Outside of needing to adjust some fundamentals; such as holding Q&A’s for faculty, changing the name of the Office of Online Learning to the Office of Online and Blended Learning, and changing “Boot Camp” to “Teaching Fellows Program,” an institutional study was conducted to reveal faculty hesitancy toward online teaching, as well as design new faculty development initiatives to support participation and retention in distance education.
It’s worth noting that, according to Armstrong’s findings, faculty hesitancy often differs depending on whether or not the person participated in distance education previously. 51 percent of the faculty identified as having participated, and 49 percent identified as not having participated.
The study found that for faculty that had experience with online learning, lack of adequate equipment, lack of technical support, and concern about workload topped the list of worries. Motivating factors for this group included: personal motivation, greater flexibility for students, greater course flexibility for faculty, and overall job satisfaction.
For faculty that had no experience in online learning, concerns included: quality of courses, faculty workload, lack of adequate equipment, quality of students, and lack of IT support. Motivating factors included: financial compensation for participation, access to IT equipment, and opportunity to increase access for students with disabilities.
The full results of Armstrong’s study, as well as more detail and methodology can be found here.
To address these concerns from both sides of faculty, Armstrong: Conducted a full audit of the technology used by faculty across campus; developed and implemented a plan to replace older computers and laptops with new ones within one to two semesters; IT Services and the Office of Blended & Online Learning met to design faculty development initiatives that provided faculty with pedagogically-based workshops, followed by tech-based training by IT; and technical support by IT was increased through expanded office hours and staff outreach.
New faculty PD initiatives were also developed, and now include: 60-minute workshops, eLearning certificates for completion, the Teaching Fellows Program, a Faculty Showcase for highlighting best practices, University System of Georgia webcasts, and course quality workshops. [More about these initiatives can be found in the study.]
To directly address a very large concern about online quality, Armstrong focused on a new online course development process and an online course review process:
Online Course Development: Designed to assist faculty with ensuring that blended and online courses are in alignment with the U.S. Department of Education’s SACS-COC, and the Program Integrity Rules in support of quality design principles. All fully-online and partially-online courses must be reviewed by a subcommittee.
Online Course Review: The review subcommittee, which operates under the University’s Educational Technology Committee, uses the Quality Matters rubric [more on this in the report] to provide the framework for the review process, and has integrated direct references to federal regulations, SACS accreditation, Universal Design for Learning, and Section 508.
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