ETC Educational Technology Center for Faculty and Staff Development

B   U   R   L   I   N   G   T   O   N     C   O   U   N   T   Y     C   O   L   L   E   G   E

September, 1999

This issue of the ETC Newsletter is a special edition, devoted to the topic of online learning.

New Jersey Virtual University

According to the NJVU web site, http://www.njvu.org/ ,

"The first phase of NJVU was launched in January 1999, providing a user-friendly index of over 1000 credit and noncredit courses offered via distance learning by 42 participating public and independent colleges and universities in New Jersey. Also included in the index are over 40 complete certificate and degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate level."

Another important point brought out by the web site is:

"Each of the courses and programs in the virtual university index is offered under the jurisdiction of an individual college or university, which is responsible for all aspects of its distance learning offerings, including the granting of credits, certificates, and degrees."

Which makes the NJVU quite different from the New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium. (The NJVCCC is discussed later in this document.)

Now, any skeptic is going to realize that these quotes are pure "ad copy" and raise as many questions as the answer. Given that "virtual" classes are a benefit to time and/or place bound individuals, it’s great to have a consolidated listing. Given that New Jersey colleges and universities enjoy a certain autonomy in their on-campus classes, it makes sense to carry that over to their virtual course offerings. But what about quality, consistency and, of special importance to community colleges, transferability? Well, in a positive and pro-active fashion, the State has begun to address those issues. As of September 1999,

"…the quality of distance education is the focus of a three-pronged, $500,000 faculty development initiative proposed by Governor Whitman and supported by the Legislature. The program will provide hundreds of faculty members with the skills and knowledge to effectively use online technology to enhance teaching and learning."

The first "prong" of this initiative was a series of workshops held in several locations. College staff responsible for educational technology and up to two college faculty members from each participating institution were invited to attend these workshops. Martin Hoffman, Joseph McCadden and Louise Huttner from BCC attended one such workshop on September 15th, 1999. Read on for a synopsis in their own words.

The Third Revolution

-- Dr. Joseph McCadden

America is experiencing the third revolution in higher education—online classes over the Internet and the personal computer—according to Dr. Burks Oakley II, Assistant Vice-President for Academic Affairs from the University of Illinois at a recent presentation on Effective Online Education sponsored by the New Jersey Virtual University. Martin Hoffman, Louise Huttner, and Dr. Joseph McCadden attended from BCC in order to learn more about developing effective online courses.

The faculty development session was attended by faculty members from the South Jersey region who are involved in developing online courses.

According to Oakley, the first revolution was the establishment of the Land-Grant College Act in 1862, and the second revolution was the development of community colleges in the 1960. The Internet has ushered in a new approach to learning.

What the Internet is providing is new access to learning, any time any place, site-independent, thereby broadening access to learning by place-bound and time restricted individuals, according to Oakley.

The driving force in the exponential growth of online education are enabling technologies including ubiquitous PC’s with Internet access, World-Wide Web browsers (Mosaic, Netscape and Internet Explorer), asynchronous conferencing (WebBoard, AOL, I.M.), streaming media (RealPlayer) and Course Management Systems (WebCT, etc).

Oakley also documented the numerous virtual universities—state, regional and for profit that are competing for students, literally throughout the world.

Another speaker, Dr. Starr Roxanne Hiltz, a computer science professor at NJIT, offered data that contemporary technology offers unique opportunities to support collaborative, group-based learning. According to Hiltz, online courses have the following characteristics:

  • Courses need to be modularized—one topic per week or two week period
  • Each module should be centered around web-based material
  • Collaborative learning activities should be included
  • From week one, online participation should be required and graded
  • Students need to be highly structured, with good basic skills, and technologically savvy to succeed.

ETC Special Edition

Revolution (cont’d.)

Professors involved in online course design and delivery need to devote their energy to creating and sustaining learning communities if their courses are going to be effective, according to Hiltz.

The BCC participants were impressed with the program. McCadden said, "Online courses will never replace the campus or classroom. They will, however, offer a learning opportunity to adult learners who feel comfortable with technology and the Internet."

NJVU Workshop Summary

-- Louise Huttner

The New Jersey Virtual University workshop was very informative and the company was great! Dr. Hiltz and Dr. Oakley gave a good indication of what was expected, both in time and in technology skills, to get an online course up and running. It was no surprise that it would take 150 to 500 hours of preparation work. Of course, all this preparation work necessitates faculty compensation. Dr. Hiltz listed many forms of compensation, which is food for thought.

The examples given during the workshop were all online upper level courses in a four-year institution. I believe there is an inherent higher success rate in courses in the third and fourth year of college. Our courses and the student population are different. I would have appreciated viewing online courses from a few community colleges and being informed about their success rates. This would have made the workshop a little more meaningful.

The benefits of online courses are plentiful. It certainly can reach a new population that has never been tapped.

Making Improvements

-- Martin Hoffman

It was great to see that the state is putting "some money where their mouth is" and actually supporting, rather than just talking about, quality distance education. It was also flattering to sit in a room full of other educators and hear what we "should be" doing, because, for the most part, BCC has been doing things right! Of course, if we were perfect, the workshop would have been a waste of time, so throughout the session I was looking for ways to improve our offerings. One of the areas where we are ahead of other schools is the strong support of educational technology by the College faculty and administration. But the presenters pointed out that, to truly be successful, distance learning must have support at all levels.

Improvements (cont’d.)

Registrar, Accounting, the Bookstore, the Library, Counseling and Advising (plus many more) – are all integral parts of an on-campus college experience. If BCC is to continue leading the way in innovative distance education, we will need more and more of these services to also be delivered in a "virtual" fashion. Offering these, and similar services to remote students won’t happen overnight, nor should it, but if we begin exploring the opportunity to provide services now, we will be ahead of the pack for years to come!

And, of course, since I’m a "techie," I picked up some tech tips. I hope to devise an interactive "browser test" to help on-line students check for hardware and software compatibility and a CD-ROM of freely available software if their current programs aren’t up to date. In fact, I made a few friends from other NJ community colleges. We hope to form a working group which will work together to design these tools. All in all, the day was quite a success.

NJVCCC

The NJVU is a listing of on-line courses offered by NJ institutions of higher education. These institutions are not (necessarily) affiliated in any way, other than having a listing on the web site. Unlike the NJVU, the New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium (NJVCCC) comprises a group of affiliated schools. Each member brings a select group of on-line courses to the consortium, and can choose to "host" courses provided by others. A student registers, and receives credit from, the host school, even though the course may originate from a different institution. Fees and tuition are fixed by the consortium, and are split between the host and the provider. At BCC, Judy Olsen has been spearheading our participation I this initiative. Here’s what she has to say:

New Jersey Virtual Community College

-- Judith Olsen

The New Jersey Virtual Community College began with a dream of the 19 community college presidents in New Jersey to offer on-line courses cooperatively over the Internet. From the dream in February came the reality of starting a pilot project in June 1999 with nine colleges. The nine colleges including BCC offered 116 courses for Fall semester. An additional nine colleges are joining the project for the spring semester. BCC had the largest participation with 23 students. Considering that the pilot only ran 3 weeks before the start of the Fall semester, that’s a good start.

For more information, visit the web site at: http://venus.atlantic.edu/NJVCCC/