Faculty Council Subcommittee on E-Learning
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Chair
University of Massachusetts Boston
April 20, 2009
Executive Summary
The UMASS Boston Faculty Council charged the Graduate Studies and the Academic Affairs Committees to select a group of faculty and staff at UMASS Boston to study concerns raised through the years about online education quality. This report summarizes the findings of the Taskforce created by these committees.
The task of the Faculty Council Subcommittee on E-Learning was to address the concerns about the quality of online courses that had been raised on this campus by studying how online learning was being addressed at other institutions and the current practices at UMB, seeing how the quality of the programs/courses might be assessed and what policies can be put in place to ensure the academic integrity of these programs/courses.
The committee met from July 2008 to April 2009, identifying key questions and concerns about online learning, both at UMass Boston and nationally, identifying UMass Boston practices, researching best practices elsewhere, consulting with relevant institutional entities such as CCDE, UMassOnline, and the Division of Information Technology Services, and writing this report with a series of recommendations for ensuring the quality of online education at UMass Boston.
The subcommittee’s report contains information about the context of online learning, both nationally, where there has been enormous growth in online courses and programs with an estimated 3.94 million online students in 2007, and at UMass where, through UMassOnline, there were over 40,000 students taking courses at the start of 2009, as well as the ways in which online learning is addressed by both NEASC and the UMass/Boston Strategic Plan. It defines key terms related to online learning, and goes on to address issues of quality for online teaching and learning, as derived from a review of the literature, to consider standards for the assessment of course quality, to review existing institutional practices and resources, and to make a set of recommendations related to online courses at UMass/Boston
Some of the central points of the report include the following:
- The key elements of support for faculty include instruction in using tools and platforms through which the online course will be offered, but also help in conceptualizing the best ways to make use of these tools to engage students in the learning process.
- The best existing measure of course quality is that represented in the benchmarks of Quality Matters, a quality assessment consortium of over 300 institutions (CCCDE has an institutional membership but its courses have not been through this assessment process); these benchmarks address questions of overall design, clearly stated learning objectives, comprehensive instructional materials, effective learning activities, along with appropriate assessment strategies to measure student learning, access to appropriate institutional support services, and course navigation and use of technology that ensures access and engagement.
- Academic units are responsible for the development and teaching of online courses at UMass Boston and any new courses developed go through the standard review processes at all levels.
- Resources for supporting online teaching include required training in the use of the technologies and additional one-on-one support, educational workshops and conferences offered through IT.
- A concern about the authentication of students, to ensure the identity of students doing the work of the course, is being addressed, in part, by a new secure authentication system with one log-in for email, WISER, and Blackboard. UMass Online is keeping apprised of the development of new authentication technologies.
- Questions about e-learning, web-enhanced education, and/or distance education quality should not be different from questions and quality expectations of programs traditionally defined as campus-bounded.
Task Force Recommendations Summary
- Education: All faculty and administrators need more education about online learning and best practices; faculty mentoring is needed; and academic support for online students needs to be provided.
- Quality Improvement and Education: a university-wide system for planning online curriculum should be put in place; funding is needed for program evaluation efforts; annual campus data should be made available; online teaching evaluations should reflect on-campus course standards; there should be systematic assessment of space for hybrid courses; there should be one-point entry for technology-related information and support; students need access to appropriate hardware and software, with full campus wireless capability; and Quality Matters adoption should be considered.
- Governance: Faculty should be able to influence decisions about learning management systems; the Provost’s Office should pay a larger role in assessment and support of the use of digital technologies; there should be greater transparency about institutional arrangements between CCDE and the Boston campus; UMassOnline should be involved in supporting a sustainability study of the e-learning enterprise in relationship to the institutional structures of faculty development, scholarly production, faculty governance, promotion; and the Academic Affairs, Academic Technology, and Graduate Studies Committees should be charged with developing activities to support and enhance the quality of e-learning offerings.
- Scholarship: sustainability requires a larger investment in the scholarship of e-learning, along with allocation of resources into the study of best practices, education, and professional development needs; the Provost should provide resources for research into the uses of virtual learning contexts; the Provost and administration need to develop appropriate recognition of e-learning activities with regard to tenure and promotion decisions on campus; and pedagogical emphasis in the adoption of technologies should be balanced with the continuous innovation appearing in the digital technology community.
Full Report PDF Document Download
Filed under: e-learning, technology, e-learning, highereducation, technology
