I got my first exposure to online
learning in the early 1990s at the University of Maryland University
College. In those pre-web days, UMUC
developed its first online baccalaureate degree program. A few years later, I was back at Penn State,
where, in 1996, we began to plan the World Campus, which went online in
1998. Today, online learning is entering
its third decade as a change agent in our colleges and universities. It is moving into the mainstream of many
early adopter institutions. In others,
it is still proving itself as an innovation.
As more institutions move toward mainstreaming their online learning
innovations, it is a good time to look ahead to some of the policy issues that
institutions may want to consider.
This
is not to say simply that online learning needs to match up with the
pre-existing policies. Looking ahead, it
is good to keep in mind that, when an innovation enters the mainstream, it
changes the mainstream and that this, in turn, paves the way for future
innovations.
Program Approval and Academic Authority
At
many institutions, the startup period for an online learning program often
involves responding to entrepreneurial opportunities—a faculty member who is interested
in experimenting, a client organization that has a pre-existing relationship
with an academic unit, etc. However, as
online learning becomes an ongoing part of the institution’s services, it is
essential that decisions to offer a program online are vetted in the same way
as a program being proposed for on-campus delivery. After all, online programs represent a
long-term commitment by an academic unit and its faculty. They become part of the faculty workload and,
ideally, part of the reward structure within the academic unit and the
institution as a whole. Programs also
represent a collaboration between the sponsoring academic department and the
online learning unit. Once online
learning is mainstreamed, approval and central support for online programs
should be managed within the shared governance environment that guides on-campus programs.
Copyright: Enabling OERs
Online
learning is, at one level, a publishing activity. Institutions need to ensure that the material
included in courses is properly copyright protected. Most institutions will already have copyright
policies that may need to be adjusted to include copyright of faculty-developed
online course materials.
One
facet of copyright that has emerged in recent years is the idea of repurposing
some online course content as “open educational resources” (OERs). OERs could be used to provide K-12 schools
with new content that allows teachers to enhance their classroom
instruction. They can also provide
noncredit training opportunities to employees in client organizations. Colleges and universities can also make them
available to partner international institutions to ensure that students can
effectively transfer to complete a degree.
The
uses of OERs are still emerging. However,
several organizations have emerged to support the sharing of online
resources. One is the OER Commons, which
notes that, “Open Educational Resources (OER) offer opportunities for systemic
change in teaching and learning content through engaging educators in new
participatory processes and effective technologies for engaging with learning.”
Another is the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, a consortium of more than 250 institutions in Canada and the United States
that “promotes the awareness and adoption of open educational policies,
practices, and resources.”
The
emerging policy issue is for colleges and universities that produce online
courses to ensure that online course content can be restructured as
OERs. Developing policy now will
facilitate future innovation in this arena.
Certifications: Defining Badges
Badges
have emerged as a new kind of certification for online learning programs. However, for them to work in the long run,
they must become integrated with institutional policy. Two policy issues are emerging in this area.
First,
as institutions offer badges for professional education, it is essential that
they record them on a student transcript so that, in the coming years, if a
student includes a badge on her resume or job application, the employer can
verify the student’s accomplishment.
Second,
institutions must develop standards for defining badges. Ideally, inter-institutional standards for
badges will emerge to allow them to have more value in student career
advancement.
A
model for this was developed by the Continuing Education community back in the
1960s. A recent article by Deb Peterson notes that the CEU concept emerged from a task force
commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education in 1968. Peterson notes that a CEU is defined as “unit
of credit equal to ten hours of participation in an accredited program designed
for professionals with certificates or licenses to practice various
professions.” The International Association
for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) takes responsibility for
maintaining the standard and working with institutions and professional
associations on CEU assessments.
The time is rapidly approaching
where institutions—and professional associations—will want to standardize
badges in a similar way. Meanwhile,
colleges and universities can advance this area by creating their own criteria
and working with peer institutions, higher education associations, and client
professional associations to create standards that can be applied across
institutions.
These
are three areas where colleges and universities that are innovating with online
learning can develop policies that will allow them to fully realize the
potential of online learning to fulfill their educational mission in the new
global information society.
