At the start of the 21st Century, the customer base appeared to be shrinking for eLearning. Then it commenced once again to soar.

Explosive Growth in Online Enrollments in the United States

"Distance Ed Continues Rapid Growth at Community Colleges," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, April 7, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/07/distance

Community colleges reported an 18 percent increase in distance education enrollments in a 2007 survey released this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Association of Community Colleges, in Philadelphia.

The survey on community colleges and distance education is an annual project of the Instructional Technology Council, an affiliate of the AACC. The survey is based on the responses of 154 community colleges, selected to provide a representational sample of all community colleges. Last year’s survey found community colleges reporting an increase in distance education enrollments of 15 percent.

This year’s survey suggests that distance education has probably not peaked at community colleges. First there is evidence that the colleges aren’t just offering a few courses online, but entire programs. Sixty-four percent of institutions reported offering at least one online degree — defined as one where at least 70 percent of the courses may be completed online. Second, colleges reported that they aren’t yet meeting demand. Seventy percent indicated that student demand exceeds their online offerings.

The top challenge reported by colleges in terms of dealing with students in distance education was that they do not fill out course evaluations. In previous surveys, this has not been higher than the fifth greatest challenge. This year’s survey saw a five percentage point increase — to 45 percent — in the share of colleges reporting that they charge an extra fee for distance education courses.

Training professors has been a top issue for institutions offering distance education. Of those in the survey of community colleges, 71 percent required participation (up from 67 percent a year ago and 57 percent the year before). Of those requiring training, 60 percent require more than eight hours.

Several of the written responses some colleges submitted suggested frustration with professors. One such comment (included anonymously in the report) said: “Vocal conservative faculty members with little computer experience can stymie efforts to change when expressing a conviction that student learning outcomes can only be achieved in a face-to-face classroom — even though they have no idea what can be accomplished in a well-designed distance education course.” Another response said that: “Our biggest challenge is getting faculty to participate in our training sessions. We understand their time is limited, but we need to be able to show them the new tools available....”

In last year’s survey, 84 percent of institutions said that they were customers of either Blackboard or WebCT (now a part of Blackboard), but 31 percent reported that they were considering a shift in course management platforms. This year’s survey suggests that some of them did so. The percentage of colleges reporting that they use Blackboard or WebCT fell to 77 percent. Moodle showed the largest gains in the market — increasing from 4 to 10 percent of the market — while Angel and Desire2Learn also showed gains.

The survey also provides an update on the status of many technology services for students, showing steady increases in the percentage of community colleges with various technologies and programs.

Status of Services for Online Students at Community Colleges

Service	Currently Offer	Offered a Year Ago
Campus testing center for distance students	73%	69%
Distance ed specific faculty training	96%	92%
Online admissions	84%	77%
Online counseling / advising	51%	43%
Online library services	96%	96%
Online plagiarism evaluation	54%	48%
Online registration	89%	87%
Online student orientation for distance classes	75%	66%
Online textbook sales	72%	66%

Rate of Growth in Online Enrollments --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm#OnlineGrowthRates

"New Book by Pollster John Zogby Says Online Education Is Rapidly Gaining Acceptance," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 12, 23008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3236&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

John Zogby, president & CEO of the polling company Zogby International, says that American students are quickly warming up to the idea of taking classes online, just as consumers have taken to the idea of renting movies via Netflix and buying microbrewed beer.

In a new book by Mr. Zogby released today, he said that polls show a sharp increase in acceptance of online education in the past year. For more on the story, see a free article in today’s Chronicle.

National surveys show that a majority of Americans think online universities offer a lower quality of education than do traditional institutions. But a prominent pollster, John Zogby, says in a book being released today that it won't be long before American society takes to distance education as warmly as it has embraced game-changing innovations like microbrewed beers, Flexcars, and "the simple miracle of Netflix."

The factor that will close that "enthusiasm gap" is the growing use of distance education by well-respected universities, Mr. Zogby predicts in the book, The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House).

The book, which is based on Zogby International polls and other studies, also touches on public attitudes toward politics, consumer habits, spirituality, and international affairs, and on what men and women really do want from each other. Mr. Zogby says polls detect signs of society's emerging resistance to big institutions, and its de-emphasis on things and places. "We're redefining geography and space," he says—and a widening acceptance of online education is part of the trend.

Today there is still a "cultural lag" between the public's desire for flexible ways to take college courses and what the most-established players offer, Mr. Zogby said in an interview with The Chronicle on Monday. "There's a sense that those who define the standard haven't caught on yet," he said.

But Mr. Zogby writes that polling by his organization shows that attitudes about online education are changing fast. His polling also points to other challenges that colleges will face as they race to serve a worldwise generation of 18-to-29-year-olds that Mr. Zogby calls "First Globals."

In one 2007 poll of more 5,000 adults, Zogby International found that 30 percent of respondents were taking or had taken an online course, and another 50 percent said they would consider taking one. He says the numbers might skew a little high because this poll was conducted online and the definition of an online course was broad, including certificate programs or training modules offered by employers.

Only 27 percent of respondents agreed that "online universities and colleges provide the same quality of education" as traditional institutions. Among those 18 to 24 years old, only 23 percent agreed.

An even greater proportion of those polled said it was their perception that employers and academic professionals thought more highly of traditional institutions than online ones.

Rapid Shift in Attitude

Yet in another national poll in December 2007, conducted for Excelsior College, 45 percent of the 1,004 adults surveyed believed "an online class carries the same value as a traditional-classroom class," and 43 percent of 1,545 chief executives and small-business owners agreed that a degree earned by distance learning "is as credible" as one from a traditional campus-based program.

Mr. Zogby said that differing attitudes in two polls within a year show that "the gap was closing"—and he said that wasn't as surprising as it might seem. As with changing perceptions about other cultural phenomena, "these paradigm shifts really are moving at lightning speed."

That, says Mr. Zogby, is why he writes about online universities in a chapter—"Dematerializing the Paradigm"—that discusses the rise of car-sharing companies like Flexcar (now merged with Zipcar), the emergence of Internet blogs as a source of news and information, and the popularity of microbrewed beer.

And while it may be true that microbrews and Zipcars, at least, are still very much niche products, Mr. Zogby says they are signs of transcendent change—just like the distance-education courses that are being offered by more and more institutions across the country. "When you add up all the niche products, it's a market unto itself," he says.

In the book, Mr. Zogby also highlights the emerging influence of the First Globals, whom his book calls "the most outward-looking and accepting generation in American history." First Globals, he says, are more socially tolerant and internationally aware.

It is these First Globals, he writes, who are shaping what he says is nothing short of a "fundamental reorientation of the American character away from wanton consumption and toward a new global citizenry in an age of limited resources."

Higher education, he said in the interview, needs to take notice and adapt. These days, he said, students are much more likely to have experienced other cultures firsthand, either as tourists or because they have immigrated from someplace else. Whether college for them is a traditional complex of buildings or an interactive online message board, said Mr. Zogby, "there is a different student on campus."

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at the following sites:

• http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Motivations
   
• http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
   
• http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm

Updates 2007

Question
What is the rate of growth in online enrollments in the U.S.?

"More Online Enrollments," by Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed, October 23, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/23/sloan

More students than ever are taking courses online, but that doesn’t mean the growth will continue indefinitely. That’s the takeaway from the Sloan Foundation’s latest survey, conducted with the Babson Survey Research Group, of colleges’ online course offerings.

With results from nearly 4,500 institutions of all types, the report, “Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning”, found that in fall 2006, nearly 3.5 million students — or 19.8 percent of total postsecondary enrollments — took at least one course online. That’s a 9.7-percent increase over the previous year, but growth has been slowing significantly: last year, the jump was 36.5 percent.

But compared to the growth rate for enrollment overall (1.3 percent), the report notes, the online sector is still rapidly expanding. Most of that expansion is happening where online classes are already being offered.

“The number of new institutions entering the online learning arena had definitely slowed [by last fall]; most institutions that plan to offer online education are now doing so,” the report’s authors wrote.

The institutions surveyed seem to believe that the most important reason for offering online courses is to improve student access, while the top cited obstacles to more widespread online offerings are student’ discipline or study habits, followed by faculty acceptance.

The survey focuses solely on what it classifies as “online” courses: those offering 80 percent or more of their content over the Internet. As a result, trends in so-called “blended” or “hybrid” courses, in which students occasionally meet in person with their professors while also receiving considerable instruction online, are not covered in the report.

The importance of online courses varies widely depending on the type of institution. Public universities, for example, view online education as much more critical to their long-term strategies than private or even for-profit institutions. And not surprisingly, two-year colleges have shown the most growth, accounting for a full half of online enrollments over the past five years:

Four-Year Growth in Students Taking at Least One Online Course

	Enrollment, Fall 2002	Enrollment, Fall 2006	Increase	Compound Annual Growth Rate
Doctoral/Research	258,489	566,725	308,236	21.7%
Master’s	335,703	686,337	350,634	19.6%
Baccalaureate	130,677	170,754	40,077	6.9%
Community colleges	806,391	1,904,296	1,097,905	24.0%
Specialized	71,710	160,268	88,558	22.3%

The importance to online strategies is broken down in the following chart:

% Saying Online Education Is Critical to Their Institutions’ Long-Term Strategy

	Public	Private Nonprofit	Private For-Profit
Fall 2002	66.1%	34.0%	34.6%
Fall 2003	65.4%	36.6%	62.1%
Fall 2004	74.7%	43.8%	48.6%
Fall 2005	71.7%	46.9%	54.9%
Fall 2006	74.1%	48.6%	49.5%

Even if online growth can’t go on at this pace forever, most institutions still see room for increasing enrollments:

% Saying They Expect Online Enrollments to Increase

	Doctoral/Research	Master’s	Baccalaureate	Associate’s	Specialized
Expecting increase	87.5%	84.0%	75.6%	87.8%	75.3%

Tables From “Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning”

The study also found that most growth was expected at institutions that are the most “engaged” — that is, “currently have online offerings and believe that online is critical to the long-term strategy of their organization. These institutions, however, have not yet included online education in their formal strategic plan.”

In theory, distance education is supposed to open up an era when all students have a range of options not limited by geography. But a new report from Eduventures finds that most distance students enroll at distance programs run by institutions in their own geographic regions, and that more than a third of these students take online courses offered by an institution within a 50-mile radius.
Inside Higher Ed, March 28, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/28/qt

More and more prestigious universities are sharing course material and lecture videos --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

MIT now has most of its entire curriculum of course materials in all disciplines available free to the world as open courseware. This includes the Sloan School of Business Courses --- http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
Especially note the FAQs --- http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/OCWHelp/help.htm

By the end of the year all MIT's course materials will be available, which is probably the most extensive freely open knowledge initiative (OKI) in the entire world.

MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) has formally partnered with three organizations that are translating MIT OCW course materials into Spanish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese --- http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/Translations.htm

Question
What is the most popular download course at MIT?
Answer: According to ABC News last week it's the Introduction to Electrical Engineering Course.

Other major universities now have huge portions of their curriculum materials available --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI 

If you want to try something quite different, you might consider some online business and accounting courses from the University of Toyota --- http://www2.itt-tech.edu/st/onlineprograms/  (These are not free).

Other online training and education programs are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

Bob Jensen

Education Balance: Even Resident Students Can Benefit for Life With Some Online Courses

"Latest Twist in Distance Ed," by Elia Powers, Inside Higher Ed, August 9, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/09/american

Turns out, the American University online program is somewhat of a hybrid. While the university marketed that first course, about terrorism and the legal system, to all sorts of groups in an effort to gauge outside interest, all but two of the 27 students who took the class were its own. Many of the students were away from Washington for the summer, living abroad or at home

“The most important information we’ve gathered is that our distance learning courses are most attractive to our own students,” Ettle said. “Students know they can use credits toward a degree, whereas some students [outside] might be unsure how they could use the credits.”

As distance education continues to evolve, American’s model will likely become more common, according to Diana Oblinger, vice president for Educause, the nonprofit group that deals with technology issues in higher education.

“It makes absolute sense,” Oblinger said. “Both institutions and students are concerned about the time-to-degree. If you can take a course while you are away and when it’s convenient, that helps you progress toward graduation. From an institution’s perspective, why allow your student to take someone else’s course?”

This summer, American is offering 25 online courses, none of which are longer than seven weeks. The condensed schedule works well for students who are either amidst or have just finished study abroad programs or summer jobs and want to extend their stays away from campus while earning credits, Ettle said. It’s also popular with students who take on internships during the year and want to go to school in the summer without having a full course load.

American provides incentives for those who are part of the distance learning program. Starting several summers ago, the university began giving professors whose online course proposals were accepted a $2,500 course development grant. Summer teaching at American isn’t a substitute for teaching an academic year course, and the additional compensation is only monetary incentive to teach in the summer online. Students receive a discounted rate on summer distance courses, and the price hasn’t changed in four years. A three-credit course costs $2,200, which is about 30 percent cheaper than a graduate course and about 25 percent cheaper than an undergraduate course, Ettle said.

There are other obvious cost savings: Students don’t have to pay for campus housing, and the university frees up space for other uses. The overhead cost of running a distance education course is also significantly less than it is for a normal classroom-based course, Ettle said.

“We’re utilizing our facilities more efficiently,” she said. “We want repeat customers — it’s good for them and it’s good for us.”

Still, American limits students to two distance courses per summer to prevent those who are working or studying elsewhere from overloading their schedules. The university places no limits, though, on the number of summers a student can take an online course.

Oblinger said it’s becoming more common for a university to either require or strongly suggest that its students take an online course as a way to prepare them for how learning often takes place in the workplace.

Continued in article

Updates 2006

Open Sharing Catching on Outside the United States
Britain’s Open University today formally begins its effort to put its course materials and other content online for all the world to use. With its effort, OpenLearn, which is expected to cost $10.6 million and is supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the university joins Massachusetts Institute of Technology and institutions in several other countries in trying to put tools for learning within the reach of otherwise difficult to reach populations.
Inside Higher Ed, October 25, 2006

Open2 Net Learning from Open University (the largest university in the U.K.) --- http://www.open2.net/learning.html

Soaring Popularity of E-Learning Among Students But Not Faculty
How many U.S. students took at least on online course from a legitimate college in Fall 2005?

More students are taking online college courses than ever before, yet the majority of faculty still aren’t warming up to the concept of e-learning, according to a national survey from the country’s largest association of organizations and institutions focused on online education . . . ‘We didn’t become faculty to sit in front of a computer screen,’
Elia Powers, "Growing Popularity of E-Learning, Inside Higher Ed, November 10, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/10/online

More students are taking online college courses than ever before, yet the majority of faculty still aren’t warming up to the concept of e-learning, according to a national survey from the country’s largest association of organizations and institutions focused on online education.

Roughly 3.2 million students took at least one online course from a degree-granting institution during the fall 2005 term, the Sloan Consortium said. That’s double the number who reported doing so in 2002, the first year the group collected data, and more than 800,000 above the 2004 total. While the number of online course participants has increased each year, the rate of growth slowed from 2003 to 2004.

The report, a joint partnership between the group and the College Board, defines online courses as those in which 80 percent of the content is delivered via the Internet.

The Sloan Survey of Online Learning, “Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006,” shows that 62 percent of chief academic officers say that the learning outcomes in online education are now “as good as or superior to face-to-face instruction,” and nearly 6 in 10 agree that e-learning is “critical to the long-term strategy of their institution.” Both numbers are up from a year ago.

Researchers at the Sloan Consortium, which is administered through Babson College and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, received responses from officials at more than 2,200 colleges and universities across the country. (The report makes few references to for-profit colleges, a force in the online market, in part because of a lack of survey responses from those institutions.)

Much of the report is hardly surprising. The bulk of online students are adult or “nontraditional” learners, and more than 70 percent of those surveyed said online education reaches students not served by face-to-face programs.

What stands out is the number of faculty who still don’t see e-learning as a valuable tool. Only about one in four academic leaders said that their faculty members “accept the value and legitimacy of online education,” the survey shows. That number has remained steady throughout the four surveys. Private nonprofit colleges were the least accepting — about one in five faculty members reported seeing value in the programs.

Elaine Allen, co-author of the report and a Babson associate professor of statistics and entrepreneurship, said those numbers are striking.

“As a faculty member, I read that response as, ‘We didn’t become faculty to sit in front of a computer screen,’ ” Allen said. “It’s a very hard adjustment. We sat in lectures for an hour when we were students, but there’s a paradigm shift in how people learn.”

Barbara Macaulay, chief academic officer at UMass Online, which offers programs through the University of Massachusetts, said nearly all faculty members teaching the online classes there also teach face-to-face courses, enabling them to see where an online class could fill in the gap (for instance, serving a student who is hesitant to speak up in class).

She said she isn’t surprised to see data illustrating the growing popularity of online courses with students, because her program has seen rapid growth in the last year. Roughly 24,000 students are enrolled in online degree and certificate courses through the university this fall — a 23 percent increase from a year ago, she said.

“Undergraduates see it as a way to complete their degrees — it gives them more flexibility,” Macaulay said.

The Sloan report shows that about 80 percent of students taking online courses are at the undergraduate level. About half are taking online courses through community colleges and 13 percent through doctoral and research universities, according to the survey.

Nearly all institutions with total enrollments exceeding 15,000 students have some online offerings, and about two-thirds of them have fully online programs, compared with about one in six at the smallest institutions (those with 1,500 students or fewer), the report notes. Allen said private nonprofit colleges are often set in enrollment totals and not looking to expand into the online market.

The report indicates that two-year colleges are particularly willing to be involved in online learning.

“Our institutions tend to embrace changes a little more readily and try different pedagogical styles,” said Kent Phillippe, a senior research associate at the American Association of Community Colleges. The report cites a few barriers to what it calls the “widespread adoption of online learning,” chief among them the concern among college officials that some of their students lack the discipline to succeed in an online setting. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents defined that as a barrier.

Allen, the report’s co-author, said she thinks that issue arises mostly in classes in which work can be turned in at any time and lectures can be accessed at all hours. “If you are holding class in real time, there tends to be less attrition,” she said. The report doesn’t differentiate between the live and non-live online courses, but Allen said she plans to include that in next year’s edition.

Few survey respondents said acceptance of online degrees by potential employers was a critical barrier — although liberal arts college officials were more apt to see it as an issue.

Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing and education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

Motivations for Distance Learning --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Motivations

Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side of online learning and teaching are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm

Update in 2005

Distant distance education
Ms. Salin is part of a new wave of outsourcing to India: the tutoring of American students. Twice a week for a month now, Ms. Salin, who grew up speaking the Indian language Malayalam at home, has been tutoring Daniela in English grammar, comprehension and writing. Using a simulated whiteboard on their computers, connected by the Internet, and a copy of Daniela's textbook in front of her, she guides the teenager through the intricacies of nouns, adjectives and verbs.
Saritha Rai, "A Tutor Half a World Away, but as Close as a Keyboard," The New York Times, September 7, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/education/07tutor.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1126191549-1Ydu+7CY89CpuVeaJbJ4XA

The Blackboard:  A tribute to a long-standing but fading teaching and learning tool
From the Museum of History and Science at Oxford University: 
Bye Bye Blackboard: From Einstein and others --- http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/blackboard/
Bob Jensen's threads on the tools of education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

Controversies in Regulation of Distance Education

"All Over the Map," by Elia Powers, Inside Higher Ed, December 8, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/12/08/regulation

As the distance learning market continues to grow, state agencies charged with regulating the industry continue to operate in a “fragmented environment,” according to a report presented Thursday at the 2006 Education Industry Finance & Investment Summit, in Washington.

One of the main questions these agencies must consider is what constitutes an institution having a “physical presence” in their state. In other words, what is an appropriate test to determine whether regulation is needed?

More than 80 percent of agencies that are included in the report said that they use some sort of “physical presence” test. But few agree on how to define the word “presence,” in part because there are so many elements to consider.

That’s clear in “The State of State Regulation of Cross-Border Postsecondary Education,” the report issued by Dow Lohnes, a firm with a sizable higher education practice. (The firm plans to release an updated report early next year after more responses arrive.)

Continued in article

The Shining Star in the Beleaguered World of  For-Profit Educational Corporations
"Will Apollo Hold On to Medals, by Jesse Eisinger, The Wall Street Journal, September 1, 2004, Page C1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,long_and_short,00.html 
(Note that Among other schools, Apollo owns the University of Phoenix.)

Last week, Apollo Group saved the for-profit education sector. At least for the moment.

Other big companies in the group -- ITT Educational Services, Career Education and Corinthian Colleges -- have been battling lawsuits and dealing with various investigations into their recruitment and placement practices, sending their stocks plummeting. Apollo Group, which has skirted such problems thus far, has nevertheless skidded about 20% from a June high of $98.

But a week ago today, the company shined. It said online-enrollment growth for the fiscal year ending August 2005 would top 40%, relieving investors who had been worried the toll of the investigations and lawsuits were slowing growth across the sector.

The fight between the longs and the shorts in education stocks has been one of the market's fiercest, with some of the most influential and sophisticated investors taking opposing sides. Apollo hasn't been targeted by shorts as much -- until recently. Its short interest rose almost two million shares in the most recent month, but is still relatively low compared with other education stocks.

Apollo, which declined to make executives available to comment, has been a stunning success story. The stock is up 9,800% since December 1994 and now has just under a $14 billion market capitalization. It trades at a nosebleed 32.5 times next year's earnings estimate of $2.40 a share.

Apollo sells education at bricks-and-mortar campuses and online. To date, the company has mainly focused on thirty-somethings, most of whom already are earning salaries of around $55,000 to $60,000 a year. The compelling growth story is online, so enrollment figures are watched closely.

In giving its upbeat outlook last week, Apollo also completed the conversion of its online-division tracking stock, University of Phoenix Online, into parent company shares. The move, while welcome by good-governance types, could also obscure what the true growth rate for the University of Phoenix Online will be.

Apollo will report that UOP online had 118,000 students by the end of fiscal 2004, which ended yesterday, analysts forecast. The company, which often underpromises and overdelivers, said last week it expected "online degree enrollments to grow in excess of 40%" in fiscal 2005. At a 40% growth rate, the online enrollment would be 165,000 by the end of next August. However, that figure isn't only for UOP online. The company has launched a pilot effort to go after 18- to 21-year-olds through its Western International University online unit.

WIU online growth is included in that 40% growth figure, according to Credit Suisse analyst Greg Cappelli. Apollo declined to break out its expectations for WIU online enrollment.

Continued in the article

Western Governors University, which was founded in 1997 as a collaboration of colleges in 19 states offering online programs, was for many years known for not meeting the ambitious goals of its founders. Projected to attract thousands of students within a few years, it initially attracted but scores of students. But the university has been growing lately, and on Wednesday announced that enrollment has hit 10,000, including students from all 50 states.
Inside Higher Ed, June 5, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/05/qt

Jensen Comment
Some of the things that made WGU controversial were as follows:

• Before spreading to other states it was sponsored by four governors largely concerned with reducing the cost and increasing the availability of higher education;
   

• It went online before online tools were as developed as they are today, and online learning was not yet accepted by most educators or students;
   

• It acquired an early reputation for being career focused, which often riles humanities departments --- many educators appeared to predict and enjoy the life-threatening struggles of WGU;
   

• It was and is still a competency-based program that takes much of the subjectivity of grading and graduation out of the hands of instructors who traditionally have the option of fudging grades for such things as effort.

WGU now has many undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including those in traditional fields of business such as accounting, marketing, etc.

Judith Boettcher in Syllabus, June 1999, 18-24 Judith Boettcher is affiliated with CREN. She predicts the following scenarios (which appear to be heavily in line with the emerging WGU programs mentioned above):

1.  A "career university" sector will be in place (with important partnerships of major corporations with prestige universities).

2.  Most higher education institutions, perhaps 60 percent, will have teaching and learning management software systems linked to their back office administration systems.

3.  New career universities will focus on certifications, modular degrees, and skill sets.

4.  The link between courses and content for courses will be broken.

5.  Faculty work and roles will make a dramatic shift toward specialization (with less stress upon one person being responsible for the learning material in an entire course).
(Outsourcing Academics http://www.outsourcing-academics.com/ )

6.  Students will be savvy consumers of educational services (which is consistent with the Chronicle of Higher Education article at http://chronicle.com/free/99/05/99052701t.htm   ).

7.  The tools for teaching and learning will become as portable and ubiquitous as paper and books are today.

An abstract from On the Horizon http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/online/login.asp  

Will Universities Be Relics? What Happens When an Irresistible Force Meets an Immovable Object? John W. Hibbs

Peter Drucker predicts that, in 30 years, the traditional university will be nothing more than a relic.    Should we listen or laugh? Hibbs examines Drucker's prophesy in the light of other unbelievable events, including the rapid transformation of the Soviet Union "from an invincible Evil Empire into just another meek door-knocker at International Monetary Fund headquarters." Given the mobility and cost concerns of today's students, as well as the growing tendency of employers to evaluate job-seekers' competencies rather than their institutional affiliations, Hibbs agrees that the brick-and-mortar university is doomed to extinction.

Jensen Comment
I think bricks and mortar will be around for a long time as long as young and naive students commencing adulthood need more than just course content in the process of becoming well-rounded adults.

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

Bob Jensen's advice for new faculty can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm

Soaring Popularity of E-Learning Among Students But Not Faculty
How many U.S. students took at least on online course from a legitimate college in Fall 2005?

More students are taking online college courses than ever before, yet the majority of faculty still aren’t warming up to the concept of e-learning, according to a national survey from the country’s largest association of organizations and institutions focused on online education . . . ‘We didn’t become faculty to sit in front of a computer screen,’
Elia Powers, "Growing Popularity of E-Learning, Inside Higher Ed, November 10, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/10/online

More students are taking online college courses than ever before, yet the majority of faculty still aren’t warming up to the concept of e-learning, according to a national survey from the country’s largest association of organizations and institutions focused on online education.

Roughly 3.2 million students took at least one online course from a degree-granting institution during the fall 2005 term, the Sloan Consortium said. That’s double the number who reported doing so in 2002, the first year the group collected data, and more than 800,000 above the 2004 total. While the number of online course participants has increased each year, the rate of growth slowed from 2003 to 2004.

The report, a joint partnership between the group and the College Board, defines online courses as those in which 80 percent of the content is delivered via the Internet.

The Sloan Survey of Online Learning, “Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006,” shows that 62 percent of chief academic officers say that the learning outcomes in online education are now “as good as or superior to face-to-face instruction,” and nearly 6 in 10 agree that e-learning is “critical to the long-term strategy of their institution.” Both numbers are up from a year ago.

Researchers at the Sloan Consortium, which is administered through Babson College and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, received responses from officials at more than 2,200 colleges and universities across the country. (The report makes few references to for-profit colleges, a force in the online market, in part because of a lack of survey responses from those institutions.)

Much of the report is hardly surprising. The bulk of online students are adult or “nontraditional” learners, and more than 70 percent of those surveyed said online education reaches students not served by face-to-face programs.

What stands out is the number of faculty who still don’t see e-learning as a valuable tool. Only about one in four academic leaders said that their faculty members “accept the value and legitimacy of online education,” the survey shows. That number has remained steady throughout the four surveys. Private nonprofit colleges were the least accepting — about one in five faculty members reported seeing value in the programs.

Elaine Allen, co-author of the report and a Babson associate professor of statistics and entrepreneurship, said those numbers are striking.

“As a faculty member, I read that response as, ‘We didn’t become faculty to sit in front of a computer screen,’ ” Allen said. “It’s a very hard adjustment. We sat in lectures for an hour when we were students, but there’s a paradigm shift in how people learn.”

Barbara Macaulay, chief academic officer at UMass Online, which offers programs through the University of Massachusetts, said nearly all faculty members teaching the online classes there also teach face-to-face courses, enabling them to see where an online class could fill in the gap (for instance, serving a student who is hesitant to speak up in class).

She said she isn’t surprised to see data illustrating the growing popularity of online courses with students, because her program has seen rapid growth in the last year. Roughly 24,000 students are enrolled in online degree and certificate courses through the university this fall — a 23 percent increase from a year ago, she said.

“Undergraduates see it as a way to complete their degrees — it gives them more flexibility,” Macaulay said.

The Sloan report shows that about 80 percent of students taking online courses are at the undergraduate level. About half are taking online courses through community colleges and 13 percent through doctoral and research universities, according to the survey.

Nearly all institutions with total enrollments exceeding 15,000 students have some online offerings, and about two-thirds of them have fully online programs, compared with about one in six at the smallest institutions (those with 1,500 students or fewer), the report notes. Allen said private nonprofit colleges are often set in enrollment totals and not looking to expand into the online market.

The report indicates that two-year colleges are particularly willing to be involved in online learning.

“Our institutions tend to embrace changes a little more readily and try different pedagogical styles,” said Kent Phillippe, a senior research associate at the American Association of Community Colleges. The report cites a few barriers to what it calls the “widespread adoption of online learning,” chief among them the concern among college officials that some of their students lack the discipline to succeed in an online setting. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents defined that as a barrier.

Allen, the report’s co-author, said she thinks that issue arises mostly in classes in which work can be turned in at any time and lectures can be accessed at all hours. “If you are holding class in real time, there tends to be less attrition,” she said. The report doesn’t differentiate between the live and non-live online courses, but Allen said she plans to include that in next year’s edition.

Few survey respondents said acceptance of online degrees by potential employers was a critical barrier — although liberal arts college officials were more apt to see it as an issue.

Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing and education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

July 1, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

WHAT HAPPENED TO E-LEARNING?

"Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to E-learning and Why" presents the results of the Weatherstation Project of The Learning Alliance at the University of Pennsylvania. This study sought to answer the question "Why did the boom in e-learning go bust?" Over an eighteen-month period authors Robert Zemsky, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and William F. Massy, professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University, tracked faculty and staff attitudes towards e-learning at six colleges and universities. Their findings challenged three prevalent e-learning assumptions:

-- If we build it they will come -- not so;

-- The kids will take to e-learning like ducks to water -- not quite;

-- E-learning will force a change in the way we teach -- not by a long shot.

The complete report is available online, at no cost, in PDF format at http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/Docs/Jun2004/ThwartedInnovation.pdf.

The Learning Alliance is "a provider of educational research and leadership support services to presidents of accredited, non-profit

two- and four-year colleges and universities. The Learning Alliance serves the mission of higher education institutions by providing its senior administrators with timely access to expertise, current research, and market data." For more information, contact: The Learning Alliance, 1398 Wilmington Pike, West Chester, PA 19382 USA; tel: 610-399-6601; fax: 815-550-8892; Web: http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/index.php.

The Weatherstation Project was conceived as "an antidote to those first descriptions of the market for e-learning, which were often warped by missing data and overly hopeful assumptions about how quickly new products would come to market and how receptive learners and instructors were likely to be."

In my opinion, the Weatherstation Project is biased from the start by skeptics who do not balance the successes against the failures to date --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm 
For example, the report fails to even mention one of the world's most successful e-Learning endeavors in his own institution, the Master's of Engineering (ADEPT) distance learning program at Stanford University even though one of the two authors is a long-time faculty member and top administrator at Stanford.

Here are some counter examples.

Bob Jensen's threads on the bright and the dark side of education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

"Your Right to X-Rated Sites"
The ACLU and the government butt heads over privacy, free speech, and protecting kids online--again
By Anush Yegyazarian, PC World, April 7, 2004 --- http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115531,00.asp 

In early March, the Supreme Court again heard arguments concerning the 1998 Child Online Protection Act. That act was intended to protect children from viewing online what the law calls "material that is harmful to minors."

There are qualifications about how such material must also lack any redeeming scientific, artistic, political or literary value for minors. In other words, this shouldn't affect a teen's ability to see full-frontal pictures of Michelangelo's David or the armless and topless Venus de Milo, or even to read explicit excerpts from anatomy texts.

What COPA intends to target is pornography. We all know that the Web is full of it, and that it's fairly easy to access.

Aside from what's truly obscene--which the law and the courts have sort of, kind of, defined--what's classified as porn or material harmful to minors tends to differ depending on whom you ask and the age of the minor in question. But no matter how you define it, according to the First Amendment, adults have the right to create and to view sexually explicit material--even if that material may be deemed pornographic or harmful to minors.

So the question before the Supreme Court, lawmakers, and every parent is: How do we keep sexually explicit material available to adults but away from children?

Burden on Creators or Consumers?

Let me get a couple of disclaimers out of the way first: I'm not a parent; I'm also not a consumer of so-called adult entertainment.

But I like the HBO show Sex in the City, and discussing it is a lot of fun. There are chat rooms and sites devoted to the show, some of which may at various times include commentary that's naughty at best and harmful to minors at worst, offering little or no redeeming value for those minors. Do such sites have to require proof of age for access? You can argue that they do, according to COPA.

In large part, it's the proof-of-age requirement that has prompted the American Civil Liberties Union and other like-minded organizations to oppose COPA before the Supreme Court. Under the act, sites that have "prurient" (legalese for sexually explicit material that lacks redeeming value) material harmful to minors must require some form of ID--such as a credit card, an adult ID, a digital certificate, and so on--to prove that the person who wants access to the content is over 17 years old.

So what's the problem? Well, there are a couple issues.

First, requiring an ID removes anonymity, which would deter at least some people from going to a site. They may be concerned about the potential stigma because they don't trust the site to protect their privacy, or they may want to limit the number of sites that have personal information about them. COPA does include some privacy provisions, but whether they're sufficient is debatable.

Second, the people running such a site may decide to self-censor, avoiding a subject--even something they're legally allowed to discuss--because they don't want to risk running afoul of COPA or don't want to shoulder the additional cost of implementing an age-verification method.

The ACLU and other groups have persuaded lower federal courts (most recently the Third Circuit Court of Appeals) that reasons such as these are enough to shelve COPA or send it back to the congressional drawing board. And let's not forget that a too-broad definition of indecency helped in striking down the 1996 Computer Decency Act.

But most importantly, adult IDs are not the only way to protect children online. Other methods could be just as effective without triggering self-censorship or creating problems with free speech or privacy rights.

Other Methods of Protection

COPA required the creation of a commission to investigate and evaluate various child-protection methods, and to assess any adverse impact on adults who want to access adult materials. That commission made its report in October 2000.

Guess what? According to the report, no single protection method is best. And requiring IDs has a negative impact on adult access, our First Amendment rights, and privacy, among other things. However, user- and ISP-based filtering and "greenspaces" (domains or sites that are specifically kid-friendly, such as the recently approved .kid domains) scored better as protection mechanisms, while avoiding many of the negatives of requiring adult IDs.

Continued in the article

We may have to wave goodbye to streaming media.

"Colleges That Transmit Sound and Video Online Reluctantly Discuss Strategy for Answering Patent Claim, by Scott Carlson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 6, 2004, Page A27.

Colleges, along with pornography distributors and mainstream businesses, are struggling for ways to refute claims by Acacia Research Corporation, which says it owns patents on the streaming technology that allows Web users to transmit and play sound and video.  In letters to companies and to many colleges, Acacia is seeking licensing deals that would pay it 2 percent of the gross revenue the recipients derive from such online media.

Acacia has had some successes recently.  It was just granted another patent for streaming technology in Europe.  It signed up a hotel pay-per-view company and, in a coup, a pornography company that had been part of a small group of adult-entertainment sites fighting the patent claims in court.

Acacia has also started sending letters to major corporations.  General Dynamics, the billion-dollar aerospace-and-defense contractor, signed a licensing deal in late December.

Meanwhile, colleges are reluctantly trying to decide whether to band together to challenge Acacia's claims.  Among higher-education providers, only 24/7 University, a for-profit distance-learning company based in Dallas, is known to have agreed to a deal.

Robert A Berman, senior vice president for business development at Acacia, said colleges had "panicked" and "assumed that we're asking for more than we're really asking for."

Acacia, he said, is seeking royalties from colleges only on revenues from their distance-learning courses.  The company is willing to waive royalties on revenue from other classes that use streaming technology.  "We're talking about licenses in the $5,000-to-$10,000-a-year range--at least for now," he said.

Acacia officials won't say how many colleges, or which ones, they have written to.  Institutions of all sizes have received the letters, but it is unclear what criteria the company used in choosing them.

'BUSINESS DECISION'

24/7 University struck an agreement with Acacia early this month.  Delwin Hinkle, chief executive officer of the university, called the deal "simply a business decision."

"They tell you that they have $55-million in the bank and that they are willing to spend that to enforce their patents," he said.  "We looked at it and said it's just another tweak to our cost structure, and we don't have the money, the time, or the inclination to mess with them."

Mr. Hinkle said he had tried to contact major universities to discuss a collective defense but never got a response.  He did not consider joining in the pornography companies' litigation.  "You're known by the company you keep," he said.  "No disrespect to their business, but I'm a Baptist deacon, and I can't hang with those boys."

E. Michael (Spike) Goldberg, chief executive of HomegrownVideo.com, is leading the pornographers' fight against Acacia.  He has been frustrated by higher education's unwillingness to work with him or join his case.

 Continued in the article.

February 12, 2004 message from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU] 

Bob, 

In the IT circles, my experience has been that Acacia has the same reputation as a shirtless, tattooed, multi-pierced skinhead who walks up to your car at a stoplight, splashes Coke on your windshield, wipes it off with a paper towel and demands $5 for cleaning your car.

According to what I've heard at a lot of IT conferences, Acacia is a firm of sleazebag lawyers whose only claim to business legitimacy is the buying of semi-worthless patents which are vague enough to be stretched and convoluted and contorted to cover some activity that the general population is already engaged in (such as breathing, eating, etc.) and then doing a lot of research to find a hapless victim who is too clueless or too poor to afford a decent lawyer to find knowledgable expert witnesses so the Acacia team can snow-job a clueless jury into believing that the vague patent has been infringed. Then, Acacia uses their "success" to scare (e.g., legal extortion?) a lot of other clueless companies into settling for "licensing fees", which they then hold up in other court cases as "legitimizing" their claim to the vague patent covering the activity. They only take an interest in activities which have become such an integral part of society as to cause great hardship if they cease, since Acacia's goal is not to stop patent infringement as much as it is to extort licensing fees from others who are doing all the work.

Acacia's streaming video claim is based on a patent issued to an individual in 1992 for transmitting music electronically. But MP3 (the Motion Picture Experts Group Audio Level 3) file format was invented in 1989 and released to the public in 1991. The Acacia claim is that any file which can be used to reconstruct any music or video image is covered by their patent and cannot be transmitted electronically (e.g., like a CD player playing in your living room while you are talking to your grandma on the phone!) unless Acacia receives royalties. In other words, if you sing a jingle on your digital answering machine, you are violating the same Acacia patent which Acacia is using to sue college and universities.

From the scuttlebutt at IT conferences, Acacia's only business is filing lawsuits. They do not invent anything, they don't manufacture anything, they only file lawsuits and collect royalties and fees.

I don't have any first-hand knowledge of any of this, but I have heard many times of their questionable business practices at conferences, and several of my student groups over the last few years have done some research and reported on this phenomenon. One of them described Acacia's relationship to the IT industry as the "Nigerian Treasure Scam" is to the banking industry.

Although Acacia may have some institutions cowed, I'm not sure based on what I've read, that it is much more than a paper tiger that was able to snow-job some juries. (Having served on five juries, I have positively no confidence in a jury to make a good decision on something like this, and the judges of my experience are only marginally better!) I know our legal people here have turned up their nose at Acacia's "success", and aren't the least bit worried.

Check out: http://www.streamingmedia.com/patent/ 

My reference to "Acacia's Flying Circus" was a reference to Monte Python's antics, shenanigans, and sheer ludicrousness, engaging in activities which are so bizarre as to be almost beyond belief. (The dead parrot sketch, for example -- involving the Acacia pet store, and their customer, the very first gullible jury they snowed.)

David R. Fordham 
PBGH Faculty Fellow 
James Madison University

July 2004 Update on the Fair Use Controversy in Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law

Unlike many other countries such as Canada, educators have the luxury of "fair use" in copyright law, although some aspects of this safe harbor are in question under the "new" DMCA copyright law --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright 

Under fair use provisions in the DMCA, educators can keep one photocopy of a journal article and large portions of a book even though they did not purchase those items. What I think is less clear is how to interpret the spontaneity test for sharings with other colleagues and students.  If three colleagues want to each have copy of an article from your private library, they can do so under the fair use safe harbor statutes provided there is not sufficient time to get the item from the publisher.  There is a spontaneity test discussed below.  Probably the most violated part of the fair use statute arises when educators share their photocopied journal articles, magazine articles, and multimedia files with other educators or place these items on library reserve or in Blackboard/WebCT online files for students without regard to the spontaneity test. 

You can read more about fair use and the spontaneity test at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright 

July14, 2004 Update
Colloquy Live from The Chronicle of Higher Education --- http://chronicle.com/colloquylive/2004/07/copyright/ 

"Fair Use and Academic Publishing Wednesday, July 14, at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time

Indiana University Press's withdrawal of a scholarly book is just the latest example of copyright claims trumping scholarship. Just what use are "fair use" provisions in copyright law if presses lack the wherewithal to challenge such claims? What steps can be taken by scholars to protect fair use?

Richard Byrne (Moderator):
    Good afternoon. Welcome to this week's Colloquy Live. My name is Richard Byrne. I am the editor of the Chronicle's research and publication section. Our chat today concerns Fair Use and Academic Publishing.

Copyright laws protect the rights of authors, but at times they also have bedeviled scholars' research efforts. The "fair use" provisions of copyright law should provide scope for scholars to do their work and stay on the right side of the law, but changes to copyright law and strong challenges to fair use have made both scholars and academic presses skittish about asserting fair use.

Our guest today, Wendy Seltzer, is a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She will be answering questions today about the uses that fair use can be put to in an academic setting, and she will also discuss a few ideas that she has been kicking around about how scholars and academic presses might assert fair use provisions of copyright law in a more active fashion.

Thank you, Wendy, for agreeing to appear on our chat today. Welcome.

---

Wendy Seltzer:
    Thanks for inviting me to join you.

First let me give a few notes about fair use, an important part of the public-private balance of copyright. It is now codified at Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act as a limitation on the exclusive rights of copyright holders. Fair uses are fair without the permission of the copyright holder, even against that permission.

The law sets out a four-factor test:
1) the purpose and character of the use (non-commercial or commercial; transformative or mere duplication)
2) the nature of the copyrighted work (fiction or nonfiction, published or unpublished)
3) the amount used in proportion to the whole
4) the effect on the market for the work
(See http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html )

More factors in your favor makes a finding of fair use more likely, but the law gives us no bright lines or percentages. That's part of the reason why Lawrence Lessig has been saying that "fair use is merely the right to hire a lawyer."

I should also note that the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other public interest organizations do try to make it easier to hire a pro bono lawyer in fair use cases. We think it's critically important to preserve fair use as an actual, not merely hypothetical defense.

Continued in the Transcript

Under the fair use safe harbor, campus libraries do not have to own subscriptions to journal articles placed on reserve. U.S. educators can make photocopies from their private collections and make copies of just about anything for reserve reading purposes. They can also put their own books on reserve whether they are hard-copy (paper) or electronic copies.  Things  they can never place on reserve are original copies of items (such as books) that are borrowed via Interlibrary Loan (ILL).  The ILL code dictates that libraries may not lend or borrow for this purpose. There also is a timing spontaneity test under fair use statutes that is commonly violated by educators and libraries.

Fair Use statutes allow educators to share multimedia, such as video tapes of television shows, for educational purposes. However, these items must also pass the spontaneity test, which requires that there wasn't a great deal of time to obtain copyright permissions. . For example, I may make a home-recorded segment from last night's television broadcast available to students, but fair use safe harbor does not allow me to share with other students or educators after the network makes copies available for sale.

For practical purposes, the Trinity University library interprets the  spontaneity test to mean that, the first semester a copy of an item (journal article, chapter from a book, videotape, CD, etc.) is placed on reserve, the library will not seek copyright permissions. Virtually all materials used in subsequent semesters will need those permissions unless there are blanket permissions by the publisher. For example, all publications of the American Accounting Association can be used for non-commercial education purposes at any point in time without getting express copyright permissions.

In a November 18, 2003 message, the Director of the library at Trinity University (Diane Graves) wrote the following:

The other test we must apply deals with how much of the material used. In the case of a book, for example, we can't copy in its entirety a full book, or even ½ of one, if it is still in print. Even if the book is out of print, we must be able to show that we did everything possible to find an out-of-print dealer to sell it to us. If that fails, we can make a full copy. In the case of copies made from journal articles, we can most certainly make copies of articles from our originals, your originals, or even copies we have obtained from other libraries. Any of those can be placed on reserve. 

Keep in mind that the law makes it pretty easy for active educators to go outside the fences of "fair use."  For example, suppose an educator ignores the spontaneity test and shares materials with other educators and students term after term.  The copyright holder must first file a complaint with that educator cease and desist. . In theory, the educator cannot be sued for damages until receiving a warning from the copyright holder.   Also monetary damages for this educator's free sharing are probably too small to warrant a lawsuit.  If the educator or the educator's employer profits from this sharing, however, then lawsuits may come crashing down.  It is unlikely, however, that The Wall Street Journal will come crashing down on Professor X who puts a copy of a Wall Street Journal article on reserve every semester.  Her/his employer, however, will object if this act violates the employer's policy of requiring that permissions be received after the spontaneity period has passed.  

Actually, most publishers of journals and magazines have made it quite easy for educators to obtain permissions online.  Also keep in mind that some things do not require permissions.  These include quotations of reasonable length (I generally take liberties here) and up to thirty seconds of an audio or video recording.  These safe harbors apply to all persons and not just educators.  The purpose is to allow the works to be evaluated and criticized in public.  For example, if a publisher would not allow even a short quotation to be published, this denial could deny critics to effectively air their criticisms.  For example, recall the furor over the CBS Reagan Movie.  Selected lines from that movie were published by critics (e.g., in Time Magazine) before the movie became public.  It is my understanding that those critics need not obtain permission to quote small portions of the dialog of the movie.  Of course there are limits to most anything in U.S. courts.  Television news stations that aired 20 seconds of the knock out scene from a Mike Tyson Pay-for-View prize fight a few minutes after the loser hit the deck got  into trouble.

November 23, 2003 message from Bob Woodward [rsw@WUBIOS.WUSTL.EDU] 

One of the issues relating to self publishing is how to protect your intellectual property.

Based on his battles with record industry, Larry Lessig has proposed Creative Commons, an alternative to Copyright.

http://creativecommons.org 

While his computer seems to be off or disconnected or something this Sun eve, Larry's blog is usually found at

http://www.lessig.org/blog/  

Bob Woodward

Critics fear consumers may be shortchanged by an agreement between the technology and recording industries over the future of digital copyright policy.
"Downside to Digital Rights Pact," by Katie Dean, Wired News, Janaury 15, 2002 ---  http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,57211,00.html 

A new agreement between the technology and recording industries -- touted as a boon for consumers and businesses -- is not as rosy as it sounds, say some digital rights groups.

On Tuesday, the Business Software Alliance, Computer Systems Policy Project and the Recording Industry Association of America pledged to follow a set of principles that address digital content issues like piracy and copy protection while rejecting government technology mandates.

"It's sort of a guidebook for how we all want to act in the public policy arena," said Hilary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA.

The agreement calls for technology and record companies to promote consumer awareness about Internet usage and digital copying issues. It also pledges support for technical measures that limit the illegal distribution of copyrighted material and opposes government-imposed technical mandates.

The agreement "minimizes the distracting public rhetoric and needless legislative battles," she said. "Our industries need to work together for the consumer to benefit and for our respective businesses to grow."

"There will be continued investment in new products and new music delivery methods," she said. "Consumers' interest in music is served if the investment in creativity can be protected."

But some digital rights groups said the agreement attempts leave the public without much input on crucial issues about digital content rights.

"It is not good news for the consumer," said Wendy Seltzer, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"They are trying to take the legislative process out of the legislature and put it in the hands of a few industry groups," Seltzer said. "There's a lot of public debate that has to go on and we do need Congress to step in and undo the mess that has been created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,57211,00.html 

Also see http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57205,00.html 

"New Ways to Skirt DMCA … Legally!" by Katie Dean, Wired News, October 29, 2003 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,60996,00.html 

Busting open a digital lock to get hold of copyright works normally is forbidden, but the Librarian of Congress ruled Tuesday that there are exceptions.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, prohibits, among other things, bypassing any technology that controls access to copyright material. This provision is criticized frequently by digital-rights groups because they say it stifles many legitimate activities in the process, including academic research, competition and innovation.

the controversial law also recognizes that there are certain cases when circumvention should be permitted. Thus, it mandates that every three years, the U.S. Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress review and grant exceptions to the anti-circumvention provision.

Those who are exempt from the rule are those who are "adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make non-infringing uses of that particular class of works," according to the DMCA.

Basically, those who have a non-infringing, fair-use reason to circumvent copy protections should be allowed to do so.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Copyright Office released the four "classes of works" exempted from the anti-circumvention rule. People may bypass a digital lock to access lists of websites blocked by commercial filtering companies, circumvent obsolete dongles to access computer programs, access computer programs and video games in obsolete formats, and access e-books where the text-to-speech function has been disabled.

One programmer who testified at the Copyright Office rule-making proceedings in April was jubilant that the filtering exemption was renewed.

"How sweet it is," said Seth Finkelstein, a programmer and anticensorship activist. "Without the exemption, the DMCA would make it a violation to decrypt the blacklist to find out what (filtering companies) are actually censoring. The actual contents of these blacklists are an important censorship issue.

"The Copyright Office has recognized the importance of fair use in this area affected by the DMCA," Finkelstein said. "It's not a blanket declaration of being legal, but it's an ability to argue fair use."

Filtering advocates had hoped the exemption would be dropped.

"I'm disappointed because I thought we had made it clear that the exemption is unnecessary to conduct meaningful evaluations of filters," said David Burt, a spokesman for Secure Computing, which purchased N2H2, a filtering company.

He cited extensive studies from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Consumer Reports and the Department of Justice, among others, in his testimony and said that "these methods are adequate for evaluating filters."

Gwen Hinze, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the group was pleased that the Librarian of Congress renewed and granted important exemptions, but was disappointed that exemptions the EFF proposed on behalf of consumers were not granted.

Continued in the article.

Question
What do garage door openers and copyright law have in common?

Answer

"Garage Doors Raise DMCA Questions," by Katie Dean, Wired News, September 17, 2003 --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60383,00.html 

Manufacturers of a seemingly innocuous product -- a garage door opener -- are embroiled in a battle that tests the limits of a controversial copyright law.

Skylink Technologies manufactures a universal garage door opener that can be used to open and shut any type of garage door. Its competitor, the Chamberlain Group, claims that Skylink violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, by selling such a product.

Chamberlain alleges Skylink's handheld portable transmitter can activate Chamberlain's garage door openers and, in doing so, unlawfully bypasses a technology-protection measure built into the device's software.

Skylink disagrees, and recently filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois for summary judgment, whereby a judge decides the case instead of going to trial.

"When Chamberlain sells (its) garage door openers, there is no restriction prohibiting the consumer from operating the garage door with a third-party transmitter," said David Djavaherian, an attorney for Skylink. "For a violation to occur under the DMCA, access to the copyright work must be unauthorized."

Neither representatives of Chamberlain nor its lawyers returned repeated calls for comment.

The case has been closely monitored by digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has argued that the DMCA is being abused by companies that want to stifle their competitors. The DMCA, the groups contend, also impedes innovation.

Continued in the article.

In using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as an excuse to sue third parties that dare to make inexpensive consumables, tech equipment makers also cheat consumers. It's reminiscent of the telcos' fight for dominance in the '50s --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57268,00.html 

January 15, 2003
The Supreme Court rules that the 20-year extension on copyrights included in a 1998 law is not unconstitutional. It's a big win for media corporations --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57220,00.html 

Also see http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,830856,00.asp 

The result of the ruling is that works copyrighted by creators are extended until 70 years after the death of the creator, which protects heirs of the creators. Corporations who own copyrighted works have most of their copyrights protected for 95 years. The ruling is already being referred to as "the Eldred decision" because Eric Eldred, who owns a public Web library, had challenged the decision by Congress to uphold copyright extension.

December 17, 2002 message from Davidson, Dee (Dawn) [dgd@MARSHALL.USC.EDU] 

An article in yesterday's LA Times describes another approach to the Copyright laws debate. A new company, comprised mostly of academics, proposes there be several copyright laws that loosen the rules for some uses of published material while strengthening the rules for other uses. Board members of the company include Eric Elder, an Internet publisher who was outraged by the 1998 copyright extension ruling, Lawrence Lessig, who was at Harvard in 1998, Hal Abelson of MIT, James Boyle of Duke, and Eric Saltzman, a former filmmaker.

Excerpts from the article, which is quite long, are below. I have the web link at the bottom, but if anyone can't get to the site and wants the article, I can copy and paste.

**************************
"Into this messy and acid-edged situation comes Creative Commons, a new nonprofit organization that will launch its first projects today. Based at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, Creative Commons has a high-profile board and an ambitious mission. The goal is to promote creativity and collaboration by developing new forms of copyright while reinvigorating the ever-shrinking sphere of copyright-free works: the public domain.

"Using the copyright system, we will make a wider, richer public domain for creators to build upon and individuals to share," said Stanford law professor and Creative Commons Chairman Lawrence Lessig. "Walt Disney built an empire from the riches of the public domain. We'd like to support a hundred thousand more Walt Disneys."

As a first step, Creative Commons has developed a group of licenses that will allow copyright holders to surrender some rights to works while keeping others.

One license, for instance, allows people to copy or distribute a work as long as they give the owner credit. Another allows a work to be copied, distributed or displayed as long as it is for a noncommercial purpose. A third license permits copying but forbids using the work to make another, derivative work. (The licenses are legal documents, although that doesn't guarantee that people will honor them.) .......... The notion of loosening the bounds of copyright isn't new. For more than a decade, the Free Software Foundation has used for its own programs and offered others a license that guarantees the freedom to share and change software. O'Reilly & Associates, a leading computer manual publisher, uses the Web to publish a number of books under open-publication licenses.

Still, the notion that creation confers ownership and that ownership is practically eternal is embedded in the system.

Since 1978, copyright protection has been automatic on any new work -- which has made it very hard to purposely free it. 

In response, Creative Commons has developed what it is calling the Founders' Copyright. A creator agrees to a contract with Creative Commons to guarantee that a work will enter the public domain after just 14 years, which was the span granted by the first copyright law in 1790. O'Reilly said it will be the first to publish under these terms. ........ 

Another license puts work into the public domain immediately. One of the first works to have a public domain license will be "The Cluetrain Manifesto," an influential book on Internet marketing that was published three years ago. It was a natural evolution, considering that the text of "Cluetrain" was posted on the Web awhile ago by the authors. .......... 

Critics already are wondering why a creator would donate anything to the public domain beyond, for example, an unpublished or unpublishable novel. Are people so altruistic as to create things for free? "The same thing was said about the whole Internet a few years ago," Eldred observed. "The existence of the Web is the answer."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-copyright16dec16.story 

http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2Dfi%2Dcopyright16dec16&section=%2Fbusiness 

December 2002
The U.S. Copyright Office asked for public comment on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it got it. Critics worry about everything from losing great art to restricting blind people's access to information --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56963,00.html 

The responses are available at http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2003/comments/index.html 

Also see http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978497.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed 

Bob Jensen's threads on the dreadful DMCA are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright 

Some Good News From CIT Infobits on October 31, 2002

ONLINE TEACHING AND COPYRIGHT

The provisions of the Technology Education and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH), which are likely to be passed this fall, would amend the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 to give schools and higher education institutions new rights to use copyrighted materials for distance education. The bill would give educators "fair use" rights that are already in place for regular classroom use.

New rights covered include:

-- "Expanding the range of works that may be transmitted over electronic systems to nearly all types of materials -- although only portions of some works could be transmitted."

-- "Allowing the content to be transmitted to students at any location, rather than just to classrooms, as is legal under current law."

-- "Allowing educators to store transmitted content and give students access to it, if only for short periods."

-- "Allowing the conversion to digital form of analog works, such as printed or videotaped material, but only in cases where the material is not already available in digital form, such as on DVD."

For more information about TEACH, read Andrew Trotter's article, "Bill Would Ease Copyright Limits For E-Learning" (EDUCATION WEEK, October 30, 2002), available online at http://edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=09copyright.h22 

Really Bad News from the Electronic Frontiers Foundation about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

"EFF Whitepaper: Unintended Consequences Three Years under the DMCA --- http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_consequences.html  

1.  Executive Summary

Since they were enacted in 1998, the “anti-circumvention” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, have not been used as Congress envisioned. Congress meant to stop copyright pirates from defeating anti-piracy protections added to copyrighted works, and to ban “black box” devices intended for that purpose.¹

In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright piracy. As a result, the DMCA has developed into a serious threat to three important public policy priorities:

Section 1201 Chills Free Expression and Scientific Research.

Experience with section 1201 demonstrates that it is being used to stifle free speech and scientific research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor Edward Felten’s team of researchers, and prosecution of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov have chilled the legitimate activities of journalists, publishers, scientists, students, program­mers, and members of the public.

Section 1201 Jeopardizes Fair Use.

By banning all acts of circumvention, and all technologies and tools that can be used for circumvention, section 1201 grants to copyright owners the power to unilaterally eliminate the public’s fair use rights. Already, the music industry has begun deploying “copy-protected CDs” that promise to curtail consumers’ ability to make legitimate, personal copies of music they have purchased.

Section 1201 Impedes Competition and Innovation.

Rather than focusing on pirates, many copyright owners have chosen to use the DMCA to hinder their legitimate competitors. For example, Sony has invoked section 1201 to protect their monopoly on Playstation video game consoles, as well as their “regionalization” system limiting users in one country from playing games legitimately purchased in another.

This document collects a number of reported cases where the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been invoked not against pirates, but against consumers, scientists, and legitimate comp­etitors. It will be updated from time to time as additional cases come to light. The latest version can always be obtained at www.eff.org.

2.  DMCA Legislative Background

Congress enacted section 1201 in response to two pressures. First, Congress was responding to the perceived need to implement obligations imposed on the U.S. by the 1996 World Intellectual Property Or­ganization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty. Section 1201, however, went further than the WIPO treaty required.² The details of section 1201, then, were a response not just to U.S. treaty obligations, but also to the concerns of copyright owners that their works would be widely pirated in the networked digital world.³

Section 1201 contains two distinct prohibitions: a ban on acts of circumvention, as well as a ban on the distribution of tools and technologies used for circumvention.

The first prohibition, set out in section 1201(a)(1), prohibits the act of circumventing a technological measure used by copyright owners to control access to their works (“access controls”). So, for example, this provision makes it unlawful to defeat the encryption system used on DVD movies. This ban on acts of circumvention applies even where the purpose for decrypting the movie would otherwise be legitimate. As a result, if a Disney DVD prevents you from fast-forwarding through the commercials that preface the feature presentation, efforts to circumvent this restriction would be unlawful.

Second, sections 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b) outlaw the manufacture, sale, distribution or trafficking of tools and technologies that make circumvention possible. These provisions ban not only technologies that defeat access controls, but also technologies that defeat use restrictions imposed by copyright owners, such as copy controls. These provisions prevent technology vendors from taking steps to defeat the “copy-protection” now appearing on many music CDs, for example.

Section 1201 also includes a number of exceptions for certain limited classes of activities, including security testing, reverse engineering of software, encryption research, and law enforcement. These exceptions have been extensively criticized as being too narrow to be of real use to the constituencies who they were intended to assist.⁴

A violation of any of the “act” or “tools” prohibitions is subject to significant civil and, in some circumstances, criminal penalties.

3.  Free Expression and Scientific Research

Section 1201 is being used by a number of copyright owners to stifle free speech and legitimate scientific research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor Edward Felten’s team of researchers, and prosecution of the Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov have imposed a chill on a variety of legitimate activities.

For example, online service providers and bulletin board operators have begun to censor discussions of copy-protection systems, programmers have removed computer security programs from their websites, and students, scientists and security experts have stopped publishing details of their research on existing security protocols. Foreign scientists are also increasingly uneasy about traveling to the United States out of fear of possible DMCA liability, and certain technical conferences have begun to relocate overseas.

These developments will ultimately result in weakened security for all computer users (including, ironically, for copyright owners counting on technical measures to protect their works), as security researchers shy away from research that might run afoul of section 1201.⁵

Professor Felten’s Research Team Threatened

In September 2000, a multi-industry group known as the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) issued a public challenge encouraging skilled technologists to try to defeat certain watermarking technologies intended to protect digital music. Princeton Professor Edward Felten and a team of researchers at Princeton, Rice, and Xerox took up the challenge and succeeded in removing the watermarks.

When the team tried to present their results at an academic conference, however, SDMI representatives threatened the researchers with liability under the DMCA. The threat letter was also delivered to the researchers’ employers, as well as the conference organizers. After extensive discussions with counsel, the researchers grudgingly withdrew their paper from the conference. The threat was ultimately withdrawn and a portion of the research published at a subsequent conference, but only after the researchers filed a lawsuit in federal court.

After enduring this experience, at least one of the researchers involved has decided to forgo further research efforts in this field.

Pamela Samuelson, “Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science,” 293 Science 2028, Sept. 14, 2001.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/293/5537/2028

Letter from Matthew Oppenheim, SDMI General Counsel, to Prof. Edward Felten, April 9, 2001.
http://cryptome.org/sdmi-attack.htm

Dmitry Sklyarov Arrested

Beginning in July 2001, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov was jailed for several weeks and detained for five months in the United States after speaking at the DEFCON conference in Las Vegas.

Prosecutors, prompted by software goliath Adobe Systems Inc., alleged that Sklyarov had worked on a software program known as the Advanced e-Book Processor, which was distributed over the Internet by his Russian employer, ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. The software allowed owners of Adobe electronic books (“e-books”) to convert them from Adobe’s e-Book format into Adobe Portable Document Format (“pdf”) files, thereby removing restrictions embedded into the files by e-Book publishers.

Sklyarov was never accused of infringing any copyrighted e-Book, nor of assisting anyone else to infringe copyrights. His alleged crime was working on a software tool with many legitimate uses, simply because third parties he has never met might use the tool to copy an e-Book without the publisher’s permission.

In December 2001, under an agreement with the Department of Justice, Sklyarov was allowed to return home. The Department of Justice, however, is continuing to prosecute his employer, ElcomSoft, under the criminal provisions of the DMCA.

Lawrence Lessig, “Jail Time in the Digital Age,” N.Y. Times at A7, July 30, 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/opinion/30LESS.html

Jennifer 8 Lee, “U.S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator,” N.Y. Times at C8, July 18, 2001.

Scientists and Programmers Withhold Research

Following the legal threat against Professor Felten’s research team and the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, a number of prominent computer security experts have curtailed their legitimate research activities out of fear of potential DMCA liability.

For example, prominent Dutch cryptographer and security systems analyst Neils Ferguson discovered a major security flaw in an Intel video encryption system known as High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). He declined to publish his results and removed all references on his website relating to flaws in HDCP, on the grounds that he travels frequently to the U.S. and is fearful of “prosecution and/or liability under the U.S. DMCA law.”

Neils Ferguson, “Censorship in Action: Why I Don’t Publish My HDCP Results,” Aug. 15, 2001.
http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/cia.html

Neils Ferguson, Declaration in Felten & Ors v R.I.A.A. case, Aug. 13, 2001.
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/Felten_v_RIAA/20010813_ferguson_decl.html

Lisa M. Bowman, “Researchers Weigh Publication, Prosecution,” CNET News, Aug. 15, 2001.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6886574.html

Following the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, Fred Cohen, a professor of digital forensics and respected security consultant, removed his “Forensix” evidence-gathering software from his website, citing fear of potential DMCA liability.

Another respected network security protection expert, Dug Song, also removed content from his website for the same reason. Mr. Song is the author of several security papers, including a paper describing a common vulnerability in many firewalls.

Robert Lemos, “Security Workers: Copyright Law Stifles,” CNET News, Sept. 6, 2001.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-272716.html

In mid-2001 an anonymous programmer discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft’s proprietary e-Book digital rights management code, but refused to publish the results, citing DMCA liability concerns.

Wade Roush, “Breaking Microsoft's e-Book Code,” Technology Review at 24, November 2001.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/innovation11101.asp

Foreign Scientists Avoid U.S.

Foreign scientists have expressed concerns about traveling to the U.S. following the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. Some foreign scientists have advocated boycotting conferences held in the U.S. and a number of conference bodies have decided to move their conferences to non-U.S. locations. Russia has issued a travel warning to Russian programmers traveling to the U.S.

Highly respected British Linux programmer Alan Cox resigned from the USENIX committee of the Advanced Computing Systems Association, the committee that organizes many of the U.S. com­puting conferences, because of his concerns about traveling to the U.S. Cox has urged USENIX to hold its annual conference offshore. The International Information Hiding Workshop Conference, the conference at which Professor Felten’s team intended to present its original paper, has chosen to hold all of its future conferences outside of the U.S. following the SDMI threat to Professor Felten and his team.

Will Knight, “Computer Scientists boycott US over digital copyright law,” New Scientist, July 23, 2001.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns00001063

Alan Cox of Red Hat UK Ltd, declaration in Felten v. RIAA, Aug. 13, 2001. http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/Felten_v_RIAA/20010813_cox_decl.html

Jennifer 8 Lee, “Travel Advisory for Russian Programmers,” N.Y. Times at C4, Sept.10, 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/10/technology/10WARN.html?searchpv=past7days

IEEE Wrestles with DMCA

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which publishes 30 per cent of all computer science journals worldwide, recently was drawn into the controversy surrounding science and the DMCA. Apparently concerned about possible liability under Section 1201, the IEEE in November 2001 instituted a policy requiring all authors to indemnify IEEE for any liabilities incurred should a submission result in legal action under the DCMA.

After an outcry from IEEE members, the organization ultimately revised its submission policies, removing mention of the DMCA. According to Bill Hagen, manager of IEEE Intellectual Property Rights, “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has become a very sensitive subject among our authors. It’s intended to protect digital content, but its application in some specific cases appears to have alienated large segments of the research community.”

IEEE press release, “IEEE to Revise New Copyright Form to Address Author Concerns,” April 22, 2002.
http://www.ieee.org/newsinfo/dmca.html

Will Knight, “Controversial Copyright Clause Abandoned,” New Scientist, April 15, 2002.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992169

2600 Magazine Censored

The Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes case⁶ illustrates the chilling effect that section 1201 has had on the freedom of the press.

In that case, eight major motion picture companies brought a DMCA suit against 2600 magazine seeking to block it from publishing the DeCSS software program, which defeats the encryption used on DVD movies. 2600 had made the program available on its web site in the course of ongoing coverage of the controversy surrounding the DMCA. The magazine was not involved in the development of software, nor was it accused of having used the software for any copyright infringement.

Notwithstanding the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press, the district court permanently barred 2600 from publishing, or even linking to, the DeCSS software code. In November 2001, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court decision.

In essence, the movie studios effectively obtained a “stop the presses” order banning the publication of truthful information by a news publication concerning a matter of public concern—an unprecedented curtailment of well-established First Amendment prin­ciples.

Carl S. Kaplan, “Questioning Continues in Copyright Suit,” N.Y. Times, May 4, 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/04/technology/04CYBERLAW.html

Simson Garfinkel, “The Net Effect: The DVD Rebellion,” Technology Review at 25, July/Aug. 2001.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/garfinkel0701.asp

Xenia P. Kobylarz, “DVD Case Clash—Free Speech Advocates Say Copyright Owners Want to Lock Up Ideas; Encryption Code is Key,” S.F. Daily Journal, May 1, 2001.

Continued at http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_consequences.html 

Question
Murat Tanju (with respect to one-time fair use under U.S. copyright law) asked the following question:
>>"Isn't first time fair use applicable to the reader (students) who change each time a course is given rather than the faculty who put it on reserve every time?">>

Answer
The answer is no. Diane Graves explains this below. Long-term use of full articles in repeated courses without copyright holder permission is definitely not allowed. I did, however, remind all of you that the American Accounting Association and many other academic associations does not require written permission for articles used in education courses. See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm 

Of course, fair use still allows quotations and excerpts without permission, and the gray zone centers upon what proportion is fair. The real issue concerns whether revenues of the copyright holder are seriously impaired by unfair use. For example, I often take liberties with large cited quotations, but some of my citations probably generate more revenues for the copyright holders if users adopt the original works in courses. For example, if I place a long quote from Magazine X in my New Bookmarks or messages on the AECM, professors who would never have otherwise have known about the article and/or would not purchase the article for themselves are not depriving the copyright holder of revenue. If they freely distribute the article or even my long quotation to an entire class of students, however, they are depriving the copyright holder of revenue. Loss of revenue is the real issue! The revenue market for many publishers is the student market. Fair use was placed into copyright law for education speed and convenience, but it was not put there for long-term damages to publishers.

For example, I serve up a short "teaser" clip from one of my favorite segments of in the CBS show called Sixty Minutes. My teaser video clip is at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000overview/mp3/133summ.htm#Introduction   I also have my downloaded entire segment that I played in class soon after I downloaded a live broadcast. However, for use in subsequent semesters, I used a purchased segment exactly like the segment I already had on my shelves.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Graves, Diane J. 
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 4:07 PM 
To: Jensen, Robert 
Subject: RE: Re: Copyright Compliance Service

Bob, 

Your understanding is correct. Our interpretation of Fair Use (which is fairly common in the academic library world) is this: the first time (first semester) a copy of an item is placed on Reserve, it falls within the Fair Use category, so there is no need to seek permission for its use. However, if the item is used for subsequent courses in other semesters, we will require evidence that permission has been requested. So if you have any items on reserve this fall semester that you intend to use again in the spring, we'll call it fair use for the fall and seek copyright permission for any use you'll have in subsequent semesters for those same items. The Fair Use designation has to do with spontaneity--if you find something you just HAVE to use in your class this term, you don't need to ask permission to assign it. If you choose to use it again, it's premeditated, in effect. You have time to plan to use it, and must request permission to do so from the copyright holder. There is a good guide to thinking through this process at IUPUI's website. You might want to look at it: http://www.iupui.edu/~copyinfo/fuchecklist.htm l Lately, the focus in the courts has been on the economic impact of repeated, long term use of the same item, and the availability of permissions. (See under Effect on the IUPUI site). The fact that new students cycle through the course doesn't seem to be a factor in the eyes of the courts. Does that answer your question? Roger Horky is our new Manager of Copyright and Reserves. He can answer any additional questions you have. He's at x8189; rhorky@trinity.edu . Thanks for your interest!

Diane J. Graves

Written Permission to Use Some Articles in Courses is Not Required

I thought that the following message from the Director of the Trinity University Library might be of more general interest in this era of uncertainty over the DMCA mess.

She does not go into issues of material placed by instructors under courses in the Blackboard server, but I assume the same policies extend to the Blackboard server. I do remind you that many academic associations have policies that allow distributions of their journal articles to students. For example, all American Accounting Association journals are subject to the following policy statement:

***************************************

Permission is hereby granted to reproduce any of the contents of _[Name of the AAA Journal] ___ for use in courses of instruction, as long as the source and the American Accounting Association copyright are indicated in any such reproductions.

Written application must me made to the American Accounting Association, 5717 Bessie Drive, Sarasota, FL 34233-2399, for permission to reproduce any of the contents for use other than courses of instruction.
***************************************

I suspect that all we must do is notify our library and/or our Blackboard master of the above policy that is printed in the back of all AAA journals. Check with other academic associations for similar policies.

But then again, who can trust an accountant these days?

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Graves, Diane J.
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2002 2:30 PM
To: Trinity Faculty/Staff
Subject: Copyright Compliance Service

To all Trinity faculty and departmental secretaries:

Trinity has recently reviewed its compliance with current copyright guidelines, particularly as they relate to the library’s course reserves service. In the past, the library accepted any and all materials faculty members wished to place on reserve without regard for copyright compliance issues, often in violation of copyright. Beginning this year, we have resolved to meet our obligations to intellectual property rights holders and the law more diligently.

Trinity’s need to abide by copyright laws will affect the teaching faculty in many ways, the most significant of which will be that we are changing library procedures for placing items on reserve.

Library staff have composed a new and formal copyright compliance policy. Please take the time to read it; at http://lib.trinity.edu/servcols/circ/cpyrghtp.shtml . Some of its more important elements are:

1. When an item is placed on reserve for the first time (ever) copyright compliance will usually not be necessary. First-time use of an item is generally considered to be “fair use” of that item as permitted by the US Copyright Code. However, the library will require copyright permission for all items placed on reserve a second or later time.

2. Faculty members are welcome to seek copyright permissions for their reserve materials themselves. If you obtain permission on your own, you will need to provide proof of that permission to the reserves manager before the material can be placed on reserve. Be aware, however, that library resources—time and money—are limited. Please plan ahead so you have time to identify alternatives.

3. The library has set aside a small fund for royalty payments. At the present time, this amounts to just $50 per instructor. We suspect that this will not be sufficient; this is a new experience for us and we may have grossly underestimated the budgetary requirements of full copyright compliance. Any royalty fees beyond this amount will be charged to the appropriate department.

4. Because the library’s resources are so limited, instructors should designate the maximum royalty payment they are willing to incur on each reserve item. They should also rank their reserve requests in order of importance to the class so that the library staff charged with obtaining copyright permissions can prioritize the processing of their requests.

5. Any item submitted without proof of copyright permission will not be placed on reserve for two weeks, to permit time to process copyright permission requests. At the end of the two-week period, the item will be placed on reserve with the understanding that it will be removed if permission to use it is denied. Please take into account this two-week delay when submitting reserves.

6. To expedite the process of securing copyright permissions, we will need as much bibliographic information about the item as is possible. We have designed a new reserves submission form that asks for the pertinent information. The more complete the citation, the more quickly we can process the reserve item.

Please note that the library now offers an electronic reserves capability, which will affect how we process reserves materials. We will be sending you all a short message describing some of the more significant changes.

If you have any questions, please contact . . [Deleted]

Diane J. Graves, Professor & University Librarian
Elizabeth M. Coates Library, Trinity University
715 Stadium Drive, San Antonio, TX 78212

"FAIR USE" IS GETTING UNFAIR TREATMENT 
Two recent federal court rulings in Hollywood's favor could undermine consumers' historical rights to use the content they buy http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc20020514_1528.htm?c=bwtechmay17&n=link13&t=email 

To hear the entertainment industry tell it, a wave of digital piracy threatens to destroy the future of movies, records, and other media. While the danger of piracy is real, the other side of the story is that Hollywood has been on a remarkable legislative and legal winning streak in its campaign to win increased protections (see BW Online, 4/18/02, "High Tech vs. Hollywood on Capitol Hill"). Along the way, some long-established consumer rights may disappear. And the message from the courts so far seems to be "Get used to it." 

The invention of digital media has made it possible for people without any special skills or equipment to make copies that are essentially indistinguishable from the originals. It has also given the creators of media the technical means not only to prevent copies from being made but to limit the ways consumers use products they have purchased, for example, by blocking the playing of U.S. DVD movies in Europe or preventing certain music CDs from being played in computers.

Copyright law has always tried to strike a delicate balance between the rights of content creators to be compensated for their work and the rights of consumers to use what they have paid for. But the development of digital media and Big Media's attempt to completely control it have destroyed the delicate equilibrium that is copyright law.

UNDER ASSAULT.  Two legal doctrines, called "first sale" and "fair use" are threatened by these technical changes. Under first sale, the buyers of copyrighted works in the U.S. may dispose of their purchases as they see fit (this isn't true in all countries). If you own a book, record, or DVD, you can sell it, lend it, or give it away. Fair use is a broader and vaguer concept, but it covers such things as quoting from a book in a review, copying part of a work for classroom use, or, most relevantly, making a copy of a music recording for personal use.

Both doctrines are now under assault. The most recent blow came in a May 8 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte in San Jose, Calif., in which he upheld the constitutionality of key provisions of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

This criminal case, U.S. v. Elcom Ltd., is a curious one. It began last July when FBI agents, acting on a complaint from software maker Adobe Systems, arrested Elcom employee Dmitry Skylarov at a hackers conference in Las Vegas. He was charged with "trafficking" in software designed to circumvent copy protections in Adobe's eBook Reader software, a criminal violation of the DMCA. The case against Skylarov were eventually dropped, and he returned to Russia, but the charges against Elcom are moving forward.

Continued at  http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc20020514_1528.htm?c=bwtechmay17&n=link13&t=email 

David Takes on Goliath

"'Politics of Control' Leads a Law Student to Challenge Digital-Copyright Act," by Andrea L. Foster, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2, 2002 --- http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002080201t.htm 

Benjamin G. Edelman, a first-year student at Harvard University's law school, is the latest academic researcher to challenge the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Mr. Edelman, last month filed a lawsuit against N2H2 Inc., a Seattle-based Internet filtering company, in U.S. District Court in Boston. The suit asks a judge to prevent N2H2 from suing Mr. Edelman under the digital-copyright law should he decide to bypass the company's encryption, which prevents him from discovering its complete list of blocked Web sites. (See an article from The Chronicle, July 26.)

Q. How did you become interested in Internet filtering?

A. I had been aware of it generally for some years. It's hard to say when it all started. But the ACLU contacted me two years ago as they were preparing to challenge a variety of state laws requiring the use of filtering software in libraries. Alaska, for example, had such a law, and there were some other states. ...

These laws were unconstitutional and they were preparing to bring challenges to various state courts. Then the Children's Internet Protection Act was passed, mandating the use of such software nationally in all libraries and public schools receiving federal funding. And that became the ACLU's priority and mine.

Q. How did the ACLU hear about you?

A. I had done some expert work in at least one, maybe a few other cases prior to that time. I had been working at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society here at Harvard Law School, where I guess my name had gotten some exposure. Two years ago, of course, I was a sophomore in college. But nonetheless, I guess they called up and asked for me by name.

Q. Were you already interested in computers before you came to Harvard?

A. I had been interested in computers for about as long as I can remember. I had been doing some computer-related work in junior high school and high school, helping people choose computers, putting them together, designing databases and networks. And so I came to Harvard with a particular interest in that subject.

Q. When the lawsuit was filed, you talked about how it concerned "technology and the politics of control." What did you mean by that?

A. First, I should credit the phrase to Professor [Jonathan] Zittrain of the law school, who used it as a subtitle of his course, "Internet and Society: The Technologies and Politics of Control." And I think he would say it's his research interest, and it certainly is mine.

The core idea is roughly as follows: The Internet has a certain appearance to it, when you first connect to it, when people were first learning about it. And I suppose in 1996, 1997, 1998, it seems like the Internet could be whatever you wanted it to be, that no one could particularly change what it was, and no one could stop you from doing what you wanted to do. If you wanted to put a death threat on the Internet about your neighbor or your enemy, you could do that, and no one could really get you. If you wanted to steal music using the Internet, you could do that, and no one could get you. ...

The later idea -- my idea, and Zittrain's -- was that, in fact, there were a variety of forces that for economic gain, for political gain, for other reasons, might seek to restrict what people could and couldn't do on the Internet.

Continued at http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002080201t.htm 

Take a quiz on your knowledge of the changes in fair use and copyright laws?

"The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use," by Hall Davidson, Tech-Learning, October 16, 2002 --- http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/10/copyright.html 
The summary chart is at http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/10/copyright_chart.pdf 

This is the way it happens: You're a teacher. You find the perfect resource for a lesson you're building for your class. It's a picture from the Internet, or a piece of a song, or a page or two from a book in the library or from your own collection. There's no time to ask for permission from who owns it. There isn't even time to figure who or what exactly does own it. You use the resource anyway, and then you worry. Have you violated copyright law? What kind of example are you setting for students?

Or you're the principal. You visit a classroom and see an outstanding lesson that involves a videotape, or an MP3 audio file from the Web, or photocopies from a book you know your school doesn't own. Do you make a comment?

The Original Intent Were the framers of the Constitution or the barons of Old English law able to look over your shoulder, they would be puzzled by your doubts because all of the above uses are legal. Intellectual property was created to promote the public good. In old England, if you wanted to copyright a book, you gave copies to the universities. According to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, "The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors...but encourage others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work." In other words, copyright was created to benefit society at large, not to protect commercial interests.

Nowhere is this statement truer than in the educational arena. In fact, educators fall under a special category under the law known as "fair use." The concept, which first formally appeared in the 1976 Copyright Act, allows certain groups to use intellectual property deemed to benefit society as a whole, e.g., in schools for instructional use. However, it deliberately did not spell out the details. Over the years, fair use guidelines have been created by a number of groups-usually a combination of educators, intellectual property holders, and other interested parties. These are not actual laws, but widely accepted "deals" the educational community and companies have struck and expect each other to follow.

What follows is a new version of "The Educators' Lean and Mean No FAT Guide to Fair Use," published in Technology & Learning three years ago. As you take the quiz on page 28, you will learn that no matter the technology-photocopying, downloads, file sharing, video duplication-there are times when copying is not only acceptable, it is encouraged for the purposes of teaching and learning. And you will learn that the rights are strongest and longest at the place where educators need them most: in the classroom. However, schools need to monitor and enforce fair use. If they don't, as the Los Angeles Unified School District found out in a six-figure settlement, they may find themselves on the losing end of a copyright question.

Know Your Limitations-and Rights It has never been a more important time to know the rules. As a result of laws written and passed by Congress, companies are now creating technologies that block users from fair use of intellectual property-for example, teachers can't pull DVD files into video projects, and some computers now block users from inputting VCRs and other devices. In addition to helping schools steer clear of legal trouble, understanding the principles of fair use will allow educators to aggressively pursue new areas where technology and learning are ahead of the law, and to speak out when they feel their rights to copyright material have been violated.

Now, take a quiz that will assess your knowledge of what is allowable-and what isn't-under fair use copyright principles and guidelines. There's also a handy chart that outlines teachers' fair use rights and responsibilities. Good luck.

The quiz is at http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/10/copyright_quiz.html 

The chart is at http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/10/copyright_chart.pdf 

From Syllabus News on October 18, 2002

MIT, Elsevier, Wiley Sue Coursepack Producer

MIT Press, Elsevier Science Inc., and John Wiley & Sons Inc., three major publishers of scientific, technical, and medical materials, filed suit against Gainsville, Fla.-based Custom Copies Inc., charging the company with unauthorized mass photocopying of material from the publishers' books and journals. The complaint alleges that Custom Copy produces coursepacks for sale on the campus of the University of Florida at Gainesville, without authorization from the copyright holders. "When a coursepack producer engages in mass photocopying of rightsholders' materials for its own profit, without clearing rights … [it] severely harms both the creators and the publishers of those materials," said Mark Seeley, general counsel of Elsevier Science. The suit is being coordinated by Copyright Clearance Center Inc., a licenser of text reproduction rights.

For more information, visit: http://www.copyright.com 

Powerful commercial interests and tort lawyers combined forces in engineering the DMCA legislation in the U.S that throws education and information use into a turmoil of risk and uncertainty.  An article with frightening examples is provided by Georgia Harper, "Copyright Endurance and Change," Educause Review, November/December 2000, pp. 20-26.  She states the following on Page 21"

Some of these changes --- licenses, access controls, certain provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) --- have the potential to drastically undermine the public right to access information, to comment on events, and even to share information with others.

Section 107 on "fair use" continues to, with increased ambiguity, provide safe harbors for use of small amounts of material, material not yet available for purchase when needed for students, and material that should be open to criticism and review without fear of reprisals in copyright infringement lawsuits.  Nevertheless, the DMCA has provisions that erode Section 107.  Georgia Harber states the following on Page 24:

Even though fair use is a key "stress point," there has been no change to Section 107.  The stresses on fair use result from other things:  technological "fixes" that control dissemination of copyrighted works; legal frameworks, established to control dissemination, that marginalize fair use; and license terms that ignore fair use as well as other public rights protected in the Copyright Act.  Ultimately, I am concerned that the basic goal of copyright --- to improve our society by fostering creativity, encouraging the dissemination of information, and supporting the development of knowledge --- is endangered by the erosion of fair use in the digital environment.

Remember, fair use embodies a balance between the competing interests of owners and users, between control and access, between control and the First Amendment, and it bridges the gap between a willing seller and a willing buyer of rights to use.  A diminishing role for fair use may well mean less public access and less ability to speak, to criticize, and to comment.

An ERIC Digest from the ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education (ERIC-HE) addresses some complex copyright questions related to distance education. "Copyright Concerns in the Age of Distance Education," by law librarian James H. Walther, is available online at http://www.eriche.org/digests/2000-9.pdf 

Things are not a whole lot better on the international scene.  An international copyright treaty proposal is stirring up U.S. opposition from open-source developers to ISPs --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/politics/0,1283,43820,00.html 

It appears disastrous for program developers," Stallman said. "Many countries have laws about what kinds of software can be developed.... Everything relating to information should be taken out of this convention."

The treaty in question is a heretofore obscure proposal known as the Hague Convention, which European nations generally support, but the U.S. State Department has criticized. If countries agree to the convention, they'd be required to enforce judgments in certain type of civil lawsuits brought in another jurisdiction.

That prospect lightens the hearts of entertainment lobbyists, who fear increasingly widespread piracy and the possibility of Napster clones arising in countries that don't have laws restricting online file-sharing.

Currently the Hague Convention includes copyright offenses in a section that Stallman, Internet providers, and consumer groups are lobbying to remove. Stallman, for instance, claims countries that are even more permissive about awarding software patents could sue U.S. programmers for violating them -- and thereby wreak havoc on the free software movement.

But Robert Raben, who spoke on Tuesday as a representative of the recording industry, warned that excluding copyright from the draft convention would be a mistake: "Its intentional exclusion at this point would be a terrible message to send to the world."

This dispute eerily mirrors a similar spat between the entertainment industry and open source and hacking groups that also involves copyright law. At the behest of business lobbyists, Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which limits programmers' ability to circumvent copy protection schemes and was the recent subject of an appeals court hearing.

Other speakers cautioned that it's too late to perform radical surgery on the Hague Convention, which has been under discussion since 1992 and was tentatively adopted by the 49 member nations of the Hague Convention in June 1999. A two-stage diplomatic summit is scheduled to begin in June 2001 and resume in 2002.

"You can't take it out of the convention, you just can't do it," said Marc Hankin, of Sonnenschein, Nath and Rosenthal, a law firm that deals with intellectual property disputes.

Only recently, however, have American businesses and nonprofit groups appeared to realize the sweeping scope of the treaty. (A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office request for comments last year went largely unheeded.)

Sarah Deutsch of Verizon said her employer opposed the Hague Convention. "I do think the convention is an expansion of the rights of copyright holders," she said. In an earlier letter, Verizon said it had "significant concerns" with the measure.

Concerns About Social Networking in Education

See Bob Jensen's threads about concerns on Education/Learning Applications of ListServs, Blogs, Wikis, Social Networking, and Twitter in education are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm

Millions of Web Documents are Not Being Archived for Future Scholars

I find this to be an enormous problem in scholarship and research.  I download and store almost any article that I deem important in my work and teaching.  For example, I have some really important FASB documents on FAS 133 that are no longer available at the FASB Website.  It becomes discouraging to quote and cite works that are not longer available to readers.  This is a real bummer modern scholarship.

"A crisis for Web preservation Fugitive documents published on the Web are not being preserved." by Florence Olsen, FCW.com, June 21, 2004 --- http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0621/pol-crisis-06-21-04.asp 

A crisis for Web preservation Fugitive documents published on the Web are not being preserved — From FCW.com The Federal Depository Library Program has fallen behind in cataloging and preserving access to government documents published only on the Web. As a result, public access to those publications is spotty at best.

"This is not a problem; this is a crisis," said Daniel Greenstein, head of the California Digital Library, which serves the 10 universities in the University of California system. He said information is disappearing from government Web sites at an alarming rate.

At the Government Printing Office, which runs the depository library program, officials are struggling with the problem, known as fugitive documents, said Judith Russell, superintendent of documents. Fugitive documents are electronic publications that remain outside the federal depository collections in 1,300 libraries nationwide.

To capture those publications automatically, GPO officials may turn to Web-harvesting technologies. In May, agency officials published a notice asking vendors to submit information about Web-crawler and data-mining technologies that could assist in locating fugitive government publications…

Continued in the article

Are Universities Becoming EMOs (Educational Maintenance Organisations)?

Some of us may be interested in these two fascinating sites that address questions such as:

Are universities becoming EMOs (educational Maintenance Organisations)? Are faculty being reduced to hired help? Are university administrators becoming vendor-agents and corporate managers (rather than Scholar-administrators?) Are faculty losing control of the product of their labour? ... ...

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_1/noble/  

http://www.coolclass.com/newsletter/vol01no02-clarke.html 

While I did not get into teaching to get rich (in fact I got out of the rich corporate world and into teaching, to escape intellectual drudgery), and I am glad that I am not at the beginning of my career, I do feel sad about the passing of an era.

The society has to clarify what our rights as academics are just as it is grappling with the issues of intellectual property rights in this electronic age. Nowadays I find that school administrators smell money a lot faster than they do intellectually stimulating ideas. What a pity the age of scholar-administrators is coming to an end, supplanted by that of pencil-pushing career manager-bureaucratic education merchants. Is this the intellectual equivalent of the supplanting of the age of chivalry by that of book-keepers?

Respectfully submitted,

Jagdish 
Jagdish S. Gangolly, 
Associate Professor (j.gangolly@albany.edu ) State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222. Phone: (518) 442-4949 Fax: (707) 897-0601 URL: http://www.albany.edu/acc/gangolly 

An Editorial by Bob Jensen

HMOs and health clinics often deliver inferior medicine because there is no competition or very little competition in a geographic market.  EMOs (see above) will not have such advantages of geographic monopoly.  Education, unlike heath care, is no longer bound by geography.  EMOs face exploding global competition to a point where only the best can thrive.  To date this is not the case with HMOs.

I tend to disagree with the EMO doom and gloom outlook for the future of online education programs.  In my opinion, such claims as "redundant faculty" are not rooted in communications with faculty in experimenting in quality distance education --- faculty that are nearly burned out by the increased communications between themselves and students in respected online programs.  Online faculty in major universities are biting their knuckles because of the increased intensity of communication in online courses and the demands of being more creative and more of an expert to online students seeking something akin to one-on-one tutorials with instructors.  In a sense, the distance education courses are reverting to the Oxford tutorial system.  Many of the online courses are highly Socratic.

Of course it is possible to put up an online course of the EMO variety that has virtually no communication between instructors and students. But it is also possible to put up a high quality, prestigious distance education course in which the communications between faculty and students and the communications between students and other students are much greater than in traditional courses.  This is what the SCALE experiments at the University of Illinois try to study in much greater rigor than the off-the-wall doom and gloom soothsayers  seem to ever discover or comprehend.  For links to the SCALE experiments and an audio commentary by Dan Stone, go to MP3 audio presentation at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm . 

I predict that the problem of online education is that the eventual rewards from great online teaching will draw the brightest and the best of our new educators into more teaching and less research.  In the past 50 years, major universities have placed the highest rewards and honors on research and publication performances.  It is not surprising that teaching and learning are not focused upon in doctoral programs that center 100% on research skills and experience.  It is not surprising that the American Accounting Association Doctoral Consortium virtually ignores education technologies and the changing times in online education.  It is not surprising that researchers strive to teach only researchers (i.e., doctoral students) and not have to face the great unwashed (undergraduate students).  It is not surprising that researchers tend to avoid teaching undergraduates whenever possible.  It is not surprising that great teaching is not a priority for researchers who are assigned (punished?) to teach undergraduate courses.  It is not surprising that researchers are often the least skilled in education technologies and the least interested in taking on online courses that are very demanding in terms of time and creativity and will draw them away from their research and publication in top journals.

Times will be changing with respect to corporate education and online delivery of courses.  Corporations will soon be offering up compensation packages and lifestyle packages that will attract the brightest and the best of new talent, including newly minted doctoral students.  At the moment, Sarah Supercharged with her new Stanford University diploma in hand places highest priority on going to a prestige university to conduct research and minimize teaching.  In was and still is a great honor for her to get her new assistant professorship at Rochester and only have to teach one course a year.  

But there will soon be a new employer on the block.  Rather than endure the strains of tenure uncertainty and stress of research and publication at the University of Rochester, Sarah Supercharged will soon have an alternative of making ten times as much in earnings (due to stock options and other compensation incentives) to focus on online creativity, student communication, and quality delivery of courses in executive education from some education corporation (possible a corporation owned by a prestige university).  And she will be able to deliver the courses from her ocean front home in Big Sur (California) or her horse ranch in Idaho or cattle farm in New Zealand rather than have to endure a daily grind to her research lab in Rochester, NY.  Her students around the world will receive a wonderful ("Supercharged") education, because she is so motivated and talented.  She brings to each of them her very best, partly because the value of her stock options depend upon her online performance. 

My worry is not that the "EMOs" will be worse than our present prestige universities.  My worry is that they will be much better, in part because they will draw away the top talent and change priorities from research to teaching.  Research will suffer in the long run, because it will be much more difficult to fund and to subsidize with large undergraduate lectures on campus that in the 20th Century were the cash cows that fed research.  Education corporations will start milking those cash cows, and for-profit corporations will be less inclined to fund basic research not tied to the bottom line of profit.

I repeat what I said at the beginning of this editorial.  HMOs and health clinics often deliver inferior medicine because there is no competition or very little competition in a geographic market.  EMOs  will not have such advantages of geographic monopoly.  Education, unlike heath care, is no longer bound by geography.  EMOs face exploding global competition to a point where only the best can thrive.  To date this is not the case with HMOs.

Institutions, Reward Structures, and Traditions 
That Defy Changes in Higher Education

The military has a chain of command and a tradition for carrying out orders promptly throughout the system.  A university is the antithesis of the military.  There is very little chain of command in a tenure system that allows faculty to ignore many edicts from their "superiors" in the administrative chain of command.  Probably more at fault than tenure is the tradition of allowing faculty to make independent decisions concerning what they put into "their" courses and what topics they will pursue in "their" research.

Funds are rewarding innovation and change are scarce in university budgets.  Even more constraining is the comfort a faculty member takes in student evaluations at present and the risk and fear that hovers over innovation and risk taking.

Be assured that most faculty members in universities are not lazy.  It may appear to be a cushy job with only nine or twelve contact hours in the classroom, but it is not at all uncommon for faculty to put in sixty hour weeks staying abreast of the new knowledge of their disciplines and contributing to this new knowledge with research and writing.  A huge effort is made to build and maintain a reputation for scholarship and research.  This means that there is precious little time to carve out for learning new educational technologies.

Universities seeking to offer online courses must often hire new faculty or attempt to make deals with existing faculty by providing release time, summer grants, and other incentives that often fail to have a lasting impact on genuine commitment to change and genuine long-term contributions to innovation and online education.

University policies, resource constraints, and promotion and tenure traditions stand in the way of competing with corporations such as UNext that will treat instructors more like professional employees.  The salaries and benefits will be greater in the corporations, but there will not likely be any tenure or job security.  Indeed the reward packages may be so great as to provide very real competition to universities seeking to hire the best new faculty or retain the best tenured faculty.

Barriers to Distance Education

Students surf to class, but there's no online deluge
— From the Los Angeles Daily News

For the full story, visit:
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2266845,00.html

"Thinking Like an Entrepreneur," by Kevin M. Guthrie, Inside Higher Ed, June 25, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/06/26/guthrie

Increasingly, therefore, foundations, government agencies and universities are asking where they will find the recurring funding to sustain these online resources over time. They are requiring the leaders of such projects to develop sustainability plans that include ongoing sources of revenue; in short, they are looking for academics to act as publishing entrepreneurs. Success in such endeavors requires entrepreneurial expertise and discipline, but in our experience at Ithaka, few OAR projects employ fundamental principles of project planning and management. Why don’t they?

What we have observed is that deep cultural differences separate the scholarly mindset from the mindset of the e-entrepreneur. Most people overseeing online academic resources are scholars, raised in the academy, accustomed to its collegial culture and deliberative pace, shielded from traditional market forces. However, the rapid changes and ruthless competitive landscape of the Internet require a different mindset. The challenge for a successful OAR project leader is to marry the scholarly values essential to the project’s intellectual integrity with the entrepreneurial values necessary for its survival in the Internet economy.

To assist project leaders in successfully managing digital enterprises, Ithaka embarked on a project to study the major challenges to the sustainability of these online academic resources. Working with support from the Joint Information Systems Committee and the Strategic Content Alliance, we interviewed a range of people both in the academy and industry. During that effort, the fruits of which were published last week, we identified several aspects of the entrepreneurial approach that seem particularly important to creating sustainable digital projects:

1. Grants are for start-up, not sustainability. Most often, project leaders should regard initial funding as precisely that — start-up funding to help the project develop other reliable, recurring and diverse sources of support. The prevailing assumption that there will be a new influx of grant funding when the existing round runs out is counter-productive to building a sustainable approach. There are exceptions to this assertion — for example, if a grantee offers a service that is vital to a foundation’s mission or is exclusively serving an important programmatic focus of the funder — but these cases are unusual.

2. Cost recovery is not sufficient: growth is necessary. Project leaders need to adopt a broader definition of “sustainability” that encompasses more than covering operating costs. The Web environment is evolving rapidly and relentlessly. It is incorrect to assume that, once the initial digitization effort is finished and content is up on the Web, the costs of maintaining a resource will drop to zero or nearly zero. Projects need to generate surplus revenue for ongoing reinvestment in their content and/or technology if they are to thrive.

3. Value is determined by impact. OAR project leaders tend to underestimate the importance of thinking about demand and impact and the connections between those elements and support from key stake holders. The scholarly reluctance to think in terms of “marketing” is a formula for invisibility on the Internet. Without a strategic understanding of the market place, it is only through serendipity that a resource will attract users and have an impact on a significant population or field of academic endeavor. And of course, attracting users is essential for garnering support from a variety of stake holders: host universities, philanthropies and government agencies, corporate sponsors and advertisers. The most promising and successful online resource projects are demand driven and strive for visibility, traffic and impact.

4. Projects should think in terms of building scale through partnerships, collaborations, mergers and even acquisitions. Project leaders need to consider a range of options for long-term governance. Start-ups in the private sector, for example, aim for independent profitability but they also consider it a success to merge with complementary businesses or to sell their companies to a larger enterprise with the means to carry those assets forward. Not-for-profit projects should think similarly about their options and pursue different forms of sustainability based on their particular strengths, their competition, and their spheres of activity. Given the high fixed costs of the online environment, collaborations and mergers are critical for helping single online academic resource projects keep their costs down and improve chances for sustainability.

5. In a competitive world, strategic planning is imperative. In the highly competitive environment of the Web, project leaders must embrace the best operating practices of their competitors — a group that includes commercial enterprises — for mindshare and resources. That means they will have to act strategically, develop marketing plans, seek out strategic partnerships, understand their competitive environment, and identify and measure themselves against clear goals and objectives for how they will accomplish their missions successfully and affordably. An academic disdain for “commercialism” can doom many a promising scholarly project to failure on the Internet.

Historically, academic projects have been shielded from commercial pressures, in part by funders, but mainly because their economic environment operated independently from other areas of commerce. This separation between the “academic” and “commercial” economies is no longer meaningful. The project leaders that are most likely to succeed in today’s digital environment are those who can operate successfully under the pressures of competition and accountability, and in the messiness of innovation and continual reinvention.

6. Flexibility, nimbleness, and responsiveness are key. OARs need to develop the capability for rapid cycles of experimentation (“fail early and often”), rather than spending years attempting to build the optimal resource in isolation from the market. Unfortunately, many OARs are structurally set up to do the latter – their grants commit them to promised courses of action for several years and tie them to specific deliverables. Leaders of online academic resources may not realize that many funders would prefer nimbleness if it means that the OARs will have a greater impact. Funders, for their part, must recognize that multi-year plans need to be highly flexible to allow for adaptation to new developments in technology and the marketplace.

7. Dedicated and fully accountable leadership is essential. Running a start-up – and developing an online academic resource is running a start-up – is a full-time job requiring full-time leadership. The “principal investigator” model, in which an individual divides her time among a variety of research grants, teaching assignments, and other responsibilities, is not conducive to entrepreneurial success. New initiatives aiming for sustainability require fully dedicated, fully invested, and intensely focused leadership. If a principal investigator cannot provide it, he or she will have to retain a very capable person who can.

If new digital academic resources are going to survive in the increasingly competitive online environment, the academy needs a better understanding of the challenges of managing what are essentially digital publishing enterprises. Leaders and supporters of these projects must orient themselves to an entrepreneurial mindset and embrace principles of effective management. If they are unable to do that, important resources serving smaller scholarly disciplines will disappear, leaving only those projects that are commercially viable.

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

Bob Jensen's advice for new faculty can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm

July 1, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

WHAT HAPPENED TO E-LEARNING?

"Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to E-learning and Why" presents the results of the Weatherstation Project of The Learning Alliance at the University of Pennsylvania. This study sought to answer the question "Why did the boom in e-learning go bust?" Over an eighteen-month period authors Robert Zemsky, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and William F. Massy, professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University, tracked faculty and staff attitudes towards e-learning at six colleges and universities. Their findings challenged three prevalent e-learning assumptions:

-- If we build it they will come -- not so;

-- The kids will take to e-learning like ducks to water -- not quite;

-- E-learning will force a change in the way we teach -- not by a long shot.

The complete report is available online, at no cost, in PDF format at http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/Docs/Jun2004/ThwartedInnovation.pdf.

The Learning Alliance is "a provider of educational research and leadership support services to presidents of accredited, non-profit

two- and four-year colleges and universities. The Learning Alliance serves the mission of higher education institutions by providing its senior administrators with timely access to expertise, current research, and market data." For more information, contact: The Learning Alliance, 1398 Wilmington Pike, West Chester, PA 19382 USA; tel: 610-399-6601; fax: 815-550-8892; Web: http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/index.php.

The Weatherstation Project was conceived as "an antidote to those first descriptions of the market for e-learning, which were often warped by missing data and overly hopeful assumptions about how quickly new products would come to market and how receptive learners and instructors were likely to be."

From Syllabus News on July 20, 2004

For-Profit Institution Popularity Slipping, Says Online Consortium

Job candidates from traditional universities with online programs are more likely to be hired and promoted by corporations than candidates from for-profit providers of online education and degree programs. That’s the conclusion of a study by the Online University Consortium, a group of traditional universities which describes its mission as providing “access to reputable universities that have online degree programs you can trust.”

The OUC looked at data compiled over a recent 12-month period, gathered through surveys of corporate decision-makers attending major trade events such as Society for Human Resource Management and American Society for Training & Development. When compared to the previous year's findings, OEC said it found the number of companies preferring traditional universities is up 15 percent, with 65 percent selecting traditional schools compared to 50 percent in 2003. OUC said it also found that the number of companies choosing for-profit businesses declined, with 14.3 percent now indicating they would select a for-profit compared to 22 percent in 2003.

Deborah Besemer, president and CEO of recruitment services provider BrassRing, said employers are avoiding schools that have flooded the market with online degree programs and which have questionable regard for quality. "We see this when they search for candidates and specifically eliminate certain schools from their search. Reputation of the educational institution is what matters the most," said Besemer. "Employers want to hire students who have a full college experience whether online or in the classroom. They are looking for well-educated individuals to join their companies."

For more information on the OUC’s findings, visit http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=8543 

In my opinion, the Weatherstation Project is biased from the start by skeptics who do not balance the successes against the failures to date --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm 
For example, the report fails to even mention one of the world's most successful e-Learning endeavors in his own institution, the Master's of Engineering (ADEPT) distance learning program at Stanford University even though one of the two authors is a long-time faculty member and top administrator at Stanford.

Here are some counter examples.

Bob Jensen's threads on the bright and the dark side of education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

Barriers to Distance Education --- http://www.emoderators.com/barriers/index.shtml 
Principal Investigator: Zane L. Berge

Cho, S.K. & Berge, Z.L. (2002). Overcoming Barriers to Distance Training and Education. Education at a Distance [USDLA Journal] (16)1. Retrieved February 8, 2002 from http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/JAN02_Issue/article01.html

When people within an organization plan for using distance training and education, there are several barriers to their efforts that they are likely to encounter. Consideration of barriers faced by other organizations may help leaders find solutions to reduce or to minimize obstacles in their own organization. Using a content analysis of thirty-two, in-depth case studies of leading organizations, this study begins to explore solutions to the barriers faced by organizations when they use distance education.

Berge, Z.L. & Muilenburg, L.Y. (2001). Obstacles faced at various stages of capability regarding distance education in institutions of higher learning. Tech Trends 46(4): pp. 40-45.

While distance education is on a fast growth curve right now, there are many barriers that must be overcome. The results reported here are from persons working in higher education (n=1276). The perspective taken is that various organizations are at different stages or levels of capabilities with regard to distance education-from never using distance education to other organizations in which distance education is how they do business.

The research questions reported on in this article are:

1. do educators perceive different barriers depending upon the maturity of their organization's capabilities in distance education, and
2. as the organization' distance education competency as a whole matures, will the overall number or intensity of perceived barriers to distance education be reduced? There are additional observations included.

Muilenburg, L.Y. and Berge, Z.L. (2001). Barriers to distance education: A factor-analytic study. The American Journal of Distance Education. 15(2): 7-22.

While numerous studies have discussed barriers to the successful implementation of distance education, many are based on the examination of one instructor’s experience, one distance learning environment, or one type of distance learning program. The findings provide useful information, but it is difficult to piece these studies together to create a holistic picture of the barriers to distance education.

Some quantitative studies have been conducted (Berge 1998; Cegles 1998; Dickinson et al. 1999; Rockwell et al. 1999; Yap 1996), but they tap a small or very focused population group. A larger-scale study was still needed to consider simultaneously the many dimensions of barriers to distance education as perceived by people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The survey study reported in the following presentations and articles sought to represent the perceptions of people who differed on six demographic variables: (1) workplace (e.g., community college, government, nonprofit organization, K–12 education); (2) job function (e.g., support staff, manager, researcher, student); (3) type of delivery system used (e.g., audiotape, computer conferencing, interactive television [ITV]); (4) expertise regarding distance education; (5) the stage of the respondent’s organization with regard to capabilities in delivering distance education (from no distance education activity to distance education being the way the organization does business); and (6) the area in which the respondent primarily works (e.g., fine arts, engineering, education). These studies represent the responses of over 2500 persons.

Berge, Z.L. and Muilenburg L.Y. (2000). Barriers to distance education as perceived by managers and administrators: Results of a survey. In Melanie Clay (Ed.), Distance Learning Administration Annual 2000.

A survey was conducted to help better understand and more systematically study barriers to distance education. The survey addressed six demographic variables: 1) work place (e.g., community college, government); 2) job function (e.g., support staff; manager, researcher, student); 3) type of delivery system used (e.g., audio-tape, computer conferencing, ITV); 4) expertise of the individual regarding distance education; 5) the stage of the respondents organization with regard to capabilities in delivering distance education; and 6) the area in which the respondent primarily works (e.g., fine arts, engineering, education). The focus of this presentation is on barriers to distance education as perceived by managers and administrators.

Berge, Z.L. & Mrozowski, S. (1999) Barriers to Online Teaching in Elementary, Secondary, And Teacher Education. Canadian Journal of Educational Communication, 27(2): 59-72.

A review of the literature regarding the barriers to the use of educational technology in primary and secondary education was conducted. An emphasis was placed on the diffusion of computers in the schools, since the focus of this study is to determine what should be expected as computer-mediated communication (CMC) is used in schools to teach in online environments. A categorical framework, similar to one used by the first author for analysis of barriers to the use of CMC in higher education, was used (Berge, 1998).

The nine categories of barriers are: academic, fiscal, geographic, governance, labor-management, legal, student support, technical, and cultural. The literature review of barriers to the use of educational technology in K-12 using this framework suggested the primary areas of concern are academic, cultural, and technical. Secondary areas of concern are labor-management and fiscal issues, with little or no mention of geographic, governance, student support, or legal aspects of diffusion of technology.

To test whether the use of CMC as one important area of educational technology entering K-12 teaching and learning, a recently published four volume series of books titled, "Wired Together: Computer-Mediated Communication in K-12" was analyzed. Taken together, the seventy-two (72) chapters in these four books, mostly case studies, represent a considerable body of experience in online teaching and learning in K-12, pre- and in-service teacher training.

This content analysis was conducted:

1. to determine how many different barriers to online teaching were mentioned across all the contributors, i.e., to indicate the range of the obstacles, and,
2. to determine how often each particular category of barriers was mentioned, i.e., to indicate the perceived severity of these issues. The results are quite consistent when compared to the more general review of literature regarding educational technology.

Berge, Z.L. (1998). Barriers to online teaching in post-secondary institutions. Online Journal of Distance Education Administration. 1(2). Summer. Retreived February 8, 2002 from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/Berge12.html

Combined with demographic trends, political forces, economic factors, the need for lifelong learning, and the changing emphases in teaching and learning, there is a resurgence of interest in distance education both at traditional institutions of higher education and in organizations whose sole mission is distance education. Can higher education at "traditional" universities change to meet the new student demands and the intense competition among education providers that distance education brings?

Just a couple of years ago, every major game company was developing a massively multiplayer online game, based on the attractive business premise. But after many disappointments in recent months, the industry is realizing these games can become tar pits.

"Online Games a Massive Pain," by Daniel Terdiman, Wired News, July 16, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,64153,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html 

Electronic Arts' decision to shut down development of Ultima X: Odyssey -- the sequel to its long-running online game Ultima Online -- may force the game industry to re-examine what it takes to be a successful developer of massively multiplayer online games.

Electronic Arts joins a growing list of companies -- Cyan Worlds, Games Workshop, There Inc. -- that invested millions of dollars in online games, only to see disappointing sales or unfinished projects. But what's surprising about EA's setback is that it is the world's biggest video-game software company, with plenty of cash, talent, marketing muscle and patience to develop a franchise. Despite that, it pulled the plug on UXO.

What's more, over the past few years EA has pulled the plug, or announced plans to pull the plug, on a string of MMO games: Ultima Online II, Motor City Online, an online Harry Potter adventure game and Earth & Beyond. Most surprising of all, The Sims Online -- an online version of the biggest video-game franchise in history -- has been a disappointment for the company, by most accounts.

MMO games are notoriously hard to develop, much harder than traditional shrink-wrapped, single-player video games. Most MMOs create huge online worlds where thousands of players, each sitting in their homes, interact with each other -- exploring, trading and pillaging. The business premise to game companies is enticing: Players have to buy a copy of the game for about $50 at a retailer, then pay an additional monthly charge of $10 to $15 to gain entrance to the virtual world. But the companies have to pay a lot of attention to keep the online environments compelling and the players interested. And things that single-player games don't need as much -- like customer support and service -- are key to keeping subscriptions active.

"Maybe what we're learning is that (a traditional game company) is not going to be set up perfectly to run big online games," said Ed Castronova, an associate professor at Indiana University, and a moderator of Terra Nova, a blog that discusses virtual worlds.

In contrast to EA, Sony set up an independent division, Sony Online Entertainment, to focus exclusively on virtual worlds, Castronova pointed out. The result: Sony Online has had huge success with its EverQuest franchise, with at least half a million subscribers, and its Star Wars Galaxies world has had more than 300,000 players.

Of course, EA is not the only company that has had problems keeping MMOs afloat. For example, Games Workshop recently announced plans to close down Warhammer Online, as did Cyan Worlds with Uru Live. And There Inc. is on the verge of abandoning its metaverse in favor of becoming a platform builder, some speculate.

For its part, EA disputes the notion that it has had problems developing MMOs. Instead, it said the UXO move was a strategic realignment of resources.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on edutainment and learning games are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment 

How can colleges best mix on-campus and online delivery of instruction?

Question
How can colleges best mix on-campus and online delivery of instruction?

"Going Hybrid," by Kristin L. Greene, Inside Higher Ed, July 20, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/07/20/strategist

Too many college and university leaders think, “We have an online program and we have a campus program, so we can probably just combine the two to create a hybrid program.” This usually doesn’t work well because online and on-campus programs often appeal to different people for different reasons, and the delivery challenges for each are also quite different.

We’ve seen some great successes, and a few spectacular failures, in the hybrid market model (in which 20-80 percent of content is delivered online). From these examples, we’ve learned that planning up front and being clear about objectives are preconditions for success. Institutions considering hybrid models for a program, or even several courses, must first create a “business plan” and clearly state what they want to achieve, which students they plan to serve, and how they plan to compete. When building this plan for your institution, you should keep the following in mind:

The Goal. Why are you considering a hybrid model? What is the business rationale? Are you trying to reach different, or more, students, or trying to solve space constraints? Are you doing it because you see an unmet need in your marketplace or because your competitors are going hybrid and you feel the need to keep up? Are you looking for a local, regional, or national audience? The national market is becoming quite competitive, and programs in this space are becoming more commodity like, so a program focusing on the regional or local market may position your program for success.

Philosophy. A program with 20 percent of delivery online and 80 percent on-campus is quite different from a program with 80 percent online and 20 percent on-campus, yet they both qualify as hybrid. Will you use the online component only for communication purposes or for content delivery as well? How will you use adjunct faculty members — to create the content, deliver it, or both? The philosophy you choose should provide a blueprint or roadmap for how you will achieve your goals. Too often in our work, we have seen institutions miss this step — they did not identify their philosophy before jumping into the hybrid model, and later found that it significantly impeded success. Without a philosophy, it is difficult to communicate the value proposition internally or externally, and it becomes challenging to make some of the difficult trade-offs inherent in any new venture.

Target Consumer. What type of consumer is your hybrid offering designed to attract? Adult learners tend to be more open to an online experience because it allows them to balance their professional and personal lives with their educational pursuits. Traditional students — those aged 18 to 24 – tend to want face-to-face, classroom-based learning. Corporations may prefer a little of both, to allow employees to work and study at the same time. Segmenting the market by consumer types and needs — adult, traditional, current, new, credit, non-credit — and designing programs that fit these segments and needs are important early steps.

Integration. Integrating between bricks and clicks is probably the single biggest point of failure for institutions pursuing a hybrid model. Where does campus-based learning begin and end relative to the online component? How do student services coordinate with these components? What do you need to change about your student information system? The challenges range from technology and training, to content design and delivery, to student services. Be sure to prepare by thinking through the entire system and how it will affect the students, the faculty, and the staff.

Programs. Some courses and programs have done very well online and would be logical candidates for a hybrid model (e.g., business, IT, education), but not every course or program is well-suited to a hybrid approach. It’s best to begin with an audit of existing programs, dissecting the curriculum to determine how a hybrid model might be applied. At the same time, you should do an external evaluation of market demand and supply to determine where the best opportunities are for introducing new programs. Again, if you consider local versus national distribution, you may find that, on a local level, a particular hybrid program may provide a competitive advantage in attracting students.

Core Competencies. What is your institution known for? What do you do better than most of your peer schools? Focus your efforts on maximizing the benefit of these core competencies and consider outsourcing those areas that are not strengths, such as marketing, lead management, student services, or technology.

Faculty Buy-In. Faculty members have a large stake in content delivery because most of the time they supply the curriculum. Whether you plan to offer incentives for faculty to adapt content to a hybrid model or to outsource this function, faculty should be involved in the discussions.

Hybrid courses and programs represent more of an evolution than a revolution in educational content delivery. Hybrid delivery represents a natural progression for many campus-based institutions to investigate and perhaps pursue, and often can serve as a competitive advantage in reaching a wider student population. Rigorously thinking through process design and delivery components and planning carefully for implementation will make the difference between those programs that succeed in the hybrid arena and those that invest a lot of resources with little to show for it.

Cheating and Reduced Social Interaction

Differences Between Students Who Cheat Versus Students Who Don't Cheat

"Study Examines The Psychology Behind Students Who Don't Cheat," Science Daily, August 18, 2008 --- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080817223646.htm

While many studies have examined cheating among college students, new research looks at the issue from a different perspective – identifying students who are least likely to cheat.

The study of students at one Ohio university found that students who scored high on measures of courage, empathy and honesty were less likely than others to report their cheating in the past – or intending to cheat in the future.

Moreover, those students who reported less cheating were also less likely to believe that their fellow students regularly committed academic dishonesty.

People who don’t cheat “have a more positive view of others,” said Sara Staats, co-author of the research and professor of psychology at Ohio State University’s Newark campus.

“They don’t see as much difference between themselves and others.”

In contrast, those who scored lower on courage, empathy and honesty – and who are more likely to report that they have cheated -- see other students as cheating much more often than they do, rationalizing their own behavior, Staats said.

The issue is important because most recent studies suggest cheating is common on college campuses. Typically, more than half – and sometimes up to 80 percent – of college students report that they have cheated.

Staats conducted the research with Julie Hupp, assistant professor of psychology and Heidi Wallace, an undergraduate psychology student, both at Ohio State-Newark.

They presented their results Aug. 16 and 17 in Boston at two poster sessions at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.

Staats said this continuing research project aimed to find out more about the students who don’t cheat – a group that Staats and her colleagues called “academic heroes.”

“Students who don’t cheat seem to be in the minority, and have plenty of opportunities to see their peers cheat and receive the rewards with little risk of punishment,” Staats said. “We see avoiding cheating as a form of everyday heroism in an academic setting.”

The research presented at APA involved two separate but related studies done among undergraduates at Ohio State’s Newark campus. One study included 383 students and another 73 students.

The students completed measures that examined their bravery, honesty and empathy. The researchers separated those who scored in the top half of those measures and contrasted them with those in the bottom half.

Those who scored in the top half – whom the researchers called “academic heroes” – were less likely to have reported cheating in the past 30 days and the last year compared to the non-heroes. They also indicated they would be less likely to cheat in the next 30 days in one of their classes.

The academic heroes also reported they would feel more guilt if they cheated compared to non-heroes.

“The heroes didn’t rationalize cheating the way others did, they didn’t come up with excuses and say it was OK because lots of other students were doing it,” Staats said.

Staats said one reason to study cheating at colleges and universities is to try to figure out ways to reduce academic dishonesty. The results from this research suggest a good target audience for anti-cheating messages.

When the researchers asked students if they intended to cheat in the future, nearly half -- 47 percent -- said they did not intend to cheat but nearly one in four -- 24 percent -- agreed or strongly agreed that they would cheat.

The remaining 29 percent indicated that they were uncertain whether or not they would cheat.

“These 29 percent are like undecided voters – they would be an especially good focus for intervention,” Staats said. “Our results suggest that interventions may have a real opportunity to influence at least a quarter of the student population.”

Staats said more work needs to be done to identify the best ways to prevent cheating. But this research, with its focus on positive psychology, suggests one avenue, she said.

“We need to do more to recognize integrity among our students, and find ways to tap into the bravery, honest and empathy that was found in the academic heroes in our study,” she said.

Jensen Comment
I think cheating in school is much like accounting fraud in adulthood. The psychological factors interact heavily with situational factors such as the "tone at the top," particular pressures at the time, crowd psychology, and opportunity. In particular there's something to the statement that "since others were doing it, I also tried it."

Note in particular how many athletes, especially baseball players, succumbed to use of illegal performance enhancing drugs because they were aware that other top players were using such drugs.

There is also the circumstance of easy opportunity. I've previously mentioned that one daydream I repeatedly had, when I was riding my horse through about 100,000 acres of woods north of Tallahassee, centered on what I would do if I found suitcase full of cash hidden in those woods. This is analogous to having fraternity files of former examinations given by a professors who tend to repeat old questions and problems. Students who in most circumstances would not cheat might succumb under particularly easy opportunities that give them somewhat of an unfair advantage. Some might not even see looking at old examinations as cheating. Alas I never found a suitcase full of money.

An accounting professor at Trinity University was disturbed to learn that one student had purchased (on eBay) the examination test bank for the textbook she was using in a course. Some students shared using that test bank including some students who probably would not have cheated if the act had not become so darned easy and convenient.

One of the negative externalities of the Internet is that students now have more and more opportunities to cheat that did not exist when information at their fingertips did not double every 12 hours on the Internet.

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm

July 30, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

NEW BOOK OF ONLINE EDUCATION CASE STUDIES

ELEMENTS OF QUALITY ONLINE EDUCATION: INTO THE MAINSTREAM, edited by John Bourne and Janet C. Moore, is the fifth and latest volume in the annual Sloan-C series of case studies on quality education online. Essays cover topics in the following areas: student satisfaction and student success, learning effectiveness, blended environments, and assessment. To order a copy of the book go to http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/books/volume5.asp. You can download a free 28-page summary of the book from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/books/vol5summary.pdf.

The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is a consortium of institutions and organizations committed "to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines." Sloan-C is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. For more information, see http://www.sloan-c.org/.

---

COMBATING CHEATING IN ONLINE STUDENT ASSESSMENT

In "Cheating in Online Student Assessment: Beyond Plagiarism" (ONLINE JOURNAL OF DISTANCE LEARNING ADMINISTRATION, vol. VII, no. II, Summer

2004) Neil C. Rowe identifies "three of the most serious problems involving cheating in online assessment that have not been sufficiently considered previously" and suggests countermeasures to combat them. The problems Rowe discusses are:

-- Getting assessment answers in advance

It is hard to ensure that all students will take an online test simultaneously, enabling students to supply questions and answers to those who take the test later.

-- Unfair retaking of assessments

While course management system servers can be configured to prevent taking a test multiple times, there can be ways to work around prevention measures.

-- Unauthorized help during the assessment

It may not be possible to confirm the identity of the person actually taking the online test.

You can read the entire article, including Rowe's suggestions to counteract the problems, at http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/summer72/rowe72.html.

The Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration is a free, peer-reviewed quarterly published by the Distance and Distributed Education Center, The State University of West Georgia, 1600 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118 USA; Web: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/jmain11.html.

---

SOCIAL INTERACTION IN ONLINE LEARNING

Among the reasons Rowe cites (in the aforementioned paper) for cheating on online tests is that "students often have less commitment to the integrity of distance-learning programs than traditional programs." This lack of commitment may be the result of the isolation inherent in distance education. In "Online Learning: Social Interaction and the Creation of a Sense of Community" (EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY, vol. 7, no. 3, July 2004, pp. 73-81), Joanne M. McInnerney and Tim S. Roberts, Central Queensland University, argue that an online learner's feeling a sense of isolation can affect the outcome of his or her learning experience. The authors recommend three protocols to aid social interaction and alleviate isolation among online learners:

1. The use of synchronous communication

"Chat-rooms and other such forums are an excellent way for students to socialize, to assist each other with study, or to learn as part of collaborative teams."

2. The introduction of a forming stage

"Discussion on almost any topics (the latest movies, sporting results,

etc.) can be utilized by the educator as a prelude to the building of trust and community that is essential to any successful online experience."

3. The adherence to effective communication guidelines "Foremost among these guidelines is the need for unambiguous instructions and communications from the educator to the students involved in the course. To this end instructions regarding both course requirements and communication protocols should be placed on the course web site."

The complete article is online at http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/7_3/8.html.

Educational Technology & Society [ISSN 1436-4522] is a peer-reviewed quarterly online journal published by the International Forum of Educational Technology & Society and the IEEE Computer Society Learning Technology Task Force (LTTF). It is available in HTML and PDF formats at no cost at http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/.

The International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS) is a subgroup of the IEEE Learning Technology Task Force (LTTF). IFETS encourages discussions on the issues affecting the educational system developer (including AI) and education communities. For more information, link to http://ifets.ieee.org/.

......................................................................

ONLINE COURSES: COSTS AND CAPS

Two articles in the July/August 2005 issue of SYLLABUS address the often-asked questions on delivering online instruction: "How much will it cost?" and "How many students can we have in a class?"

In "Online Course Development: What Does It Cost?" (SYLLABUS, vol. 17, no. 12, July/August 2004, pp. 27-30) Judith V. Boettcher looks at where the costs of online course development have shifted in the past ten years. While the costs of course development are still significant, estimating them is not an exact science. Boettcher, however, does provide some rules of thumb that program planners can use to get more accurate estimates. The article is available online at http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=9676.

 

In "Online Course Caps: A Survey" (SYLLABUS, vol. 17, no. 12, July/August 2004, pp. 43-4) Boris Vilic reports on a survey of 101 institutions to determine their average course cap for online courses. The survey also tried to determine what influences differences in setting caps: Does the delivery method used make a difference? Are there differences if the course is taught by full-time faculty or by adjuncts? Or if given by experienced versus inexperienced providers? Or by the level (undergraduate or graduate) of the course? The article is available online at http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=9679.

Syllabus [ISSN 1089-5914] is published monthly by 101communications, LLC, 9121 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311 USA; tel: 650-941-1765; fax: 650-941-1785; email: info@syllabus.com; Web: http://www.syllabus.com/. Annual subscriptions are free to individuals who work in colleges, universities, and high schools in the U.S.; go to http://subscribe.101com.com/syllabus/ for more information.

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education in general are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

Legal Concerns

July 1, 2005 email message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]

Duke Law & Technology Review (DLTR) http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/ 

"The Duke Law & Technology Review (DLTR) is an online legal publication that focuses on the evolving intersection of law and technology. This area of study draws on a number of legal specialties: intellectual property, business law, free speech and privacy, telecommunications, and criminal law -- each of which is undergoing doctrinal and practical changes as a result of new and emerging technologies. DLTR strives to be a 'review' in the classic sense of the word. We examine new developments, synthesize them around larger theoretical issues, and critically examine the implications. We also review and consolidate recent cases, proposed bills, and administrative policies."

"However, DLTR is unique among its sister journals at Duke, and indeed among all law journals. Unlike traditional journals, which focus primarily on lengthy scholarly articles, DLTR focuses on short, direct, and accessible pieces, called issue briefs or 'iBriefs.' In fact, the goal of an iBrief is to provide cutting edge legal insight both to lawyers and to non-legal professionals. In addition, DLTR strives to be the first legal publication to address breaking issues. To that end, we publish on the first and fifteenth of every month during the school year (September until April) and less frequently during the summer."

Duke Law & Technology Review is available free of charge as an Open Access journal on the Internet.

Bob Jensen's threads on the future of education technology and distance learning are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

Email and Teaching Evaluuations Place Heavy Burdens on Teachers

It is no secret that technology has had its impact on teaching, but it is also no secret that there are times when the "impact" is unwelcome, if not downright unpleasant. I am referring to the habit, by now well established, in which students email their professors at the click of a mouse -- and then expect the professor to respond in a heartbeat. No request is too outlandish, as a recent article in the New York Times demonstrated: One first-year student emailed a calculus professor asking "If I should buy a binder or a subject notebook?"; another explained that she was late for Monday's class because she "was recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party." The war stories rattled on and on as the article explored the ways in which student e-mail have made professors not only "approachable" but also "on call" 24/7.

Untenured professors have good reason to worry if students perceive them as not responding swiftly enough -- no matter how inappropriate or downright outlandish student requests might be. After all, most students fill out evaluation forms at the end of the semester and woe to the professor who is perceived as dragging his or her heels when replying to student email. As a person who was once chided for not returning student papers promptly -- this, long before email became a fact of academic life -- I was glad that there was room on the form for the student to explain that he expected his paper returned at the end of the class in which he had turned it in. That, for him, defined "promptly," and I didn't meet his definition.

No doubt every professor who skimmed the New York Times article had an example or two drawn from personal experience. I am hardly an exception. I remember, for example, the first-year student who email me -- this, before our first meeting -- that she was a member of the field hockey team and that she would be leaving class early on a number of occasions (they were listed) and missing class altogether for away games. No doubt she thought this was thoughtful of her and only thought otherwise when I informed her that, at the college she was now attending, academic work took precedence over athletics, and that we ought to discuss the matter further in my office. I am happy to report that my reply got her thinking but unhappy to report that her "solution" to the problem was "make-up classes," ones I'd teach her privately during moments when she wasn't chasing a ball with a stick.

Ironically enough, the last email I received from a student had to do with the grade he got on a term paper (B-) that was headed “A Grave Injustice.” I resisted the opportunity to tell him that, if this was the largest 'grave injustice ' the world handed him, he was a fortunate young man indeed. Instead, I began with the formulaic, "I'm sorry you're upset but. . ." and went on to explain that it is my job to assign grades and that is what I'd done, to the best of my ability, in his case -- as my typed, half-page comments made clear. My point in relaying this exasperating tale is to remind professors not to get exasperated themselves. Volleying emails back and back is, well, unseemly, something that immature students do but that professional teachers don't.

My hunch is that the student email problem will only get worse. That's why it will, I believe, become crucial to establish an email policy -- call them guidelines, rules of etiquette, whatever you will -- and add it to course syllabi. I was hardly alone in making it clear on my syllabi that "Adults do not like to be called after 10 PM" (some prefer 7), and if I were still teaching I would add email to the mix.

Further, I would discourage students from emailing me drafts of papers not only the night before they are due, but also two or three nights before they are due. My policy, one that usually worked well, was to inform students that, under normal circumstances, I would be happy to comment on a one-page summary that included a working title, abstract, and up to three paragraphs -- if the single page document were turned in a week before the paper itself was due. "Unusual cases" (papers with grades below a C-) were dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes I would require that the paper be rewritten after an office conference, sometimes I would ask that a draft of the next paper be submitted at a mutually agreeable time.

Moreover, I think my etiquette rules would vary depending on the class. First-year students are often nervous Nellies; they want to do well but they lack confidence, sometime for good reason. My advice would be to cut them some slack, at the same time that you make it clear, in class, that some behavior is cheesy rather than classy. Because I'm something of a ham, I'd ham it up from time to time in my first-year seminar with tales, some real, some just made up, about what I called "students from hell." Everybody laughed but got the point about what not to do. If I were still teaching, I'd probably borrow the example about the student who emailed about what binder to buy.

Continued in article

Student Concerns

Technology is no substitute for bad works
Podcasts are becoming popular for educational purposes. Increasingly students in K-12 and in higher education are creating podcasts to demonstrate what they are learning. The technology is becoming so important that online course management systems, such as Angel Learning, are now incorporating features enabling content providers to include podcasting. However, many of those I've heard appear to be created by individuals experimenting with the technology and suffer from poor quality in the audio, content, and speaker presentation....
Patricia Deubel, "Podcasts: Where's the Learning?" T.H.E. Journal, June 2007 --- http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20764

Podcasts: Improving Quality and Accessibility
Podcasts are increasingly being used in K-12 and in higher education. In part 1 of this two-part series, I discussed their nature, demonstrated their potential for learning, and pointed out that in developing podcasts, students become involved with the project method, which is a real-world experience. I also voiced my concern that many podcasts I've heard suffer from poor quality of the audio, content, and speaker presentation. Accessibility is also a major issue that is being overlooked in their development. Let's now look at what you might do to improve the quality and accessibility of your podcasts, so that all learners can benefit, including those with disabilities....
Patricia Deubel, T.H.E. Journal, June 2007 --- http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20818

Despite Popularity, Researcher Finds Not Everyone Can Successfully Learn Through Online Courses
PhysOrg, February 25, 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news123168113.html

Since the 1990s, online courses have provided an opportunity for busy adults to continue their education by completing courses in the comfort of their own homes. However, this may not be the best solution for everyone. A researcher at the University of Missouri has found some students may find success in these types of courses more easily than others.

Shawna L. Strickland, clinical assistant professor in the MU School of Health Professions, studied the demographics and personality types of distance learners.

“Correlations between learning styles and success in distance education have shown to be inconclusive,” Strickland said. “However, one common theme reappears: the successful traits of a distance learner are similar to the successful traits of an adult learner in traditional educational settings.”

With a mere 30 percent of distance learners actually completing their courses, learning more about the characteristics of these students would help educators structure online courses to be as beneficial as possible. Considering the lack of institutional support and isolation involved in the nature of online courses, success in these courses requires a person that is determined and responsible, Strickland said.

“The success of distance learning is dependent on communication among the learner, his or her peers and the instructor,” Strickland said. “To encourage success in distance learning, it is necessary to evaluate each individual’s needs on a case-by-case basis.”

One trait that aids in distance learning is related to personality type. Strickland found those with quiet, introverted personalities are more likely to feel comfortable with online learning courses. Shy individuals have a tendency to be uninvolved in the typical classroom setting. Online courses allow them to complete work on their own with a degree of anonymity.

“Distance learning allows the learner to overcome traditional barriers to learning such as location, disabilities, time constraints and familial obligations,” Strickland said. “However, not every learner will be successful in a distance learning environment.”

The study – “Understanding Successful Characteristics of Adult Learners” – was published in the most recent edition of Respiratory Care Education Annual.

Jensen Comment
The source of this publication is rather unusual and surprising --- Respiratory Care Education Annual.

Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning include the following links:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm

"Three Criticisms of the Online Classroom: An examination of a higher education online course in computer-mediated communication,"
by Jennifer A. Minotti Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) Newton, Massachusetts, USA  --- 
http://lttf.ieee.org/learn_tech/issues/october2002/index.html#3 

Learning Technology [ISSN 1438-0625] is published quarterly by the IEEE Computer Society Learning Technology Task Force (LTTF). It is available at no cost in HTML and PDF formats at http://lttf.ieee.org/learn_tech/ 

Technological expertise, access to technology, additional time associated with participation, and the changing role of the instructor a just a few of the many issues the online classroom has changed (and often times inhibited) the ways students learn (Baym, 1995, Berge & Collins, 1996, Harasim, Hiltz, Teles, & Turoff, 1996). The three largest issues found to affect the way students participated in a single graduate level online course, are described below.

1.  Large Time Commitment

Too much time was the biggest complaint heard by students. Nearly every participant in the class commented about the large time commitment the course required. Most all of the students also seemed surprised at how much more time the online class took up over traditional face-to-face courses. In addition, I observed that nearly every participant was late in completing at least one assignment. In fact, many students were late multiple assignments.

"Having taken previous online courses in addition to this one, I definitely feel that online courses, though they provide access otherwise not available, require much more of a time commitment than face-to-face classes. Not only do we have weekly assignments, but the added 'checking in,' dialoguing through the week, and often troubleshooting our technology is much more demanding than in a traditional classroom setting, where the class meets once or twice per week."

"…We might think it would be more convenient to participate in class wherever and whenever we wanted by means of the Internet. However…we are not free of having a location in learing--in fact we are more hinged to one spot (in front of the computer), because it is there that we must do all of our work for the class (course exploration of web sites, class projects, particpation in the newsgroup, reading of submissions to newsgroup). It does also seem to take more time to accomplish all that needs doing for an on-line course."

2. Dealing with Technical Problems

Technical and access issues remained the second largest criticism and a major challenge to students, despite the best laid plans for designing this course. In this class, students knowledge of and access to technology varied greatly. This presented huge obstacles to students, some of whom experienced trouble accessing the course right from the beginning. Other students experienced problems at different points in the class, which often made their learning experience frustrating.

"I'm a bit frustrated and caught by the technical setup and requirements. Feedback on the process of the course to date: We could have used the month of February to get this behind us. I have allocated 10 hours a week to this course, using a formula of three times the amount of face time, assuming a typical three hour per week class. My time has been eaten up by the technical setup. I'm having a technical glitch with my company firewall."

"Ugh…I feel like I have overcome some HUGE obstacles just by getting into this newsgroup. The frustration and anger levels have been high and I have recently caught myself yelling at my computer."

3. Lack of Facilitation by the Instructor

Lastly, a lot has been written about the critical role the instructor plays in ensuring online courses are successful (Baym, 1995, Harasim, Hiltz, Teles, & Turoff, 1996, Jones, 1995). In this class, students really wanted, needed, and valued an active instructor, one who was visible online providing feedback to their work, supporting and questioning their statements, encouraging participation, and keeping the class on track. When not online for several weeks at a time, several classmates become disheartened. In response to the survey question, "What were you most disappointed/surprised by?" two students wrote:

"The lack of interaction from the professor. We really only got 'guidelines' twice this semester which was odd. Given the topic of our class, computer-mediated communication with the professor should have been examined. …I never knew if I was 'wrong' or totally off-base."

"…It's lonely out here in VirtualLand. …I am missing our teacher in this space. I understand his desire for a logos however I'm not exactly sure that this group in in syn and heading toward the same goal."

Conclusion

Indeed, we have a long way to go before the higher education online classroom is as successful as our face-to-face classroom. This will of course take time and perseverance. It will also take a critical evaluation of what is working and not working in each course we design, deliver, and participate in.

References

Baym, N. (1995). The emergence of community in computer-mediated communication. In S. Jones, CyberSociety: Computer-mediated communication and community. California: Sage.

Berge, Z.L., & Collins, M.P. (Eds.) (1996). Computer mediated communiation and the online classroom, Volume III: Distance learning. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Harasim, L., Hiltz, S.R., Teles, L., Turoff, M. 1996). Learn/ing networks: A field guide to teaching and learning online. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Jones, S.G. (1995). CyberSociety: Computer-mediated communication and community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Jennifer A. Minotti Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) Newton, Massachusetts, USA jminotti@edc.org 

Student Technology Assessment at the Global Level

Executive Summary

The goal of the Computer Literacy Project is to gain a better understanding of student perceptions on the nature of computer literacy. The Computer Literacy Project Survey was developed over the last three years as the foundation of research into advanced technology use in education research. I have been particularly interested in the nature of computer literacy at the university level and in differential notions of computer literacy across disciplines. The survey has been electronically distributed to universities in nine states in the U.S and five countries outside the U.S., see Table 1. This is the first time in the history of education research that such a systematic study on computer literacy has been carried out using the Internet and web-based technology that has reached international proportions. Reported here are preliminary results from two Australian universities, one university in Hong Kong and one university in the US.

Continued at http://lttf.ieee.org/learn_tech/issues/october2002/index.html#3  

What not to do in PowerPoint (video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagxPlVqrtM

"What's wrong with PowerPoint--and how to fix it," by David Coursey, Executive Editor, AnchorDesk September 10, 2003 --- http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2914637,00.html 
(Thank you Ed Scibner for pointing to this link.)

Are PowerPoint slides making us stupid? Are all problems really just a few bullet points away from their solutions? Or is the medium having a bad effect on the message? I'm no Marshall McLuhan or Edward Tufte (I will pause here to let you all shout, "Damn straight!"), but I do know something about business presentations and how they're put together. And I know that PowerPoint too often gets in the way of the message, replacing clear thought with unnecessary animations, serious ideas with 10-word bullet points, substance with tacky, confusing style.

I DON'T KNOW what McLuhan would think about PowerPoint, him being dead and all. But Tufte is very much alive and, in an essay appearing in the September issue of Wired, minces no words: "PowerPoint is evil," says the Yale professor whose books have set the standard for graphic presentation in the computer age.

Tufte says that slideware programs like PowerPoint (there aren't many others left) "may help speakers outline their talks, but convenience for speakers can be punishing to both content and audience." The standard PowerPoint deck, he says, "elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch."

This is especially true given that many presenters--who really shouldn't be presenting in the first place--use PowerPoint as a crutch. PowerPoint becomes a tool to separate the presenter from the audience and from the message.

But it doesn't have to be this way. It's possible to use PowerPoint as a tool (just like the projector you probably use to display your presentation), and as a real complement to what you're saying, without dumbing down your ideas. Today I'd like to offer some advice to help you do just that.

 

• Do the presentation first, then the slides. Many people draft and write their presentation in PowerPoint itself. It's far better to prepare the presentation in Word (or whatever other tool you use to write)--including all the detail you want to present--and then transfer the highlights to PowerPoint. The one problem with using Word for this: It doesn't have a very good outlining tool.

   

• Artwork has killed more presentations than it's saved. You're not a graphic artist, and neither am I. PowerPoint makes it too easy to add confusing graphics to presentations. Use restraint.

   

• Animation is for cartoons. Animation tends to take over the presentation, which then becomes more about the presenter trying to make all the builds and transitions work properly than actually presenting the content.

   

• Present more than the slide. Don't you hate it when presenters stand at the front of a room and read their slides ?  Slides are supposed to convey the major points of the presentation, reinforcing the speaker's points. Use them as prompts to talk about specific topics, as an outline, not as the substance of the presentation itself.

   

• Use the notes pages. Many people are unaware that PowerPoint lets you attach notes to slides, which can then be printed and used to guide you or to give to the audience. Search for "notes" in the Help file to find out more about this feature.

   

• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. No, you don't have to stand in front of a mirror and do your entire presentation. But a sit-down with some colleagues can answer the questions, "Do these slides make sense?" and "Is this the information people care about?"--before you find out the hard way.

My point here is that PowerPoint glitz alone does not an effective presentation make. While your decks shouldn't be boring, they aren't entertainment, either. A few staging and showbiz skills help, but most presentations are won or lost in the actual content. Your job is to control PowerPoint. If you don't, PowerPoint will control your presentation.

The Digital Divide is Real

In the 15th Century when the printing press was invented, the majority of the world's population was illiterate and could not make use of the books that poured forth.  Six hundred years later, a large proportion of the world's population still can neither read nor write.  In the 21st Century when the printing press gives way to digital storage and networked distribution, the hardcore illiterate will not benefit by virtue of being illiterate.  An even larger number who can read and write will still not have access anywhere close to the privileged populace having access to modern technologies.

One day, modern technologies will be the main agent in eradicating illiteracy and ignorance.  But in the interim decades, or even centuries, these technologies will exacerbate the divide between those who can benefit directly from technologies and those who are denied access for one reason or another (poverty, isolation, religious constraints, cultural constraints, etc.)

Websites Failing Disabled Users

"Websites 'failing' disabled users," by Geoff Adams-Spink, BBC News Online, April 14, 2004 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3623407.stm 

An investigation by the Disability Rights Commission shows that most websites are unusable by disabled people.

This means that many everyday activities carried out on the internet - booking a holiday, managing a bank account, buying theatre tickets or finding a cheaper credit card - are difficult or impossible for many disabled people.

Bert Massie, DRC Chairman described the situation as "unacceptable", and said the organisation was determined not to allow disabled people to be left behind by technology

A thousand websites were tested for the survey using automated software, and detailed user testing was carried out on 100 sites, including government, business, e-commerce, leisure and web services such as search engines.

The results showed that the worst affected group were those with visual impairments.

Blind people involved in testing websites were unable to perform nearly all of the tasks required of them despite using devices such as screen readers.

"The web has been around for 10 years, yet within this short space of time it has managed to throw up the same hurdles to access and participation by disabled people as the physical world," said Mr Massie.

"It is an environment that could be made more accommodating to disabled people at a relatively modest expense."

Mr Massie warned website owners to improve accessibility or be prepared to face legal action.

The 1995 Disability Discrimination Act requires information providers to make their services accessible.

The problems most commonly encountered by the disabled website testers were cluttered pages, confusing navigation, failure to describe images and poor colour contrast between background and text.

Researchers at London's City University, who carried out the study for the DRC, also found that many web developers were unaware of what needed to be done to make sites accessible.

Continued in the article

Good Website Design Checklist

• Provide text equivalence for non-text elements 
• Ensure good color contrast between foreground and background 
• Pages must be usable when scripts and applets are turned off or not supported 
• Avoid movement in pages 
• Avoid pop-ups and don't change window without telling user 
• Divide large blocks of information into manageable chunks 
• Clearly identify the target of each link 
• Use the clearest and simplest language possible

Related Documents

Web opens up for learning disabled
11 Jan 04  |  Technology

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03 Dec 03  |  Technology

Deaf go mobile phone crazy
08 Feb 02  |  Science/Nature

Headset hassles and Bluetooth aches
02 Aug 02  |  Technology

How well can you use the web?
29 Mar 04  |  Technology

Europe's disability year in review
30 Dec 03  |  UK

Deaf and blind film fans get help
16 Feb 04  |  Entertainment

BBC Ouch

DRC

RNIB

New Statesman

Texthelp Systems

 

Is your distance site operating within the law in terms of access by disabled students?
Schools must demonstrate progress toward compliance.

Accessibility in Distance Education A Resource for Faculty in Online Teaching --- http://www.umuc.edu/ade/ 

Common Questions What does the word "accessibility" mean? (What is Accessibility?) What disability laws should I know about if I teach online? (Legal Issues) What do I need to consider if I have a student with a disability in my online course? (Understanding Disabilities) How do I make my Web site accessible to everyone, including students with disabilities? (How-To) What does an accessible Web site look like? Does it have to be text based? (Best Practices)

You can download the MP3 audio file of Susan Spencer's August 2002 presentation on this at one of my workshops --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm#2002 

Lots of Hype and Not Much Profit

From customer to analyst to investor, the consensus is that E-learning still has a few things of its own to learn. Until last month, the online-training sector wasn't as hard hit by the IT spending slump as most of the tech industry because it lets companies with tight travel and training budgets train workers inexpensively. But all that's changed. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eHIP0BcUEY04e0Bcm70A1 

"E-Learning Struggles To Make The Grade," by Elisabeth Goodridge, Information, May 13, 2002 --- http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020509S0011 

From customer to analyst to investor, the consensus is that E-learning still has a few things of its own to learn. It's a technology that's being re-evaluated across the board. There are plenty of problems, as early adopters discovered. "Many people have been burned," Meta Group analyst Jennifer Vollmer says. "And they're advising others to hold off if it isn't necessary."

Some of the stumbling blocks that trip up users of E-learning technologies are integration and interoperability problems among elements of E-learning systems; product limitations; inadequate support services; and vendors' financial woes.

But until last month, the online-training sector wasn't as hard-hit by the IT-spending slump as most of the technology industry. What E-learning had going for it was an ability to let companies with tight travel and training budgets train workers inexpensively.

For about a year and a half, many providers saw double-digit revenue growth, and several quickly became leaders in a field of hundreds. Docent, Plateau Systems, and Saba Software emerged as top developers of learning-management systems. Centra Software and Interwise became known for live-collaboration software, and NetG, SmartForce, and SkillSoft gained popularity as course-content designers.

Now, weakening demand is evident. Centra, SmartForce, and learning-management system makers Click2learn and DigitalThink warned in April of revenue shortfalls. On Wall Street, many suppliers' shares have lost more than 50% of their value since January.

Still, E-learning has a future; what it lacks is maturity. So, while there are businesses seeking the E-learning advantage, many are taking their time doing so. Before investing in these systems, they want to make sure they fully understand their own training needs, what works and doesn't in an E-learning format, and their product options. "People are slowing down on jumping into E-learning with both feet," says Larry Carlile, E-learning manager at consulting firm A.T. Kearney. "From cost savings to effectiveness, there's a better analysis these days."

Companies know that E-learning is no longer just about immediate cost savings but about increasing worker productivity, driving operational efficiencies, and streamlining corporate training. "With all of these benefits, E-learning is going to work, but we haven't found the best way to go about it," says Giga Information Group analyst Claire Schooley.

A number of deals in recent weeks show that many companies still believe they can make E-learning work. The American Red Cross and learning-management system supplier Plateau Systems cut a seven-year deal worth more than $10 million; Pathlore Software Corp. implemented a system for Delta Air Lines Inc.; and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. said last month that its use of the Vuepoint Learning System to consolidate training departments will save the automaker more than $11.9 million in five years.

Continued at  http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020509S0011  

Controversies in Regulation of Distance Education

"All Over the Map," by Elia Powers, Inside Higher Ed, December 8, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/12/08/regulation

As the distance learning market continues to grow, state agencies charged with regulating the industry continue to operate in a “fragmented environment,” according to a report presented Thursday at the 2006 Education Industry Finance & Investment Summit, in Washington.

One of the main questions these agencies must consider is what constitutes an institution having a “physical presence” in their state. In other words, what is an appropriate test to determine whether regulation is needed?

More than 80 percent of agencies that are included in the report said that they use some sort of “physical presence” test. But few agree on how to define the word “presence,” in part because there are so many elements to consider.

That’s clear in “The State of State Regulation of Cross-Border Postsecondary Education,” the report issued by Dow Lohnes, a firm with a sizable higher education practice. (The firm plans to release an updated report early next year after more responses arrive.)

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on cross-border distance education and training alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

Concerns About Faculty Resistance to Change and Mutation

Fearing your student evaluations, how much time and trouble should you devote to email questions from your students?
For junior faculty members, the barrage of e-mail has brought new tension into their work lives, some say, as they struggle with how to respond. Their tenure prospects, they realize, may rest in part on student evaluations of their accessibility. The stakes are different for professors today than they were even a decade ago, said Patricia Ewick, chairwoman of the sociology department at Clark University in Massachusetts, explaining that "students are constantly asked to fill out evaluations of individual faculty." Students also frequently post their own evaluations on Web sites like www.ratemyprofessors.com  and describe their impressions of their professors on blogs.
Jonathan D. Glater, "To: Professor@University.edu Subject: Why It's All About Me," The New York Times, February 21, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21professors.html

Bob Jensen's threads on controversies over student evaluations are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation

"Fulfilling Technology's Broken Promise: A Perspective on Educational Technology,"
by Robert Bilyk, co-founder of lodeStar Learning Inc. and Cyber Village Academy, T.H.E. Journal, February 2006 ---
http://www.thejournal.com/articles/17933/

The Broken Promise of Technology
The one inarguable difference between now and then has been the promise that technology holds for the classroom teacher. In the early 1980s, I worked with stand-alone machines that could render stick figures on the screen and display text and numbers. The state of the art in audio was a few timely beeps. Nevertheless, I could envision the promise and began creating things that I could use in the classroom to help kids.

Over the course of time, more and more educators have turned to technology to help kids—but only to be disappointed time and again. Computers were expensive, they broke or became obsolete, they didn’t talk to one another, and they divided teachers’ allegiance through the great schism of Macs vs. PCs. Then there was the software that sat in shrink-wrapped packages unused. Integrated Learning Systems (ILS) were also expensive and inflexible. If a teacher didn’t like the pedagogy or content of a particular lesson, she could do little to change, add, or delete content. Teachers had to accept the bad with the good: ILS perpetuated the existence of the stick figure; computers threatened the existence of the teacher. At least, that was a common apprehension.

And despite the greater use of technology, studies such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study from the National Center for Education Statistics have shown that our students still weren’t achieving well in math and science compared to their European and Asian counterparts. Fortunately, today’s educators are on the cusp of a tremendous realization: The promise that computers held for increased student achievement are finally being realized.

The New Promise of Technology
A teacher today who dares to imagine the possibilities that current technology affords won’t be disappointed: The total cost of ownership of a computer continues to decrease. Software is cheap and oftentimes free. Access to the Internet and all of the educational content that it holds is practically ubiquitous in American schools. Standards permit dissimilar computers to communicate with one another, and for educational content to be searched and shared. Therefore, technology needs to be met halfway. Lead teachers, mentor teachers, curriculum directors and administrators—teachers in general—must dare to dream again. Schools must place networked computers in classrooms, libraries, lobbies, and wherever else they can be safely accessed. Accessibility to computers is essential. Teachers need to be trained—not once but often. Professional development is also essential because teachers need to support each another. Ideally, teachers from common disciplines would network with one another. The use of instructional technology by teachers to improve student achievement must become habitual. And finally, all roads must lead to the teacher. That is, all student performance data must flow effortlessly to the teacher.

To fulfill the promise, computer use by teachers must become habitual, and computer use to improve student achievement must become habitual. The advent of learning management systems like Microsoft Class Server, Blackboard and Desire2Learn has enabled teachers to manage the student online learning experience. Often, school districts direct this usage to the exception—offering activities to children who are ill, replacing snow days with online days, and providing a class to a home-schooled child.

The snow day example was my favorite. The online snow day was designed by well-intentioned educators, but it had its flaws. In this example, the school trained its entire staff on an LMS so that one day, when it snowed, students could access their courses online. On the day it snowed, the untested system failed; staff were out of practice in creating, assigning, and grading; and students could hardly remember how to log on. This example might seem a little extraordinary, yet variations on this same theme are commonplace. Rather than integrating online curriculum into the example, schools flirt with technology at the edges, addressing the “unusual situation” so that the business of integrating the class with technology does not become “habitual” and second nature for teachers.

Continued in article

February 24, 2006 reply from Robert Holmes Glendale College [rcholmes@GLENDALE.CC.CA.US]

I have spent time in these classes reflecting on the role of the teacher. (I am mostly retired and teach one accounting class online.) The most effective classes are those that invlove two way communication with the students. Technology and lectures are poor substitutes for this dialogue. The electricity that sparks in the classes as the students offer ideas, the instructor says give me more, other students say "I never thought about that" is something to behold. I feel sorry for those (including my students) who have to try to get an education without this kind of enriching excitement.

One damaging effect of the clash between the academic and IT cultures is that teaching and scholarship have remained relatively untouched by the new information technologies.
Edward L. Ayers (, "The Academic Culture and the IT Culture: Their Effect on Teaching and Scholarship," EDUCAUSE Review, December 2004 --- http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm04/erm0462.asp 
Edward L. Ayers is Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and is Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History at the University of Virginia.

A year ago, my colleague Charles Grisham and I wrote an EDUCAUSE Review article entitled "Why IT Has Not Paid Off As We Hoped (Yet)." In short, we argued that information technology has not yet transformed higher education because the areas of teaching and scholarship, the "heart" of colleges and universities, have remained relatively untouched by the new technologies. In this article, I’d like to continue the discussion and also go further, exploring not only why these two areas continue to be, for the most part, resistant to the changes but also how technology can successfully address these core missions of higher education.1

The Invisible Success of IT Those of us who have been involved for a while in the long courtship between higher education and information technology can recall many ups and downs in the last thirty years or so.2 We remember when we first saw Mosaic, Netscape, and the World Wide Web. At each step along the way, some of the more impressionable among us thought that one innovation or another would push us over the top, that we would have finally gained the critical mass that would channel the undeniable power of information technology into higher education. We watched as commerce was transformed, as entertainment was transformed, as personal communication was transformed, and we kept waiting for the moment when higher education would be transformed in the same way.

In particular, we waited for the time when the very heart of education—the classroom and the scholarship taught in that classroom—would be transformed. Yet despite the tremendous investment that all institutions of higher education have made in information technology, despite the number of classrooms wired and the number of laptops mandated, the vast majority of classes proceed as they have for generations—isolated, even insulated, from the powerful technologies we use in the rest of our lives. Moreover, the form in which scholarship appears has barely changed. Across almost every field, researchers, no matter how sophisticated the technology they use in discovery, translate their discoveries into simple word-processed documents. Sure, they sometimes add JPEG images and other illustrations; and in the sciences, pre-prints rush around the world long before print journals would be able to publish the articles. But producing scholarly discourse in HTML and PDF formats has not changed scholarship in any significant manner. The nature of argument has remained remarkably resistant to innovation in rhetoric or form in every field of scholarly endeavor.

Very real technological accomplishments have tended to become invisible because they have been so successful. If you had told people a decade ago that card catalogs would virtually disappear within ten years and would be replaced by our current information-management systems, they would not have believed you. Librarians have been the real heroes of the digital revolution in higher education. They are the ones who have seen the farthest, done the most, accepted the hardest challenges, and demonstrated most clearly the benefits of digital information. In the process, they have turned their own field upside down and have revolutionized their professional training. It is testimony to their success that we take their achievement—and their information-management systems—for granted.

Similarly, college and university IT professionals have done more than anyone has asked them to do. The speed with which they have built networks and infrastructure, trained people, and created new student-registration and fiscal-management systems has been remarkable. And again, their success is taken for granted, with IT becoming almost as invisible as the electricity on which it runs. In a cruel irony, few faculty think "Ah, I will now use technology" whenever they check to see whether a book is in the library, or whether a student is enrolled, or whether their paycheck has been posted. And yet many do think: "I don’t want to use technology, or I can’t use technology, to teach in the classroom or to disseminate my scholarship." Those faculty who have ignored all the excitement up to this point have decided that they can withstand whatever else is put before them until the end of their careers. They go to their professional scholarly meetings and see only a few workshops and talks on the new technologies; they read the job ads and see that the jobs require exactly the same credentials as were required a quarter century ago.

The bottom line is that despite all the work and successes of IT professionals, teaching and scholarship at leading institutions of higher education remain relatively resistant to the possibilities of information technology.

The Academic and IT Cultures From the viewpoint of a dean who would love to see the transformation of higher education accelerated, and from the viewpoint of a long-time laborer in the technology vineyard who would love to see some of the fruit come to harvest, I’m struck by many faculty members’ resistance to the obvious benefits of the maturing technologies. From the viewpoint of a professor, however, I understand some of the more obvious reasons for this resistance: shortages of time, money, and energy. In addition, I see more systemic reasons, ones that we might call "cultural": deeply patterned, deeply entrenched habits of thoughts and behavior. The problem is that the academic culture and the IT culture simply do not mix together well.

Nobody seems to like the word academic. "That’s merely academic" is used as a dismissive description of something irrelevant to real life, something as pointless as counting angels on the head of a pin or writing an English composition paper on Beowulf. Any mention of the word academic in a book review is a kiss of death. In a particularly cruel twist, even when a nonacademic praises a book by a professor, the reviewer often dismisses the academy in the process: "Not the boring, self-indulgent, impenetrable, dithering book we always expect from an academic, this book is almost as good as one written by someone who knows a lot less about the subject."

When asked to identify ourselves, almost no professors choose "academic" as their first choice. "College teacher" can sometimes sound good, with its shades of the movie Dead Poets Society. "Professor" can be OK on occasion, bringing to mind John Houseman in the movie The Paper Chase. Saying that you work "at the college" or "over at the university" can usually get you through a casual conversation without too much loss of status at the tire store or supermarket.

But being more specific can often cause problems. When I’m on an airplane and tell someone that I teach history, all too often the response is: "Boy, I always hated history—all those names and dates." I got some notion of this when I started to work on the subject of the Civil War, and my mother-in-law, a very sweet woman, introduced me to one of her friends as a "Civil War buff." I carefully tried to explain the difference between a historian and a buff, with the main difference seeming to be that I don’t have another job from which the Civil War is merely a hobby.

As problematic as disciplinary nomenclature can be, adding "academic" makes it even more toxic. The title of "dean" sounds imposing, if faintly scary (satisfyingly enough), since so few people, including deans, know exactly what a dean does. But even I cringe when I think about defining myself as what I actually am during most of my waking hours: an "academic administrator." It’s hard to think of many job descriptions (for legally paying work) that have more negative connotations than that. The title conjures up all the mustiness of "academic" along with all the bureaucratic, paper-pushing, rubber stamp–wielding, red tape–entangling connotations of "administration."

On the other hand, as someone who has served on IT committees dominated by IT staff, I know how IT people speak about academics. I’ve seen the eye-rolling and heard the chuckling at some of the more clueless of my academic colleagues who can’t figure out how to empty the trashbin on their desktop computer. Still, my friends in information technology have their own struggles. You know the stereotypes. You’ve heard the whispers: "geek." As for me, I represent the worst of all worlds: I’m both a lifelong academic and a longtime IT geek. But perhaps this does give me the credentials to delve into the nomenclature of both the academic culture and the IT culture.

For a definition of geek, I turn to a very convenient authority, the dictionary function of Microsoft Word:

geek (n.): 
1. somebody who is considered unattractive and socially awkward (insult) 
2. a carnival performer whose act consists of outrageous feats such as biting the heads off live animals 
3. somebody who enjoys or takes pride in using computers or other technology, often to what others consider an excessive degree (informal disapproving) 

Leaving aside "biting the heads off live animals"—an activity that, in my experience, is indulged in by only a few academic administrators, and usually in private—I rest my case. When your own computer program tells you that by using that very program to "an excessive degree," you are becoming increasingly "unattractive and socially awkward," you might suspect that you’re in trouble. If you brush that warning aside to finish writing an article with that same program, you really are a geek.

As is often the case with oppressed groups, the disdain faced by those in the IT arena and those in the academic arena has not always brought the two together in a shared bond. The two cultures have so much to offer one another, so much to teach one another, if they would only look past the tweed and elbow patches on the one hand and the pocket protectors on the other. The IT industry and the academy share some obvious and important characteristics. Both deal with intangibles, especially ideas. Both are focused on networks and on the information those networks carry. Both are dedicated to innovation and competition. Both are extensible structures: build something once, and you can apply it everywhere.

But taking a clear-eyed view reveals that there’s more to the story. As shown in Table 1, information technology and the academy display competing characteristics.

Table 1.
Competing Characteristics

Information Technology	The Academy
everywhere and nowhere	strongly identified with a very specific location
brash young industry	a self-consciously ancient institution
highly unstable	the most stable institution across the world
new competitors continually emerge	impossible to break into top ranks
possibility of great profits	no possibility of profit at all
work performed by anonymous teams	centered on scholarly stars
obsolescence built in	designed to deny obsolescence
virtually instant results necessary	patience a central virtue
designed to be transparent	opaque and labyrinth

Since information technology has infiltrated every nook and cranny of other parts of life, it seems to me that it must be the academy that resists. That is because several basic paradoxes lie at the heart of the modern American university—basic conflicts that make the academy a fascinating place to live and a hard place to administer:

Continued in the article

Teachers Must Adapt to Changed Mindsets of Incoming Students Who Grew Up With Computers

"How do you communicate with students who have grown up with technology? Schools are looking to technology for the answer," by Kevin Delaney, The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2005, Page R4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110556110781524378,00.html?mod=todays_us_the_journal_report 

Forget the computer lab. To hold the attention of the tech-savvy PlayStation 2 generation, educators are working digital technology into every corner of the curriculum.

Pioneering teachers are getting their classes to post writing assignments online so other students can easily read and critique them. They're letting kids practice foreign languages in electronic forums instead of pen-and-paper journals. They're passing out PDAs to use in scientific experiments and infrared gadgets that let students answer questions in class with the touch of a button. And in the process, the educators are beginning to interact with students, parents and each other in ways they never have before.

The issue is, "how do we communicate with students today who have grown up with technology from the beginning?" says Tim Wilson, a technology-integration specialist at Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minn. "The traditional linear approach...often seems too slow and boring to students used to MTV, instant messaging and MP3s."

Permanent Record

Boosting this grass-roots tech effort is a new wave of free and low-cost technologies and services. Online forums and Web logs, or blogs, are simple to set up and free to use. So are "wikis" -- Web pages that can be written on as well as read, making it easy for teachers to make notes in the digital margins. Hardware, too, is getting cheaper: Prices have fallen for everything from wireless-networking equipment to hand-held gadgets to personal computers. And thanks to a computerization drive of the past decade or so, 99% of public schools now have Internet access, with an average of one computer for every five students, according to the Department of Education.

The department recently concluded that schools on the whole aren't doing enough with that infrastructure. But in schools across the country, a corps of tech-savvy educators are showing how to get the job done. Students in journalism classes at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J., for example, never turn in hard-copy assignments. They post them on blogs -- which allows their teacher, Will Richardson, and their fellow students to read and post comments about the articles.

Mr. Richardson says students like the blogs especially as an organizing tool, letting them easily search through past assignments. More broadly, he believes the blogs have "really profound implications" for education: Students discuss each other's work in new ways, such as linking to relevant information on the Web to support their comments. In some cases, people outside the school can access the blogs, providing students with a platform for disseminating their views. The blogs also let parents keep up to date on their kids' assignments more easily than ever before.

Lewis Elementary School in Portland, Ore., also uses Web-based publishing technology to open up new possibilities in communication. Fifth-graders send classwork, and essays and articles for their monthly newspaper, to a wiki over the school's network. Teacher Kathy Gould goes to the Web page and writes corrections and comments directly into the text -- instead of posting a note in a separate "comments" section, as with a blog. Students can then access the wiki to read and respond to her comments.

Meanwhile, students in John Unruh-Friesen's advanced-placement government class at Hopkins High School conduct running debates on an online forum outside of the classroom. The students, mostly 12th-graders, tackle issues including the presidential election, the possibility of a military draft and the Middle East conflict.

"Some students are reluctant to participate in class discussions," says Mr. Wilson, the technology-integration specialist at Hopkins. "Some of those kids feel much more comfortable interacting when they have time to craft a response."

Students in advanced foreign-language classes at Hopkins use forums to keep online journals and interact with each other. For example, the instructor of the fifth-year French course, Molly Wieland, used to require students to keep paper journals in French. Since moving those to an online forum, she says the students write more than they did before.

The fact that they're writing for an audience larger than just their teacher makes a difference, and what they're saying tends to be more conversational and relevant to the students' lives. A recent exchange between the students involved college choices and the wisdom of rooming with your best friend in the dorm -- all in French.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

Concerns About Faculty Workloads and Burnout

Question
Why should teaching a course online take "twice as much time" as teaching it onsite?

Answer
Introduction to Economics:  Experiences of teaching this course online versus onsite
With a growing number of courses offered online and degrees offered through the Internet, there is a considerable interest in online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online instruction. The major concerns are centering on the following questions: What will be the new role for instructors in online education? How will students' learning outcomes be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of face-to-face instruction? How will instructors motivate students to learn in the online learning environment? This paper will examine new challenges and barriers for online instructors, highlight major themes prevalent in the literature related to “quality control or assurance” in online education, and provide practical strategies for instructors to design and deliver effective online instruction. Recommendations will be made on how to prepare instructors for quality online instruction.
Yi Yang and Linda F. Cornelious, "Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction, Working Paper --- http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/spring81/yang81.htm

Jensen Comment:  The bottom line is that teaching the course online took twice as much time because "largely from increased student contact and individualized instruction and not from the use of technology per se." 

Bob Jensen's threads on the positive side are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

September 2, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

SURVEY ON QUALITY AND EXTENT OF ONLINE EDUCATION

The Sloan Consortium's 2003 Survey of Online Learning wanted to know would students, faculty, and institutions embrace online education as a delivery method and would the quality of online education match that of face-to-face instruction. The survey found strong evidence that students are willing to sign up for online courses and that institutions consider online courses part of a "critical long-term strategy for their institution." It is less clear that faculty have embraced online teaching with the same degree of enthusiasm. The survey's findings are available in "Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality & Extent of Online Education in the U.S., 2002 and 2003" by I. Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman, Sloan Center for Online Education at Olin and Babson Colleges. The complete report is online at http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/sizing_opportunity.pdf 

The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is a consortium of institutions and organizations committed "to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines." Sloan-C is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. For more information, see http://www.sloan-c.org/ 

July 1, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

STUDY OF ONLINE TEACHING WORKLOAD

In "Faculty Self-Study Research Project: Examining the Online Workload" (JOURNAL OF ASYNCHRONOUS LEARNING NETWORKS, vol. 8, issue 3, June 2004), Melody M. Thompson, Director of the American Center for the Study of Distance Education at Penn State, reports on a workload study that was designed to go beyond anecdotal testimony. In the project six faculty who were teaching online courses "strove to identify those tasks that consumed a disproportionate amount of faculty time -- particularly time taken away from actual teaching/learning interactions with students." The study indicated that their workload "as measured by time on task, was comparable to or somewhat less than that for face-to-face courses." The article is available online at http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v8n3/v8n3_thompson.asp .

The Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks (JALN) [ISSN 1092-8235] is an electronic publication of The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C). Current and back issues are available at http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln .

Accounting professors who teach online discuss their workloads at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm 

"Teaching Courses Online:  How Much Time Does It Take," by Belinda Davis Lazarus, Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, September 2003 --- http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v7n3/v7n3_lazarus.asp 

ABSTRACT 
Studies show that temporal factors like workload and lack of release time inhibit faculty participation in developing and teaching online courses; however, few studies exist to gauge the time commitment. This longitudinal case study, presented at the Seventh Annual Sloan-C International Conference on ALN, examined the amount of time needed to teach three asynchronous online courses at The University of Michigan-Dearborn from Winter 1999 through Winter 2000. Twenty-five students were enrolled in each course. Self-monitoring was used to measure the amount of time required to complete the following activities: 1) reading and responding to emails; 2) reading, participating in, and grading 10 online discussions; and 3) grading 15 assignments. Using a stopwatch, the investigator timed and recorded the number of minutes needed for each activity. Also, all messages and assignments were archived and frequency counts were recorded. The weekly, mean number of minutes and assignments was entered on line graphs for analysis. The data showed that teaching each online course required 3 to 7 hours per week, with the greatest number of emails and amount of time required during the first and last 2-weeks of the semesters. Participation in and grading of the discussions took the greatest amount of time and remained steady across the semester. However unlike many live courses, the students participated more in the discussions than the instructor did. The number of assignments that were submitted each week steadily increased over each semester. This case study indicates that the time needed to teach online courses falls within the range of reasonable expectations for teaching either live or online courses and represents the beginning of this area of inquiry. Consequently, additional studies are needed with a variety of instructors across a variety of courses and disciplines to further pinpoint faculty time commitment.

KEYWORDS Online Courses, Longitudinal Experiment, Faculty Workload, Teaching Online Courses

Personal E-mails Can Overwhelm

"Please Learn From My Mistakes," by David G. Brown, Syllabus, August 2002 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=6592 

I have come to the sad realization that many of the innovations designed to keep my course fresh have failed. My memories of failures are so poignant that it may be constructive to share them here. They can serve as warnings to others.

Unstructured chat room discussions don’t work. Chats lack depth. Someone new is always interrupting the online conversation with his or her own topic just when the discussion is getting interesting.

Ungraded assignments are usually ignored. I used to ask two students to search the Web for two or three sites that provided alternative ways to learn the “topic of the day.” They shared information on these sites in annotated bibliographies. An end-of-the-course evaluation, however, revealed that their classmates never went to these sites.

My current practice is to require each student to e-mail me with an evaluative comment regarding the sites. They know that their comments will factor into the participation portion of their course grades. A recent end-of-the-course evaluation now shows that the students regard the alternate Web sites as important and useful components of the course.

Personal e-mails can overwhelm. One semester, I asked all of my students to send me an e-mail answer to an assigned question each time we reached the end of a textbook chapter. The responsibility for reading and evaluating all those submissions just about ruined my family life. Now I have Student A e-mail a proposed answer to Students B and C. Students A, B, and C must settle on a single answer. They teach one another, and I have only one-third as much grading to do.

Students need to know in advance what their responsibilities are if the computer network goes down on the eve of an important deadline. Networks do go down. Students will panic, unless there are instructions in the syllabus that anticipate forgiveness or outline their alternatives.

Another semester, several weeks before the final, I accidentally deleted all my students’ grades from the electronic grade book. Fortunately, the syllabus stressed that each student is expected to keep a copy of every assignment submitted and also of every grade-related message sent to him or her. With help from the class and substantial effort, I was able to reconstruct the gradebook. Now I print out a backup copy of grades about every two weeks.

I’ve come to realize that students accessing materials from course Web sites using a dial-up modem from a shared apartment off campus cannot, or will not, wait for long downloads. I had the bright—and well-received—idea of personalizing the list of course assignments. For each of our 34 assignment days I added thumbnail photos of the students responsible for presenting their special reports. Although student reaction to this personalization was quite positive, I noticed that they were consulting the list of assignments less frequently. A focus group session revealed that the list was now taking longer than a minute to open. Consulting the list was an increased burden.

My students bring their laptops to class everyday. Even so, I’ve learned that it’s wise to exchange e-mail messages before class when anything out of the ordinary is to occur. If, for example, my plan for the day requires that every student have their computer, I send the class an e-mail message.

I suspect that others have made mistakes from which we can all learn. If you have a brief story you’d like me to share in a future column, please e-mail me. Let me know if it’s OK to mention your name or if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Online Faculty Workloads

The CIT Infobits May 2002 article "Online Teaching and the 24-Hour Professor" ( http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitmay02.html#1 ) described how the Internet is changing professors' workdays and workloads. John Messing, Director of the Research Centre for Innovation in Telelearning Environments at Charles Sturt University, continues this topic in "Can Academics Afford to Use E-mail?" (E-JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, vol. 5, no. 2, August 2002). Messing reports on a study that began as "an attempt to quantify what many educators have suspected . . . that the workload associated with the use of online tools is considerably higher than with conventional technologies. In the process of trying to make sense of the data, it became clear that there are a number of issues such as increased expectations on the part of students and the disproportionate load that administrative use of e-mail places on academics that are rarely, if ever, considered as part of the debate.

he study analyzed the author's administrative and course-related email messages from 1991-2001. Some of his observations:

Regarding course-related email: "While the number of students in [his Graduate Diploma of Applied Science] course has doubled, the volume of communication has increased 11 fold. . . ."

Regarding administrative email: "It might take a secretary 10 to 15 minutes to duplicate and distribute meeting papers to 20 people [via email]. If it takes each recipient just 5 minutes to read, extract, print and collect the meeting papers, that represents a total of 100 minutes. The secretary saves 10 minutes but the recipients collectively lose 100 minutes."

He concludes, "Just how much extra time an individual is prepared to sacrifice in order to also receive the benefits of the use of such tools is debatable. From a personal perspective, the limit has been reached. With well over 3000 e-mails to contend with in one semester, the system has become a scourge rather than a blessing."

The article is available online at http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/Vol6No_1/messing_frame.html  (HTML format) and http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/Vol6No_1/Messing%20-%20Final.pdf (PDF format).

e-Journal of Instructional Science and Technology (e-JIST) is published by the Distance Education Centre, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350, Australia; Web: http://www.usq.edu.au/dec/  Current and back issues of e-JIST are available at no cost at http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/ 

Concerns About Faculty Efficiency and Burnout

Barbara Brown wrote the following:

There are many myths and tacit assumptions about computer-mediated learning that can be explored in the Fielding context. Much has been written about technological efficiency and the potential of the Internet as an educational medium to save time and money or increase productivity. The author’s experience inspires a healthy skepticism in this regard. Having taught students in conventional classrooms for two decades, I experienced the computer-mediated mode of instruction as more time-consuming, at least initially, both from the standpoint of up-front course design and later, painstaking, labor intensive hours online - designing messages for the classroom forum, reading and downloading from the screen, posting new material, providing feedback, checking community bulletin boards, e-mailing student comments and grade reports, etc. In fact, there were many times when I felt torn between my real life and my virtual life on-screen, in an identity challenging  [Turkle, Sherry (1995), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.] sort of way, simply because there did not seem to exist enough hours in the day to do justice to both. This was the case even in an "asynchronous" environment where I had the flexibility to conduct electronic office hours in my bathrobe over morning coffee or post feedback in the dead of night.

Moreover, absent face-to-face contact and ordinary non-verbal clues, even very mature students on the Internet demand more frequent interaction and reassurance in dialogue with their professors, an observation confirmed in student course evaluations. Students demand more feedback; and the more feedback they receive, the more interaction they want. There are at least two possible interpretations of this phenomenon: One is that it reflects the way students compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction. Or, it may be that this medium disinhibits student communication, thereby stimulating the message exchange process. As the intellectual excitement of these conversations grows, so does the amount of interactivity in the virtual community.[See Rafaeli, Sheizaf and Fay Sudweeks (1998), "Interactivity in the Nets," in Network & Net Play: Virtual Groups on the Internet,
Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press/The MIT Press]

I estimate this mode of instruction requires roughly 40% to 50% more work on the teacher’s part in comparison with conventional classroom delivery. For example, where I might put approximately 36 hours of work per week routinely into a regular course load with a total of 120 students in four traditional class sections at a large public university, online instruction at Fielding required 50 hours or more per week - with only 24 students in just three sections of my digital classes. It also takes longer for faculty members and administrators to reach consensus in electronic group meetings.

B.M. Brown
"Digital Classrooms:  Some Myths About Developing New Educational Programs Using the Internet,"
T.H.E. Journal, December 98, p. 57
The online version is at http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/current/feat04.html

Also see Concerns About Faculty Resistance to Change

Concerns About the Explosion of Online Education

Concerns About High Attrition Rates in Distance Education

August 31, 2007 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]

REDUCING ATTRITION IN ONLINE CLASSES

"Attrition rates for classes taught through distance education are 10- 20% higher than classes taught in a face-to-face setting. . . . Finding ways to decrease attrition in distance education classes and programs is critical both from an economical and quality viewpoint. High attrition rates have a negative economic impact on universities."

In "Strategies to Engage Online Students and Reduce Attrition Rates" (THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATORS ONLINE, vol. 4, no. 2, July 2007), the authors provide a review of the literature to determine methods for "engaging students with the goals of enhancing the learning process and reducing attrition rates." Their research identified four major strategies:

-- student integration and engagement

Includes "faculty-initiated contact via phone calls, pre-course orientations, informal online chats, and online student services."

-- learner-centered approach

Faculty "need to get to know their students and assess each student's pre-existing knowledge, cultural perspectives, and comfort level with technology."

-- learning communities

"[S]trong feelings of community may not only increase persistence in courses, but may also increase the flow of information among all learners, availability of support, commitment to group goals, cooperation among members and satisfaction with group efforts."

-- accessibility to online student services.

Services might include "assessments, educational counseling, administrative process such as registration, technical support, study skills assistance, career counseling, library services, students' rights and responsibilities, and governance."

The paper, written by Lorraine M. Angelino, Frankie Keels Williams, and Deborah Natvig, is available at http://www.thejeo.com/Volume4Number2/Angelino Final.pdf. 

The Journal of Educators Online (JEO) [ISSN 1547-500X ]is an online, double-blind, refereed journal by and for instructors, administrators, policy-makers, staff, students, and those interested in the development, delivery, and management of online courses in the Arts, Business, Education, Engineering, Medicine, and Sciences. For more information, contact JEO, 500 University Drive, Dothan, Alabama 36303 USA; tel: 334-983-6556, ext. 1-356; fax: 334-983-6322; Web: http://www.thejeo.com/ .

Jensen Comment
Attrition rates are high because online students are often adults with heavy commitments to family and jobs. Initially they think they are going to have time for a course, but then the course becomes too demanding and/or unexpected things happen in their lives such as computer crashes, a change in job demands (such as more travel), family illness, marital troubles, etc. Sometimes online students initially believe the myth that online courses are easier than onsite courses and, therefore, take less time. About the only time saved is the logistical time waster of commuting to and from a classroom site.

Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm

Despite Popularity, Researcher Finds Not Everyone Can Successfully Learn Through Online Courses
PhysOrg, February 25, 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news123168113.html

Since the 1990s, online courses have provided an opportunity for busy adults to continue their education by completing courses in the comfort of their own homes. However, this may not be the best solution for everyone. A researcher at the University of Missouri has found some students may find success in these types of courses more easily than others.

Shawna L. Strickland, clinical assistant professor in the MU School of Health Professions, studied the demographics and personality types of distance learners.

“Correlations between learning styles and success in distance education have shown to be inconclusive,” Strickland said. “However, one common theme reappears: the successful traits of a distance learner are similar to the successful traits of an adult learner in traditional educational settings.”

With a mere 30 percent of distance learners actually completing their courses, learning more about the characteristics of these students would help educators structure online courses to be as beneficial as possible. Considering the lack of institutional support and isolation involved in the nature of online courses, success in these courses requires a person that is determined and responsible, Strickland said.

“The success of distance learning is dependent on communication among the learner, his or her peers and the instructor,” Strickland said. “To encourage success in distance learning, it is necessary to evaluate each individual’s needs on a case-by-case basis.”

One trait that aids in distance learning is related to personality type. Strickland found those with quiet, introverted personalities are more likely to feel comfortable with online learning courses. Shy individuals have a tendency to be uninvolved in the typical classroom setting. Online courses allow them to complete work on their own with a degree of anonymity.

“Distance learning allows the learner to overcome traditional barriers to learning such as location, disabilities, time constraints and familial obligations,” Strickland said. “However, not every learner will be successful in a distance learning environment.”

The study – “Understanding Successful Characteristics of Adult Learners” – was published in the most recent edition of Respiratory Care Educati