InTRO Report

Surveying the digital education landscape at the University of Oregon and comparable institutions in AY 2014-15

External Models

Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Summary

CITLlogoThe University of Illinois (UIUC) was not among the 26 comparators selected for InTRO’s initial research. However, the recently created Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) came to our attention as a nationally recognized restructuring of higher education functions which provides a unique perspective on the digital education environment in higher education. CITL combines the personnel, resources, and functions of the former Center for Excellence in Teaching, the pre-existing Continuing Education unit, and the educational technology support functions in Information Technology into one organization. The initiative is the result of a specific recommendation from the faculty advisory committee for IT in alignment with the 3-year strategic plan of the Chancellor and Provost.

Scope

UIUC offers a large variety of online courses through individual schools and colleges. There are currently 15 online undergraduate degrees, one online undergraduate completion degree, 26 online graduate degrees, and 29 online certificate programs. CITL has spent the past year melding its diverse components into a unified organization and now conducts significant outreach to campus partners to identify areas of growth and support. UI colleges have identified instructional spaces, internationalizing the curriculum, and learning outcome assessment as their initial highest-priority items. CITL’s immediate focus looks to address these items. CITL also works with two student advisory groups: one for Online Degree Programs, and one for Undergraduate Programs.


Conference Call

On June 1, 2015, UO staff (Kassia Dellabough, Lindsey Freer, Greg Milton) conducted a conference call with Michel Bellini, Director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, Faye Lesht, Associate Director of Academic Programs & Services, and Adam Fein, Associate Director of Instructional Strategy, to explore in greater detail the dynamics of change and development in technology-enhanced programming at the University of Illinois. Three questions were used to frame the discussion, which then developed along lines of interest for the participants.

Impetus and Incentives for Growth

The creation of CITL (combining Continuing Education, the former Center for Excellence in Teaching, and 8 technologists from IT) was the result of a 5-6 year maturation process, including several years of discussion among faculty committees. One of the reasons the process took this long was due to “insufficient leadership” or vision; reorganization moved more quickly once the right campus leadership was in place. The specific combination of units that formed the current CITL was the recommendation of the faculty advisory committee for IT. The activities of CITL align with the 3-year Strategic Plan from the Chancellor and Provost, with a specific charge from the Provost to support creative and innovative modalities from F2F to hybrid and online.

Managing Cultural Shifts, Resources, and Policy

Prior to receiving the faculty advisory committee’s recommendation, the leaders of this unit planned to “cherry pick” staff for a new unit; bringing preexisting units together instead has reduced the possibility of being “silo’ed”, but the sheer number of staff involved has created challenges. It has taken the better part of a year for the CITL to develop a unified vision, mission, culture and workflow for the disparate groups which were brought together (credit and non-credit CE, teaching/learning, and technology are still all part of that mission). The process was made easier by having a clear charge from the Provost and from the concept origination with faculty discussion and recommendation.

The largest challenge has been finding the physical space to bring CITL personnel together (presumably housed in different locations), with approximately 110 total staff.

CITL staff currently operate out of three different physical locations.

CITL has conducted significant outreach to academic units and faculty, making questions like “how can we help you” and “what are your priorities” the centerpiece of their approach. CITL has held direct meetings with each college, including deans and interested department heads. They also conducted a faculty survey to assess needs and interest. There are two student advisory groups, one for Online Degree Programs and one for Undergraduate Programs. They also note that they were “not afraid” of embracing their campus’s vision, along with “listening to stakeholders.” This open attitude has gone a long way towards establishing faculty buy-in, as has focusing on the top priorities of the departments and colleges. Becoming a service unit that is perceived as a place where “things happen” goes a long way towards establishing trust internally.

The colleges identified instructional spaces, internationalizing the curriculum, and learning outcome assessment as their initial highest-priority items, so CITL’s immediate efforts (including the CITL fellows program) make an effort to address these items.

Operationally, CITL internal work groups always include personnel from other units. They have created a CITL Fellows program to embed scholars from campus into CITL, as champions with specific skills sets (Learning Analytics, for example). CITL is in the process of building a dynamic intake process, with a form which can be submitted online and which will initiate a dynamic project management workflow – to plan, track, manage, and report. They have contracted with Workfront to provide the software application and support services.

Budget and Tuition Models

There is some central funding to CITL, but currently they are utilizing an existing business model in process of change. There is a $50/credit ‘operational fee’ for online courses administered by CITL (some online courses/programs are offered by individual colleges/schools without CITL and these do not charge the $50/credit fee). CITL costs are deducted from this fee, and the remainder is distributed to deans and central administration. The budget model change under consideration – based on the argument that online development is the only potential area for revenue growth – is to eliminate the $50/credit fee altogether, and to provide all CITL revenue directly from central administration (assuming this justification means more students will be brought into all UIUC courses with online courses charging the same fees as all other course and increased tuition revenue would be divided in a more standardized way across campus).


Program Details

Dr. Bellini speaking about CITL's development at the UPCEA centennial conference in DC, March 2015.

Dr. Bellini (second from left) speaking about CITL’s development at the UPCEA centennial conference in DC, March 2015.

Michel Bellini has led the merger of preexisting continuing education and faculty development units into a new centralized unit for excellence and innovation to support reflective teaching in multiple modalities. According to Dr. Bellini, faculty are excited about working with the new unit. One of the biggest surprises at UIUC is that being asked to “fly a plane while building it” actually worked, that the new mission has increased general sense of possibility as well as the university’s willingness to make a significant financial investment.

Some initial insights from the lightning talks offered by Dr. Bellini and others at UPCEA this year include:

  • Remember that online is (just) a delivery mode—the overarching umbrella should be “access”
  • Do not try to fix all of the university’s problems through the online unit, especially faculty problems, especially if the online unit is new
  • Demonstrate added value: market research, marketing, and instructional design have to come from somewhere, and will not typically come from academic units
  • Working with 3rd-party vendors requires careful evaluation of contracts—be sure not to end up at a pedagogical/IP disadvantage, and think carefully before putting vendors in direct contact with students. However, 3rd-party vendors can sometimes do what you cannot—so do not rule it out entirely.

Innovative Initiative

CITL holds an annual one-day Faculty Retreat on Teaching and Learning, featuring a keynote speaker, concurrent sessions by faculty and poster sessions to highlight faculty research on teaching and learning. The goals for the retreats are to build on collective knowledge among campus faculty, to share innovative ideas and approaches to enhance teaching and learning, and to develop and promote partnerships within and beyond the campus community.


Disclaimer

All material presented here is based on the assessments of InTRO staff, made through the collection of publicly-available data and through a small number of conversations with staff at peer institutions. All statements and opinions here remain those of InTRO staff, formed in order to address needs and questions specific to the University of Oregon.

Office of Digital Education and Innovation – University of Michigan

Summary

2color-bluebgThe University of Michigan is a large, research oriented public university with engineering and medical schools; it has access to more extensive technology funding and supports more active digital education programs than does UO. Technology services, generally, and innovative technology and teaching, specifically, have historically been distributed through academic units, however both Information Technology and Services (central IT) and the new Office of Digital Education and Innovation (educational technology and teaching) are actively working to coordinate their areas of activity with parties throughout campus, to build cooperative communities with the goal of creating the “next generation” university.

Scope

The purpose of the Office of Digital Education and Innovation is “to redefine public residential education at a 21st century research university through the creative use of technology and targeted experimentation with digital programs in order to enable engaged, personalized and lifelong learning.” Established in 2013, DEI currently acts as a coordinating body which “enables teaching and learning innovation at U-M through targeted financial support, consultative services and aligning community interests and expertise.”

U-M was one of the founding universities in partnership with Coursera, and is currently offering 17 MOOCs. Throughout campus, there are at least 6 online master’s degrees and at least 23 online certificates. The majority of these are in the College of Engineering, through the Integrative Systems+Design program in partnership with GE and the auto industry, but there are significant programs in Social Work, Public Health, Nursing, and Dental Hygiene, plus a sprinkling of online courses across the 22 total schools and colleges.

Strengths:

  • Strategic Scope: DEI and ITS both have clearly defined visions, are aligned with the university mission, and are implemented through cooperative structures with faculty and service providers. The DEI strategic and operational objectives [PDF] are well-developed and useful.
  • Faculty engagement with digital education initiatives is quite high, with clear leadership provided by the Provost’s Office. Faculty involvement is maintained through advisory boards, steering committees, and learner-centric working groups.
  • The five year-old, faculty-led Task Force on Learning Analytics provides significant data on U-M student activity and outcomes, utilized to improve instruction through more efficient technological and pedagogical support.
  • NextGen Michigan and Open Michigan provide data-driven, transparent processes for improving the technological environment at U-M.

Limitations:

  • Despite cooperative initiatives such as DEI, the multiplicity of educational technology units across campus requires continuous efforts to develop effective coordination.
  • The limited standardization of online policy and structures means there is a wide-variety of online or technology-enhanced courses and programs, with availability and quality varying across all academic units.

Conference Call

On May 29, 2015, UO staff (Andrew Bonamici, Kassia Dellabough, Kirstin Hierholzer, Lindsey Freer, Greg Milton) conducted a conference call with Mike Daniel, Director, Policy and Operations for Digital Education and Innovation, and Scott Mahler, Director of Digital Learning Initiatives, to explore the dynamics of change and development in technology-enhanced programming at the University of Michigan in greater detail. Three questions were used to frame the discussion, which then developed along lines of interest for the participants.

Impetus and Incentives for Growth

The establishment of the office of Digital Education and Innovation resulted from a combination of factors: preexisting ed tech units in need of coordination, pockets of positive activity happening at the college and unit level across campus, a faculty task force on learning analytics, and a mandate from the office of the provost (influenced to a certain extent by external factors like the rise of the MOOC).

Because Michigan is a decentralized university, DEI is envisioned as a tool for collaboration, partnership, and further mobilization, a small and focused team of connectors and promoters that will get the message out across campus and escalate activities happening at the local level. While they have staff to help meet needs not met elsewhere on campus (such as digital artists), their charge is largely to empower the U-M community to produce innovative digital projects, and to foster partnerships between campus constituencies.

Managing Cultural Shifts, Resources, and Policy

DEI profiles faculty at multiple stages of each innovative project. Click here for video profiles of tech innovators among their faculty.

DEI profiles faculty at multiple stages of each innovative project. Click here for video profiles of tech innovators among their faculty.

DEI hired 1.0 FTE for internal marketing from the outset, the better to grow their local brand and make faculty aware of the office’s existence. The faculty task force on learner analytics represented a body of faculty already interested in exploring tech-enhanced pedagogies, so they are partnering with those who are already “excited” either those connected to the learner analytics task force or the many other innovators around campus. The hope is to use internal communication channels to promote the success of this first round of projects, building stories that will inspire the rest of the U-M campus so that ‘successful’ engaged faculty can communicate with, and serve to demonstrate for, other faculty who are less committed or more on the fence about innovative technology teaching. Faculty are asked to do video testimonials at every stage of their project, in order to create media that can be used to market both that project and DEI as a unit.

To that end, the projects DEI chooses to support are those that are clearly mission-aligned and in tune with their local culture (though they will work with faculty in the planning stages to shape a project proposal to those ends). While they are developing digital courses, digital programs, and tools, their focus is on technologies to enhance the residential campus experience. Faculty partnering with DEI are asked to describe the impact their project will have on the local community from the outset.

The learning analytics task force is the origin point of DEI’s data-driven ethos; this approach resonates with their scholars. They also have a faculty advisory group, which helps guide their office’s mission, and has become a de facto group of “DEI ambassadors.” (A subset of this advisory group functions as U-M’s digital ecosystem committee, and has become the faculty voice on LMS and other enterprise application issues). In addition to working with individual faculty, DEI is expanding its reach by meeting with college and departmental administrators, and engaging in projects at that scale.

Budget and Tuition Models

DEI has an allocation from U-M’s central budget. It does offer a seed fund for faculty projects, but on most projects they offer more support in terms of in-kind resources than direct funding. They are bigger than an internal grant program, given that they are involved in the entire lifecycle of the project.

At this point, there isn’t a standardized funding model for each project, though they will be pursuing revenue-sharing options. Tuition models are decided upon by the partner units or colleges, which ties in with the development of programs (degree, certificate, etc.) online, blended, or traditional by the academic schools and colleges.


Program Details

Advisory Group

The Digital Innovation Advisory Group (DIAG), made up of faculty, administrators, and technology managers, is tasked with providing proactive assessment of opportunities posed by changes to the U-M digital educational ecosystem and demonstrate leadership in knowledge sharing across U-M as they catalogue, showcase and apply lessons from innovative experimentation. There are 26 DIAG members, including 14 faculty, 3 staff and 9 administrators from across campus (multiple disciplines, schools and colleges). The advisory group participates in U-M activities designed to advance the institution’s digital education strategy, mine internal innovation, peer institution innovation and competitive forces to proactively address opportunities and challenges, and align with supporting activities. DIAG helps to ensure regular and widespread engagement of faculty, staff and students.

Coordination through four DIAG subcommittees ensures timely evaluation of strategic, programmatic and operational considerations. Subcommittees with members drawn from the full committee include:

  • Digital Course Selection
  • Developing a Digital Programs Pipeline
  • Developing a Tools and Technology Innovation Pipeline
  • Developing the Digital Education Ecosystem

Innovation Initiatives

The Digital Innovation Greenhouse is a testbed and development space for learning technologies. The six-person project team includes 3 faculty, which “harvests educational software innovations” and helps the small or resource poor innovations grow.



The LED Lab is a program to facilitate learning communities (a community of scholars as they state), partnering with other learning technology groups at U-M like the Digital Media Commons, Collaborative Technologies Lab, and the UM3D Lab, and facilitate projects (there is a link to current projects), papers and presentations, and invited talks.

The Digital Education and Innovation Lab is a collaborative learning space located just off campus, for faculty, researchers, designers, production staff, and students to create new digital programs, experiment with digital tools and platforms, explore media production capabilities and discover new pedagogical techniques.


Disclaimer

All material presented here is based on the assessments of InTRO staff, made through the collection of publicly-available data and through a small number of conversations with staff at peer institutions. All statements and opinions here remain those of InTRO staff, formed in order to address needs and questions specific to the University of Oregon.

Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching / Office of Online and Distance Learning – Iowa State University

Summary

4572Digital education and distance education programming and support is distributed through academic units, with the intent to meet the university’s vision of “quality, reach and service” rather than expand ISU’s market. Centralized IT, centralized teaching and learning, and close coordination with faculty/instructional staff for professional development is clear and effective. The University Senate created the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) in 1993, which retains an Advisory Board (Senate committee). Online and Distance Learning are connected, but not clear that all were part of the same formative process. IT is organizationally within Academic Affairs, but with its own Interim Vice President/CIO. CELT and IT Services seem linked to a degree, with some of CELT (Learning Technologies) co-located physically with IT Services. The other (possibly pedagogical) services of CELT are physically located in a separate, central building. Faculty engagement with digital education initiatives and activities is hard to identify.

Scope

The Office of Online and Distance Learning coordinates credit and non-credit courses and programs, but these remain housed in individual academic units, both on campus and at a distance. Detailed student numbers and breadth of offerings are not available through their web presence. Courses are delivered through a number of methods and focused on the entire state. Each school and college has their own coordinator for online programs. There are hundreds of online courses, at least 1 online undergraduate degree, 27 online graduate degrees, and 26 online certificates.

Strengths:

The Online Learning Innovation Hub is physically located in Parks Library.

The Online Learning Innovation Hub is physically located in Parks Library, a central location on campus, for easy faculty access.

  • Since 2012 Iowa State (through its CELT) has been part of a 22-university Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) grant ($5 million) for the professional development of graduate students and post-docs–primarily in STEM fields–as innovative, technology teachers. In 2014, the Sloan Foundation provided $550,000 to Iowa State for CIRTL network information technologies development.
  • There is a Community of Educational Technology Support (ComETS) which promotes dialog and events focused on learning and teaching technology, including a Techstarter interface for people to post ideas they are interested in, with a gauge to measure interest from others.
  • An Online Learning Innovation Hub provides a physical and virtual space as “a collaborative resource for faculty, staff, and graduate students for developing technology-enhanced pedagogy and innovative approaches to teaching and learning in today’s online environment.”

Limitations:

  • Continuing education and online programs are only very loosely coordinated across campus.
  • Awareness of community/coordination activities, such as Techstarter, seem to be limited across campus.
  • The most recent initiatives for educational technology development are relatively new to the university, with outcomes not yet tested.

Conference Call

On June 1, 2015, UO staff (Kassia Dellabough, Kirstin Hierholzer, Lindsey Freer, Greg Milton) conducted a conference call with Ann Marie Vanderzanden, Director of Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Jim Twetten, Director of Academic Technologies (Information Technology), and Ralph Napolitano, Associate Director for Online Education, to explore in greater detail the dynamics of change and development in technology-enhanced programming at Iowa State University. Three questions were used to frame the discussion, which then developed along lines of interest for the participants.

Impetus and Incentives for Growth

Development of digital education at Iowa State (ISU) is not driven by a desire to increase market, but to meet the university’s vision of “quality, reach and service”–an extension of the university mission, not a new one. There is some interest in reaching new audience – perhaps making ISU more accessible to place-bound Iowa audiences through continuing education and online master’s programs, or by increasing professional development for specific industries, such as engineering. Digital education efforts are not centralized – instead, central services support efforts at the school or college level. There is some recent effort to better coordinate and promote digital education efforts, through the new position of Associate Director for Online Education in CELT and a current Presidential Initiative for Flipped Class Development.

Managing Cultural Shifts, Resources, and Policy

Culturally, there is no distinction between online and offline courses–they’re “all Iowa State.” An assessment and review of faculty and students for teaching IT needs was conducted a few years ago to understand the learning ecosystem at ISU–the results have guided faculty development programming decisions. And in recent years, conversations on campus with regards to the value of teaching with technology have been accelerating. Iowa State is a Quality Matters member, and uses QM processes and rubrics to develop a common vocabulary across campus.

There is a robust committee system to help the distributed units of Iowa State (including seven colleges, the library, and 2 online course production units) collaborate, including a DE task force with representatives from all colleges.

Budget and Tuition Models

An innovation fund started 25 years ago distributes student fee dollars through the Computation Advisory Committee, including a $110/semester tech fee (variable higher amounts for some colleges/schools). In addition, distance students (taking courses online only) pay the tech fee and a delivery fee ($150-$250/semester) in place of campus service fees. All distance students pay in-state tuition rate. Some academic units provide waivers for the delivery fee depending on individual situations. Money from these fees is distributed in varied ways – to college/schools, to departments, to service unit – in accordance with individual agreements determined program by program. The flipped Course Initiative has a $250,000 fund from the President’s Office, which provides for faculty stipends, graduate student support, and software/application licensing, among other costs. Participants apply through an RFP process.


Disclaimer

All material presented here is based on the assessments of InTRO staff, made through the collection of publicly-available data and through a small number of conversations with staff at peer institutions. All statements and opinions here remain those of InTRO staff, formed in order to address needs and questions specific to the University of Oregon.

Mizzou Online – University of Missouri

Summary

MizzouOnlineProfile_400x400The University of Missouri has built up a nationally recognized online program, Mizzou Online, out of a 20-year grassroots process of online distance education development. Mizzou Online itself was formed in 2011 through the merger of the Center for Distance and Independent Study (CDIS) and MU Direct: Continuing and Distance Education. Prior to 2011, oversight of online courses was coordinated through MU Extension; MU Extension and Mizzou Online are now separate service units, with oversight from the Vice Provost for Extension and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies and E-Learning, respectively.

Scope

MU Extension provides non-credit face-to-face or self-paced online instruction for communities external to the university. Their programming currently emphasizes public health, agriculture, business development, and continuing education for working professionals in nursing and other fields. Mizzou Online enrolls degree or certificate-seeking students who are either taking some or all of their credit-bearing courses online. Mizzou Online offers 900+ for-credit online or hybrid courses each year, and offers 8 undergraduate degrees, 41 master’s degrees, 10 doctoral degrees, 23 graduate and 3 other certificates. See the Mizzou Online Enrollment Report for 2014 [PDF] for further details.

Strengths:

  • Internal publicity and financial investment in Mizzou Online has helped it become a substantive wing of the institution and has increased interest in instructional technology across the University.
  • The University has incorporated online and distance education into its strategic mission.
  • Mizzou Online has the dedicated resources to create new, high-quality online courses, certificates, and degrees that take both the interests of academic departments and concerns about probable audience into account.
  • There is a University-wide common vocabulary and established definition of distance education.
  • Cooperative umbrella framework (TLC@Mizzou) unites campus teaching and learning units in common cause. 12 academic technology liaisons are embedded within major academic units.
  • Numerous awards from professional organizations in the last five years.

Limitations:

  • MU Extension’s non-credit courses are delivered via their own LMS (Moodle) as opposed to the Blackboard installation that serves the rest of the University.
  • Term-by-term designation of distance student population, versus campus students who might take an individual online course at regular tuition, complicates the tuition model and burdens registration staff.

Conference Call

On May 12, 2015, UO staff (Kassia Dellabough, Kirstin Hierholzer, Lindsey Freer, Greg Milton) conducted a conference call with Kim Siegenthaler, Director of Mizzou Online, and Stacy Snow, Director of Program and Project Operation, to explore in greater detail the dynamics of change and development in technology-enhanced programming at the University of Missouri. Three questions were used to frame the discussion, which then developed along lines of interest for the participants.

Impetus and Incentives for Growth

Began 20 years ago with a “bright idea” (combination of interest, information, and eventually advocacy) on the part of Kim Siegenthaler’s predecessor. Said predecessor was a 1-person visionary-type who facilitated organic growth over a 15-year period, before units consolidated to become Mizzou Online (merging Distance Education, Online, and Extension units 5 years ago). There is a Provost’s mandate from 16 years ago that all DE online offerings must operate through Mizzou Online (and its predecessor). Online development has a continuing mandate from campus leadership and is incorporated into the university’s strategic mission.

New net revenue has been the primary incentive for governing board and upper administration interest in developing Mizzou Online. Continued growth is due in part to financial stability and an ability to offer remuneration to colleges and academic departments. The revenue from DE that goes back to academic units quickly becomes core budget funding that departments are loathe to lose. Mizzou Online is able to offer financial resources other units cannot, and the new net revenue from distance education students is a big draw. There is also a habit of “making it Extension’s problem,” that is, of shifting thorny questions over to the entrepreneurial/external-facing unit. 1 FTE has been established within Mizzou Online for State Authorization negotiation and compliance.

Managing Cultural Shifts, Resources, and Policy

A designated task force, made up primarily of faculty, met for over a year; its final recommendation was “a course is a course is a course”—that is, that there is no distinguishable intellectual difference between online, F2F, and hybrid delivery models. That conversation has helped across the board with both faculty and administration, particularly because a common language emerged from that report and has guided campus discussion.

In addition to ET@MO (the university’s educational technology support unit) and Mizzou Online staff, there are 12 academic technology liaisons embedded in academic units across campus, providing a combination of instructional technology and instructional design support and working with faculty at all levels (from tech-enhanced F2F course delivery to fully online course delivery). That said, there is currently no requirement for faculty training (in contrast to OSU eCampus). Furthermore, whether faculty teaching online are full-time professors or contingent instructors varies widely from program to program. The teaching labor pool for online is the same as that for other course types, dependent on the decisions of the academic units. Finally, Mizzou Online does not have direct control over course quality. They are currently deploying incentives to encourage faculty training and faculty participation in quality assurance for online design.

The general approach to program growth at Mizzou Online has been driven by academic units and their interests. While at first growth this was determined by whoever they could “get to the table” and what they thought they could sell, Mizzou Online now conducts market research (they use EAB for market research, and contract externally as necessary. Messaging about particular DE programs gets industry-specific and focuses on likely career paths from the get-go. Some secondary market research is done in-house by Mizzou Online) in light of each academic unit’s capacity for online, and then initiates a low-pressure conversation where the pitch is already backed up by that research data. They intend to “let units decide from here on out.” Their current RFP process has improved honesty and transparency, see below.

Campus academic units can, and do, develop their own online courses when aimed at campus student population only.

Budget and Tuition Models

Mizzou Online’s current revenue share model is 25% back to their unit, 15% to the Provost, and 60% to either the dean or the department, depending on how each MOU was originally negotiated. Mizzou Online collects the net revenue itself before sharing with the university. Most agreements are articulated via MOU, generally with the academic unit offering the curriculum; deans were more involved in the past, but there’s a hesitancy to disrupt established funding models. Mizzou will take care of faculty contracts if the department does not; this workload varies from program to program.

Students designated DE students (and charged accordingly) are those enrolled in a specific online program. Simply taking an online course does not place a student in that category. There are distinct fee structures for DE and Campus-based students.


Program Details

As a service unit Mizzou Online is not in control of courses and programs, and is without the authority to require design or enforce quality assurance standards. Mizzou Online had to convince campus players to participate in a robust, quality manner. In 2013, online programs became part of the campus strategic plan for first time – without direct input from the online unit, actually – but this allowed Mizzou Online to use existing resources (particularly revenue from previously created courses and programs) strategically towards campus partnerships. A 2015 conference presentation from Mizzou Online staff, “Growth Strategies: Strategic Reinvestment in Infrastructure” [PDF], showcases the development of this model.

Continued Program Development

New program proposals and DE student numbers for Mizzou Online, AY 13 - present

New program proposals and DE student numbers for Mizzou Online, AY 13 – present

First step for expanding online programming was to create an RFP for new program development, with awards up to $250,000 provided to departments, provided through deans. The first year (AY 2013) the applications required market research analysis prior to submission, coordinated through Mizzou Online market researcher. There were 22 applicants, and 14 were funded to some degree. In the second year (AY 2014), the prior-market research requirement was loosened, with 6 total applicants and 4 funded. In the current year (AY 2015) there were no applicants, which Mizzou Online believes indicates their online programming has expanded sufficiently in the number of degrees and certificate offered.

Revenue distribution for DE courses: 25% to online, 60% to academic department through dean, 15% to central administration

The online unit cannot not require design/quality assurance standard, so they developed these by use of incentives ($1000 grants) provided directly to participating faculty, who were then required to utilize instructional designers/course developers.

Student Growth

In place of increasing program, the current need is for an expansion in student population, while maintaining quality outcomes. To expand student population, Mizzou Online created programs for targeted tuition reduction and for specialized recruitment, particularly for identified groups with potential growth (Armed Forces and Community College student).

Mizzou Online created tuition reduction choices: 1) a tuition award of 10% of course fee to encourage students to sign up and take an online course, provided as money from online unit to registrar which is the credited to the student’s account; 2) take 3 online courses, get 1 free, again with money paid by online unit to registrar which becomes a credit in the student’s account. Both options utilize revenue available to online unit to increase number of students taking courses by reducing price for a course without reducing revenue to registrar/academic units.

Mizzou Online also hired a dedicated recruiter, initially for the military student audience, to help manage the entire recruitment process, including the hand over to school/college faculty for one to one advising. Faculty may remain traditional towards recruiting students (with an attitude that students will just come if interested), but recruiter keeps contact going, in an active and continuing fashion.

In order to build out student population, online programs must continue to provide data to departments and administration, and to explain the data and be persistent. Mizzou Online created regular annual reporting and turned it into an infographic report [PDF] for greatest effect.

Building Campus Networks

The relationship between culture and strategy at most institutions, including MU.

The relationship between culture and strategy at most institutions, including MU.

Two biggest barriers to development identified by Mizzou Online: Funding (startup funding and revenue distribution) and Power (who controls decisions and how to influence decision makers). Mizzou Online’s solution is to utilize and enhance institutional support AND to make strategic investment (money is an effective influencer). Consistency and persistence are required: university units going “cowboy” (i.e. creating programs on their own, without consultation or collaboration) create real challenges to building stable, quality programs. Finding success requires addressing institutional culture effectively. Culture will eat strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  • Be persistent: cultural change occurs step by step
  • Make strategic investment of revenue
  • Bring everyone to the table
  • Build trust with good data and step by step success
Ways in which Mizzou Online is growing partnerships internally.

Ways in which Mizzou Online is growing partnerships internally.

Mizzou Online has established campus partnerships to improve course and program quality and to form a supportive community through four new Advisory Boards and Working Groups:

  • MU Distance Education Advisory Board (high-level administration, policy, overall campus coordination)
  • Distance Education Operations Team (designers, developers, and managers)
  • Mizzou Online Advisory Council (deans and department heads with online programs, to share ideas and approaches)
  • Self-Paced Task Force (campus committee to explore development)

Disclaimer

All material presented here is based on the assessments of InTRO staff, made through the collection of publicly-available data and through a small number of conversations with staff at peer institutions. All statements and opinions here remain those of InTRO staff, formed in order to address needs and questions specific to the University of Oregon.

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