No 14 - Journal of Social Informatics / Revista de Informatica Sociala

Stage I: Online/Blended/e-Learning InnovationsThe first stage is one in which traditional institutions enable their faculty to put courses online andprogressively create various forms of online, blended and e-learning offerings under theinstitutional brand. These offerings are often more expensive to develop and launch than thetraditional institutional offerings. They do not achieve any breakthrough economies, may usetraditional or adjunct faculty and replicate many existing practices. They do not use technology totruly transform faculty roles and patterns of interactivity, or to link students to discussions in noncoursecommunities that could enhance the ability of students to apply what they learn and/orbecome more employable. In the long run, this “digitize-the-traditional-and-incrementally-improveit”approach to online learning is a transitional state. This model will not add to nationalproductivity so it will not be sustainable in the face of global competition.Online/blended/e-learning innovations can work to reduce the overall cost to students and theinstitution, even if the tuition charged to students is the same or greater than the tuition for face-tofaceinstruction. Online students not only save on transportation costs, they reduce the opportunitycosts of travel time, lost income and such. These can be significant savings. Blended learning cansave institutions the cost of new facilities by reducing classroom demand and allowing institutionsto reduce the impact of commuter student traffic and use of on-campus facilities and services.Campuses in hyper-growth metropolitan areas like the University of Central Florida usecombinations of online, blended, and e-learning to “sculpt” enrollments at their multiple physicalcampuses and in virtual learning spaces.Moreover, the market leaders in online learning have shown that technology can be used tounbundle and transform the existing classroom-centric model for individual courses. The course reinventionefforts of Twigg [3] at the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) haveimproved performance and student success and reduced costs in virtually every physical or virtualcourse they have re-designed. Some institutions are scaling these processes to departmental,institutional or even system level. But the greatest challenge to scaling these approaches across theinstitutions has proven to be getting institutional leadership seriously interested in reducing costssystemically, which some associate with diminishing quality. Twigg has succeeded in achievingenthusiastic and effective faculty participation in course re-design as long as any cost savingsremain with the academic units.In times of constrained resources, institutional leaders need to focus on value, as well as quality,and to systemically reduce costs and “harvest” the savings. A genuine commitment to performancemeasurement and improvement requires a dedication to cost reduction in ways that do not diminishoutcomes.Summary of Stage I: Online, Blended and eLearningCharacteristics: Develop and gain acceptance for online, blended and e-learningTransformative Impact: Typically digitized existing academic roles and practices. In manycases students pay an online “premium.”Impacts on Institutional/Student Costs: Universities like UCF use a combination of online,blended and e-learning, offered virtually and/or on their main campus and regional campuses toincrease student options, reduce opportunity costs for students and reduce need for newfacilities.Exemplary Institutions/Participants: University of Central Florida – exemplary leveraging of online/blended/e-learningSloan Consortium – Gain acceptance for online and blended learningNational Center for Academic Transformation – Course Redesign results in improvedresults and reduced costs