| Higher Education Course Migration from F2F to Online Instruction: Problems for Instructors |
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Reflection #3 Within the literature there is a small body of research focusing on the attributes and needs of faculty who must deal with course migration from F2F to online instruction. The small amount of research devoted to these issues is itself a problem, because there is not enough of it to draw any firm conclusions that generalize. There are other problems. Given the rapid expansion of DE via the Internet over the past three or four years, the parameters for acceptable DE delivery platforms may have been significantly altered, enough at least to render obsolete much of the work in DE that has found its way into the literature over the last twenty years. Moreover, that rapid -- and apparently irreversible -- expansion has changed the terms of discussion about the value of participation in distance learning. DE is no longer just an option, and faculty participation is, while not mandatory, increasingly encouraged. Some of the problems identified with F2F to online course migration, as identified in the literature, soon may well cease to be problems as the trend toward Internet DE increases momentum. In any case, we are in a state of flux with regard to technology and learning and teaching, and the conclusive findings one might seek in the research literature are simply not there. (This is not a problem unique to IT; any discipline that experiences dynamic growth and development faces the same problem.) One of the notable attributes of the body of literature devoted to DE faculty development is its incestuous tendancy to quote itself in an almost "A cites B cites C cites A" fashion. Not much new ground is plowed that way. With a paucity of studies it is not surprising to find the same citations over and over again. Clark (1993), Dillon and Walsh (1992) Wolcott (1993) are standard citatons in viritually all studies, followed by Betts (1998) who updated Clark in a limited but significant way. It points to a need for further research, and in fact such research may be occuring at places like Penn State, San Diego State, and Florida, where innovative approaches to course migration have been innitiated, but that work has not yet reached the journals. Another notable attribute of the literature is its aging collection of research findings. Reading the works of Saettler, Ely, Gentry and others, we can trace the history of IT back at least a century. One would not suppose, then, that in a single decade so much has become obsolete, but that is precisely the case in IT. Clark's 1993 survey is now ten years old and the conditions of the technological environment expressed in the survey findings have changed dramatically in the least decade. On a modest scale, Betts updated Clark, but more work needs to be done. The Clark survey is now history, not current events.Even more recent studies, such as Butner's 1998 national survey of technology delivery platforms that found 64% of the courses used interactive TV with only a small fraction of that number using the Internet, is clearly dated information. Not all research ages at the same rate. What we are examining here are the needs of college faculty in the F2F - online migration process. A 1988 study by McGuire on the faculty at Athabasca University (which is entirely DE) offers poignant insights into the professional and personal needs of DE instructors that still ring true more than a decade later. Perhaps because McGuire focused on human issues, this study remains current. Technology changes rapidly, but the human factor in many ways remains constant. So a careful sifting of the evidence may yield some valuable nuggets about the nature of course migration as it is experienced by the real human beings who make up the college faculty. And at some point, technological advances may slow down enough to allow some consolidation, both in terms of technological deployment and the ability of research efforts to handle the heretofore highly fluid field of data. In the meantime, colleges and universities cannot wait for the research to catch up with immediate needs, so they are launching ahead with a broad range of initiatiives to meet the demands for DE while accomodating as best they can the requirments of faculty for quality, incentive, control, and job satisfaction. These innitiatives, like Penn State's World Campus, Michigan's Virtual University, the cutting edge work at the University of Toledo, and others like it, will provide today the material for tomorrow's research. In a project such as this, it is important to understand the limitations imposed by the materials at hand. Research is one of those materials and, in this project, its limitations are unhappily illuminated. Where materials are weak, we seek reinforcements from other sources, so we will turn to those examples cited in the paragraph above, and others like them, to glean information about what works and what doesn't, which will lead, no doubt, to further reflection... |
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