Online Students Prefer Quick and Easy

Convenience and speed appear to be very important to college students who are taking—or plan to take—all of their courses online.

A new study conducted by Learning House, which operates online courses for institutions, and Aslanian Market Research showed that 67% of online students are using mobile devices to finish some portion of their course requirements. Reading course materials and communicating with instructors are the most-common activities. That suggests students are using their smartphone or tablet to catch up on schoolwork in between other responsibilities, most likely when they’re away from home.

Online students gave lower ratings to scheduled class sessions conducted via webconferencing than they did to other class activities they could access in their own time, such as videos, slides, readings, interactive media, and discussion boards.

“When students were asked about the features they deemed most important in the online programs they chose or were considering, a double-digit share of their responses went to innovations that can expedite their education,” noted a summary of the study in Campus Technology. Those innovations include year-round courses, self-paced classes, accelerated courses, and online programs that can be completed in less time than face-to-face classes.

The survey also showed a growing number of online students have at least some interest in exploring other new types of postsecondary education, such as competency-based education, stackable credentials, and “textbook-free” programs.

CA Proposes Online College for Workers

The California Community Colleges system includes 114 colleges in 72 districts and serves more than two million students. Even that may not be enough to both train incoming students for careers and help existing workers transition to new roles as the U.S. job landscape undergoes sweeping change. In his State of the State address earlier this year, Gov. Jerry Brown estimated there are 2.5 million Californians between the ages of 25-34 who are in the workforce but lack a postsecondary degree or certificate.

To help those workers, the CCC system’s chancellor, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, wants to develop a new online community college to deliver badly needed courses. Brown asked the legislature to approve $100 million in startup funds for the project, along with $20 million in ongoing annual costs. If the money is approved, the new college would begin enrolling students for fall 2019.

“These are individuals who cannot drop everything they’re doing to come to our colleges and spend two or three years getting a degree or credential,” Oakley told NPR. “They need short-term job skills in order to survive.”

The curriculum would be designed in partnership with employers and labor unions, with a focus on high-demand industries such as construction, health care, child care, and information technology. “We would give them a short burst of job skills that employers would honor,” Oakley explained. “This is not something that our community colleges currently focus on.”

Learning would be self-paced and students would be eligible for state financial aid. There might even be an option to pay a flat fee for unlimited course access. Federal financial aid would only become available when and if the college received accreditation.

While Brown stated the new online college would not compete with existing schools in the state or their programs, Jonathan Lightman, executive director of the 11,000-member Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, said his organization would rather some or all of the project’s funding go toward offering more courses through the system’s existing Online Education Initiative, launched in 2013.

Online Courses Solve Two Hi-Ed Problems

There is still a lot of debate and conflicting research on whether online higher education is as effective academically as in-classroom instruction. For some institutions, however, online courses are filling a two-part void.

A report on Education Dive noted a growing number of colleges are offering more online courses aimed specifically at nontraditional students. Those courses also are available to the colleges’ traditional-aged students, but the pool of new high school graduates has started to dwindle in line with the lower birthrate two decades ago.

The online courses not only help to bolster enrollment numbers (and revenue) for the schools, especially community colleges, they also open up educational opportunities for adults with full-time jobs and family responsibilities. These older students are often unable to fit classroom courses into their schedules.

The nature of online instruction also better enables colleges to adapt coursework to working adults’ needs, such as condensing courses so students can attain an associate degree sooner. For example, Riverland Community College in Minnesota created the FlexPace program to offer accelerated business courses, squeezing a semester’s worth of work into six weeks.

At Indiana Wesleyan University, the 12,000 online students outnumber the 2,700 who go to classes on campus. “What students like most is the flexibility,” said Lorne Oke, IWU’s executive director of the Center for Learning and Innovation. “There’s a significant change in the way students interact with learning and their expectations from a college.”

Revenue Shouldn't Drive Online Strategy

The percentage of students taking online classes continue to rise, but is it the right investment? If institutions see it as a way to generate revenue, they may need to think again.

Online education needs to be economically sustainable. It should also make sense from a cost and investment standpoint, according to Joshua Kim, director of digital learning initiatives at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning.

“Putting money as the first and ultimate goal of online education will cause a school to make a series of bad choices, while simultaneously closing off other potential benefits of online learning,” Kim wrote in his regular blog post for Inside Higher Ed.

Online programs should align with and support the strategic mission of the institution. In developing online classes, the school needs to start with an understanding of where its strengths lie as opposed to developing courses to meet particular market demands.

“There will be winners and losers in any such conversation, and the role of leadership is to have the discipline and courage to invest in areas of comparative strength,” Kim wrote. “Only once a clear institutional strategy has been built around areas of differentiating excellence should any online education strategy be enacted.”

Enrollment in Online Classes Keeps Climbing

The number of U.S. undergraduate students enrolled in at least one online class continues to grow, according to provisional federal data released in December.

The statistics, from the spring 2017 data collection by the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), indicate that 31% of all students reported enrolling in at least one distance course, charting a steady rise from 24.8% in 2012.

Those online enrollments keep growing while the IPEDS numbers show overall enrollment remaining fairly flat. Almost 31% of community college students enrolled in at least one online course, as did 29% of their counterparts at four-year schools.

Unsurprisingly, students at for-profit colleges were the most likely to be enrolled in a distance course (57.5%). However, the for-profit sector overall saw enrollments drop from about 1.54 million students in 2015 to about 1.46 million in fall 2016.

Some nonprofit institutions, on the other hand, experienced big gains in online enrollment. At Arizona State University, for instance, online enrollment surged from 22,220 in fall 2015 to 30,989 for fall 2016.

Higher-Ed Critics of Net Neutrality Repeal

While some in higher education argue that repeal of the 2015 “net neutrality” orders will have little effect on campus, nearly every major higher-ed organization came out against the move. It’s feared that education could become more expensive and have slower Internet access unless the institution has the means to pony up the additional fees Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are now able to charge.

The old rules prevented ISPs from charging content producers and customers more for faster service. Ajit Pai, the new chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), contended the rules also stifled innovation and the move was passed in a Dec. 14 vote.

Repealing the rules is intended to spur competition among ISPs, which could mean institutions will be able to pick and choose the best provider for the campus. It’s also possible that universities could face higher charges because of the broadband demands of virtual courses or cloud-based storage and services.

Rural campuses are concerned that they will not benefit from any competition since they rely on a single Internet provider. Colleges and universities are fearful that research projects could be moved to slower speeds if the institution is unwilling to pay more for faster service. And if costs go up for colleges, it will likely trickle down to student fees.

“The new FCC rules do not follow in the liberated direction imagined by the Internet’s inventors,” Robert Ubell, vice dean emeritus of online learning at the Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, wrote in a column for EdSurge. “With ISPs given the reckless authority to block and shut down sites, academic freedom is a potential target—along with other guarantees of equal access.”

Editor’s note: The CITE will be on hiatus as all NACS Inc. offices are closed Dec. 25-Jan. 1. Look for the next post to appear on Jan. 3, 2018. From all the staff of NACS Inc., have a safe and happy holiday season.

Schools Might Sidestep Repeal's Impact

Before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Dec. 14 to repeal 2015’s “net neutrality” orders, some higher-education organizations, including the American Council on Education, expressed concern about the impact on online research and distance courses. They worried institutions might end up in the Internet slow lane if business interests priced faster service out of reach.

John Harrington, CEO of Funds for Learning, a financial consulting firm for schools and libraries, told SmartBrief he thinks the repeal “is unlikely to have any significant impact on schools.” He conceded the repeal could affect web content aimed at consumers, but he noted that educational institutions typically don’t subscribe to those types of services (although students may do so).

If the repeal does spur more competition among Internet service providers, as some (including the FCC chairman) have predicted, Harrington said schools could take advantage of that to select a provider that will ensure speedy service for the campus, including online courses. The institution could even opt for faster service for learning content, and not-so-fast for less-critical content.

“This might give schools an opportunity to prioritize live Internet video feeds above emails and other web traffic that does not require real-time interaction,” he said.

Online Courses Require More Teacher Prep

Despite high administrative hopes to the contrary, online courses are actually more time-consuming than on-campus education, at least for the academics who have to plan them. Preparing to teach an online course takes more time than readying a traditional lecture course, according to a survey of more than 2,000 educators conducted by the National Tertiary Education Union, a trade union for Australian higher-ed employees.

Analysis of the survey responses by John Kenny and Andrew Fluck, senior lecturers at the University of Tasmania in science education and IT education, respectively, found that academics said they needed 10 hours to plan a one-hour lecture for online students vs. eight hours for an hourlong in-person lecture. Similarly, preparing an online tutorial required six hours compared to five hours for an on-campus version.

Kenny and Fluck found that reviewing and updating materials for online courses also took significantly longer, as did consultation and assessment moderation for online students. The researchers saw no generational disparity in the prep time needed by older academics as compared to their younger, presumably more tech-savvy counterparts.

As Education Dive noted, many administrators have viewed online classes as freeing up more faculty time for research, but this study suggests the added prep time required for online teaching may actually have the opposite effect.

Quality Matters to Online Students

Quality tops convenience for most online college students, according to a survey of 1,500 former, current, and prospective students. However, Online College Students 2017 also found that most of these students still live near the institution where they take classes.

The study noted that while students usually stay close to home, just over half requested information from three or more schools, a 23% increase over the 2016 survey. The number of students who considered only one school fell from 30% to 18%.

In addition, most students (59%) said they would change some part of their search for an online program and 23% of current and past students said they wish they had contacted more schools.

More than half of the respondents said they would take a course in person if it wasn’t available online. Nearly 60% said they traveled to campus at least once a year to meet with instructors or a study group and about three-quarters said they liked virtual office hours for teachers. About a quarter of the respondents said more engagement with classmates and instructors would improve online courses.

The study also reported that 81% of online students use their mobile device to search for a program. Nearly 70% said they use their devices to complete their studies.

More Students Take Note of Online Programs

Inquiries about online college courses jumped in February, even though for more than a year fewer people have been expressing interest in higher-education programs overall.

A new report from Gray Associates, a higher-ed consulting company, revealed there has been a growing number of queries about online education since November. The drop in general inquiries about higher ed can be explained by the improvement in the economy (which opened up more jobs) and the decline in the number of high school graduates, but reasons for the uptick in interest about online classes are harder to determine.

According to Education Dive, one possibility is “a desire on the part of students for education opportunities that can be accessed nontraditionally,” most likely due to other responsibilities, such as a job or kids at home.

Prospective students don’t seem to be fazed by controversy over whether online programs can deliver the same or better results as face-to-face classes. The timing and availability of online courses may be a bigger factor for them. Colleges and universities continue to experiment with different types of digital programs to see what works.

“Perhaps the diversity of courses is meeting the demand of students, which will only encourage educational institutions to further expand the options of courses available online,” noted Education Dive.

Harvard, MIT Share Findings of MOOC Study

A study of massive open online courses (MOOCs) by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University researchers found registration continues to grow. The survey reported that new registrations for MOOCs average more than 1,500 people each day, while the median number of active participants for each course is nearly 8,000.

HarvardX and MITx: Four Years of Open Online Courses noted that 2.4 million unique users participated in one or more MOOCs offered by the two institutions and nearly 250,000 learner certificates were issued over the last four years. It also found that the average number of students enrolled into computer sciences courses is more than 21,000, compared to just over 7,900 for other courses, according to a report in Campus Technology.

At the same time, the study reported a significant drop in MOOC enrollment in 2016. MIT and Harvard University each had about 800,000 participants enrolled in MOOCs in 2015, but last year those numbers fell to 670,000 for MIT courses and 540,000 for HarvardX offerings.

The number of people earning certification also fell to its lowest point in the four years of the study, although the total number of certificates awarded in 2016 was higher than the number presented in the first year of the research. Researchers are concerned that the drop in participation was caused by the decision to not provide free certification for the courses.

“The typical course is smaller than it used to be, but this decrease is also steady and related to the proliferation of courses with more specialized content and smaller audiences,” Andrew Ho, a Harvard researcher who co-authored the study, told TechCrunch. “The MOOC audience continues to grow, but the number of MOOCs is growing faster. An analogy is television viewership numbers, and now we have more ‘channels’ than ever. The question now is how can audiences find the best course for them and on what merits.”

Bulk of Tech Budget to Support Online Classes

Most colleges and universities anticipate a big bump in enrollment for online courses in 2017, according to a University Business survey of campus technology administrators.

About 75% of survey respondents said their institutions expected to enroll more students in online classes in the coming year and 60% forecast their schools will add more options to their online programs. As a result, almost half of the technology administrators are looking to build up the online learning infrastructure this year.

Where will institutions be spending their tech dollars? The largest group of respondents (49%) said they’ll be investing in improving academic technologies, such as lecture capture and audiovisual equipment. Of those, 30% plan to enhance technologies that instructors can access from anywhere on campus, while 29% will be boosting tech equipment within classroom and lab spaces.

In response to some campuses experiencing hacking attempts on their networks, 47% of survey respondents will be increasing network and data security in 2017, a big jump from 28% in last year’s survey. Forty-seven percent also intend to put more budget money into cloud computing and storage, up from 30% the prior year.

As students and staff consume ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth, 45% of campus tech administrators also expect to expand their Internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure.

Florida System Aims for 40% Online Classes

The Florida university system sees online classes as a means to reduce the cost of an education as well as a faster route to obtaining a bachelor’s degree. To that end, the system is ramping up its efforts to enroll 40% of its undergraduates in online courses by 2025.

One of the ways the system will do that, according to a report in the Sun Sentinel, is by cutting distance-learning fees for online classes. Currently six schools in the system charge students more to take a course online rather than in a physical classroom.

A report by the system’s Board of Governors Innovation and Online Committee noted 37 other states charge similar fees to cover the cost of redeveloping a course for an online format, but the report also estimated substantial savings in classroom maintenance and construction if more students can take courses from home.

The report also found that the availability of online classes helped students to graduate more quickly. Students who took no online classes needed 4.3 years on average to earn their degrees, while students who enrolled in online courses for at least 20% of their credit hours managed to finish in four years flat. The online classes may have provided a solution when students were unable to attend required courses in person.

The Florida universities also plan to make some online courses available to students systemwide.

The Preferences of Online Students

Students who previously wouldn’t have enrolled into college are now doing so because of online education, according to a new report. Online College Students 2016: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences counters some common misconceptions about online students and their preferences.

“This research demonstrates the important access that online education provides to students, while also highlighting the competitive and rapidly growing nature of the industry,” David Clinefelter, chief academic officer of Learning House and an author of the report, said in an article for eCampus News. “Current estimates place the number of students working towards their degrees online at 3.5 million; we expect that number to grow to five million by 2020. Institutions of higher learning cannot afford to ignore this population, nor can they resist catering to their needs and inclinations when it comes to choosing the program that is right for them.”

The research found that cost is the main factor for students in picking an online institution to attend, but even a small incentive can help. Students apply to online programs offered by colleges that are close to home, with 75% visiting the main campus at least once during the year.

About two-thirds of the responding students weren’t familiar with alternative learning pathways such as massive open online courses and micro degrees, and 55% who did know about alternative credentials never considered them while searching for an online program. The report advised colleges and universities looking into these programs to do a better job of communicating the value offered to students.

Online students choose and apply for programs in which they’re interested much quicker than was commonly thought. The research also found that while business remains the top online program for graduate students, computer and IT courses have surpassed education in popularity.

ED Announces New Rules for Online Schools

New rules for institutions providing distance education have been proposed by the Department of Education, that would require those schools to get authorization in each state in which they wanted to market their online programs to students.

Institutions already have to have state authorization in the states where they are located, but there are no federal requirements when instruction is being offered to students outside of that state.

“These proposed regulations achieve an important balance between accountability and flexibility, and, in so doing, create better protections for students and taxpayers,” U.S. Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell said in a press release. “Additionally, these regulations promote and clarify state authorization procedures, further strengthening the integrity of federal financial aid programs.”

The proposed rules don’t require schools to acquire program accreditation in all states where they want to do business and the disclosure form could be buried in the enrollment contract, according to a report in eCampus News. The student’s home state was also not given authority to resolve consumer complaints, prompting a call to make that state power clear from the Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports.

“Some for-profit career colleges have a history of enrolling students in online courses that mire them in debt without providing the education they need to get a license in the state where they live,” said Suzanne Martindale, staff attorney for Consumers Union. “The Department of Education should strengthen its proposal by requiring accreditation for all specific programs offered to ensure students aren’t pushed into signing up for programs that won’t meet their needs.”

A New Look at MOOC Completion Rates

Researchers have been trying to figure out why completion rates for massive open online courses (MOOCs) tend to stay around 10%. A new study showed that putting learners into study groups based on communication preferences isn’t the answer.

The research done at Pennsylvania State University showed that the groupings had no significant impact on students’ performance or completion. Participants in the survey were put into groups based on their preferred methods of communications for the course: asynchronous, which allows students to learn at their own pace with common online communication such as email or discussion boards, or synchronous, a more facilitated form of communication such as videoconferencing.

“These differences were statistically different and were moderated by English language proficiency, gender, level of education, and age,” Adelina Hristova, a Penn State doctoral student and one of the collaborators on the report, said in an article for Penn State News. “Although the groups designed for the study did not significantly influence students’ course performance and completion, our study can serve as baseline data for making grouping decisions in future online courses, including MOOCs.”

The study did note that older learners were more likely to complete the course. It also found that female students preferred to study in groups, while males preferred synchronous communications for the course.

“It has provided me with a fabulous opportunity to study how students of different ages, cultures, genders, and educational backgrounds learn and practice some of the subjects that I teach—namely, design, problem-solving, and creativity,” said Kathryn Jablokow, a Penn State associate professor of mechanical engineering and engineering design. “Those insights influence how I formulate new research studies, and the MOOC also gives me a unique setting in which to test and disseminate new research results.”

The Potential of Microsoft Buying LinkedIn

There’s been plenty of speculation on the reasons why Microsoft would bid $26 billion to acquire the social-networking service LinkedIn, with most focused on the considerable short-term benefits. The long-term possibilities may be even more important, according to a report for Quartz.

Microsoft’s Office Suite is already a dominating force in the productivity-tool market. By adding LinkedIn to its portfolio, Microsoft could position itself to not only have the products that help employees do their jobs, but also provide educational resources to help them get hired.

“Microsoft can drive the evolution of the competency marketplace in ways LinkedIn as a standalone company couldn’t,” said Ryan Craig, managing director of University Ventures, a private equity fund focused on the higher-ed sector. “They can offer a complete human-resources solution.”

LinkedIn already makes two-thirds of its revenue through solutions for HR departments and tools that deliver leads to salespeople. LinkedIn also owns Lynda.com, an online education platform that provides skills training.

“One could imagine a much bigger role for LinkedIn as competency-based education goes mainstream,” Joshua Kim wrote in his Insider Higher Education technology blog. “The switch from time-based to skill-based credentialing will be hugely important for some (although not all) sectors of higher education. LinkedIn has the potential to combine professional networking with just-in-time training and alternative credentialing.”

Prep Students Use MOOCs to Start College

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are making it easier for high school students to explore the choices offered in college before they ever apply.

According to a report from U.S. News & World Report, MOOCs allows high school students to gauge their interest in potential majors and gain exposure to courses and instruction at the college level.

Taking a MOOC can also provide the extracurricular activities college admissions officers like to see. Experts say students should list MOOCs they’ve completed on admissions applications, or at least mention they’ve taken the classes in the “additional information” section of the application.

“They’re really one of many activities that students can do to enrich their learning, and that’s really how we look at them,” said Stu Schmill, dean of admissions and student financial services, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Taking a Look at Online Master's Degrees

The online master’s degree being offered by the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, has earned praise from students enrolled in the Online Master of Science Computer Science (OMS CS) program. And what’s not to love about a program at a highly respected institution that requires no entrance exam and costs less than $7,000?

Some worry it may be too good to be true, but William Fenton, contributing editor for PC Magazine, took a closer look and liked a lot of what he found. Now in its third year, the program offers four areas of specialization, compared to 11 with the traditional master’s program, and is still working on ancillary services such as career counseling.

However, Fenton was impressed by the program’s accessibility. The OMS CS costs a third of the traditional program and its enrollment standards only require undergraduates to earn a 3.0 grade point average or higher in computer science at an accredited undergraduate institution.

Fenton still has concerns about the program’s corporate sponsors, but admitted the Georgia Tech partnerships with Udacity and AT&T work. The school shares revenue with Udacity for its platform, support, and consistent styling, while AT&T provides investments and students.

The program does rely on teaching assistants to keep pace with grading and enrollment hasn’t been as diverse as hoped. U.S. citizens make up 80% of the online class, with more than 700 applicants already having advanced degrees and more than 120 holding Ph.Ds.

“While the OMS CS degree may not democratize higher education, it doesn’t cannibalize it,” Fenton wrote. “In addition, all the buzz around Georgia Tech’s OMS CS degree is driving interest in the university in general and in its computer science programs in particular.”

CU System Is Monetizing MOOCs

The University of Colorado has generated about $110,000 since September from massive open online courses (MOOCs) because students are willing to pay for certificates of completion.

The CU system partnered with Coursera in 2013, producing dozens of courses for the MOOC provider, including several multicourse units on a single topic that have been particularly successful at earning revenue.

“A specialization is a cluster of courses that ends with a capstone project, and what Coursera has found—and we’ve found this, too—is that these specializations, these clusters of courses are really marketable and really valuable to people in the marketplace,” Deborah Keyek-Franssen, associate vice president for digital education and engagement for the CU system, said in an article for eCampus News.

The courses have been rated so highly that the business faculty on the Denver campus voted to accept a Coursera specialization certificate in data warehousing as a transfer credit that admitted students can apply toward the 30-credit master’s degree in information systems.

“That lowers the cost of attendance for students,” Keyek-Franssen said. “The business school understands that this is a way to recruit students into the program and they have full faith in the quality of the specialization because it’s been taught and is being built by their own faculty.”

The Boulder campus doesn’t accept certificates as transfer credits yet, but is looking into the possibility. Provost Russ Moore told eCampus News he needed “strong evidence” that students earning online certificates were getting the same level of instruction as those on campus, but does see the partnership with Coursera as a way to introduce people to the institution.

“In a way, it’s a different way of marketing what CU-Boulder has to offer on a broader scale,” he said. “[Professor] William Kuskin’s comic-book course, the first go-around, had 40,000 people sign up, so that’s a great way to get the word out.”