarily learn from it.  Create or select videos for the purpose of learning, not entertaining.  And in this age of YouTube, look for short videos; less than three minutes is the general rule. What is most important is whether a video (or any other element) supports a learning objective in your course. What’s the key to writing effective learning objectives? Crafting learning objectives is not a pure science.  There’s a lot of iteration that goes on before we get to a final set of objectives (and the multitude of questions and activities to support them). To develop learning objectives for your course, write a list of questions you want students to be able to answer about the topic. Then think about how you would assess and measure your students’ knowledge. Ask yourself: What do I want my students to know, remember and understand from this unit or module? Does each learning objective explicitly describe what I expect students to know or do?  If not, be prepared to revise it. In writing learning objectives, it’s essential to use the right verbs so you’ll be able to measure whether students can demonstrate their knowledge.  If your learning objective asks students to compare and contrast, it’s important to provide enough information and questions about the topic so students can make multiple comparisons and contrasts. If you find after drafting some activities and questions, that it isn’t necessary or possible for students to compare and contrast, then change the verb to describe the component parts of the topic. Finding the right level of detail is also an iterative process.  Notice the difference in the type of information and level of detail between these two learning objectives from an Anatomy & Physiology course: Identify and describe the organs of the digestive system. Describe the stomach and its functions. You want learning objectives that require a similar level of detail across an entire course.  This helps students know what is expected of them, and helps them feel supported and scaffolded by the material as they work toward meeting the learning objectives.  How do you align content with the learning objectives? Aligning content with the learning objectives is essential for effective teaching and learning. It may sound easy, but again, it’s an iterative process. Here’s another example from the Anatomy and Physiology course: Learning objective: Describe the major functions of the digestive system. Activity question:  Lactose intolerance is caused by insufficient enzyme to digest which kind of organic compound? Answer choices: carbohydrate, protein, lipid, nucleic acid Hint (to help the student answer the question): Lactose is found in milk products, and is also known as "milk sugar." It is quite possible that by answering the activity question, the student is describing some aspect of the digestive system.  It is also possible that the feedback provided for each of the answer choices will focus on digestive functions and tie the question back to the learning objective.  But, without asking the SME, the alignment with the learning objective is not necessarily obvious. The goal is to measure learning as it’s taking place, and measure the right thing. Ideally, I would want to see a question or set of questions that actually asks the students to describe the functions of the digestive system.  If that is too broad for the scope of the course, or not exactly what you need students to be able to do, then the learning objective should be revised to more clearly state what students do need to learn. For help in finding the right, measurable verb for a given learning objective, this simple chart has been invaluable to me. Focus on what your students will be able to do. Look for content and activities that provide practice opportunities for your students to do something with the information they are learning.  This includes making careful use of multimedia and interactive content, and providing different contexts and perspectives on the topics being covered. Starting with student-centered learning objectives that are measurable and at the right level of detail for students is the most important thing you can do when designing learning materials.  If you do that correctly, finding content to support those learning objectives, and your students’ success, becomes a much easier task.              

Following our March Q&A webinar, Acrobatiq Learning Engineers Bill Jerome and Sandy Raysor answer questions about the different types of analytics and how instructors can incorporate more analytics in their courses to impact student learning. Bill Jerome, VP of Product and User Experience What are the main types of analytics in higher education? And what differentiates them from each other? There are many ways to categorize analytics in the education space.  For our purposes, we think of three types of analytics that fall along a spectrum.  They are all useful and can serve practical needs. But they are different in what they mean and what they can do.  They are:  Institutional Analytics (also called Progression Analytics)  Engagement Analytics  Learning Analytics Institutional Analytics Institutions often track their students’ progress towards their degrees.  Identifying parts of the curriculum where otherwise strong students struggle, or courses that often result in students leaving the program, is an important process involving registration, order of courses taken, and course grade data.  It’s worth noting that the inferences drawn from such data analytics are highly correlational.  Knowing a course is a stumbling block does not prescribe a particular action to resolve the problem. Engagement Analytics Engagement data is typically focused on students at a particular moment.  While data from institutional analytics takes time to collect and act upon, engagement analytics records data on student behavior in real-time. For example, by analyzing when students login to online resources or how much time they spend online, patterns can be found. These patterns can lead to predictions about which students might drop out or fail the course. Using the information, institutions can notify faculty or tutors in time to intervene with these struggling students.  Here, the prescribed action is helpful, though it doesn’t point to the underlying cause.  All the system knows is, "this student looks like some other students, who, for unknown reasons, were at risk."  The instructor or tutor isn’t armed with any specific information, other than to check in with the student. Learning Analytics Finally, there’s learning analytics on the causality end of the spectrum.  The goal is to estimate individual student learning, and therefore, draw larger conclusions about groups of students.  Additionally, we can draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the learning resource itself.  By identifying where students are struggling at a topic or concept level, we not only identify students, who are having difficulty, but we can make specific recommendations to fill in the gaps in their learning.  We can also differentiate struggling students who are working hard, from struggling students who aren’t taking advantage of the available resources. This level of detail enables instructors to adapt the type of intervention, e.g., pointing students to resources versus providing additional instruction. In summary, we can think about these three types of analytics in terms of the data each collects and how that data is used. Institutional Analytics ‣  Relatively small amount of data needed for analysis; typically already collected at an institution, such as which courses students enroll in. ‣  Ability to "red flag" courses or sequences in programs that need attention.  Engagement Analytics ‣  While the volume of data needed is much larger, most online systems collect basic metrics similar to online retailers (such as identifying the user and where and when she clicked). ‣  Measures student activity, but not learning. ‣  Groups students to identify at-risk students for human intervention (without identifying why they may be at risk).  Learning Analytics ‣  Captures and reports large amounts of formative and summative data from content instrumented to provide learning information. ‣  Accurately predicts each student’s subject mastery, down to the skill level, based on rich information about the individual’s successes, guesses and failures in interacting with the content. Sandy Raysor, Learning Engineer  What are some practical tips for professors who want to get more learning data from their students’ online activities?  What should instructors look for when assessing ready-made online courseware?  The more online work you can give students the greater opportunity you have to collect data.  Increased amounts of data will give you a clearer picture of where your students are, and where they need additional help.  Decide what type of data you want to capture and then explore tools that collect that specific information. For example, capturing engagement data (tracking the time students spend online) is different than capturing data on how well students are mastering a concept or skill. Just because students spend a lot of time working on material, doesn’t mean that they have actually learned the material. ‣  Look for online activities/programs that give students plenty of practice activities that can be reported back to you with performance metrics. ‣  Acrobatiq courseware is designed with a variety of adaptive, problem-solving activities called "Learn By Doing," "Did I Get This?" and "Checkpoints and Quizzes." ‣  In those areas requiring significant practice for subject mastery, such as math skills, Acrobatiq courseware includes many practice activities related to a single learning objective. If you have the opportunity to develop your own online content and practice activities, be sure that different aspects of the learning objectives (if there are any) are covered in practice. ‣  For example, let’s say that your learning objective is: The student will be able to calculate the volume of a rectangular prism.  There are several different parts to this learning objective that the student must be able to master in order to demonstrate the required skills and proficiency. The student must know what a rectangular prism is. The student must know the equation for doing the calculation. The student must know how to multiply correctly. The student must understand how to do calculations with units correctly. Activities should address all of these skills before the student is asked to tackle the integration of these skills (the learning objective).  Use good distractors so that you have the opportunity to correct misconceptions. Think about common errors that students make. Think about why students make these errors, and what type of information you can give them to correct the misconceptions.    

Whether you’re developing an online, hybrid or flipped course for the first or 50th time, you can benefit from these insights and practical tips from our Learning Engineers Kim Henry and Erin Czerwinski. Combined, they bring 35 years’ experience in designing, developing, implementing and improving online courses, curricula and platforms. Listen to the replay of their recent webinar, Essentials of Effective Online Course Content. How do you develop content for Acrobatiq courseware? Kim Henry: Courseware content development is driven by two primary elements: A set of student-centered, measurable learning objectives that articulate the essential concepts and skills students acquire from engaging with the courseware, And The Big Picture that represents the subject domain and provides a knowledge structure in which students relate the new concepts and skills being learned. The language used in learning objectives should capture the level at which learning is occurring and at which feedback is relevant. Learning objectives are designed to: Communicate our intentions clearly to students and to colleagues Provide a framework for selecting and organizing course content Guide in decisions about assessment and evaluation methods Provide a framework for selecting appropriate teaching and learning activities Give students information for directing their learning efforts and monitoring their own progress Based on A.H. Miller (1987), Course Design for University Lecturers. New York: Nichols Publishing. Also see, C.I. Davidson & S. A. Ambrose (1994), The New Professor’s Handbook: A Guide to Teaching and Research in Engineering and Sciences. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company Inc. How do you determine how many learning objectives are needed in a course? KH: A number of factors may influence the body of learning objectives for a particular course: Standards set by a professional organization Advances and/or trends in a field or domain Role of the course in a sequence and/or curriculum Expectations based on similar existing courses A small core team of learning engineers, subject matter experts (SMEs), course developers, and other stakeholders engage in a process of gathering all of the relevant information about a course and then synthesize it to determine: High-level outcomes for the course Key features of The Big Picture Scope of the course, including major topics Learning objectives for the course Preliminary skills map for the course Once the scope of the course is identified and the learning objectives are written, an organization for the course can be formulated. The organization of Acrobatiq courses is based upon a unit/module structure where units are similar to chapters and modules similar to sections. Modules consist of logically clustered learning objectives. In general, the content development process is focused around the learning objectives and skills map. There are several primary "ingredients" that go into an Acrobatiq course. Formative and Summative ADAPTivities: These are activities that provide students with sufficient practice to support each learning objective’s skills and knowledge components. Formative ADAPTivities include "Learn By Doing" and "Did I Get This?" activities that provide students with opportunities to engage in active learning. Summative ADAPTivities are assessments that may occur at the end modules and/or units. ADAPTivities are developed to capture and convey information, including "must cover" concepts and skills, as well as common misconceptions. Through various styles of interaction, ADAPTivities provide students with active learning experiences that include hints and targeted feedback. The primary purpose of exposition is to connect ADAPTivities. Generally, exposition is developed in one of two ways: Exposition from existing content is reconstituted and combined with original exposition written by SMEs. Original content written primarily by the SMEs on the development team. How do you work with subject matter experts in developing course content? Erin Czerwinski: Historically, I have worked with subject matter experts (SMEs) to transform materials they developed in one format (paper or PowerPoint, for example) into new, dynamic content delivered through a learning platform. When working with SMEs, who are typically experienced teachers and authors in the subject domain, it’s helpful to be aware of something we call an "expert’s blind spot." SMEs know the subject so well they may not remember how they first struggled to understand and learn the concepts in their field. By asking these faculty experts a series of questions, we help them think from the students’ perspective. This enables us to identify students’ most common misconceptions, and where they struggle with the subject matter. All instructors who teach and design learning materials should be aware of their blind spots. By continually challenging your assumptions about the difficulty of the material you are teaching, you are in a much stronger position to develop course material that speaks directly to your students, and helps them learn faster and better. What are some sources of instructional content available to all instructors? EC: Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons are a couple of useful resources. These organizations offer access to search services that will help you find content (images, music and videos) from a variety of sources, and often include licensing or permissions information. Another great source of content is your peers. Many faculty post domain-specific content they use on the Web. With any content, it is important to check if the materials are copyrighted and what permissions may be required to use it. You can also try creating your own content. For certain media elements, start simple, with something like the animation features in PowerPoint. Or experiment with screen recording software like Camtasia and others. Many types of software available for generating media are easier to use than you might think. And for those technologies that are more difficult, look for free online tutorials. You might find this compilation of open and commercial tools for freelance instructional designers useful. One of the most important things to remember is that multimedia for the sake of having "multimedia" may not be helpful to your students. Just because students like a video, doesn’t mean they necessarily learn from it. Create or select videos for the purpose of learning, not entertaining. And in this age of YouTube, look for short videos; less than three minutes is the general rule. What is most important is whether a video (or any other element) supports a learning objective in your course. What’s the key to writing effective learning objectives? EC: Crafting learning objectives is not a pure science. There’s a lot of iteration that goes on before we get to a final set of objectives (and the multitude of questions and activities to support them). To develop learning objectives for your course, write a list of questions you want students to be able to answer about the topic. Then think about how you would assess and measure your students’ knowledge. Ask yourself: What do I want my students to know, remember and understand from this unit or module? Does each learning objective explicitly describe what I expect students to know or do? If not, be prepared to revise it. In writing learning objectives, it’s essential to use the right verbs so you’ll be able to measure whether students can demonstrate their knowledge. If your learning objective asks students to compare and contrast, it’s important to provide enough information and questions about the topic so students can make multiple comparisons and contrasts. If you find after drafting some activities and questions, that it isn’t necessary or possible for students to compare and contrast, then change the verb to describe the component parts of the topic. Finding the right level of detail is also an iterative process. Notice the difference in the type of information and level of detail between these two learning objectives from an Anatomy & Physiology course: Identify and describe the organs of the digestive system. Describe the stomach and its functions. You want learning objectives that require a similar level of detail across an entire course. This helps students know what is expected of them, and helps them feel supported and scaffolded by the material as they work toward meeting the learning objectives. How do you align content with the learning objectives? EC: Aligning content with the learning objectives is essential for effective teaching and learning. It may sound easy, but again, it’s an iterative process. Here’s another example from the Anatomy and Physiology course: Learning objective: Describe the major functions of the digestive system. Activity question: Lactose intolerance is caused by insufficient enzyme to digest which kind of organic compound? Answer choices: carbohydrate, protein, lipid, nucleic acid Hint (to help the student answer the question): Lactose is found in milk products, and is also known as "milk sugar." It is quite possible that by answering the activity question, the student is describing some aspect of the digestive system. It is also possible that the feedback provided for each of the answer choices will focus on digestive functions and tie the question back to the learning objective. But, without asking the SME, the alignment with the learning objective is not necessarily obvious. The goal is to measure learning as it’s taking place, and measure the right thing. Ideally, I would want to see a question or set of questions that actually asks the students to describe the functions of the digestive system. If that is too broad for the scope of the course, or not exactly what you need students to be able to do, then the learning objective should be revised to more clearly state what students do need to learn. For help in finding the right, measurable verb for a given learning objective, this simple chart has been invaluable to me. Focus on what your students will be able to do. Look for content and activities that provide practice opportunities for your students to do something with the information they are learning. This includes making careful use of multimedia and interactive content, and providing different contexts and perspectives on the topics being covered. Starting with student-centered learning objectives that are measurable and at the right level of detail for students is the most important thing you can do when designing learning materials. If you do that correctly, finding content to support those learning objectives, and your students’ success, becomes a much easier task.              

It’s not uncommon for online courses in higher education to include instructional resources from a wide range of sources. Resources may include digital content from textbooks (e.g. flashcards), images used in campus-based courses, freely available content from the Internet, print or ebooks from publishers, activities pulled from open education resource repositories, and others.  Some of the material is placed within the course environment, some sits outside. The "cut-n-paste" functionality of the Internet has made this "bricolage" approach to course design easy and, therefore, inevitable. However, the bricolage approach has also increased the prevalence of online courses with weak instructional coherence, coordination and consistency. By relying on materials from a wide range of sources - each built by different organizations, to serve different users, and to fit into different contexts - we, inevitably, decrease the degree to which each unit of instructional material aligns with the other materials. In the end, it’s learning outcomes that are compromised. Symptoms of Incoherent Course Design Instructional materials and activities drawn from a variety of sources can differ in a variety of ways that impact instructional quality. Differences include: Level of difficulty. Instructional materials gathered from different sources are designed for students at very different levels of subject mastery and comprehension. Terminology. Different sources often employ different terminology to describe similar information.  While these differences are often small, and may seem inconsequential to subject matter experts, they can easily confuse learners that are new to the curriculum. Pace of instruction. Each instructional element implicitly assumes a certain pace of instruction through which the student will progress through the material. Level of detail/depth. Instructional elements include different amounts of detail. Asking students to move between instructional materials that include different levels of detail may make it more difficult for them to identify what information is essential, and what is not. Organizational principles. Every instructional element is designed to operate in a particular structure and design environments. Pulling items out of one context and dropping them in another adds unintended (and instructionally useless) complexity. Design features. Visual design features, such as use of color and icons, can be used effectively to improve comprehension and ease of use, but they must be applied consistently. Barriers to Coherent Course Design In the classroom setting, the bulk of the instruction is created by and funneled through a single source: the instructor. As a result, instructional coherency tends to occur naturally. In online education a number of factors work against coherency: The ease with which we can find related instructional content on the Internet; Confusing regulations concerning use of copyrighted material on the Internet; The inability of institution staff to produce a wide range of instructional materials at a low cost (due, largely, to the lack of economies of scale in the dominant business model of online education); Insufficient incentives for faculty to dedicate additional time to course design and development, given prevailing compensation and incentive models. The lack of professional development resources for instructors responsible for course design. These inconsistencies make it more difficult for the educator to provide students with coherent and effective learning. The quality of learning can suffer and the need for student support - from the instructor, staff and others - is heightened. Students should be able to focus all of their limited energies on learning, not on trying to understand the different levels, styles, pace, and sequencing in a grab-bag of instructional element. This coherency, in turn, allows the instructor to focus her time on teaching and supporting students, rather than compensating for inconsistent and instructionally incoherent course design. In a well-designed course, the instructional materials are fully integrated and coordinated, pitched at the appropriate level of difficulty, presented to the learner with the ideal amount of detail, and have consistent design features (color, navigation). Each element in a course should be built according to a single, overarching design - coherent, coordinated, and consistent.

Join the conversation on the latest research in the emerging fields of cognitive and learning science in our upcoming webinar with Dr. Marsha Lovett, Director of Carnegie Mellon’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Acrobatiq’s Chief Learning Scientist. What: Webinar - Unlocking Learning Through Cognitive Science When: Wednesday, April 30, 1:00 to 1:45 pm, EDT Who:  Dr. Marsha Lovett, Director, CMU’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Chief Learning Scientist at Acrobatiq How: Register now to RSVP During this interactive discussion, Dr. Lovett, co-author of How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, will share insights on: How learning data is used to create powerful feedback loops for students, instructors and course design teams How the science of learning informs both teaching practice and the development of new educational technologies How evidence-based instruction leads to improved learning outcomes Don’t miss this webinar & Q&A with one of the true innovators in educational technology. Bring your questions and colleagues!