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Online Education: Myth or Reality?. Andy DiPaolo Executive Director Stanford Center for Professional Development Stanford University. “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”. Alvin Toffler
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Online Education: Myth or Reality? Andy DiPaolo Executive Director Stanford Center for Professional Development Stanford University
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Alvin Toffler “Rethinking the Future”
“The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” Peter Senge, “The Fifth Discipline”
News Items • Stanford, Princeton, Yale and Oxford join forces to create an independent, not-for-profit alliance to develop distance learning programs. October 2000 • Cornell announces eCornell, a for-profit company to create and market distance learning programs. March 2000
News Items • Columbia University announces Fathom, a web venture to share learning for profit. April 2000 • Duke Corporate Education raises $24M in its first round of financing. July 2000
News Items • Unext.com launches Cardean with top universities to provide world-class education via the Internet. June 1999 • Universitas 21, an international network of universities, announces plans with Thomson Learning to deliver online education worldwide. November 2000
News Items • U.S. Army enters into $600M partnership with universities for e-learning. November 2000 • High-tech billionaire Michael Saylor announces $100 million donation to create an online university that will offer an Ivy League-quality education to anyone in the world - - free. March 2000
What Online Learners Want • Access to learning independent of time and distance. • Convenience and flexibility in course and program delivery with multiple avenues for learning. • Choice of synchronous (real-time) and/or asynchronous (time-delayed) delivery options.
What Online Learners Want • Well designed, engaging and intellectually challenging courses with degree, certification and credentialing options. • Emphasis on active, experiential, goal oriented, context based learning vs teacher-centered approaches. • Presentations and interactions incorporating problem based simulations and gaming.
What Online Learners Want • “Learner pull vs teacher push” approaches with learning on demand. • Modules and courselets which can be bundled into a learning experience to meet goals of organization, workgroup, and career. • Reliable delivery technology on any internet station with 24 X 7 technical support.
What Online Learners Want • Provisions for tele-advising, tele-coaching and tele-mentoring. • Participation in a “learning community” through online and real interaction with instructor, teaching assistants, tutors, peers and experts. • Opportunity to “customize” learning experience based on background and needs.
What Online Learners Want • Opportunity to “test” course and be assessed before registering. • Access to multimedia learning materials, content collections, libraries, electronic tools - - and lots of video. • Opportunity to practice working in geographically dispersed learning teams.
What Online Learners Want • Outstanding e-support for student services with a focus on “student as customer.” • Provision for extended duration of a course and ongoing access to faculty and experts. • Continuous, rich and varied forms of feedback.
What Online Learners Want • Competitive pricing with a mix of fixed price and pay-per-view options. • Return on investment. • Lifelong educational renewal with institutional commitment to support continuous learning of its graduates.
“Motorola no longer wants to hire engineers with a four year degree. Instead, we want our employees to have a 40 year degree.” Christopher Galvin President and CEO of Motorola
Stanford Georgia Tech Illinois UC Berkeley Western Governors Michigan Southern Region E-campus Penn State Penn/Wharton SUNY Johns Hopkins Calif State Univ System Open University Higher Education OnlineU.S. Examples
NYUonline Columbia Duke Corporate Education eCornell Maryland University For-Profit Subsidiaries
University of Phoenix UNext.com- Cardean Jones International Capella University Concord University Global Education Network Thomson Learning Universitas 21 Online Education Entrepreneurs“The Rise of a New Industry”
Caliber Learning Kaplan Colleges DeVry Institutes Fathom ElementK Pensare NETg Quisic DigitalThink IBM Mindspan Online Education Entrepreneurs“The Rise of a New Industry”
Hungry Minds Click2learn Smart Force Interwise Stratys-NTU & PBS Powered, Inc. FT Knowledge Thinq Online Learning.net Online Education Entrepreneurs “The Rise of a New Industry”
McGraw Hill Learning Network Barnes & Noble University Dow Jones University Harcourt Learning The Teaching Company Global Learning Systems Motorola University Cisco Academy Online Education Entrepreneurs “The Rise of a New Industry”
Online Education Entrepreneurs vs Higher Education • Focus on customer needs and competition. • Speed to market. • Commercial grade marketing, sales, design and production skills. • Larger investments. • No university bureaucracy. • Applies incentives and rewards to attract faculty and experts.
Stanford University Schools • Business • Earth Sciences • Education • Engineering • Humanities and Science • Law • Medicine
Stanford University • Recognized as offering outstanding education and research programs. • Research volume: $523+ million annually • Students: • 6,591 undergrad • 7,553 graduate • Faculty: 1,595
Learning Technologies and Extended Education at Stanford • An alliance consisting of: • Stanford Center for Professional Development • Stanford Continuing Studies Program • Stanford Learning Lab • Stanford Media Solutions
Stanford Center for Professional Development The Stanford Center for Professional Development develops and delivers courses, programs and services using multimedia, telecommunications, campus and on-site solutions to support the advanced educational needs of professionals, managers and executives.
SCPD Program Offerings • Masters Degree - Honors Cooperative Program • Credit courses - Non-Degree Option • Academic Certificate Programs • Audit • Professional and executive education • Course licensing • Research seminars • Custom programs
SCPD Delivery • Five TV channels • Satellite • Two-way video • On-campus • Combinations • Videotape • Multimedia • Internet and web • On-site
Stanford Online Vision To make Stanford’s rich intellectual content accessible and convenient in order to address the information, knowledge and education needs of today’s professional workforce.
Stanford Online • Transformed from research project into Stanford Online in Spring 1997. • Compaq Computer and Microsoft are strategic partners. • SCPD televises 75 courses per quarter and most are available via Stanford Online.
Stanford Online • Over 600 online courses since 1997. • Courses updated quarterly to maintain currency. • Approach transparent to faculty. • Delivers credit and professional education programs.
Stanford Online Programs • Courses in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Management Science & Engineering • MS Degree in Electrical Engineering with Telecommunications focus. • Certificates in Telecommunications, Bioinformatics and 20 other areas. • Professional education courses, seminars and conferences.
E-learning Distributed Annually to Industry by SCPD • 200+ credit courses leading to MS degrees and academic certificates. • 25 research seminars. • 25 professional education courses. • 6000 credit enrollments annually at over 450 corporations.
E-learning Distributed Annually to Industry by SCPD • Modules and courselets in process. • Delivery via Stanford Instructional TV Network and Stanford Online. • 10,000 new program hours annually in digital form.
Summary of Feedback To Date • Online learning attracts professionals who would not otherwise have taken course. • Convenience and choice is critical for busy professionals. • Best for motivated, focused, mature students. • Significant benefit for campus students. • Students satisfied with learning via Stanford Online - assessment ongoing.
Recommendations from Lessons Learned • Constitute an e-learning board or committee. • Choose high demand disciplines and recruit best faculty. • Make sure program is consistent with institution’s mission and has an “enabling environment.”
Recommendations from Lessons Learned • Position initiative as a way to extend - not replace - academic programs. • Offer faculty incentives and rewards and address concerns with ownership of intellectual property. • Don’t over promise - - state realistic expectations regarding program costs and revenue.
Recommendations from Lessons Learned • Create or select uniform course development system with common “look and feel” - - think modular, scalable, dynamic and interactive. • Make programs available from any internet station on a 24 X 7 basis. • Develop comprehensive faculty and learner e-support services and infrastructure.
Recommendations from Lessons Learned • Create strong marketing enterprise with database management at its core using “net magnets” to attract and retain students. • Provide students electronic access to learning resources and tools. • Select learning management system (LMS) with admission, registration, tracking, reporting, advising,feedback, course delivery, etc.
Recommendations from Lessons Learned • Select learning content management system (LCMS) with centralized repository, tagging and search, reusable learning objects, etc. • Create a “community of learners” with synchronous and asynchronous interactions and peer-to-peer collaborations. • Consider blending online and on site activities.
Recommendations from Lessons Learned • Consider outside partnering for development, management and marketing of courses. • Develop strong assessment program on student learning, student retention, and student and faculty satisfaction. • Target revenue to cover costs with remainder provided to sponsoring departments/faculty and for future development.
Success Factors of Online Learning • Access • Learning • Cost effectiveness • Learner satisfaction • Faculty satisfaction
Hurdles Universities Face in Online Education • Can a university compete in this environment? • Higher ed generally not skilled at developing new businesses. • High quality online courses differ significantly from traditional courses.
Hurdles Universities Face in Online Education • Disparity between “corporate speed” and “college speed.” • Skilled, staff and expensive resources required to produce and deliver courses. • Faculty incentive structure needed. PROMISE SMALL, DELIVER BIG
“E-learning will make e-mail look like a rounding error.” John Chambers CEO of Cisco
Future of Online Education • Online education - - as the intersection of learning activities, learning resources and enterprise systems - - recognized as an essential function of universities and organized to meet the needs and lifestyle of students. • Minimal distinction between on-site and off-site students through networked learning communities.
Future of Online Education • Focus of online education shifts from teaching to learning with students having more control. • Continuum of online education from high school to graduate programs to professional education to lifelong enrichment creating an online educational portfolio.
Future of Online Education • Education and training organizations not rooted in time and place: learning accessible from anywhere and available at all times - - personal, portable, wireless. The future is “M” learning. • Accelerated development of alliances between higher education, professional organizations, publishers, industry and new dot.coms for online program development and distribution.
Future of Online Education • Evolution of non-traditional degree, certification and career professional universities characterized by online degrees based on knowledge/skill modules, variable pacing, short residencies, distributed cohort groups, and competency assessment vs. academic credit. • Content management systems applied to personalize the learning experience.
Future of Online Education • Unbundling of the design, development, delivery and management of teaching a common practice. • Emphasis on experiential, non-linear, goal-oriented, scenario-based learning with immersion learningware and virtual reality.