Movies for Grownups

This summer, we’ve seen four good “movies for grownups” that provide intriguing lessons on life for Baby Boomers.

            Love and Mercy is, on the surface, a biopic about Brian Wilson, the musical genius behind the Beach Boys.  I was drawn to it, initially, by a kind of nostalgia—not unlike the attraction of Jersey Boys —but the reality was very different.  The music is there, of course, but the story is about Brian Wilson’s tormented genius and how, after many years of suffering, he found someone who freed him from an abusive psychiatrist.  The lesson:  it is never too late to find love and to start life afresh.

            A Walk in the Woods gives us Robert Redford and Nick Nolte as an aging writer and his pal from younger days who set out on a final big adventure—walking the Appalachian Trail.  I had read Bill Bryson’s great book and knew that no movie would be able to capture its depth, but nevertheless A Walk in the Woods turned out to be a very entertaining comic tale of two people facing their age and finding not only new adventures but a new appreciation of their lives and loves.

            I’ll See You in My Dreams stars Blythe Danner and Sam Elliot in what I thought was the most satisfying movie of the year so far.  Billed by one writer as a “coming of old age” movie, it gave us a sympathetic insight into one woman’s journey to confront the challenge of maintaining her personal sense of herself and building new relationships in her older years.  It is a film about both renewal and continuity.  We watched this movie over and over.

            Finally, there is The Age of Adeline, a fantasy about a woman who, due to a freak accident, stops aging in her late twenties and must change her identity with each decade in order to protect her secret.  In many ways, it is an allegory of adulthood, as we all live many different lives and, at some point, many of us become the children of our own children.  It is a very nice allegory that, ironically, was much more fun to watch the second time around.

            It is interesting how, as the Boomer generation begins to reach retirement age and has time for matinees and on-demand binge viewing, we are beginning to see films that address our issues—not the traditional issues of aging, perhaps, but instead a focus on the adventure of finding new ways to express our lives as we shift gears into what may be for many of our generation an extended “third act.”  Perhaps the promotional tag for I’ll See You in My Dreams says it best:  “Life goes on.  Go with it.”

           

Higher Education: Both a Private and a Public Good

In the September 2015 issue of Harper’s Magazine, William Deresiewicz writes about “How college sold its soul to the market.”  He argues, effectively, that American higher education has essentially abandoned its traditional obligation (in the words of one institution’s founder in 1920) “to develop in its students the ability to think clearly and independently, and the ability to live confidently, courageously, and hopefully.”  Instead, he writes, American colleges and universities have become focused on several buzzwords:  leadership, service, and creativity—things, notes Deresiewicz, which have little to do with thinking or learning.   He ties this change to the rise of “neoliberalism,” and notes:  “The purpose of education in a neoliberal age is to produce producers,” adding that “only the commercial purpose survives as a recognized value.”  The notion that higher education “might prepare you for life by inciting contemplation and reflection,” he reports, “. . . is typically dismissed.”

            Historically, American higher education has been founded in a social mission.  The early church-related private colleges—Harvard, Yale, etc.—emphasized the liberal arts in order to prepare leaders for their communities.  The 1828 report of the Yale College faculty defended the liberal arts curriculum against what Yale faculty saw as an external threat:

It is said that the public demand that the doors should be thrown open to all; that education ought to be modified, and, and varied, to adapt to the exigencies of the country, and the prospects of different individuals, that the instruction given tot hose who are destined to be merchants, manufacturers, or agriculturists should have special reference to their professional pursuits. 

            In response, they called for a prescribed curriculum organized around the “discipline and furniture of the mind.”  Notes the report:  “Our object is not to teach that which is peculiar to any one of the professions, but to lay the foundation which is common to them all.”

            A generation later, two factors began to change that view.  One was the rise of research as a core academic mission, which created increasingly specialized academic studies.  The second was the blossoming of the Industrial Revolution and with it new professions, new disciplines—the social sciences, for instance—and a vastly larger number of students who needed higher education in order to meet demands of work in a vastly more complex economy.  Normal schools—which evolved into our systems of state college and universities—were created in the 19^th century to train the multitude of teachers needed to educate the children of immigrants.  At the same time, Land Grant Universities were established to ensure education in “the practical and mechanical arts” and to translate research into practice.  In the 20^th century, community colleges emerged to meet local workforce needs.  All of these innovations served to create professionals for both a personal and a social benefit.

            The result was a complex system of higher education institutions across the nation—more than 3,000 colleges and universities—offering a variety of curricula formed around a diversity of research interests, state and local economic and workforce needs, and social philosophies.   This diversity has been both a social and economic advantage over decades of rapid social, political, economic, and technological transformation.  It has given us multiple starting points for new ideas and multiple perspectives on how to achieve innovation and positive social change.  That diversity is as important today as it was during the height of the Industrial Revolution.  In fact, diversity may be more important today, given the rapidity of change in almost every aspect of our lives.

            The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is focusing on this issue in a couple of ways.  As reported recently in Inside HigherEducation, the association defines liberal education as an:

“approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of interest.”

          

            AC&U’s longstanding Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) project is attempting to reposition liberal arts within the curriculum.  As Inside Higher Education reported, “The decade-old effort seeks to bridge what AAC&U sees as a false dichotomy between the intellectual and the practical in higher education, with a narrow, vocational training for some students on one side, and a more ethereal, high-minded liberal education for the lucky few at residential colleges.”  Part of that bridge is a focus on instructional process—the idea that students learn best via “deep, hands-on learning with collaborative assignments and major “signature” projects” and that the emphasis must be on “deep, hands-on learning with collaborative assignments and major ‘signature’ projects.”

            Clearly, the issue here is not just a tug-of-war between liberal education and professional education.  Instead, the challenge is for higher education to prepare students not only for jobs, but as individuals prepared to face the challenges of change and to take their place as members of a community—a reminder, I suppose, that many of the costs of an individual’s higher education are paid by taxpayers through direct state appropriations to colleges and universities and through state and federal scholarships and loans.   For much of my career in higher education, there has been a debate over whether higher education is a public good or a private good.  We need to acknowledge that a higher education—and our curriculum—should serve both goals.

Re-Imagining Continuing Education

Continuing Education has a long and proud history in American higher education.  The concept dates back to the early days of the land grant movement, when Agricultural Extension was created with the vision of the academic researcher working with farmers in their fields to improve agricultural production in order to sustain the forces of urbanization and immigration that were key to the Industrial Revolution in the United States.  While Agricultural Extension grew throughout the 20^th century, many institutions also created centralized “General Extension” or “Continuing Education” units to link other academic departments across the institution to the broader community that the institution served.

            Over time, these centralized Continuing Education units became expert at matching university resources to community needs.  In the process, they supported innovation and delivered a wide range of programs and services, including:

·      Community needs assessments.

·      Evening and off-campus credit courses, certificate programs, and degree programs, including related student support services to adult, part-time students.

·      Noncredit workshops, professional development programs, and consulting projects.

·      Academic research and technology transfer conferences that create academic and professional communities around university research interests.

·      Summer youth camp programs.

·      Liaison between academic units and employers and other community organizations on responses to community development needs.

            The Continuing Education function grew rapidly in the 20^th century.  As far back as 1915, institutions came together to form the National University Extension Association as an umbrella professional and organizational development for CE units.  It is now called the University Professional and Continuing Education Association and includes 400 institutions throughout the U.S. and beyond.   A shared sense of purpose matured around this community, as reflected in institutional mission statements for Continuing Education.  Some examples:

Our mission is to promote lifelong learning through the design and delivery of continuing professional education and training programs for individuals and organizations.

--George Mason University 

The Center for Continuing Education’s mission is to extend the educational resources and expertise of the University through innovative, non-traditional programs and services.

--MississippiState University 

We connect Penn State’s programs, research, and services to a vast, diverse community. Our mission is to engage, empower, and inspire global learners through the transformative, boundless power of knowledge.

         --The Pennsylvania State University 

The mission of continuing education at the University of Washington is to extend knowledge and professional development, career advancement, and personal growth opportunities through teaching, research, and public service to the citizens of Washington State and the nation.

--University of Washington 

The Division of Continuing Studies supports the mission of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea by providing access to educational resources to nontraditional students, lifelong learners, and the community.

             --University of Wisconsin-Madison 

            The Wisconsin Idea captures the essence of Continuing Education in the U.S.  It is “the principle that the university should improve people’s lives beyond the classroom. It spans UW–Madison’s teaching, research, outreach and public service.” 

Continuing Education in Transition

            Many of the traditional continuing education roles—and the idea of a centralized CE function itself—have come under pressure in recent years, for many reasons, not the least of which is technology.  Online learning has created a much more diverse and convenient access to credit programs for adult students, giving students greater options and making traditional evening classes less competitive.  At the same time, reduced state funding for higher education has made academic units more sensitive to the need to generate new funding and more aggressive about creating direct relationships with external clients.  As a result, some longstanding Continuing Education roles have diminished and pressure has increased to decentralize the traditional role of Continuing Education as a single interface between the university and the community.

            All this came into a fresh focus when Inside Higher Education reported this week that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “was set to call for a new focus on accountability in American higher education.”    Secretary Duncan’s immediate focus is on accountability for student success, on behalf of the students, parents, and taxpayers who fund the cost of educating traditional students.  However, there is a broader accountability question.  Recently, Pope Francis used the term “social mortgage” to describe the debt that institutions owe to the public that funds them.  The question for higher education is simple:  how can we best return value for the taxpayer dollars that states provide as general institutional subsidies?  That is, how is the state taxpayer’s direct investment in colleges and universities returning value to the community?   Part of the answer lies in our tradition of Extension and Continuing Education: to extend the university beyond the campus through teaching, research, outreach, and public service.

A Renewed Vision

            Certainly, when colleges and universities properly educate individual students—turning successful students into successful professionals—they directly contribute to the economic and, in some cases, social success of the community.  It is especially important that the commitment to student success extend to adult students, for whom re-entry into higher education is often a high-risk step.  This is a core role for Continuing Education units that offer credit programs to off-campus and adult, part-time learners.  However, we must also consider the quality issue as it relates to other, less formal ways in which colleges and universities contribute to the community.  These include professional development for a wide spectrum of professionals and technical workers in both public and private organizations; supporting organizational development for community institutions, from schools to museums to volunteer organizations; transferring the results of research from faculty members to individuals and organizations in the community; and providing informal learning opportunities for youth, seniors, and others. Continuing Education can serve as a broker for these programs, identifying community need, matching that need with academic expertise, supporting student success at all levels, and funding the development of programs that respond to the need. 

            Here are some specific elements of a renewed vision that will allow Continuing Education to help academic units across the institution engage with the communities they serve:

·      Risk-Free Innovation.  Faculty should be able to serve the community without financial risk to the academic unit.  When the central CE unit is set up as a cost center, with total budgetary responsibility for its programs, it assumes that risk.  The assumption here is that the CE unit has total financial responsibility for any program that it offers. The CE unit can absorb the risk, balancing the risk of innovation against net revenue from other programs.   The CE unit needs two things:  (1) a clear costing and revenue sharing policy that operates as institution-wide policy so that all units are treated equally and (2) a governing body with representation from across the major academic colleges so that risk is balanced.

·      A Community Interface.  A centralized CE unit can provide a single institutional point of contact with key client organizations, serving as the institution’s ambassador to the community.  This does a couple of things.  First, it allows the institution to address multiple needs in client organizations.  For instance, a company may have an immediate need for professional development of its engineering staff, but it may also need some help with marketing staff or with back office issues or with customer relations.  A central CE unit can survey needs across the organization and bring multiple academic units to the response.  It can also manage the overall relationship with a client organization, as needs change.

·      Adult Learner Support.  A key benefit of a centralized unit is its ability to work with adult, part-time students, whose needs are unlike traditional undergraduates.  A CE student services group can help students deal with the many non-academic issues that they face in trying to integrate learning into already busy professional and personal lives.  The CE unit can be a key player in ensuring student success for the adult, part-time learner.

            These roles require a strong governance system in which academic units have a voice in policy, funding, and new initiatives, understanding that funding of new initiatives is based on net revenue generated by previous programs.  All academic units thus should have a voice in CE governance.  The Continuing Education governance should be on a par with the institution’s other major missions, such as undergraduate and graduate education and research.

CE and Online Learning

            Some institutions built strong boundaries between Continuing Education and Online Learning.  That may have been necessary to get online learning started.  However, two decades into the online revolution, it is clear that online technology cannot not be isolated, but should be widely available to help institutions better serve individuals and communities of all sorts.  The online environment is part of the daily life of today’s citizens.  It affects how we work, how we socialize, how we find information and solve problems.  It is part of the fabric of today’s world.  The question, then, is not whether Continuing Education should use online technology, but how best to integrate technology into its mission and services.

            Already, some continuing education units have integrated online learning into their credit offerings, turning evening classes into blended learning courses that reduce the need for adult students to travel to campus.  This makes the courses more competitive and, at the same time, can improve instruction by better engaging adult students in the learning process.

            Beyond that, however, online technology can be used in noncredit continuing education environments.  Open educational resources, webinars, social media, MOOCs, and other variations all have potential to improve the connection between the university and the many communities it serves.  MOOCs, in particular, can be used to bring together geographically dispersed clients—professionals, public servants, etc.—into sustained learning communities that can have an extended consulting and research transfer relationship with faculty in multiple academic units.

            Continuing Education can effectively embrace online technology to better articulate the goal of serving the community with noncredit programs, research and technology transfer programs, support for K-12 education and community development, and related services.

 Looking Forward

            The original idea of Extension was a response to the need for innovation to support the Industrial Revolution.  For the next century, universities used Continuing Education to help their state’s employers, professionals, government agencies, and schools, hospitals, and other community organizations adapt to changing needs.  Today, a generation into the Information Revolution, these communities are facing even more dramatic changes as they try to remain vital in the face of a global economy driven by information technology.   Centralized Continuing Education support services, empowered by the new technology and by internal policies that create a culture of innovative engagement, offer a way that universities can help faculty engage the communities we serve and whose taxes support many aspects of our public higher education system.

Innovation in Outreach and Extension: Some Thoughts on the Next Wave

The last decade has been a time of significant innovation in university extension and outreach.  At the same time, higher education in general has been under increasing criticism for focusing on narrow professional programs and losing its social mission.  Much innovation has been driven by technology—putting existing curricula online to serve adult and part-time learners, especially.  As we look ahead, we need to ask how we can use both traditional means and online technology to address the many problems facing our communities in a new social and economic environment.  Here are four areas where I think we are ripe for innovation in Extension and Outreach:

1.            Partnering with K-12 Education It is generally understood that, if our communities are to compete in the new global information economy, we need a better-educated workforce.  More high school graduates need to go on to college.  The Obama Administration proposal to make community college free to qualified students is an example of this goal.  The U.S. Department of Education target is that 60% of high school grads will go on to college; only about 39% do now.  The problem is that most high school graduates who are prepared to enter college already do so.  In order to increase the percentage, we need to increase the number of high school students who are, in fact, prepared to succeed in college.   Two innovations could set the stage for new, ongoing relationships between higher and K-12 education:

·      Dual Enrollment Courses  Universities can partner with local schools to allow high school students to enter lower-division college courses and simultaneously earn high school graduation credit and college credit.  The result is students who are more ready to enter college and who do so with some credits already on their resumes.

·      Open Educational Resources  Universities that offer online courses can extract online content modules from courses and make them available to help high school teachers enrich college prep courses.   There is a model for this—the relationships among public television stations, local schools, and state departments of education that delivered content over the air to schools from the 1960s through the 1980s.

2.            Re-Imagining Extension  Originally, Agricultural Extension was created to increase agricultural production, so that the U.S. could sustain the combined forces of urbanization and immigration that fed the Industrial Revolution.  Today, we are facing different challenges.  As the 21^st century advances, we will need to help farmers deal with a range of agricultural issues—this time in the face of dramatic climate change—but we also need to expand the Extension ideal to help our communities, large and small, deal with the economic and social issues presented by the Information Revolution.  How can we help communities maintain their social and economic validity in the face of a globalized economy?  In an era of social media, how do we rebuild the physical community—our towns and villages, as well as our cities—into socially and economically viable places to live, raise families, conduct business, and exercise citizenship?  Online technology can play a role here, too, by bringing community leaders together to share ideas and best practices and to learn from faculty researchers, building new ways to transfer research and technology into daily practice in business, government, and civil society.

3.            Globalizing the Discussion  Over the past few generations, institutions have tended to see international outreach as a one-way street—a way to export our faculty expertise, our research and technology, and our credentials.  Today, we need to seek out more evenly balanced institutional partnerships that bring faculty together across cultures, eco-systems, and economies to share ideas, to find common solutions, and to inform each other—and our students—about new perspectives in our globalized society.  The Worldwide Universities Network is a pioneer in this arena and a model that other institutions can follow.  Another early innovation is the partnerships between institutions to offer “sandwich” doctorates that reduce brain drain from developing countries while developing new collaborative research opportunities.   A fundamental challenge in this area is to help our constituencies better understand the global environment by allowing them to interact with counterparts around the world as students, as outreach/extension clients, and as research transfer partners.

4.            Preparing Retirees for the Third Act  In today’s world, people live longer, more healthy and active lives.  For many, retirement is no longer the end of active life, but the beginning of a “third act,” when men and women can look beyond the need to support their families and find new interests.  Helping the first few generations of these new seniors find a place in society—whether it be in new professions or as volunteers or just active individuals—is a new way that outreach and extension units can bring university knowledge and expertise to bear to serve individuals and, in the process, strengthen communities.  Older adults are a new and growing population who need access to university resources no less than they did as young professionals.  And, our communities need older adults who are prepared to contribute in new ways.

            These innovations are not technological per se, but they are facilitated by technology.  The demonstrate how public higher education can re-imagine the roots of its outreach/extension mission in the process of re-focusing on the needs of today’s community. 

           

Corporate Greed and the "Social Mortgage"

Several articles over the past couple of days have cast a fresh light on what appears to be a deep and abiding problem in American society:  the rise of a particularly rapacious new oligarchy.

            Donald Trump was the focus of one article, based on his recent diatribe against immigrants.  Robert Reich noted on Facebook 

 “ . . . Trump has used bankruptcy and corporate laws to shield his personal fortune, allowing him to amass huge debts with little or no downside risk while enjoying all the upside gains.  Trump also made his fortune by squeezing employees . . . He typifies the modern corporate CEO who’s rigged the rules, reaped giant personal rewards, and left communities and employees stranded.” 

            This tension between corporate profit and social responsibility was reinforced by another article this week.  This one focused on the decision by the CVS pharmacy chain to withdraw membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been lobbying on behalf of the tobacco industry.  As The New York Times reported, “CVS, which last year stopped selling tobacco products in its stores, said the lobbying activity ran counter to its mission to improve public health.”   The report went on to say:

The New York Times reported last week that the chamber and its vast network of foreign affiliates had targeted restrictions, often in developing countries, on smoking in public spaces, bans on menthol and slim cigarettes, advertising restrictions, excise tax increases, plain packaging and graphic warning labels. The chamber’s efforts have put it in direct opposition to the World Health Organization’s efforts to curb tobacco use around the world.

            The Times noted that the chamber’s stated purpose was “safeguarding its members business interests” and cited a Chamber of Commerce statement that “ . . . we support protecting the intellectual property and trademarks of all legal products in all industries and oppose singling out certain industries for discriminatory treatment.”  In fact, it has mounted, in collaboration with overseas affiliates, a lobbying campaign against restrictions on smoking in public places and related laws designed to curb tobacco use.

            These two examples reinforce the idea that unregulated, free-market capitalism is concerned first and foremost—solely, in many cases—with profit, even when that conflicts with the social good.  Corporate greed has become an end in itself.  Too often, the idea of corporate social responsibility is simply a pretense, part of the company’s sales job but not a reality in the boardroom.  (CVS, with its decision not to sell tobacco products, is a good exception to this rule.)  The ideal of unrestricted profit leaves no room for social responsibility.  Pope Francis addressed the issue of corporate greed during his South American tour this week—the third article I read that brought the first two together. "The goods of the Earth are meant for everyone," the Pope said, "and however much someone may parade his property, it has a social mortgage." 

            The issue has become increasingly important over the past few decades, as the federal government has begun to “outsource” its responsibilities to private firms rather than create government structures to meet needs.  Perhaps the worst example was the outsourcing of military support to private companies during the Iraq war and, more recently, the outsourcing of our support for NASA to private companies, which just recently failed to launch a supply ship to the international space station.  The conflict between private gain and social good underpins the debate over the Affordable Care Act.  In the education arena, we’ve seen some for-profit companies that offer online degrees be great at attracting students with federal financial aid, but miserable at actually seeing these students through to completion.  The result is that they turn our tax dollars into corporate profit but don’t deliver the education.  That’s the “social mortgage” that any university—public, private or for-profit—must pay.

Time to Stop the Violence

The racially motivated massacre this week at the Emmanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, is yet another low point in American society.  We've had multiple massacres over the past few years--at schools, at theaters, at shopping malls, and now, in churches.  In every case, the media have given it a lot of air time, but have soon let it--and the underlying issues, especially gun control--drop in favor of fresher meat.  In this case, however, the massacre has come on the heels of several other examples of racial violence--usually violence by police against African-Americans.   Perhaps, these events, taken together, will give our elected officials reason to rise above the narrow interests of their funders.  I am a hopeless optimist.

Clearly, we cannot erase racism in a single swipe.  This year marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, which ended official slavery of African-Americans.  This week marks the 51st anniversary of the Senate approval of the Civil Rights Bill, which set the stage for a generation of healing.  The election of our first African-American President should have been another visible step toward a post-racist society, but instead we have seen racism creep back into our daily headlines.

We need to act, though.  Here are a few small steps that might help reduce violence, if not racism itself:

1.   Implement a national gun registration system.  For decades, we have required any person who drives a car to be licensed to do so, and we have required that all cars be registered by their owners.    Let's do the same for guns:  (a) all gun owners must be licensed to use a gun, with the license to be renewed annually, and (b) all guns must be registered by their owners, with that registration to be renewed annually.  This is not a threat to our Constitutional right to bear arms any more than car registration and driver licensing is a threat to our freedom to travel.  However, it would provide a modicum of protection for all citizens.

2.  One reason that citizens' voices are not heard in the debate over gun control is that the gun manufacturers have put so much money into the political process.  Let's stop corporate funding of our elections and instead use public funding to ensure that all candidates have equal access to the election process.

3.  150 years after the end of the Civil War, let us, finally, stop the official use of the flag of the confederacy in state houses. 

Americans cannot simply shrug and walk away from these recurring tragedies.  We cannot simply accept the notion that the price of democracy is senseless violence.  We are better than this.  Or, at least, we can be better than this.

New Edition of E-Learning Definitions

For the past few years, Frank Mayadas and I have worked to refine a set of definitions within the online learning field.  This year, John Sener joined the team, and we have come up with a new edition of the definitions.  John, Frank, and Karen Pederson of OLC will have a session about definitions at the fall OLC conference.  Meanwhile, here is the latest version:

Definitions of E-Learning Courses and Programs

Version 2.0

April 4, 2015

Developed for Discussion within the Online Learning Community

By

Frank Mayadas, Gary Miller, and John Sener

As e-learning has evolved into a global change agent in higher education, it has become more diverse in its form and applications.  This increased diversity has complicated our ability to share research findings and best practices, because we lack a shared set of definitions to distinguish among the many variations on e-learning that have arisen.  This paper is designed to provide practitioners, researchers, and policy makers with a common set of terms and definitions to guide the ongoing development of the field.  Our hope is that it will move us toward a set of shared, commonly understood definitions that will facilitate the sharing of research data and professional standards in our field.  In developing the definitions below, we have tried to incorporate existing definitions developed by others and have incorporated comments from colleagues who have reviewed earlier drafts.   We do not present these as the ultimate definitions, but as a step toward more commonly held standards as our field continues to evolve.  Additions and revisions will be published periodically, as needed.

The Impact of E-Learning

While e-learning has become the primary form of distance education, it is also transforming instruction on campus.  Higher education historically is a campus-based institution.  Many students live on campus for the duration of their studies; others live near campus and commute to campus to take classes and to receive campus-based support services.  This physical connection has defined the relationship between the student and the institution.  It has also helped to shape the curriculum itself.  E-learning has blurred these traditional relationships, removing geography as a defining element in the student-institution relationship.  

Technology-enhanced learning has evolved both from enhancements to earlier generations of face-to-face teaching and enhancements to earlier generations of distance education.  Engaged intentional design of learning experiences has also evolved to promote the most effective design to serve the learners, their life experiences and the opportunities and limitations of the particular environment.  For example, many graduate programs have deliberately designed programs for working adults, which are predominantly offered online but also include short-term face-to-face residencies.

At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to define a common measure for instruction.  The “seat time” measure on which common understanding of a “credit hour” is largely based, is being challenged as new instructional models and alternatives to traditional classroom lectures become more widely accepted.  However, the credit hour remains the most widely accepted measure used to compare courses across different delivery environments.  Continued growth in the number and diversity of learning environments will increase the need for a common standard by which different learning environments can be compared.  The following definitions assume the credit hour as the primary means by which courses are defined, regardless of delivery environment.

As e-learning has matured, it has begun to be used in different ways to address diverse goals.  Several models have emerged that have different geographical and curricular implications.  It is important to be able to distinguish among these factors in order to compare practices and to understand and be able to effectively apply research findings.  Shared definitions will also empower students to make better decisions.  The major goals of e-learning include:  improving access for both traditional-age and nontraditional students who are not otherwise able to attend a traditional, campus-based program and improving student choice over when, where, and how to engage in the learning process; and improving efficiency and effectiveness by using e-learning media and methods to control cost or provide other efficiencies or to make large-enrollment courses more effective for students.  In addition, we are assuming that courses and programs defined below are instructor-led experiences, distinguishing them from self-learning modules, often seen for instance in some corporate training models.

DEFINITIONS OF E-LEARNING

Over the years, various organizations have attempted to define different aspects of e-learning.  Often, these have been focused on the specific needs of an individual institution or organization.  In 2012, Frank Mayadas and Gary Miller posted a set of definitions designed to create a more common understanding; these were updated later that year in response to feedback from the professional e-learning community.  The following definitions are designed to replace the 2012 document.  They are designed to help both faculty and students better understand the different kinds of e-learning that are now practiced in higher education and to provide institutions with some standard models to encourage effective sharing of data about e-learning, at both the individual course and the curriculum level.  These definitions have two key characteristics:

·      They include definitions at both the course level and the program level.

·      They incorporate three key parameters:  instructional delivery mode, time, and flexibility.

COURSE-LEVEL DEFINITIONS

The following definitions distill current practices into seven categories that reflect the variety of applications that predominate in use today.

1.            Classroom Course – Course activity is organized around scheduled class             meetings.

Traditional classroom courses are measured by the number of hours spent in required in-person class meetings in various formats, such as lectures, studios, or workshops or other traditional face-to-face activities, such as laboratories, field trips, or internships.  Such courses may involve some sort of computer usage—for example, a software simulation or laboratory or design software for art or engineering applications—but the course is still anchored to the normal time spent in face-to-face classes.  For the purposes of clarity in these definitions, courses that use technology at this level are considered to be “classroom” courses.

2.            Synchronous Distributed Course—Web-based technologies are used to extend             classroom lectures and other activities to students at remote sites in real time.

These courses use web conferencing or other synchronous e-learning media to provide access to a classroom experience for students at off-campus locations (such as places of employment, other campuses, etc.) while otherwise maintaining a normal face-to-face classroom schedule.  These courses may mix on-campus and remote students, with on-campus students being face-to-face with their instructor and remote students participating simultaneously via technology.  This changes the experience for both sets of students, so both settings fall into the same category.  Some types of synchronous distributed courses offer greater place flexibility than others, depending on the delivery tool used.  Synchronous distributed courses are significantly limited in terms of time flexibility, although that can be increased by recording class lectures and related activities and making them available for later viewing.

3.            Web-Enhanced Course – Online course activity complements class sessions             without reducing the number of required class meetings.

When Internet access is required to complete course requirements, and when this Internet-based work augments classroom activity or supplants a relatively small amount (typically, 20 percent or less) of the traditional classroom activity, the course is considered a “web-enhanced course.”  Traditional courses and web-enhanced courses are very similar, but are placed in separate categories because web-enhanced courses require additional faculty and student support, and very likely additional technology.  Web-enhanced courses are not normally considered to be e-learning courses, but are described here because they may be a step toward a hybrid or online course.

4.            Blended (also called Hybrid) Classroom Course – Online activity is mixed             with classroom meetings, replacing a significant percentage, but not all             required face-to-face instructional activities.

When the technologies used for education and communication outside the classroom are used to supplant some, but not all face-to-face instruction, reducing the time actually spent in the classroom, the result is a blended classroom course.  For example, if a course traditionally meets in a classroom three times per week, a blended version might use online sessions to replace one or two of the traditional weekly classroom sessions or to focus face-to-face sessions on laboratory or project work.  The offering institution should set the threshold for required online activity at that institution.  Some institutions use blended courses with traditional on-campus students to improve efficiency in the use of limited classrooms.  For example, replacing 50% of classroom experiences with online experiences would allow an institution to schedule a second course in the same room. 

5.            Blended (also called Hybrid) Online Course – Most course activity is done online, but there are some required face-to-face instructional activities, such as lectures, discussions, labs, or other in-person learning activities.

These courses are the mirror image of blended classroom courses.  Most course activity is conducted online, but a small amount of scheduled in-person classroom or other onsite group activities events are required.  Online delivery replaces all but a few required face-to-face sessions.  While this category of course may commonly be called an “online” course, the distinction is important because the inclusion of face-to-face work sets some geographic limitations on student access to the course.   The institution is responsible for setting the threshold of required online activity.

Both Blended Classroom Courses and Blended Online Courses are particularly relevant in programs that serve students within commuting distance of campus.  They increase flexibility but do not totally eliminate the need for students to have physical access to a campus facility.  Blended courses will be attractive to many traditional full-time students, in addition to non-traditional learners, typically working adults who are within commuting distance and who wish to earn a degree.

6.            Online Course – All course activity is done online; there are no required             face-to-face sessions within the course and no requirements for on-campus             activity.

Purely online courses totally eliminate geography as a factor in the relationship between the student and the institution. They consist entirely of online elements that facilitate the three critical student interactions: with content, the instructor, and other students.

While these courses may appeal to on-campus students, they are designed to meet the needs of students who do not have effective access to campus.  They may reside near the campus, or they may reside quite a distance away in other states or even in other countries.   Over the years, universities have sought to serve this “non-traditional” population through a variety of media—from correspondence courses to satellite teleconferences—but only since the mid-1990s has technology enabled easy and continuous communication—interaction—among the learners and instructors at a distance. The Internet also has made library and other information resources available to this group.  Improvements in basic technology also permit this user group access to complex data as in precision images, mathematical visualizations and simulations of various kinds.  Social networking applications allow these learners to participate in both formal and informal learning communities.

NOTE:  Since 2002-03, the Babson Survey Research Group has conducted a national survey of online learning, initially supported with funds from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  It has become recognized as a premiere national e-learning survey research effort in the United States.  Their protocol defines a Blended/Hybrid course as being up to 79 percent online and an Online Course as being 80-100 percent online.  They have maintained that distinction in order to ensure longitudinal consistency across survey years.  However, most institutions now consider an online course to be 100% online.

7.            Flexible Mode Course – Offers multiple delivery modes so that students can             choose which delivery mode(s) to use for instructional and other learning             purposes.

The distinguishing characteristic of the type of course is that it provides students with the option to select from multiple delivery modes, which also increases their control over time and place as well as delivery mode. One example is the “Emporium” model developed through several innovations funded by the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) (1). This model, designed for on-campus use, eliminates all class meetings and replaces them with a learning resource center featuring online materials and on-demand personalized assistance. This gives campus-based students control over when they study by allowing students to choose when they access course materials, to choose what types of learning materials they use depending on their needs, and to set their own pace in working with the materials.  It assumes that students have access to sophisticated instructional software and one-on-one on-site help.  It replaces formal class meetings with increased access to instructional assistance and allows institutions to combine multiple lecture sections into one large section.

The HyFlex blended learning model is another one in use at several colleges and universities. The model was developed at San Francisco State University to give students choice over the mode of study (2).   In HyFlex courses, students have both classroom-based and online options available for all or most learning activities, giving them the flexibility to choose when and where they study based on their own needs, desires, and preferences. Students can also choose to change which option they use to attend courses weekly.

PROGRAM-LEVEL DEFINITIONS

Similar distinctions among delivery environments can be made at the program level.  Degree and certificate programs can be designed with a mix of traditional and e-learning courses in order to serve populations who have different levels of access to campus.  Currently, there appear to be four major kinds of practices in wide use:

1.              Classroom Program—The program may include a mix of traditional, web-enhanced, or hybrid courses, but all courses require some face-to-face lecture sessions.

These programs take advantage of web-based applications to enhance learning, but without changing the requirement that students attend classes on campus or in other face-to-face learning environments.  As a result, online elements do not significantly improve access to commuting or distant students.

2.            Multi-Format Program – A program mixes classroom courses with other             formats that may use a variety of different delivery modes, web-enhanced,             blended, fully online courses, synchronous distributed courses, etc.,             without a specific access goal.

These programs use a variety of technologies and course designs to provide a variety of learning experiences.  Typically, choice of technology is less related to the geographic or time needs of students than to curricular goals or instructional needs.   

3.            Blended Program – A significant percentage, but not all of the credits             required for program completion are offered fully online.  Typically, up to 30             percent of the curriculum may be offered as face-to-face or blended             courses or other face-to-face formats or as independent study.

These programs provide increased access to distant students who are able to come to campus for some courses, laboratory work, intensive residencies, or other occasional group sessions.  Ideally, face-to-face sessions will be organized to minimize travel requirements for distant students.  Some academic support services should be available to distant students as well.  While a model in which 30 percent of the program consists of face-to-face or blended courses is given as a guideline, institutions should determine the percentage of the curriculum to be offered fully online based on local needs. 

4.            Online Program – All credits required to complete the program are offered             as fully online courses.  Students can complete the program completely at a             distance, with no required face-to-face meetings.

Fully online programs are designed with the truly distant student in mind.  Institutions that offer fully online programs should also take care to provide support services—registration, testing, advising, library support, etc.—at a distance.

Emerging Innovations

As e-learning matures, innovative new ways to teach and learn will continue to emerge.  Recent examples are massive open online courses (MOOCs) and competency-based education. At this stage in their evolution, these innovations can be adequately described within the course and program definitions described above;  MOOCs and competency-based courses can be understood as operating within one or more of the defined  categories. 

Implementation

The authors are indebted to the many colleagues too numerous to list individually who have contributed to these definitions by providing feedback on earlier drafts and who, in some cases, have pioneered in developing innovative applications of technology to create new learning environments.

These definitions are a work in progress that will be updated periodically as needed.   The authors welcome comments and anticipate that they will prepare occasional companion pieces to add new definitions as the field evolves, in the hope the community will come together around a common set of definitions that will guide research, practice, and policy.  We encourage researchers and professional associations to adopt the definitions with the goal that a shared vocabulary will facilitate the sharing of research data, increase the transfer of research into practice, and, ultimately, promote standards of excellence for the field.

Comments are welcome in this ongoing discussion.

References

(1) “The Emporium Model.”  National Center for Academic Transformation.  Retrieved from the Internet on February 16, 2015: http://www.thencat.org/PCR/model_emporium_all.htm

(2)  “Student Choice, Instrtuctor Flexibility: Moving Beyond the Blended Instructional Model.”  UAiR: Issues and Trends in Educational Technology,Vol. 1, No. 1. University of Arizona, 2013.  Retrieved from the Internet on February16, 2015: https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/itet/article/view/16464/16485

Version 1.0  8/2/2012

Version 1.1 9/7/12

Version 2.0 4/4/15