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Developing an online course usually isn’t cheap, but one particular expense is often underestimated: updating the course down the road. Face-to-face class content also needs to be refreshed from time to time, but online courses may call for hardware or software upgrades or time-consuming reviews to ensure web resources are still accessible. Inside Higher Education took a look at how institutions are grappling with processes and costs to keep online courses up to date. Some schools didn’t take into account the maintenance cost for online courses, which over just a few years can add up to more than the original development cost. Schools that offer quite a few online courses tend to require faculty to conduct a formal review of the course every few years, more often in the case of rapidly evolving subjects, such as computer science or biology. At Walden University, the review includes a report on whether the course is achieving learning outcomes. Western Governors University reviews each...

California State University is opening the system’s entire catalog of 3,000-plus online courses to its residential students. Full-time students who live on one of the 23 CSU campuses can take one online class per term at no charge, regardless of which CSU branch is offering the class. Many schools allow on-campus students to enroll in online courses, but most don’t make all courses available to those students. CSU used to limit access, too, but opted to drop most of the barriers. One remaining hurdle is that students can only take online classes from campuses that have the same semester or quarter term as their residential campus. That means the two quarter schools (in San Luis Obispo and San Bernardino) can only offer courses to each other. One of the objectives of the program is to help students finish their degrees on time by making available online options if they can’t get into a required course at their home campus or the class is scheduled at an inconvenient time. Students will...

The Netflix video-streaming service and smartphones are the two biggest drains on campus bandwidth, according to a report on residential networks (ResNet). Netflix was named the biggest content threat to bandwidth capacity by 88% of the IT, housing, and business officers who participated in the State of ResNet 2018 Report, while smartphones were listed as the largest consumers of bandwith by 73% of respondents. The smartphone percentage was an 11% increase over the 2017 report, with desktop computers and laptops finishing second (65%) and smart TVs in third (59%). At the same time, online learning tools and interactive digital textbooks were considered a threat by 33% and 14% of respondents, respectively. Almost every respondent said their institution viewed “high-performing” ResNet as essential to attracting and keeping students on campus. Ninety-six percent of housing administrators said quality ResNet was “very important,” while 92% of IT respondents and 90% of business officers sa...

Online degree programs have become a strategy for growth at some colleges and universities, and for survival at others. However, it involves much more than slapping a course or program online . “You are not simply putting a course online; you are creating an online product,” said Furqan Nazeeri, a partner at the online education platform provider ExtensionEngine. “It’s an important distinction. Your product—the program, course, certificate, or degree—has to be unique and very specific to what your market to current and prospective students want.” With institutions developing new online programs each year, colleges and universities should be striving to create something unique and not just a replica of the course provided in the classroom. All campuses are different and schools should be looking at their online programs the same way. “It’s time to move away from mass-produced, cookie-cutter programs that take a one-size-fits-all approach,” Nazeeri continued. “Instead, differentiate your...

Some advocates argue that online learning can lead to better outcomes for students, lower costs for institutions, and more access to minorities. A new report concludes all are possible, if colleges and universities do it the right way. Making Digital Learning Work , a study of digital-learning initiatives at three four-year institutions and three community colleges, found a generally higher retention rate for online students and improved outcomes for Pell-eligible and minority students. It also noted enrollment increases as a result of digital-learning initiatives. At the same time, the report concluded that online courses do cost less to produce because higher student-to-teacher ratios and less need for classroom space offset the financial investments in course quality. It also suggested that some of the key practices in launching a digital-learning effort include a strategy to meet the needs of different students, support for remote accessibility, and treating faculty members as par...

Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a way to detect when students using personalized learning software start to daydream . By using machine-learning algorithms on recordings of student eye movement, the researchers were able to figure out which eye patterns were associated with the mind wandering. The study found that when students’ eyes matched “zoning out” patterns, they were less focused on the work than those students who showed “not zoning out” patterns. It also noted that when students were paying attention, their eyes bounced around the screen more. “When you’re zoning out, you’re just fixating,” explained Sidney D’Mello, leader of the University of Colorado research team. “You’re not moving on.” The study could lead to instructional software that monitors mind wandering in real time. That troubles Jill Barshay, a contributing editor for The Hechinger Report who writes about education research and data. “Do we really want to curb mind wandering?” s...

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are now more readily available than ever, with more than 9,400 courses and 500 credentials available to anyone interested. Providers are also finding ways to make the courses more sustainable through premium credentials, online degree programs, and access to content. Access to content has become a big business, ranging from free to million-dollar licensing deals between providers and employers. Providers are also placing more content behind paywalls, including graded assignments. At the same time, though, enrollment has slowed. New data from Class Central, a MOOC discovery platform, showed that 20 million learners registered for their first MOOC in 2017, about three million fewer than in 2016. “Over half a decade since their debut, MOOCs may finally have found their footing and a sustainable revenue model,” Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, wrote in a recent post for EdSurge . “No, they didn’t disrupt universities, but they may have changed how ...

The percentage of students taking online classes continue to rise , but is it the right investment? If institutions see it as a way to generate revenue, they may need to think again. Online education needs to be economically sustainable. It should also make sense from a cost and investment standpoint, according to Joshua Kim, director of digital learning initiatives at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning. “Putting money as the first and ultimate goal of online education will cause a school to make a series of bad choices, while simultaneously closing off other potential benefits of online learning,” Kim wrote in his regular blog post for Inside Higher Ed. Online programs should align with and support the strategic mission of the institution. In developing online classes, the school needs to start with an understanding of where its strengths lie as opposed to developing courses to meet particular market demands. “There will be winners and losers in any such conversatio...

As more college faculty get involved in developing and teaching online courses, they appear to be changing their views on the effectiveness of digital education compared to in-person classes, according to findings in a new survey. The 2017 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, conducted by Inside Higher Ed with assistance from the Online Learning Consortium and Gallup, revealed a fairly big shift in faculty opinion on online classes. “While faculty members remain slightly more likely to disagree than to agree that online courses can achieve student outcomes that are as good as those of in-person courses, the proportion agreeing rose sharply this year, and the proportion strongly disagreeing dropped precipitously,” Inside Higher Ed reported . About 42% of professors responding to the survey said they have taught at least one online course, up from 39% the previous year. However, more faculty at public institutions have conducted online classes than their counterparts at private s...

Over the last five years, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have become on-demand sessions that allow participants to learn at their own pace. Changes were also made that allowed providers to monetize the process by charging for certification. While a poll from Class Central, a MOOC discovery platform, found that 64% of respondents said they preferred the changes, there was also a cost. MOOCs are no longer attracting large numbers of students, and the learners taking the classes aren’t interacting on discussion forums. “These days, most MOOC providers let learners start courses whenever they like (or on a biweekly or monthly basis as Coursera does),” Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, wrote in a column for EdSurge . “As a result, the forums are far less vibrant and informative than they were in the early days.” To find a happy medium, Shah is proposing a MOOC semester offering a limited catalog of instructor-led courses with a fixed schedule and soft deadlines. The selected MOOCs...

A recent article from the digital news outlet Quartz detailed efforts by a pair of Texas A&M economics professors to update their mandatory introductory microeconomics class . The class has been moved online, a first for the university. Students taking the class no longer have to sit through lectures because the professors have already created prerecorded lessons, an interactive video platform, and prepared all the homework and reading material. The lecturer uses a transparent whiteboard to explain concepts and discussion boards to engage students. “Do I think [this new course] is better than 30 students and the Socratic Method, Dead Poets Society-style? Probably not,” Jon Meers, one of the professors of the course, told Quartz. “It’s still vastly superior to delivering a lecture to 300 students at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning.” The article claimed the course will increase the quality of learning by allowing professors to interact directly with students, while also saving money for t...