Abbreviated Research Proposal
Online Course Delivery: Is Less Time in the Classroom
Resulting in Longer Hours for Faculty?
EDF 6481 – Fall 2001
Florida Gulf Coast University
Group 1
Dennis Siepiersky
Linda Ciprich
Abstract
This is an abbreviated research proposal for a university graduate research
class in education. As such, the review of literature and description are also
very limited. During the past decade, the format of distance education has
rapidly evolved from the correspondence and taped classes to include high
technology. With the use of the internet and email, faculty as well as the
education have become increasingly accessible to students.
As online
courses in distance education gain in popularity and number, more and more
faculty are gaining experience in developing, maintaining, and teaching the
classes. Many of them now believe that online delivery actually requires more
of their time than the traditional methods of delivery, and may not feel that
administrators are aware of the true effort involved on their part.
We propose a survey of faculty who teach both traditional face-to-face
courses and online courses, since they would be in the best position to
compare the amount of effort required.
1
Table of Contents
Page
I
Introduction
3
A. Statement of the Problem
B. Importance of the Problem
C. Research Hypothesis
D. Assumptions / Limitations
E. Definitions
II
Review of the Literature
5
A. Article Summaries
B. Narrative
C. Evaluation
III
Procedures
16
A. Sample
B. Data Collection
C. Validity and Reliability
IV
References
18
V
Appendix – Survey Instrument
22
2
Introduction
Statement of the Problem
During the past decade, the format of distance education has rapidly evolved from the
correspondence and taped classes to include high technology. With the use of the internet
and email, faculty as well as the education have become increasingly accessible to
students.
As online courses in distance education gain in popularity and number, more
and more faculty are gaining experience in developing, maintaining, and teaching the
classes. Many of them now believe that online delivery actually requires more of their time
than the traditional methods of delivery, and may not feel that administrators are aware of
the true effort involved on their part.
Importance of the Problem
Certainly it’s important that faculty be recognized for their true effort. Information in this
area is also important for administrators in order to effectively evaluate the costs of
distance education for pricing, and for planning of resources such as personnel.
Research Hypothesis
In comparison to college classes using traditional delivery methods, online courses may
require a different amount of faculty time for development and maintenance.
Assumptions / Limitations
We feel this research would be best interpreted as within the interpretive/constructivist
paradigm. Eichelberger (1989) described this type of methodological researcher as being:
…much clearer about the fact that they are constructing the “reality” on the
basis of the interpretations of data with the help of the participants who
provided the data in the study.
3
Definitions
A distance learning course is defined as one in which more than half of the instruction takes
place when faculty and students are at different locations and the instruction is delivered
through audio, video or computer technologies. Therefore, distance education is education
delivered at a distance and the following terms are related:
Distributed instruction
Internet-based delivery, internet-distributed
Networked Learning
Online Education
Telelearning
Virtual university
Asynchronous learning networks - Students learn the material "anytime, anywhere" by
reading books, handouts, or Web pages and interacting with other students and the
instructor via electronic media.
Costing – accounting for all of the various costs of distance education.
E-administration – the administrative side of distance education such as scheduling,
pricing, setting up electronic resources.
E-delivery – electronic delivery.
E-education – education delivered electronically.
Infrastructure – the underlying base or foundation for a distance education system, such as
the hardware, software, and personnel resources.
Internet 2 – The Internet 2 initiative is an effort to create a separate, higher bandwidth
network with new functionality and services.
throughout the U.S.
4
It involves more than 100 universities
Review of the Literature
Article Summaries
1. A Survey of Traditional and Distance Learning Higher Education Members
http://www.nea.org/he/abouthe/dlstudy.pdf
This article is the result of a survey commissioned by the National Education Association
(NEA) in early 2000. NEA higher education members were polled by telephone to obtain
their opinions, for the purpose of using that information to help the NEA formulate future
policy regarding distance learning. (It is important to note that only NEA members of two
and four-year institutions were used as participants – we may want to include NEA
membership as a variable in our own research.)
The study consisted of descriptive
information concerning distance learning faculty and courses, and the opinions of the
faculty concerning the courses.
Traditional faculty were the control group, but the only true difference in being ranked as
distance learning faculty was in having taught at least one course by distance in the past
five years. Interviews completed between February and March 2000 consisted of 402 with
distance learning faculty and 130 with traditional faculty.
The researchers felt overall that faculty had a positive outlook regarding distance learning,
although distance learning faculty more so than traditional.
They acknowledged that
distance learning faculty feel they will be financially affected by distance learning, but that
for the majority, that concern is outweighed by the fact that distance learning offers an
educational opportunity to students who would not normally be able to participate.
Examples of some of the conclusions are:
“Distance learning NEA members and NEA members who teach traditional courses have
similar demographic profiles, largely because distance learning faculty spend most of their
time teaching traditional courses.”
5
“We see two basic types of distance learning courses: Web-based courses (44%) and
those relying primarily on video technologies (54%).”
“In contrast to stereotypes of distance learning students as older, part-time students, NEA
faculty teach as many younger students as older students and as many full-time students
as part-time students.”
“Two-thirds of faculty report that their distance learning course has a limit on the maximum
number of students who can enroll. Faculty teaching courses with enrollment limits—
regardless of whether the limit is high or low— hold more positive feelings about distance
learning.”
“In spite of spending more hours on their distance learning course, most (84%) of faculty
get no course reduction, and 63% of distance learning faculty are compensated for their
distance learning course as if it were part of their normal course load.”
One of the most significant conclusions for our research topic is :
“Over half (53%) of distance learning faculty spend more hours per week preparing and
delivering their distance learning course than they do for a comparable traditional course,
compared to only 22% who spend fewer hours.”
2. Incentives and Obstacles Influencing
Administrators to Teach Via Distance
Higher
Education
Faculty
and
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/rockwell24.html
S. Kay Rockwell
Professor
Jolene Schauer
Graduate Assistant
Susan M. Fritz
Associate Professor
University of Nebraska
Agricultural Leadership, Education & Communication
This article concerns a survey study done of the intrinsic incentives and obstacles for
distance education instructors. Following personal interviews with 16 administrators, the
6
researchers developed a survey for 237 faculty and administrators from 2 colleges of a
mid-western university. Incentives or rewards included:
•
opportunity for innovative instruction
•
self-gratification
•
fulfillment of a personal desire to teach
•
recognition
•
opportunity to offer instruction beyond traditional institutions
Time requirements, technological skills, and the need for assistance and support were
perceived as obstacles, while effects on annual evaluation and promotion or tenure were
viewed as both incentives and obstacles by different respondents.
The variables were ranked with a modified Likert scale and grouped as primary and
secondary incentives or obstacles, or not considered incentives or obstacles.
After
collapsing the primary and secondary items to one group, they arrived at 9 incentives, 6
obstacles, and 2 that did not rank as either.
Incentives
Obstacles
Neither
Providing innovative instruction
Time requirement
Student Costs
Applying new teaching techniques
Assistance or support needs
Monetary awards
Self-gratification
Time taken from research
Fulfilling personal desire to teach
Training requirements
Recognition of work
Developing effective technology skills
Access to place-bound students
Reduction of student travel time
Release time
Peer recognition
Neither monetary awards for the teachers nor costs to the students were viewed as either
incentives or obstacles. Faculty was found to view distance education as time consuming
and requiring new skills. Plus it was determined that faculty need help with both the design
of instruction and technological delivery.
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3. Compensation Models in Distance Education
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/schifter31.html
Catherine C. Schifter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
This article involved a North American survey of as an attempt to “assess practices for
faculty compensation and incentives for participating in distance education programs or
initiatives.”
Queries were sent to 8 listservs, i.e., the National University Telecommunications Network,
the Urban 13/21 Provosts, the University Continuing Education Association, the Texas
Association for Educational Technology, the Texas Distance Learning Association, the
Florida Distance Learning Association, the Instructional Technology Council, and the
Distance Education Online Symposium, and the membership of the National Association of
State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.
The participants were the members of the above institutions who responded to the survey,
and who were offering distance-learning courses that were not print-based.
The variables of interest were:
Dependent Variables
Independent Variables
whether the institution was a two year
school or a four year school
the ways in which faculty were
compensated for maintaining distance
learning courses
the ways in which faculty were
compensated for developing distance
learning courses
the policy of the institution with regard to
faculty course load of distance learning
courses and promotion and tenure
whether courses were undergraduate
level or graduate
the methods in which the distance
learning courses were managed and
administrated at the participating
institutions
8
Extraneous variables were:
•
the course delivery method,
•
whether the faculty is unionized, and
•
the state or country that the institution is located in.
This was a quasi-experimental study where the researchers were studying the effect of the
dependent variables on intact groups. The researchers obtained 212 responses from 160
institutions, using a sampling method that could be defined as opportunistic or
convenience. Opportunistic in the sense that the researchers evaluated each response to
the survey that was submitted to see if it met their criteria. Convenience in the sense that
the researchers did not actively select the respondents from the population, but issued a
blanket invitation to respond and evaluated the responses received.
The research question was, What is the prevalence of various faculty compensation and
incentive practices for participating in distance education programs or initiatives at
institutions offering electronic distance learning courses? – with the hypothesis being:
Institutions offering distance-learning courses delivered by electronic means
will have compensation and incentive practices in place for faculty who
maintain and develop those courses.
Data was collected by a web–based survey. Most items on the questionnaire had check
boxes for responses, i.e., yes, no, does not apply. An additional text box was added to
each item which enabled respondents to elaborate on their answers.
The results of this survey showed that many faculty feel that teaching a [distance
education] course is more demanding on their time than traditional face-to-face courses.
9
4. Internet
Delivery of Instruction: Issues of Best
Administrative Hurdles, and Old-Fashioned Politics
Teaching
Practice,
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cnc9703/cnc9703.html
John F. Chizmar, Professor of Economics
David B. Williams, Associate Dean for Research and Technology; Professor of Music
This paper represents a presentation made at the annual CAUSE conference in 1997. The
researchers created a case study by offering two courses, one statistics and one a fine arts
class, to both an on-campus and online internet group at Illinois State University. Their
research question appears to be:
How do online course delivery methods affect course pedagogy, time spent in
course development and maintenance, course administrative procedures,
geographical location of students, methods of evaluation and authentication
of student work, and student course satisfaction?
The independent variable was the method of course delivery (on-campus delivery versus
online course delivery). The dependent variables were the:
•
pedagogy used,
•
amount of time spent in course development,
•
administrative methods (grade reporting, course registration procedures, geographic
dispersion of students, tuition rates, method of tuition payment, method of
completion of administrative forms),
•
method of authentication of student work,
•
instructor time in maintaining each course, and
•
student satisfaction with the course.
The extraneous variables were the technological skills of students and the availability of
technical support to students and faculty. The sampling method used in this research could
be described as typical case sampling, or convenience sampling, since the participating
courses were taught by the researchers. The research design was phase change (ABAB).
The phase A, or baseline period, had been established with the previous development and
10
offering of courses via on campus classroom delivery. The phase B was established when
the course was delivered via distance technology.
Data collection was by means of observation, where the researchers were completemember-researchers. They were the University faculty who were teaching the courses
under study. The student satisfaction data was collected via a questionnaire requesting
student opinion in regard to their feelings toward the quality of their learning experience.
The responses were rated on a numerical scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree)
and the statistics students were given pre and post tests to measure cognitive gains.
Students in the internet statistics course did not perform as well as students in the
classroom statistics course, but performed well absolutely. The researchers found that
pedagogy will change substantially, and that there are numerous approaches to adapting a
course to distance technology.
Instructor time in maintenance of the online course “far exceeded” the time required for
maintenance of the classroom delivery, with instructor response to student emails requiring
most of the additional time.
Administrative structures in place proved to be an obstacle to development and
maintenance of online courses, with no procedures in place for remuneration or adjustment
of class load of faculty and staff for course development and additional time maintaining
online courses. Technical support was inadequate and the researchers recommended a
standardized, centralized technical support facility for online courses. The researchers also
recommended that administration be more flexible and supportive of courses converting to
distance technology.
Threats to INternal and EXternal validity
Most of this research was based on observational data. There was some attempt to gather
objective data in the form of a course evaluative survey for all students at the end of the
courses. There were also pre and post-tests, but these were for the statistics students only.
11
The research summary does not state how many school terms the classroom-based
sections had been in existence, so it is difficult to evaluate how well the baseline data was
established. It also does not give the course development and teaching background of the
faculty participants (more faculty experience in these areas would contribute baseline
validity).
The students were limited to those who were already enrolled at the university, or
“volunteer“ students who did not pay tuition and did not receive credit. Therefore, it is
questionable whether data from this sample of students could be generalized to the
distance learning population at large.
Varied Pedagogy / Technology of delivery
Since the researchers studied only two sections of two courses, the research can only be
generalized to distance learning courses with similar delivery technology and pedagogy.
We suspect that these two factors would have a great influence on the effectiveness of the
online courses.
Overall strength of the research design
Distance learning is still in its infancy. There are comparatively few online courses offered
today, consequently it is difficult to obtain large samples from which to collect data. There is
also no standardized pedagogy for distance learning delivery, and the delivery technology
is evolving more quickly than research can be done. As a result, despite the research’s
limitations, it is still the best data that we presently have to work with.
12
5. An Investigation into the Costs and Benefits of Internet-Based Delivery
http://vc.tafensw.edu.au/staff/gwebb/ol98/paper.htm
Greg Webb & Cecelia Cilesio
This paper was also presented at a conference and turned out to be preliminary since the
study was ongoing at the time. The researchers wanted to determine if the additional costs
of internet-based delivery for distance education over snail-mail (postal) delivery could be
justified with added benefits. At the end of each term, a questionnaire was issued to the
students, the teachers, and the technical support staff. Financial data was extracted from
the 1998 financial records.
Interestingly, the authors state that originally they had planned to include face-to-face
delivery but in developing their IT model they found it more difficult than they had planned
and decided to cut back.
We will note that the researchers believe the following to be one of their most significant
discoveries:
…in describing the source of the costs for each component of the model we
have in fact created a framework for defining what we mean by online
delivery, something that has been missing to date.
They also state that their framework has resulted in a multi-purpose tool for comparing
costs between different courses or different types of delivery, and could even be used for
costing commercial offerings.
13
Narrative
The first article, the NEA survey, is probably one of the best for our purposes. It pertains to
faculty opinion which is what we are primarily concerned with. A significant conclusion of
the results was: “Over half (53%) of distance learning faculty spend more hours per week
preparing and delivering their distance learning course than they do for a comparable
traditional course, compared to only 22% who spend fewer hours.” We noted, however,
that this particular survey was only aimed at NEA members and that for our own survey it
might be wise to include NEA membership as demographic data.
The second article on University of Nebraska research is also an excellent choice for our
topic. It involved interviewing administrators and faculty to determine their perceptions of
incentives and obstacles in teaching distance education.
Faculty was found to view
distance education as time consuming and requiring new skills. Plus it was determined that
faculty need help with both the design of instruction and technological delivery.
Perhaps
what was most interesting about this article was the fact that neither monetary awards for
the teachers nor costs to the students were viewed as either incentives or obstacles.
With the Schifter article, the research begins to shift more towards actual compensation.
Unlike the last article and a few not discussed here which mainly dealt with costs and
costing, this research is still examining the faculty perception on incentives for participating
in distance education programs, albeit they seem to be monetary incentives. A significant
result was that the results of this survey showed that many faculty feel that teaching a
distance education course is more demanding on their time than traditional face-to-face
courses.
The fourth article was the CAUSE conference paper that looked at two classes being
offered to a face-to-face group and an internet group at the same time. The researchers
used a lot of the faculty time variables that we are interested in. The results are very
pertinent to our proposed research since the study showed instructor time in maintenance
of the online course “far exceeded” the time required for maintenance of the classroom
delivery, with instructor response to student emails requiring most of the additional time.
14
It should be noted, however, that this article is from 1997. Due to the rapid changes in
technology and the high growth rate of e-education, this type of research can become
quickly outdated. There are many more online classes available today than there were in
1997 although by now perhaps these researchers or others are already collecting more
data.
As mentioned earlier, the last article by Greg Webb and
concerned financial costing.
Cecelia Cilesio primarily
It was interesting, though, that they were attempting to
compare the older forms of distance education to internet delivery.
Evaluation
We feel that overall the articles we used for this abbreviated literature review represent
solid, original, and for the most part, current research in the area of online course delivery
and how it affects faculty. Since researchers are often faculty, it would be difficult at any
time to state unequivocally that the research is free from bias.
In addition to the five articles previously summarized and discussed, we found other
pertinent research articles on the internet and have listed the websites in the reference
section. Distance education in some forms, such as video-taped classes, is certainly not
new. However, when taking into consideration how recent e-education is, it is somewhat
surprising to find that a lot of research has, and is, being done. Having said that, we also
found that the majority of what is out there is relative to the financial costing of distance
education, e.g., the last two articles described in this proposal, rather than the time and
effort of our faculty. We feel that supports the necessity for our proposed research - to
collect and analyze faculty data that could be used to more accurately predict the cost of
development and maintenance of distance learning courses.
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Procedures
Sample
We intend to use all faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University, the University of South Florida,
and the University of Pittsburgh, who are presently offering identical or similar courses by
both online and traditional classroom delivery.
Data Collection
E-mail lists of faculty offering courses with online presence will be obtained from the three
institutions. We will then send e-mail messages to everyone on these lists inviting faculty
to participate in the study.
The message will describe the study and include a hyperlinked web address that will direct
participants to an online questionnaire linked to a database. (Refer to Appendix A for the
data collection instrument.) Dreamweaver Ultradev and Microsoft Access will be used for
this online survey.
Data reduction will be through manipulation of the database.
Validity and Reliability
Reliability
•
Coefficient of equivalence (parallel forms)
There are two parallel forms of delivery for the courses that are being studied. One section
of the course is delivered face to face classroom delivery, the other is delivered entirely, (or
almost entirely) by distance learning technology.
•
Reliability with observers
Interrater reliability / Intrarater reliability - We would rate this category as "fair" to "good"
16
All time data are subjective estimates by the respondents. This category could be improved
by having the respondents keep actual time logs.
Validity
•
Content / predictive validity
The instrument has good content validity. It breaks down the courses in question into
components, and collects data pertaining to the amount of time expended on each
component. Since the data is broken down by type of technology and course component,
and will be collected from faculty at three different institutions, it can have predictive validity
in a variety of situations.
•
Consequential validity
The data collected from this study could be used to more accurately predict the cost of
development and maintenance of distance learning courses. It could also result in greater
consideration (and additional pay) for the additional time faculty spends on distance
learning courses.
17
References
Bates, A.W. (Tony) 1992, Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Open Learning Agency’s Activities Part 1: Inputs and Outputs, The Agency as a Whole, The Open learning Agency, Burnaby,
B.C., Canada.
Bates, A.W. (Tony) 1995, Technological, Open Learning and Distance Education,
Routledge, London and New York.
Bates, A.W. (Tony) 1996, The Impact of Technological Change on Open and Distance
Learning, presented at Open Learning ‘96, Brisbane, Queensland. Also available online at
<http://bates.cstudies.ubc.ca/brisbane.html>.
Bates, A.W. (Tony) 1998, Learning Leaders Seminar Series, Videoconferenced seminar,
Unisearch Professional Education, University of NSW, 21 October 1998.
Beaudoin, M. (1990). The instructor's changing role in distance education. The American
Journal of Distance Education; 4(2):21-29.
Beaudoin, M. (1998). The new professoriate for the new millenium. DEOSNEWS; 8(5).
[available on the Internet from DEOSNEWS@lists.psu.edu]
Berge, Z. (1998). Changing roles of teachers and learners are transforming the online
classroom. ONLINE-ED, August 30, 1998. [available on the Internet from ONLINEED@unimelb.edu.au]
Boshier, R. et al 1997, Best and worst dressed web courses: Strutting into the 21st century
in comfort and style, Distance Education, vol. 18, no. 2.
Carl, D. L. 1991. Electronic distance learning: Positives outweigh negatives. T.H.E.
Journal, 18:67-70.
Clark, T. 1993. Attitudes of higher education faculty toward distance education: A
national survey. The American Journal of Distance Education, 7 (2): 19-33.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1992. Lifelines of learning: Distance education and
America’s rural schools. A Report to the 103rd Congress and the American People
Pursuant to Pub. L. 102-356. ERIC, ED 357 919.
Dede, C. 1990. The evolution of distance learning: technology-mediated interactive
learning. Journal of Research on Computing in Education 22 (3): 247-264.
Dillon, C. L. and Walsh, S. M. 1992. Faculty: The neglected resource in distance education.
The American Journal of Distance Education 6 (3): 5-21.
18
Gibson, J. & Rutherford, P. 1998, Learners are Teachers Too in our Virtual Classroom,
poster session at WWW7, 14-18 May, Brisbane. Available online at
<http://www7.conf.au/programme/posters/1888/com1888.htm>.
Gibson, J. 1997, Evaluation of a Trial of Internet Teaching in TAFE NSW, presented at
AusWeb 97, the Third Australian World Wide Web Conference, Gold Coast, Queensland..
Available online at <http://www.scu.edu.au/ausweb97/educn/gibson/paper.html>.
Goldman, S. 1997, Evaluating online delivery: Communication studies at Adelaide Institute,
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Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications.
Rutherford, P. 1996, The Key to Collaborative Teaching and Learning on the Internet. In
proceedings of AusWeb96 The Second Australian World Wide Web Conference, 1996, pp.
331-334. Also available online at
<http://www.scu.edu.au/ausweb96/educn/rutherford/paper.html>.
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Schutte, J.G. 1997, Virtual Teaching in Higher Education: The New Intellectual
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<http://www.csun.edu/socilogy/virexp.htm>.
Strong, N. 1998, Change Management and A Developmental Model for Online Delivery
Platforms, presentation made at the OTEN Technology Series, 18 October 1998.
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Snow, K., Farris, E., Levin, D., & Greene, B.
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Warner, W., Christie, G. & Choy, S. 1998, The Readiness of VET Clients for Flexible
Delivery Including On-Line Learning, Research Report. Available online at
<http://www.worklearning.corskill.com.au/worklearning/WL/research/>.
Webb, G. & Cilesio, C. 1998: An Investigation into the Costs and Benefits of Internet-Based
Delivery , Open Learning 1998, December, Brisbane. Available online at
http://vc.tafensw.edu.au/staff/gwebb/ol98/paper.htm
Webb, G. & Cilesio, C. 1999: The Results of an Investigation into the Costs and Benefits of
Online Delivery, EduCause 1999, April, Sydney.
Webb, G. & Cilesio, C. 1998, Administrative Infrastructures for Online Courses: The Part of
the Online Delivery Iceberg You Don't See, presented at the online virtual preconference of
NAU/Web ‘98. Available online at
<http://vc.tafensw.edu.au/staff/gwebb/nauweb98/paper.htm>.
Webb, G. 1997, A Theoretical Framework for Internet Based-Training at Sydney Institute of
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Webb, G. 1997, Internet-Based Training: Do Learners Like It as Much as Trainers Think
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faculty rewards. The American Journal of Distance Education, 11(2):3-18.
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Websites of Articles
The Costs and Costing of Networked Learning – Greville Rumble
http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/Vol5_issue2/Rumble/5-2JALN%20Rumble.pdf
A SURVEY OF TRADITIONAL AND DISTANCE LEARNING HIGHER EDUCATION
MEMBERS http://www.nea.org/he/abouthe/dlstudy.pdf
Is Distance Learning Worth It? Helping to Determine the Costs of Online Courses
Brian M. Morgan http://www.marshall.edu/distance/distancelearning.pdf
A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of the Costs of Classroom Instruction vis-à-vis
Distributed Instruction http://academic.shu.edu/itcosts/jewett.pdf
An Investigation into the Costs and Benefits of Internet-Based Delivery
http://vc.tafensw.edu.au/staff/gwebb/ol98/paper.htm
Compensation Models in Distance Education
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/schifter31.html
The Efficiency of Telelearning
http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/issue2/moonen.htm
Costs for the Development of a Virtual University
http://aln.org/alnweb/journal/issue1/turoff.pdf
How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Distance Learning Course? It All Depends....
http://www.cren.net/~jboettch/dlmay.htm
Using Information Technology to Enhance Academic Productivity
http://www.educause.edu/nlii/keydocs/massy.html
Assessing Teacher Presence in a Computer Conferencing Context
http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/Vol5_issue2/Anderson/5-2%20JALN%20Anderson.pdf
Issues and Challenges….
http://www.irrodl.org/content/v2.1/jung.pdf
Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions: 1997-98
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000013
Incentives and Obstacles Influencing Higher Education Faculty and Administrators to
Teach Via Distance http://www.westga.edu/~distance/rockwell24.html
21
Appendix A
Survey Instrument
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The questionnaires attached are part of a study to compare the actual cost of courses as delivered by distance learning as
compared to courses delivered by traditional face-to-face classroom meetings. One of the major costs that is often neglected is
the cost of faculty and staff time spent in course development and maintenance of the online course. The data collected below
will be used in an effort to develop a tool for estimating the cost of faculty and staff time as part of the budgeting process for
online course development.
If you are offering, or have offered in the past, different sections of the same course :
Entirely by traditional classroom delivery.
Entirely or almost entirely by distance learning technology.
Kindly take a few minutes to answer the questions attached for each course that you have offered in this way.
Thanks very much for your help!
Linda Ciprich
Dennis Siepierski
Florida Gulf Coast University
Indicate technology used (if more than one, estimate the percentage of the course that used each technology):
Distance Learning Technology Used
Course name and number:
Hard copy through the mail
Course materials available over internet /intranet
CD rom Zip Disk or other electronic storage
Radio broadcast
Televison broadcast
Videotape
Audiotape
Other (specify .)
Face to face classroom meetings
Video Teleconference
Email
Synchronous chat
Asynchronous computer bulletin board
Total --------------------------------------------------
Est. % of course offered
100%
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Estimate below the time required to develop the following features of your course. If others assisted you in these
activities, indicate whom and how much.
Course Development
Classroom Delivery
Feature used
Faculty
Time
(hours)
Other staff
(indicate )
Distance Tech. Delivery
Time
(hours)
Faculty Time
(hours)
Other staff
(indicate )
Time
(hours)
Syllabus
Assignments
Lecture
Tutorials
Tests/exams
Discussion
(synchronous
chat)
Discussion
(bulletin
board)
Grading
E-mail
What do you think was the most important contributor to the difference in time required to develop the two courses ?
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Estimate below the time required to maintain the following features of your course. If others assisted you in these
activities, indicate whom and how much.
Course Maintenance
Classroom Delivery
Feature used
Est. % of
use
(time)*
Faculty
Time
(hours)
Distance Tech. Delivery
Other
staff
(indicate )
Time
(hours)
Est. %
of use
(time)*
Faculty
Time
(hours)
Other staff
(indicate )
Time
(hours)
Syllabus
Assignments
Lecture
Tutorials
Tests/exams
Discussion
(synchronous
chat)
Discussion
(bulletin board)
Grading
E-mail
*Indicate the % of time that your students are engaging in this course activity
What do you think was the most important contributor to the difference in time required to maintain the two courses?
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