Developing
an online course usually isn’t cheap, but one particular expense is often
underestimated: updating the course down the road. Face-to-face class content
also needs to be refreshed from time to time, but online courses may call for
hardware or software upgrades or time-consuming reviews to ensure web resources
are still accessible.
Inside Higher
Education took a look
at how institutions are grappling with processes and costs to keep
online courses up to date. Some schools didn’t take into account the
maintenance cost for online courses, which over just a few years can add up to
more than the original development cost.
Schools
that offer quite a few online courses tend to require faculty to conduct a
formal review of the course every few years, more often in the case of rapidly
evolving subjects, such as computer science or biology. At Walden University,
the review includes a report on whether the course is achieving learning
outcomes. Western Governors University reviews each course annually, but it
also has 200 faculty who work solely on course development.
If
the faculty member who originally created the course leaves, it can take much
longer for someone else to review and update the material. Installing
cybersecurity measures to protect online courses from hackers is also a growing
cost.
“I
definitely would caution any institution from thinking of online courses as a
quick moneymaker, at least if you want to do it right,” said Jessie Guy-Ryan,
who heads the online learning team at New York University’s Tandon School of
Engineering.