More students than ever are interested in online courses. However, tensions are emerging between faculty and administration regarding the delivery of these courses.
monsitj/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images
Students are demanding more online courses than ever before, according to a new survey of senior college faculty, but there are also tensions over faculty autonomy and financial concerns.
According to the ninth annual Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) report released today, about three-quarters of chief learning officers surveyed reported increasing demand for online options from campus students, with 60 percent noting that online sections typically fill up first. Nearly half (46 percent) of the 324 online learning leaders surveyed added that enrollment in online programs is growing faster than enrollment in on-campus programs at their institutions.
The findings come with seven in 10 respondents saying they are actively negotiating or have already resolved tensions between online initiatives and the institution’s mission and culture. About half of institutions say their institutions are currently addressing a lack of faculty or administrative buy-in to online initiatives, and another quarter add that they have had similar issues that are now resolved. This is the first time respondents were asked about cultural and attitudinal barriers at their institutions in the CHLOE report.
About four in 10 (42 percent) say they are currently dealing with issues related to instructor autonomy. According to Bethany Simunich, vice president of innovation and research at Quality Matters, these issues focus on both the creation of online course materials and the delivery of online courses.
“A lot of the tension I’m hearing about now comes from faculty saying, ‘I want extra compensation for this,'” she said. “Or faculty are afraid if a subject matter expert comes in to design these courses to save costs, ‘What does this mean for me as a faculty member? What does this mean for my job? What does this mean for my identity? Am I always going to teach courses that someone else designed?'”
A report by Quality Matters, Eduventures Research and Educause found that online programs have caused past and present tensions between teachers and administrators.
Quality counts, Eduventures Research, Educause
The report surveyed online leaders at higher education institutions in January and February and focuses on the state of online and hybrid learning at higher education institutions. The ninth annual report was produced by Quality Matters, Educause and Eduventures Research, a division of Encoura, a data science and analytics platform. This is the first year that Educause, a nonprofit focused on education and information technology, has joined as a full partner.
Simunich said that while she typically hears frustrated comments from administrators about online enrollment outpacing on-campus enrollment, one of the key findings from the recent CHLOE report shows that institutions are now more likely to integrate online programs into their institutional strategies.
Of the institutions that had both online and in-person students, about a third (32 percent) reported having fully integrated online learning into their strategy. Nearly half (48 percent) of these institutions were public two-year institutions.
A quarter are still evaluating “how online goals will be reflected in our strategy.” Another quarter (24 percent) said their online learning strategy emphasizes only certain student groups; online learning leaders at private four-year institutions accounted for nearly four in 10 respondents who responded this way. About one in eight respondents said their institution has “no clear goals” but online learning is “under discussion.”
The remaining respondents (39 percent) indicated that either online learning objectives were formulated but not integrated at the institutional level or that the formulation of online learning objectives was an issue that was still being discussed. Public institutions with two-year degrees were most likely to report institution-wide strategic integration of online programs; private institutions with four-year degrees were least likely to report this.
Richard Garrett, research director at Eduventures Research, said he found it “surprising and not surprising” that tuition fees for online programs – which are typically similar to those for on-campus programs – have remained relatively stagnant.
According to the report, most institutions charge the same tuition regardless of modality. Only 15 percent charge less and 13 percent charge more for online offerings. This is largely unchanged from similar numbers in previous reports, according to Garrett.
“Given that higher education has a cost problem – real and perceived – can’t we leverage online technology and then pass those (savings) on to the consumer?” he said. “In some ways, I wasn’t expecting a huge change, but with all the COVID pressures of having to do more with less and yet we still seem to be in a ‘play it safe’ mode, that doesn’t feel like we should be there given our experiences.”
While costs are expected to remain relatively unchanged, a majority of institutions (69 percent) said that introducing online versions of classroom-based courses is a priority. Nearly half of respondents (48 percent) also expressed interest in developing new online degree programs and non-degree-oriented offerings such as certificate programs or microcredentials.
These priorities may be driven in part by institutions’ efforts to reach new students, as many fear a decline in enrollment in the coming years. Almost all institutions (92 percent) either “agree” or “strongly agree” that online offerings make it easier to reach students in their region. A similar share (87 percent) added that they make it easier to reach beyond their region.
Most (78 percent) focus primarily on new and returning adult students in online courses, followed by 40 percent targeting traditional on-campus older students. A third of institutions cited adult students using online courses to earn certificates or microcredentials as a “key focus.”
Other findings from the report include:
- A small portion of institutions (15 percent) work with online program managers (OPMs), with more than half (52 percent) saying they never have and do not plan to. Over the past year, there have been several concerns about looming legislation and financial difficulties facing some OPM giants. Of those that work with OPMs, a third said they have no plans to change the relationship, with 15 percent considering ending the OPM relationship and 10 percent considering expanding the relationship.
- More than a third (34 percent) of e-learning leaders said students are encouraged to use artificial intelligence (AI) to support learning, with 32 percent using it to generate content, followed by developing or editing code (29 percent) and using AI-powered adaptive learning tools (27 percent).
- Forty-two percent of respondents saw “at least some” increase in their budgets for online learning, while a similar number (41 percent) said budgets remained unchanged.
Garrett said that with the report now in its tenth year, the sector could expect a potential peak in online course enrollment in the coming year, which would be largely determined by the economic situation.
“I think we’ll find that after the COVID pandemic and if we go into a recession, online degree programs could have another boom,” he said. “If we don’t manage to do that and maintain low unemployment (and more) degree alternatives, more institutions might find that online degree programs aren’t the kind of emergency that you can click on at any time to quickly find new degree programs. They might find that it doesn’t work anymore.”
