This came from the Dec. 7 issueof the Information
Technology In Postsecondary Education
Newsletter.
Online Learnin~ Require, Heavy
Investment In Support Service·
Students enroll in online courses for convenience. Many want to have the choice of logging on to their class at 3:00 a.m. Saturday if
that is their desire. Students can turn into unhappy customers, however, if they attempt to log
onto their course at that time and find the technology has failed them.
"When a student gets online, whether it's the
middle of the night or on the weekend--any time
of day--these students are taking the course because it's convenient for them at that time:' said
Jon Dobrin co-founder and chief technology officer of e~ollege.com. "What's very inconvenient is when they have a question and they can't
get an answer until it's convenient for the responder, i.e. the help desk or professor."
For a help desk to have 24 hours a day, seven days a
are finding that institutions do not want to pay a
week technical support they need a staff composed of at
lot of money up front for an online campus.
least five to seven people. These numbers increase as the
Institutions would rather pay a little up front and
online campus becomes
then more depending on the success of the cammore successful, enrolling more students. "It's
a sort of 'Catch 22' for online campuses. The
more successful they are, the more resources they
Sometoinstitutions
found Dobrin
they cansaid
successhave
provide thehave
support,"
fully manage their online campuses without
outsourcing through relying on faculty members.
Other schools have preferred to outsource to vendoo; as long as the prices are affordable and the
services are tailored to meet their needs.
Institutions partnering with eCollege.com have
a range of choices for the services they can receive. Ecollege.com can host their software,
register students, bill students and provide technical support, which costs $120 per student each
semester. Technical support by itself costs $30
per student per semester. Faculty and students
then receive 24-hour-a-day support online or over
the phone. "That requires us to maintain a large
amount of personnel just to staff the minimum
amount of coverage," Dobrin said.
Institutions also benefit from a personal consultant, who works with the college throughout the
entire implementation process of their online
campus. Ecollege.com employs several consultants, each responsible for a geographic area.
Consultants help colleges identify needs and provide direction. They also assist the school in
marketing the courses they will deliver online.
"My job is to answer all of their questions and to
be their resource," said Becky Bunn, a senior
consultant for eCollege.com assisting colleges
in the Northeast. "My day is spent reacting to a
lot of requests by the different schools, and building the growth of the online campuses I work
with."
ECollege.com opted to supply a comprehensive
~migher Education Washington