Author: Lindsey Downs

Categories
Practice

Excited about March Madness? Proposed Section 32 Will Excite Distance Ed Fans

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date March 21, 2022
1 Comment on Excited about March Madness? Proposed Section 32 Will Excite Distance Ed Fans
frontiers feature image logo
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The annual NCAA college basketball tournament, celebrated nationally and called the “Big Dance” or “March Madness,” began last week with great hoopla.

Simultaneously, another form of “competition” occurred – the final week of the U.S. Department of Education Negotiated Rulemaking process. Rulemaking can look like a “Big Dance” with representatives of higher education factions engaged in the negotiation tango. And it can definitely seem like madness with a chaotic race against the clock to quickly assess complex regulatory issues, amend or develop new regulatory language, and drive to reach full agreement before the buzzer on the final day of rulemaking.

Section 32: Proposed Major Changes in Title IV for Distance Ed

Proposals affect institutions enrolling students in other states for:

– Programs leading to professional licensure.

– Institutions participating in a reciprocity agreement.

This rulemaking was virtual, so we watched the rulemaking meetings on our computers via Microsoft Teams. Like a sporting event, we had to reserve tickets in advance to watch the show. Cheryl was armed with Diet Pepsi, large bags of Skinny Pop popcorn, and a bag of gummy bears. We (Cheryl, Russ, and the SAN team) found ourselves shouting at the screen to cheer on great explanations and cried foul at misstatements.

Today we share our postgame analysis and include a special review of the process of rulemaking. Some of the issues were extensively covered by the main press. And, in an unfortunate likeness to the relative invisibility of the women’s basketball tournament, digital learning issues were absent from mainstream reporting.

At the top of the scouting report are two items that will “excite” (as in stirring people to action) the distance and online community. Both of these are in what we have started calling “Section 32.” This section contains some vexing requirements (found in Issue #6 Certification Procedures), which did not come to consensus. Like Tom Brady (yes, we know that’s football), these proposals are not going way. The breakdown includes insight into:

  • New financial aid requirements for institutions serving students in programs leading to a professional license, and,
  • Institution participation in reciprocity through SARA to obtain state institution approval for interstate activity of the institution.

Federal Rulemaking Process

Department of Education negotiators vote on the Issue Paper that includes Section 32.

As we shared in January, the U.S. Department of Education began its second Biden administration rulemaking (see Department’s rulemaking website) at the start of 2022. The December 2021 announcement of the rulemaking, called the Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility Committee, provided the list of the seven issues to be addressed:

  • Issue #1: Ability to Benefit.
  • Issue #2: Administrative Capability.
  • Issue #3: Gainful Employment.
  • Issue #4: Financial Responsibility.
  • Issue #5: Changes in Ownership.
  • Issue #6: Certification Procedures.
  • Issue #7: 90/10 Rule.

In Winter 2022, the rulemaking committee, comprised of key stakeholders nominated by the public and then chosen by the Department, met for one week in each month of January through March. Issue papers with proposed language addressing the regulations particular to the issues were released by the Department for purposes of conversation and negotiation. The goal of the rulemaking was to address the proposed language on these issues and develop agreed upon language to address consumer protection for students and protect the integrity of the Title IV Federal Financial Aid process. Each week of rulemaking aimed to drive the negotiators closer to common thoughts on final language for purposes of voting to consensus, which is agreement by all negotiators on all aspects of an issue.

The final week of rulemaking in March was critical as the negotiators provided final comments and questions prior to voting on each issue. The drama played out on our screens as one by one the issues were resulted in “air balls” as each of the first six issues failed to meet consensus (or 100% agreement). As the clock ticked down, Issue #7: 90/10 Rule reached consensus. The negotiators huddled quickly and re-voted on Issue #1: Ability to Benefit and, like a buzzer beater, it reached consensus. Like Russ’s busted basketball bracket the final score was: two issues reached consensus and five issues did not.

Next steps in the regulatory process includes the following:

  • For issues that reached consensus: release of the agreed upon language as proposed regulations subject to public comment for at least 30 days.
  • For issues that did not reach consensus: release proposed regulations written by the Department for public comment for at least 30 days.
  • The Department must and will review all public comments.
  • General responses and any changes based upon those comments will be included in an announcement of the final regulations. A preamble will clarify regulatory intent not clearly stated in the regulations themselves.
  • If final regulations are released by November 1, 2022, they will become effective July 1, 2023.
  • If final regulations are released after November 1, 2022, but by November 1, 2023, they will become effective July 1, 2024.

There is no designated timing on the release of the proposed regulations, but we speculate late spring/early summer for the regulations that came to consensus. Even though several other issues did not reach “consensus,” the Federal negotiator was very clear that the Department expects to put out proposed regulations on these other issues. The Department was also very clear that they would not be accepting public comment on any issues until the NPRM (notice of proposed rulemaking).

The Department was very clear that they will not be taking public comments on these issues until the they release their proposed rules for the purposes of commenting.

Issue #6: Certification Procedures

The Department shared that the “certification procedures” issue focused on the development of a more rigorous process for institutions to become certified to participate in Title IV financial aid programs. To be eligible to participate in Title IV financial aid programs, institutions are expected to follow the provisions of the Program Participation Agreement (PPA). The PPA is an extensive form that provides the terms and conditions for which the institution must meet to begin and continue participation in Title IV financial aid programs. As we talk about professional licensure requirements below, note that this raises the expectations for communications with students beyond the mere notifications that were introduced in the last few years. Meeting the elements of the PPA is a more substantial responsibility of the institution for which there could be stronger consequences if the institution fails to meet any terms or conditions.

During this rulemaking, items were proposed to be added to the PPA. The currently effective regulations that your institution must currently follow are found in 34 CFR 668.14. A new section 32 was proposed to address programmatic accreditation, programs leading to a professional license or certification, and reciprocity. Although the negotiators did not fully agree (reach consensus) on the proposed language, the Department stated that they are heavily leaning toward moving forward with the language we describe below.

A Major Change to Professional Licensure Requirements

In summary, the proposed language of 668.14 (32) indicates that in each state where the institution is located or students enrolled are located at time of initial enrollment, the institution must ENSURE that each program SATISFIES state educational requirements for programs leading to a professional license or certification where the student is located.

Additionally, as a companion regulation, the Department proposed language to modify the public notifications found in 34 CFR 668.43(a)(5)(v). The proposed language would remove the “no determination made” option. Institutions would provide lists of states indicating a determination of the institution curriculum Meets or Does Not Meet state educational requirements. Although a negotiator raised that 34 CFR 668.43(c) exists and no longer makes sense given the Department’s proposed language, there was no further discussion or change regarding the direct notifications.

Professional Licensure

The new proposal:

– Better protects students.

– Requires programs to “ensure” that it meets state educational requirements.

– Leaves institutions adrift as to what to do in states or professions with unclear standards.

– Provides no path for students who have legitimate reasons to enroll in a program even if it cannot “ensure” where that student is currently located.

Core aspects of the proposed language would require that for purposes of Title IV, the institutions must do the following:

  • Only be able to disburse Federal aid in programs leading to a license or certification to students located in states where the curriculum meets state educational requirements. We believe that the use of the word “ensure” implies a much higher standard for the institution to possess evidence that it meets those requirements.
  • Provide public notifications with lists of states where the curriculum Does or Does Not meet state education requirements leading to a license or certification.

The public policy reasoning behind raising the standard for institutions serving students in other states seems justifiable to protect students who are pursuing their chosen profession based upon the education and training of the institution. However, this one size fits all approach is impossible for all professions in all states and takes away a student’s ability to choose.

If there is a knowable path for the program to be approved by the state and/or meet state educational requirements, institutions should seek that path and obtain that approval. Institutions, however, have shared the varying circumstances for some professions in some states that makes the ability to meet requirements or even know requirements impossible. We strongly object to holding institutions to an impossible standard.

Additionally, there are definite and reasonable circumstances why a student may be willing to attend an institution even though the state educational requirements are not met by the institution’s curriculum. Examples include students temporarily in a location, military students, and students who select the institution for its educational value, or students who intend to pursue a license in a location based upon workforce needs. We believe that students should be afforded the opportunity to choose.

We made remarkable progress communicating with two consumer protection-focused negotiators to develop language that provided protection to students, flexibility in states where pre-approval is unknowable, and provide for informed choice. The approach that we developed with negotiators required the institution to meet state educational requirements where available and provided for case-by-case examples to enroll students in a program that does not meet state educational requirements if the institution obtains written consent from the student who chooses to knowingly enroll in the program. This proposed language was presented by the two negotiators and supported in comments by several other negotiators. The Department rejected the proposal, commenting only they worried that allowing exceptions would lead to abuse and without providing a reason for not adopting the rest of the proposal. We were profoundly disappointed as any rule can lead to abuse, which is why the Department provides “guardrails” in enforcement.

Finally, the modification to the notifications section causes the institution to make a clear decision whether the curriculum does or does not meet state educational requirements. Removal of the “no determination made” will be challenging for institutions. If the regulation becomes effective, institutions will have to make business decisions whether or not to offer programs in certain states.

Early in the negotiated rulemaking process we provided public comment with a three-minute statement at the end of the meeting day. We urged the Department to communicate with professions and learn how requirements and approvals are provided for programs leading to a license or certification. We still maintain that there is a disconnect between professions and higher education that needs to be addressed. We hoped the Department might be willing to serve as a bridge and build regulations that are in line with state regulatory practices.

The Bottom Line

The goal of those proposing the language was to protect students as consumers. Institutions collecting years of tuition and fees for programs in licensure fields should do all they can to assure students that they can proceed in that profession. We are aware of good institutions that have fallen short in meeting that goal and this wording raises the stakes in putting aid disbursement in jeopardy if they do not do a better job.

On the other hand, the language does not account for two realities…

  • The proposal does not match current state regulatory realities. Some agencies do not provide clear educational requirements or will not answer questions as to the match between an institution’s curriculum and published requirements. A negotiator stated that they should push states to raise their standards, but a rule aimed at institutions (the Department cannot tell states what to do) will be ineffective in changing agency behavior.
  • Some students are disenfranchised. Students have legitimate reasons (serving in the military, living on a border) for enrolling in a program that does not meet the requirements of the state in which the student is located. They should be given the option to make an informed choice. To focus solely on a possible abuse is to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty.

A Major Change to a “State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement”

This is a big change. Let’s start with some basketball-analogous background…

Every once in a while, there is a team that comes from out of the blue and makes a deep run in the tournament. The reciprocity issue reminds me of just such a story.

An update to the terms of any “state authorization reciprocity agreement” was not in the original notice for the rulemaking and it was not part of the first session of negotiations. The language was introduced between the first and second sessions and was raised only in passing in the second session, as we noted in our blog post update on that session. Therefore, we were surprised to see that the Department of Education accepted the proposed language in its recommendations (Issue Paper 6: Certification Procedures) prior to the third, and final, session.

When the negotiators considered the proposal, there was a great deal of in-depth questions and comments. The conversation was extensive in session three, but this is one of the very few proposals that was discussed in-depth in only one session. Although Cheryl and Russ tried to educate select negotiators in the short time after it was introduced, it appeared that few negotiators had any prior knowledge of the history or workings of the interstate agreement.

Be that as it may, let’s examine what happened.

What Was Proposed Regarding Reciprocity Agreements?

As mentioned above, the Program Participation Agreement is a list of requirements to which an institution agrees to comply to be eligible to disburse Federal financial aid. The following paragraph was added as requirement in the proposed new section 32 (the same section as the professional licensure language mentioned above) that “the institution must ensure that each program” …

(iii) Complies with all State consumer protection laws, including both generally applicable State laws and those specific to educational institutions, except where State requirements for obtaining authorization are inapplicable pursuant to a State authorization reciprocity agreement.

In interpreting this language, it is important to distinguish between:

  • “generally applicable state laws” – laws that pertain to any business in a state. Fraud and misrepresentation are common examples of laws that apply to a business whether it is an institution, bank, or used car dealer. States that are members of SARA can enforce these laws on institutions participating in the agreement; and,
  • laws “specific to educational institutions” – laws that are specific to those providing postsecondary education in the state. States that are members of SARA agree that institutions participating in the agreement are subject to the provisions of SARA and knowingly agreed to use those provisions in place of state laws.

Reciprocity Agreements

The new proposal:

– Provides the opportunity for better state-by-state protection for students.

– Could limit consumer protections in states relying on SARA instead of local laws.

– Will create an unsettled state as we await decisions by the Department, states, institutions, and those leading SARA.

– Will raise the cost of institutions enrolling students in some other states.

Wait! Doesn’t that “Except Where…” Clause Exempt Institutions Participating in SARA?

No.

We talked about this a quite a bit and sought the counsel of legal and regulatory expertise. Although the wording is slightly confusing, the intent is clear from an explanatory note written by one of the authors of the language. That explanatory text is copied verbatim below. Note that “NC-SARA” (the organization that aligns the core elements and requirements of SARA) is referenced when it is actually SARA (the actual agreement) that contains the cited provisions. It is an important distinction, and many people confuse the two (bolding added for the proposed limits of reciprocity):

This language is proposed to address concerns that NC-SARA, the state authorization reciprocity agreement, currently requires member states to waive enforcement of education-sector-specific consumer protection laws with respect to participating schools that only offer distance education in their state. Examples of state education-sector specific consumer protection laws include: cancellation and refund provisions and student tuition recovery funds. NC-SARA distinguishes these laws from “generally-applicable” state laws, such as laws prohibiting fraud and deceptive practices.

NC-SARA’s requirement that states waive enforcement of education-sector specific consumer protection laws creates a two-tiered system that leaves distance education students with fewer protections than brick-and-mortar students. It also undermines states’ ability to protect students in their state.

The proposed language would address this problem by requiring schools that offer programs in multiple states to comply with all state consumer protection laws in each state where the school enrolls students. Schools would be exempt from compliance with state authorization requirements, such as requirements to submit an application to state authorizing agencies or pay a fee to a state authorizing agency. This would permit reciprocity agreements to fulfill their purpose of reducing the cost and burden on schools to obtain authorization to operate in multiple states, while ensuring that distance education students are afforded the same protections as brick-and-mortar students.

Similar sentiments were expressed in a bipartisan letter from 25 State Attorneys General to the NC-SARA Board last summer. Since the Department of Education staff also agree with the interpretation shared above, then it is our belief that is the interpretation that moves forward.

What is the Impact on Students?

The exact implications depend on several steps taken by states, individually, and SARA members, collectively. We provide some opinions of what could happen.

Proponents of this approach say that students will receive far better protection against institutional misdeeds or oversights. Laws in each state were written to provide specific consumer protections based upon the previous mistreatment of students by other institutions operating in the state. Distance students would be afforded the same protections as any other student in the state.

Opponents of this approach say that some states have stricter regulations and others have minimal or no oversight of institutions serving students at a distance within their borders. Protections could decrease for these students. Improving an existing agreement that serves students everywhere but California is a preferable approach to a piecemeal, state-by-state approach.

What is the Impact on Institutions?

basketball hoop

Again, the impact will vary depending upon further clarification of intent by the Department and actions by states, institutions, and those leading SARA. We provide our best forecast, but it is clearly opinion and not certainty.

The future benefits of an institution participating in SARA will likely be more limited than what they now enjoy. The intent is to limit those benefits to the act of applying for authorization and the associated fees. Since “consumer protection laws” is not defined, the decision as to which rules apply and which do not will fall to each state.

With the exception of the state authorization application and dues process, many of the provisions covered in SARA will likely need to be altered or removed so that institutions could remain eligible for Federal financial aid. SARA leadership and states could develop some creative pathways that we are not foreseeing.

As to the impact of states “enforcing” consumer protection laws, here is our analysis using the examples given in the intent wording provided above:

  • “cancellation and refund provisions” – A state could have a provision that an institution must use the tuition refund policy of that state. Let’s say that eight states have this requirement. The institution would have to have refund policies compliant with each of those states in which it enrolls students. In this example, an institution would have its own policy, but also eight additional policies if it serves students in all those states.
  • “student tuition recovery funds” – Some states collect fees from every institution serving students in the state. Those fees go into a fund that assists students who attend institutions that have closed.

Other requirements that could come into play might include the need to post a bond to serve students in a state, limitations on additional reporting requirements on students in the state, prohibitions on having a faculty person in a state, reviews of faculty credentials, program reviews, states could apply different standards to different sectors of institutions, and others. These requirements vary greatly by state.

As a result, the cost of doing business in some other states will rise if states apply additional requirements to institutions participating in reciprocity.

What Happened to this Proposed Change in this Week’s Rulemaking Session?

This language was part of several provisions in updates to the “Certification Procedures” that are found in the Program Participation Agreement. Consensus (agreement by all the negotiators) was not reached on the proposed language. Therefore, the Department gets to write the regulation that will be published for public comment.

The Bottom Line

The overall impact is still a bit unclear if it is put into regulation intact. There are still several steps before that is a reality and the timeline is described in the next section. Some possible outcomes:

  • If this language is implemented (which seems likely), the SARA leadership could decide to change their agreement to conform with this regulation.
  • Some states put the current SARA provisions into their legislation that enabled them to join the agreement. State legislation would be required if states want to locally enforce what they define as “consumer protection” laws.
  • SARA leadership could decide to work with states to negotiate a new set of benefits for SARA participating institutions.
  • One group has proposed the development of an alternate reciprocity agreement.
  • Something else completely unexpected will happen.

To be honest, we’re betting that last bullet will definitely happen.

The one sure outcome is that there will be a period of confusion for some time and that there will likely be additional costs for institutions to serve students in other states. Proponents of this new language assert that the additional student protections are worth it.

What’s Next? We Advance to the Next Round…We are through the opening weekend of the basketball tournament and that is the case with rulemaking. To recap the next steps in the process:

  • The Department will issue a proposed rule for comment. That could be in late spring, but is more likely to be this summer. There will likely be only 30 days in which to comment.
  • The public (that means you!) will comment.
  • The Department will respond to comments and issue a final rule:
    • If issued by November 1, 2022, the rules go into effect July 1, 2023.
    • If issued after November 1, 2022, but before November 1, 2023, the rules to into effect July 1, 2024.

Watch for an additional blog post from us this week. We plan to more briefly highlight a few other issues in negotiated rulemaking. Yes, we can hear you thinking: “oh my, what else?” That post will also talk about steps you should be taking.

Also watch on the WCETDiscuss and WCET SAN Network email lists where we will point back to this post and entertain questions from you as benefits of your WCET and/or SAN membership(s).

Tags , , , ,
Categories
Practice

Student ROI in Higher Ed Begins with Equity and Who We Value

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date October 29, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

With today’s post, we continue the WCET Steering Committee’s series on student return on investment (ROI) and the role of digital learning in improving that return. Thank you to Chantae Recasner of Northeast Lakeview College in San Antonio, Texas. She reminds us that student ROI requires institutional attention to equity. This is especially true for students who have not been well-served by institutions, such as minoritized and low-income students.

-Russ Poulin, WCET

In the last decade, conversations about college affordability have become increasingly nuanced ranging from thoughts on tuition scaling and college access to student loan debt management and workforce skills development. While many colleges and universities explore and implement initiatives to advance value for every credential offered, equity consciousness must remain at the core of the conversations to ensure all students experience that added value.

Historically minoritized and low-income students have been often the last to feel the impact of broad-based initiatives intended to improve student experiences.

Historically minoritized and low-income students have been often the last to feel the impact of broad-based initiatives intended to improve student experiences. Focused national DEI initiatives like the MBK Alliance and Excelencia in Education attempt to mitigate this reality. Yet, it is often the outcome(s) of systemic disadvantage (i.e., success gap data) that drives conversations about and decisions to prioritize certain initiatives at colleges and universities. 

Learn About Value by Listening to Student Voices

As we navigate thoughts of college affordability and ROI, amplifying the voices of students can potentially provide insights on inclusive strategies and practices (Libassi, 2018). My thoughts here are informed by the perspectives of two college students with whom I’ve had conversations about the value of higher education. One student is a Black male (self-identified), Pell eligible, full-time enrolled, first-time-in-college attendee at a for-profit university. He attends college totally online. He is also a parent. The other is a Black immigrant student (self-identified) from a middle class family with parents who pay her tuition at the local community college. This is her second attempt at college.

Both students understand the concept of return on investment (ROI). However, from my conversations with both, I want to share their thoughts on the following questions:

  • Why college? And why now (during the Pandemic)?
  • What do you value most about your college?
  • What about the expenses?

Student A: Black, Male, Pell Eligible, First-time, Full-time Student at a For-Profit University

Why college? And why now?

I decided it was time for me to do something, something that I knew for sure would give me a way to provide for my son. I know the pandemic is going on, but I can go to school completely online…When I found the school, they made it easy for me to get started. I never went to college or did none of that, but I talked to somebody from the school and they got me set right up.

What do you value most about your college?

These people told me they would make sure I graduate. I’m doing okay, but I don’t feel like if I mess up one time they’re going to kick me out.

What about the expenses?

I’m getting financial aid. They [the college] take care of everything and send me what I need. It’s taken care of so I’m not worried about that.

Student B: Black, Female, Immigrant, Tuition Paid by Parents at a Community College

Why college? And why now?

Well, I was already enrolled so I had to finish. I know there are other ways to get ahead and you don’t need college for every way to make money. But, for some fields, like what I’m studying, you actually need a degree. I hate taking classes online, but I’m glad I could so that I didn’t fall behind during the pandemic.

What do you value most about your college?

I get way more support than I expected. I got a lot of support from (names the first college she attended), but I was focused on other things then. Now, I feel like everything I want to do, there’s support for me to do it…. Being a leader now is important, that’s a part of my development. And the experiences I have gained helped me grow. That’s the biggest part for me.

What about the expenses?

Well, I don’t have expenses (laughs). My parents pay my tuition. But, it sucks because things are really expensive now and it’s not just about the tuition. Everything is expensive. So I try to earn money however I can. I just hate that as a middle class person, I don’t qualify for Pell grants and I don’t want loans. Scholarships are hard to get. But, I’m doing everything I can to try to get scholarships when I transfer.

To be clear, this brief insight from the students is not intended as findings from a well-structured qualitative investigation. The goal here is simply to allow the voices of students to enter our considerations of ROI, and to remind us to actually listen to and for those voices—especially the historically silenced ones.

Students Want the Institution to “Care” about Them

Doug Lederman’s (2021) Inside Higher Ed discussion of the Third Way and New America survey reveals that less than 75% of students surveyed believed “their institution cares about students like them.” Lederman also notes the survey revealed Black and LatinX college students are the students most likely to believe “Higher education is not worth the cost to students anymore.” In my very brief exchange, two Black students made it clear how important institutional support and care are for their journeys.

For Black and Latinx poor students, the economic returns do not trend as highly as they do for their White counterparts because these students still tend to select colleges that do not produce the highest earners (Steel-Figueredo, 2016). But, the “human value of a college education” (Gault, Reichlan, & Roman, 2014) could still have great possibility for these students.

In 2014, Arroyo and Gasman put forth an HBCU-based model for engendering success for Black students. Their conceptual framework suggested that beyond accessibility and affordability, institutions must focus on the interplay between identity formation, values cultivation, and achievement. Theirs is an example of the kind of humanistic consciousness needed as we consider how to advance access and increase the value of education.

Over the last two years, Northeast Lakeview College has partnered with Hanover Research to build an Early Warning Dashboard that helps us to look more closely at who our students are. One of Hanover’s proposed strategies for student and institution success is “creating safe and supportive environments.” Arroyo and Gasman fundamentally are calling for just that. In their framework, however, the student’s identity is centered—it’s the catalyst for the model.

Value is Subjective, But Successful Student ROI Requires and Applying and Equity Lens

The point here is that the concept of value is a deeply subjective one even if we connect tuition and fee costs to earning potential.

While Student A above will surely have to contend with the high cost of his education, his value currently is in being deemed worthy—being shown care, being provided help, being assured of opportunity to misstep without expulsion. Where Student B understands the economic relief provided by her parents’ support, she places a high value on the presence of personal growth opportunities and her ability to achieve her goals.

If college affordability exists when “students can anticipate substantial economic and social gain after graduation compared with a future without college,” (Gault, Reichlan, & Roman, 2014) then maybe all that matters is what each college/university does to fully invest in its students—all of its students. 

Affordability in this sense then, cannot exist in the absence of equity. In fact, affordability then becomes synonymous with equity.

 

References

Libassi, C.J. (2018). The neglected college race gap: Racial disparities among college completers. Center for American Progress.

Steele-Figueredo, D. (2016). Why do students value college? Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-do-students-value-col_b_12580368.

Gault, B., Reichlan, L. & Roman, S. (2014). College affordability for low-income adults: Improving returns on investment for families and society. Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Tags , ,
Categories
Practice

Stories from the Educational Underground – WCET Interviews Peter Smith

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date October 27, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

“Learning happens everywhere. Somehow, we have to figure out how to recognize that learning.”

That was one of the closing thoughts that stuck with me when I sat in on an interview between WCET’s Executive Director, Russ Poulin, and the inspiring Peter Smith late last month. The interview centered on Peter’s newest book on higher education, Stories from the Educational Underground: The New Frontier for Learning and Work, but really, it was just a great excuse to sit down (albeit virtually) with a wonderfully kind educator whose rich and varied experiences have provided him with some outstanding ideas about the future of higher education.

Today I’ll share with you segments of the interview broken up by topics. The full-length interview is available on our YouTube channel. Thank you to Russ and Peter for sharing your thoughts with us, your work for the higher education community, and your dedication to serving WCET members.

Enjoy the read and the listen!

Lindsey Downs, WCET

Introducing – Peter Smith

Inaugural president of a community college, congressman, state senator, lieutenant governor, assistant director for education at UNESCO, professor, endowed chair, senior advisor…. WCET executive council member (previous) and WCET award winner.

That’s quite the vast experience and range of titles for our interviewee, Peter Smith, who graciously sat down with WCET’s Executive Director in September to discuss his new book, his thoughts on the new frontier of higher education, and the personal interviews he conducted to fill the pages of said new book. Russ and Peter talked about the format of the interviews and final product, takeaways, today’s higher education system, and how we move forward from here.

Use of Personal Stories – and Owning One’s Place in the Telling of Them

Peter has written several books, most of which were written at “very arm’s length” and were more “data driven.” In this case, he wanted to show the actual stories, the “strands of reality,” and highlight how hard it was for these specific individuals to achieve their goals, to accomplish what they wanted to in life.

During the interview process, it came to Peter that he was a very privileged, white male who was trying to tell the stories of minoritized and underserved populations. He asked himself “what right do I have to write this book?” His wife advised him to include his own story as the counterpart or counterpoint to the stories of the interviewees. What a great way to “own your place” and “own your own privilege.”

Takeaways from the Interviews

The takeaways Russ and Peter discussed focused more on the reasons people do or do not go to college and whether ambition for postsecondary education has anything to do with persisting through to a credential.  These interviews showed Peter that while the life stories were all very different, each interviewee had the ambition and the desire to go to college, but for some reason, felt they couldn’t or faced some barrier. Those highlighted in this book, though, are unique from others because they were eventually able to do something about that barrier. They spoke a lot (in this section and throughout the interview) about the help some receive when it comes to starting an educational journey – whether it’s a parent getting you an interview, a friend making an important call, having some connection with college admissions, or just plain old luck. Much of our society is built on making the most out of those kinds of incidents. But what about the students who don’t have that help? How can we make luck more inclusive?

The (Issues…? Challenges…? Problems?) with Today’s Higher Education System

Did you “pick yourself up with your own bootstraps?” That’s a wonderfully inspirational image to conjure up, but as Peter and Russ discuss, it’s a fallacy. And it’s a fallacy that assumes you even have boots with bootstraps to pull. Our higher education system makes many assumptions and requirements about our students, such as how prepared they are when they enroll. Peter and Russ also discuss new models of education and learning that are growing in numbers outside of the traditional higher education system, offered by companies for their own employees or for others.

Moving Forward – How to Make a Difference

This final video was not only a great conclusion to a great interview, but included Peter’s advice to for higher education leaders who want to make a difference.

My favorite piece of advice was for institutions to consider how they relate to the community around them and make sure that they are doing work that benefits the local area and the specific employers in the area. Peter also said that it’s his (our) job to see where people are, understand where they want to go, and help them get there. And that time spent getting there shouldn’t include having to relearn (or sit through hearing about) something they already know.


So again: learning happens everywhere. It’s our job (as higher education leaders, administrators, educators, etc.) to figure out how to not only recognize it…but help our students showcase and build upon that learning.

Thank you to Peter and Russ for your inspiring discussion, and a special shout out to Peter on his newest book!

Tags , , ,
Categories
Practice

The Bigger Shift: Student ROI for higher education…and the role of digital learning

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date September 29, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

It started before COVID-19. Students, families, businesses, and those considering college questioned the value, the “return on investment” (ROI), of postsecondary education. Could they do better doing something else? Was the debt worth it? Is college for them?

Those questions loomed larger during the pandemic. They will continue to haunt us moving forward. The WCET Steering Committee is entering into a several-week examination of ROI and, where we can, how digital learning can make an impact in the equation.

From Online to Remote to…. What?

Whether it is collectively referred to as The Big Shift, The Great Online Migration, or any other creative name – there is no denying the massive and rapid transformation in higher education since the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, be it on-campus, online, remote, digital, or any other modality. There has understandably been a tremendous focus on the impact of such a rapid and widespread transformation. This new reality has been followed by the prognostication of many that students will be unsatisfied without a return to campus, while some surveys show a sizeable number of students want to continue some of the gains of online learning and services.

Whatever the role of online or digital learning turns out to be, it is clear that students are re-assessing the return on investment of higher education in all modalities and outputs.

As you enter this ROI discussion, rest assured that we fully understand that value of college to individuals and society of an educated public beyond personal economic gains, but that is a discussion for another day.

With varying approaches nationally, regionally or locally, the higher education landscape feels like a very fluid new frontier fraught with concerns around managing programs, faculty, campus access, vaccine and mask mandates.

Of great concern is getting students back to community colleges and, especially minoritized students who were not well served by higher education even before the onslaught of the pandemic. After such a period of personal, economic, and health-related uncertainties, we are left with the sense that things will never be “normal” again. Or, perhaps, the “new normal” will require significant institutional re-engineering to serve the revised needs of a student populace that has changed both demographically and emotionally.

Whatever the long-lasting effects of this shift to a much more prevalent, mainstream, and essential role for online and digital learning turns out to be, one thing is clear: students are re-assessing the return on investment of higher education for them personally…regardless of modality.

Assessing ROI: The Macro Point-of-View

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the Gates Postsecondary Value Commission to “…explore ways to define and measure equitable postsecondary value and build momentum toward actionable change.” The work of the commission revolved around a “value definition” that stated:

“Students experience postsecondary value when provided equitable access and support to complete quality, affordable credentials that offer economic mobility and prepare them to advance racial and economic justice in our society.”

Informed by the pandemic and released in May 2021, the Commission’s report issues this finding that arises form research and underscores their recommendations:

“Postsecondary institutions have the power to create opportunities for economic and social mobility for all students—but especially Black, Latinx, Indigenous, underrepresented Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students, students from low-income backgrounds, and women…However, these life-altering credentials and their associated returns are not distributed equitably.”

To address the issues, the Commission’s offered “three equity-centered tools to identify, measure, and address inequities in access, completion, and post-college outcomes:”

  1. A definition of postsecondary value.
  2. “A Postsecondary Value Framework outlines the clear value-add that postsecondary education can provide to students and society, in both economic and non-economic terms. The centerpiece of this framework is a series of economic value thresholds that measure post-college earnings and wealth inequities.”
  3. “An action agenda outlines policies and practices that institutional leaders and federal and state policymakers should implement…”

Oddly, the report does little to delve into online and digital learning’s role in “value.” That was not its purpose, but still odd. We will begin to address that intersection of ROI and digital learning in the blog posts we outline below.

“How do we make sure that education delivers value for all students, regardless of their race, ethnicity, income, or gender? These questions deserve the best answers we can give.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Value Commission

Assessing ROI: The Student Point-of-View

To an individual student, assessing ROI — determining where and how to invest their time, energy, and money — can be a complex and highly personalized set of considerations. We know, for example, that the true price that students pay for college can be quite different from tuition or fees associated with attendance, as recently evidenced by the California Community Colleges push to increase financial aid eligibility for its students. And this at colleges where students pay some of the lowest enrollment fees in the country, but typically shoulder higher external costs to provide essentials for themselves and families while attending college.

What follows are some of the ROI challenges that we will be addressing in the coming weeks.

Financial Aid Challenges

For students learning online, many face additional financial challenges. In an upcoming post in this series from our colleagues at Oregon State University, we will explore how federal and state financial aid and, especially scholarships lean toward students engaged in on-campus learning and leaves online learners short-changed (pun intended). Aid formulas are firmly entrenched in scenarios that favor on-campus, younger students. A good case-in-point is the challenge faced by student veterans in using the G.I. Bill. They receive about half of their housing allowance if they take all of their courses online, but receive the full allowance if they take as little as one course on-campus.

Opportunity Costs and Growing Alternatives

For some students, the opportunity cost of attending college full-time instead of working and advancing in wages over four to six years requires too much sacrifice in the short term. The long-term investment may not be worth it for all students, either. The Third Way, a public policy think tank, studied the ROI for low income students using a measure called the “Price-to-Earnings Premium” or “PEP” and found that “at about 20% of institutions reviewed in the report, low-income students earned less when compared to a high school graduate, even 10 years after they initially enrolled.”

A growing part of the “opportunity cost” equation for students is the increased availability of alternatives. In the near term, employers are struggling to find workers. Colleges and universities typically lose enrollments when workers are in demand because the allure of a payday today will outweigh the promise of increased knowledge and income resulting from pursuing a degree. Many students can do both, but many struggle with the work/life/ school balancing act.

At the same time, there is staggering growth in the number and types of “credentials” that are available. Beyond the classic certificate, associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees are the credentials and certifications that meet the varying needs of industry and/or individual learners. They also vary in length, format, modality, and start times. Credential Engine is cataloging these options and of the 967,734 credentials they logged (as of February 2021), only 359,713 (37.2%) were offered by postsecondary educational institutions. Not only are colleges and universities not alone, but they are also outnumbered.

Considering alternatives fits well with opportunity costs. If there are more alternatives, there may be options that present better ROI for students.

Reduce Time-to-Degree

Accordingly, reducing time to degree and offering programs that result in stackable credentials valued by industry remains an important yet still under-utilized strategy for most institutions. In fact, some students are choosing to stick with non-degree credentials and according to a recent Strada-Gallup Education Survey finding that 65% percent of those who complete non-degree programs said their education was worth the cost, and 49 percent said it helped them achieve their goals. Non-degree credentials issued by community colleges also received the highest ratings in terms of quality and value. While a non-degree credential may meet short-term goals, having a pathway to a degree may help with meeting a student’s long-term needs, even if they do not yet know they have that need. In another upcoming post in this series, we will explore the role of stackable credentials in reducing time to degree while increasing earnings as part of the student ROI equation.

Partnerships to Better Serve Students

Still, colleges and universities have come up with innovative partnerships aimed at reducing sticker shock, such as Southern Utah University’s $9,000 bachelor’s degree, or the partnership between Sinclair Community College and University of Dayton that build an integrated transfer program that includes clear up-front pricing with “no surprises” and even boasts coordinated advising for students on both campuses. Workforce partnerships are sprouting up in a multitude of new flavors as well, and this series will further showcase innovative methods of turbo-charging the ROI for students who can earn while they learn via employer-institutional partnerships.

Access is Still a Barrier to Opportunities

While the price of attendance and projected economic gains are important factors, there are other intangibles such as being the first in one’s family to graduate from college, or bringing the empowerment of a college education to one’s own under-served community. A common choice for many students is simply to attend the nearest college to where they live, yet many find themselves in under-served areas such as education deserts, defined as a local area where there are either zero or only one public broad access colleges nearby within a reasonable commuting distance. The price of attendance can increase dramatically for these students, who either choose from online programs or often face the decision of whether to relocate to attend college. As a way of addressing inequitable access, many innovative course-sharing platforms and programs have emerged, such as the California Virtual Campus online course exchange to provide broader access and accelerate student completion by eliminating gaps in available courses and programs.

education deserts map by commuting zone
Education Deserts by Commuting Zone (from the Third Way report Place Matters: A Closer Look at Education Deserts)

While many of us live in a world of high-speed data powered conveniences, the digital divide continues to persist for students, particularly when infrastructure is not sufficient. As an example, various accounts detail student experiences on tribal reservations, where individuals have gone to great lengths to access online learning during the pandemic but issues such as a lack of broadband infrastructure create seemingly insurmountable barriers.

Learning from Students’ Lived Experiences

In order to create an environment in which institutions of higher learning can effectively adjust to student expectations and create an experience that creates sufficient ROI, it is important to hear the perspectives of students and how they think about navigating this complex and personal calculation for themselves. To provide some thought-provoking perspectives, we will feature a post in this series designed to challenge you, our WCET members, to learn about the lived experiences of a small sample of students. This will be an opportunity for members to think about how you might respond to some real-world, thought-provoking questions raised by students.

Come Join Us in the ROI Exploration

photo of two people shaking hands over paperwork - text reads "WCET explores ROI and value of higher education."

Students and their families will make choices that benefit them both in the short and long term. In a world undergoing The Big Shift, are colleges and universities rising to the challenge?

WCET members, as online and digital learning pioneers have long been at the forefront of bringing innovations to solve vexing problems. WCET’s Steering Committee’s Working Group on Student Return on Investment will be bringing different aspects of this conversation to you over the next several weeks through WCET Frontiers and a few questions in the wcetDiscuss Community and email list.

Learn about the different angles on the challenges posed and solutions tried. And, please share what you have done in your own setting.

WCET Steering Committee Student ROI Working Group

Jory Hadsell – California Virtual Campus
Adam Cota – Western Governors University
Justin Louder – Texas Tech University
Chantae Recasner – Northeast Lakeview College
Shannon Riggs – Oregon State University

Tags , , ,
Categories
Practice

“I’m Sick with COVID – but I’ll Get Caught up this Week” – Supporting Students Through a Pandemic with CTU Messenger

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date September 28, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

Welcome to our continued celebration of 2021 WOW awardees! We’re joined today by Connie Johnson and Ellise Farber, both from Colorado Technical University, who were nominated this year for the Messenger app via CTU Mobile, which provided real time communication opportunities and help to struggling students.

Frontiers is currently hosting our annual blog post series featuring posts from our 2021 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award Winners.

This year we took a slightly different focus and asked for stories that described the intensely hard work that WCET member institutional staff, instructors, administrators, and students heroically stepped up with to the meet the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Congratulations to the 2021 WOW awardees:

  • Colorado Technical University.
  • Miami University Regionals E-Campus.
  • University of Alabama.
  • University of Louisville.
  • University of North Dakota.
  • University of Texas at San Antonio.

Congrats and thank you to Colorado Technical University and the digital learning heroes highlighted in today’s post. Stay tuned for the rest of this blog series as we lead up to this year’s WCET Annual Meeting!

Enjoy the read and enjoy your day,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

A registered nurse who wanted to further her education, Susie Student was thrilled when she was accepted into Colorado Technical University’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. Her first few classes went well. However, in early 2020, Susie found herself struggling to balance her schoolwork along with working increasingly long hours at the hospital battling the front lines against COVID.

Battling on the Front Lines – While in School

Between the stress of the global pandemic and exhaustion from double-shifts, it was very difficult for Susie to participate in class and she found herself completely overwhelmed.

Fortunately, Susie had access to CTU’s mobile app and could quickly message her faculty member, through the two-way Messenger tool, to let her know why she was having trouble getting her assignments done. Not only was her faculty member able to help, but Susie’s outreach through Messenger and mention of COVID raised flags in CTU’s reporting systems, which helped Susie’s broader support team identify that she was struggling. Her student success advisor could then proactively reach out to Susie with specific tools and information to help her with time and stress management, including connecting her with peers dealing with similar problems.

example of messenger app with a new message conversation
CTU Mobile App – Messenger Conversation

Real Time Communication and Help

Susie is just one of the more than 20,000 CTU students who use CTU Messenger every month to connect directly with their faculty, university staff, and their classmates. While CTU has many ways for students to provide feedback about the challenges of today, a growing number of students do not respond to email, phone, surveys, or other traditional methods of outreach. CTU is delighted that the use of Messenger, accessible through CTU’s mobile app as well as its Learning Management System, is a widely-used mode of communication between students and faculty and staff. CTU Messenger provides an avenue for real-time communication about coursework, technology challenges, or any other issues related to the pandemic, natural disasters, and family and work challenges.

…thanks for reaching out. No, everything isn’t alright. I’ve been battling with COVID and just received my phone last night…

In 2020, more than 80 percent of CTU’s population used Messenger to send 240,000+ conversations and nearly 3.3 million exchanges. These conversations provide a vast reservoir of insights into the issues that students face which prevent them from successfully completing their degrees.

Finding the True Impact

Recent data from a representative sampling indicates that faculty messages sent to students through CTU Messenger are opened an average of 83 percent of the time.

We at CTU wanted to understand more about how the Messenger tool was being used. We gathered the messages sent through Messenger to see if there were overarching themes or issues we could address.

To collate the messages into themes, as well as actionable data, CTU’s marketing and academic teams uses Kapiche, a text analysis-reporting tool that utilizes machine learning and natural language processing algorithms, including Google Sentiment Analysis, to discern sentiment, trends, and themes in student comments. Given the size and complexity of text data, due to the volume of students using Messenger, this reporting is critical to identifying and responding effectively to student issues.

…apologize for slacking, I’ve just been super sick with covid for about a week now. I will get caught up this week. Thank you for checking in on me.


For example, when the pandemic began in early 2020, CTU mobilized Kapiche to identify how students talked about the pandemic and the challenges it was causing to their lives. If a student messaged to say that they, or a family member, were in distress using identified language concepts such as hospital, illness, economic hardship, or job challenges, faculty and student advising were equipped to reach out in real-time and offer support. Academics also used insights into what students were experiencing to enhance faculty outreach and communication expectations, as well as to adjust a number of academic policies for students impacted by the pandemic and to provide additional communications to students each session. More specifically, faculty responded to messages by working with the university to adjust late policies for student work and incomplete policies for courses. Referrals to student advising for support in scheduling, time management, and stress management also increased during this time.

Kapiche COVID Concept Mapping
Kapiche COVID Concept Mapping

When CTU first developed the Messenger app, the university believed this communication tool would help increase communication between the University and CTU students. What we could not foresee, however, is that Messenger’s accessibility on mobile and on the Learning Management System would lead students to increase and deepen their engagement with the University.

CTU Messenger has engaged CTU’s academic, student advising, and marketing teams to help thousands of students just like Susie with real-time assistance during the pandemic. An additional benefit is to build off this strong foundation for ongoing, targeted student outreach through the development of new tools designed to address specific student needs. We are excited to see what the future brings!

 
Tags , , , ,
Categories
Practice

A Network Rooted in Quality & Innovation

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date September 23, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

Welcome to our continued celebration of 2021 WOW awardees! We’re joined today by Melissa Vito and Claudia Arcolin, both from The University of Texas at San Antonio who shared the following post about UTSA’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their “non-negotiable objective” was to “continue to innovate and deliver a high-quality education despite the unprecedented circumstances.” Read on to learn how the UTSA teams met that objective.

Frontiers is currently hosting our annual blog post series featuring posts from our 2021 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award Winners.

This year we took a slightly different focus and asked for stories that described the intensely hard work that WCET member institutional staff, instructors, administrators, and students heroically stepped up with to the meet the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Congratulations to the 2021 WOW awardees:

  • Colorado Technical University.
  • Miami University Regionals E-Campus.
  • University of Alabama.
  • University of Louisville.
  • University of North Dakota.
  • University of Texas at San Antonio.

Congrats and thank you to the University of Texas at San Antonio and the digital learning heroes highlighted in today’s post. Stay tuned for the rest of this blog series as we lead up to this year’s WCET Annual Meeting!

Enjoy the read and enjoy your day,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

A still from the production Defining Moments, an interdisciplinary project that asked students to reflect on 2020 and document their feelings, fears, and hopes during the global pandemic. Three dancers stand still with heads bowed.
A still from the production Defining Moments, an interdisciplinary project that asked students to reflect on 2020 and document their feelings, fears, and hopes during the global pandemic. Watch Defining Moments on VIMEO.

A Non-Negotiable Objective

Students were away at Spring Break 2020 when UTSA President Taylor Eighmy and the university’s senior leadership team decided that we would cease all in-person classes for three weeks – and then, ultimately, for the remainder of the spring semester. The Coronavirus pandemic was beginning to ripple worldwide, forcing organizations to find alternative ways to conduct business while federal, state, and local governments were mandating quarantine measures or strongly encouraging people to stay at home. 

Like many other institutions, we had monitored the initial outbreak and were taking stock of our options and existing resources. We decided on one non-negotiable objective – that we would continue to innovate and deliver a high-quality education despite the unprecedented circumstances. We wanted to create a bold online learning experience that went beyond being familiar with new tools and instead emphasized digital fluency.

Key Investments and Decisions Pave the Way

Digital Learning Tools

Luckily, we didn’t have to build everything from scratch. UTSA had made key investments in digital resources and tools, notably becoming the only public university in Texas certified as an Adobe Creative Campus. In late 2019, UTSA was only 1 of 38 schools worldwide with that distinction. 

Digital Learning Prep and Coaching

UTSA notified students that it was immediately extending Spring Break by a week. It bought our team in UTSA’s Office of Academic Innovation a critical five additional days to prepare every faculty member to provide online instruction, even though most had never taught in a digital learning environment. 

It was clear that we had to quickly disseminate a suite of materials, but simply distributing tutorials and tools wouldn’t be enough. If we were going to overcome faculty hesitation, we needed to create a group of digital learning ambassadors to encourage confidence and comfort with online instruction.

Our 50 Faculty Champions and Points of Contact became trusted sources of information amidst the fear and disruption of the pandemic. As peer mentors, they were embedded in colleges to help us distribute information to their colleagues. They were vital figures in helping their peers learn how to broadcast lectures – but, more importantly, they took part in reimagining how we help our students learn. Faculty Champions and Points of Contact were selected by their college’s dean, so organizational buy-in was baked-in from the beginning.

“Faculty were able to obtain assistance both within their departments and from a larger support structure, so they felt confident seeking help from colleagues who were familiar with their course content.”

Arturo Montoya, Faculty Champion,
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Together, we held listening sessions and met individually with groups of students and faculty. In addition, we engaged the student and faculty representative organizations and conducted system-wide surveys.

From the feedback, our team in Academic Innovation created extensive resources and guidance to help faculty succeed online. We designed and conducted intensive Blackboard Learn bootcamps at the start of the transition online, and within one week, offered 40 live sessions to all departments. We provided each college with an instructional designer to implement new online teaching and learning practices. We also shared services that may seem small but significantly impact the student experience – like when we counseled faculty on how to stage their home workspaces to be optimized for online broadcasts.

Traditionally the center of campus activity, UTSA’s Sombrilla Plaza was quiet through much of 2020 after all classes moved online. Photo by freelance photographer Mark Humphries.

Faculty Champions helped their colleagues gain confidence in their online teaching capabilities by offering one-on-one peer mentoring and identifying actions to support student success. Ultimately, our team and the Faculty Champions trained more than 1,000 instructors in less than a week to move 2,298 courses online.

Once students returned online after Spring Break, we continued to listen to their feedback and helped faculty tweak or improve their courses. We also obtained new tools and licenses that helped us continue to enrich the student experience and improve accessibility. Initiatives like Gamify Physics, for example, helped transport our students across the world and show the diversity and expertise of physics professors that more closely resembled our majority non-white campus. 

Supporting and Connecting the UTSA Community

Even with all these tools and strategies, we still needed to combat the isolation and loneliness of COVID-19 and social distancing. So UTSA, with the help of Faculty Champion Jodi Peterson and many others, developed an interdisciplinary project to help spur interactions between students. We provided students with an opportunity to capture this moment in their lives. It was not just an exercise in experiential learning — the project connected them to each other, encouraged deep thinking in a virtual environment, and provided future historians with the feelings, fears, and hopes of our students through tangible artifacts that would last beyond this moment in time. 

What it All Led To – Our Defining Moments

Defining Moments showcases the creative and collaborative prowess of the Roadrunner community. More than 500 students across six disciplines were invited to participate in the project. They worked with faculty in history, English, art, music, dance, and architecture to turn their reflections into creative and expressive works. Students utilized collaborative tools, like Adobe, and leveraged the expertise of instructors who had been shown how to excel in digital learning environments. Academic Innovation’s team captured interviews, shot videos, and placed students’ creative output together in an artifact repository.

Faculty Champions and Points of Contact were critical to successfully flipping operations online and reimagining how we deliver an inclusive, equitable, and engaging education in a digital setting. Many of the strategies we implemented during the beginning of the pandemic are now standard practice at UTSA. Faculty Champions and Points of Contact continue to inform UTSA’s work to build better student resources. They ensured that UTSA continued to deliver high-quality education to our students regardless of the volatile world or how students come to the classroom.

Tags , , , ,
Categories
Practice

Lessons Learned Providing Instructional Design and Technology Support at the Onset of COVID-19

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date September 22, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

Welcome to our continued celebration of 2021 WOW awardees! We’re joined today by Alicia Montgomery Dunlap and Aimee Greene both from the University of Louisville, who wrote the following post about the outstanding work from the staff with Louisville’s Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning. Alicia and Aimee share several lessons learned from the remote shift facilitated by their Instructional Design and Technology and Blackboard Learning and Technology Teams. These lessons are helpful as we continue to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as we consider emergency and crisis management in the future.

Frontiers is currently hosting our annual blog post series featuring posts from our 2021 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award Winners.

This year we took a slightly different focus and asked for stories that described the intensely hard work that WCET member institutional staff, instructors, administrators, and students heroically stepped up with to the meet the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Congratulations to the 2021 WOW awardees:

  • Colorado Technical University.
  • Miami University Regionals E-Campus.
  • University of Alabama.
  • University of Louisville.
  • University of North Dakota.
  • University of Texas at San Antonio.

Congrats and thank you to the University of Louisville and the digital learning heroes highlighted in today’s post. Stay tuned for the rest of this blog series as we lead up to this year’s WCET Annual Meeting!

Enjoy the read and enjoy your day,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

The Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning was the touchstone for University of Louisville faculty and students alike as the COVID-19 pandemic forced courses to move online. Our Instructional Design and Technology team and Blackboard Learning and Technology team worked in tandem daily to meet faculty technology and instructional design needs, so we were able to move swiftly to coordinate support efforts for faculty learning to teach remotely for the first time. In the process, we learned several lessons about agility, scalability, and future support. Today we’re excited to share those lessons learned with you.

Lesson 1: Leverage existing systems, relationships, and processes.

Our first major lesson learned was to lean on existing programs and processes as much as possible.  

The University of Louisville has been offering online programs and courses since 2000. Because of this, we had already developed several systems and processes to support online learning. At the start of COVID-19, our challenge was scaling what was already in place. These systems, in addition to existing collaborative relationships, allowed us to respond quickly.

The University of Louisville requires that a course shell be created for every course in the university’s learning management system, Blackboard. This saved a very time and labor-intensive step when needing to move courses online quickly. With these shells already in place, we were able to help faculty add course content immediately.

Additionally, the university had an existing Continuity of Instruction plan, which was updated and communicated to faculty annually. While the Continuity of Instruction plan was intended primarily to address disruptions due to inclement weather, this plan gave a solid foundation for moving all courses online at the start of COVID-19. Finally, the university’s Center for Teaching and Learning leveraged a number of existing training programs to provide support without the need to develop new modules and training content.

Lesson 2: Pivot support as university needs change.

The second big lesson learned was to be flexible when offering programs and other types of support.

inforgraphic about increased support at UL. 146 training opportunities for faculty 7,400 one-on-one consultations by support teams 4,800 blackboard helpdesk ticks (increased by 35% over 2019)

We rolled out four waves of support to meet faculty needs at different times and as the university’s response to COVID developed. Trainings were offered in-person, remote or self-paced. The initial wave of training was launched in March 2020, just three days after the university’s decision to move online. We developed and offered three subsequent waves of training in April, July and October to prepare for the summer, fall and spring semesters. Sessions and resources were focused on topics and tools prioritized based on faculty feedback.

To offer these trainings, we established six cohorts arranged by discipline within Blackboard. The cohorts had access to a dedicated instructional designer, paced and self-paced resources, modules, and recordings of live sessions. Establishing cohorts of faculty allowed individual instructional designers to focus on a single discipline and limited the number of users in each group, making interactions easier to manage.

During these four waves, we offered 146 training opportunities attended by 2,187 faculty for a total of 2,701 hours. In addition to formal trainings, we also provided over 7,400 consultations in 2020 (more than 2.5 times the number held in 2019), serving 1,231 faculty and 3,444 hours.

Lesson 3: Upgrade support systems to scale.

Our next lesson learned was to ensure adequate support coverage outside regular business hours.

To ensure maximum help desk support, we added weekend coverage and extended evening support hours until 10 p.m., including 24/7 on-call hours. Blackboard’s help desk processed 4,800 tickets in 2020 – approximately 35% more than in 2019, without adding any staff members. Eighty percent of those tickets were closed within our goal of 48 hours. We leveraged existing ticketing and support systems, as well as a new, cloud-based call center platform that allowed us to respond to evening and weekend calls without adding staff. These tools also provided data used to make decisions about help desk hours and support, which were reduced after the initial pivot to online instruction. However, extended hours remain that were not available pre-pandemic.

The help desk is staffed by the Blackboard and Learning Technology team, instructional designers and students. Student employees were involved in decisions about extending hours and volunteered to be included in the call support pool. We also set up Microsoft Teams and text groups to be able to communicate with each other in case there was an issue someone couldn’t address while on call.

photo collage of the blackboard help desk team at UL

Lesson 4: Keep what works and continue to iterate.

Our final lesson – once you level up, don’t look back. Just keep moving forward.

The outlook on online education has shifted. If there is one thing we’ve learned, it’s that there is no going back.

Given this new outlook, several departments shifted their vision to offering fully online programs – and quickly. Between March and December 2020, we launched 12 new online programs, compared to only five programs within the same timeframe in 2019. The number of students enrolled in fully online programs for our summer and fall 2020 terms exceeded the prior year by 33% and 41% respectively, helping the university realize its highest enrollment in more than 20 years.

Our Instructional Design and Blackboard teams continue to support this growth in online programs and courses. We see that faculty have retained and are using skills they acquired during the pandemic as they return to in-person instruction (using Blackboard course shells to collect assignments, for instance). In fact, as most faculty have mastered the basics and have access to self-help resources in their Blackboard cohorts, help desk tickets are down 20% for the first few weeks of the 2021 fall semester as compared to pre-pandemic numbers. Now, we are shifting our professional development offerings so instructors can level up their skills.

We are continuing to support our Blackboard cohorts by adding new faculty and updating resources for online and hybrid instruction as well as technology tools. This has become a go-to resource for our faculty with questions about online and hybrid instruction. The Blackboard team continues to offer extended support hours and is considering additional ways to streamline support, such as a self-service knowledge-base.

By keeping many of our extended support systems in place, we are prepared to address faculty needs as the online education landscape continues to evolve.

Tags , , , ,
Categories
Policy

What is “NEXUS” for higher ed? Considerations for a multi-state workforce

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date September 15, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

As the COVID-19 pandemic lurches on, many employers, including postsecondary institutions, are navigating the reality of what many feel is the future of work: remote employment. By the end of 2021, its predicted that over a quarter of the workforce will remain remote. Furthermore, its estimated that 36.2 million Americans will work remotely by 2025, an increase of 16.8 million people from pre-pandemic rates. While these are astounding statistics, many higher education leaders nationwide are trying to consolidate the necessity of remote work, even as our society pushes into a new culture of work modality. Whether that future means more hybrid or fully remote employment options, these leaders are struggling to preserve some semblance of their traditional campus or organizational cultures or find a balance to move forward. It’s an unenviable position.

Presumably, with more flexible work options in a growing, digitized economy, increased interest and opportunities for movement will follow. Recruitment and worker mobility outside of the institution’s physical location or state may carry implications for both short and long-term work arrangements. Regardless of intentionality or emergency response, an increase to an institution’s out-of-state footprint triggers a critical reality and complexity of our country: We are one country, comprised of 54 unique states and territories, each with their own laws and regulations. States maintain a role and authority to oversee activities within their respective borders.

Management of faculty, instructors, and/or staff in multiple jurisdictions necessitates the need to be mindful of and comply with complex legal issues. Today we will discuss some of the many issues pertaining to a multistate workforce. Employment laws are nuanced and ever-changing. Institutions will be well-served to bring together a group of campus stakeholders to align interests, consider the investment and steps to obtain compliance.

Shifting the question – Do you know where your employees are?

Sound familiar? If you are a champion of state authorization for distance learning, you may be sheepishly grinning as you recall the key question… “Do I know where my students are?”

A multi-state workforce follows a similar principle to traditional state authorization: institutions who engage in activities outside of their primary state must comply with rules and regulations pursuant to the conditions wherever they may be operating. Instead of focusing on “physical presence” as our standard terminology, we’ll shift to the term “Nexus,” by which we mean ‘a relationship or connection between two or more entities which creates a legal presence.’ In tax law, it’s a relationship between a taxing authority, such as a state, and a business. Like traditional state authorization, parameters as to what constitutes that “nexus” will vary widely among U.S. states and territories, ranging from:

  • owning or leasing a property,
  • deriving income,
  • storing products or supplies,
  • engaging contract employees,
  • threshold of employees in a locality,
  • an employee working from a home office, etc.

Employee location, or the presence of their home office, is the critical first piece of information to pursue a tangible step on the path to compliance, establishing an initial approval (registration) to operate in a particular locality.

Many institutions will be familiar with some business registration practices, including those which govern “interstate commerce” and are not covered through reciprocity. State oversight of these registration functions will vary by location, and responsibility may fall to the Department of Labor or Treasury, Secretary of State, etc. Non-profit entities may qualify for an exemption, however bonding or other requirements may still be in effect. In many cases, unless the organization obtains and maintains all required state tax exemptions, it may be treated as a for-profit entity. It is likely that a business services, counsel, or other campus office may already be familiar with registration requirements and state-by-state contacts.

Temporary exemptions in response to COVID-19

In response to the challenges of COVID-19, some states offered flexibility and guidance to both employees and employers to accommodate temporary adjustments due to remote work orders.

Many of these are tied to “State of Emergency” orders, and may have expired. Employers should anticipate state variation and should not assume that flexibility has been granted, or will continue into the future.

For example, New Jersey has offered guidance and notice resuming out-of-state corporation registration and tax effective October 1, 2021.

States offering temporary waivers in response to COVID

Worker Classification

Classification is the key to decoding a variety of provisions related to taxation, state employment laws, and benefits. In addition to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), states maintain their own provisions to regulate respective, and in some cases, stricter classification criteria. Simply because an employee is exempt under federal law, does not mean that they follow that same classification under state law. Parameters may stipulate or address wage requirements (nonexempt, exempt, contractor), overtime rules, recordkeeping standards, unemployment, or other leave scenarios, etc. Failure to accurately classify an employee may result in wage penalties, back taxes, back payments to the employee, etc. Misclassification becomes a more complex issue where independent contracting is concerned.

Classification may be particularly impactful when seeking to hire instructional or administrative staff. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor provided FLSA guidance in 2018 addressing “white-collar exemptions” for postsecondary operations, including instruction and student employment. The guidance explains the basis for wage and overtime in several scenarios. However, it also emphasizes that when state law differs from FLSA, an employer must comply with the standard most protective to employees.

Peeling back the layers of taxation

Authority to conduct business

Photo by Mockup Graphics on Unsplash

As previously mentioned, when an employee is working outside the state borders of the employer’s base of operations, it may require the employer to pursue a registration in a particular locality. The registration requirement is critical to establishing employer contributions to fund state programs or compliance with mandates such as unemployment insurance, family or other leave programs, disability or workers compensation.

Both the employer and employee may be subject to a variety of taxes specific to the state, county, and in some cases, even a city. A recent KPMG presentation cited that there are approximately 10,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S. Some payroll software systems or other vendors may offer employers support in navigating tax rates and withholding procedures among the different jurisdictions from which they operate.

Income tax withholding

State law generally requires employers to withhold state income tax based primarily on where an employee performs services, and secondarily where the employee resides.

In 43 states and Washington, D.C., a remote employee typically receives a tax credit or deduction from their home state and will file a second return as a “nonresident” in their work state. Employers may offer a reminder to their remote employees to adjust withholding in the event one state maintains a higher income tax rate over the other.

In some cases, states who border one another may establish a reciprocal agreement to address incurring tax liability. For example, the Commonwealth of Virginia maintains respective reciprocal agreements (specific parameters apply) with a few neighboring states to simplify income tax for employees. These agreements allow the employee to pay the income tax of the state in which they live, and not the state where they work.

Nonresident and temporary work arrangements

Additionally, the majority of U.S. states have established thresholds as to how long a nonresident may work in a state before an employer is required to withhold state income taxes. Stipulations around these rules will vary. For example, Arizona maintains a 60-day rule before an employer is obligated to withhold income tax. Some state rules may be as short as 14-days, or stipulate an income threshold. This is an important data point for employees who move or travel at increased intervals and localities with additional income sourcing rules.

Convenience and income sourcing rules

Five states, Connecticut, Delaware, Nebraska, New York, and Pennsylvania tax employees where their office is located, even if that office is outside of the employer’s state. This is often referred to as a “convenience” or income sourcing rule. In many of these states, the employee may be denied a tax credit or deduction from taxes paid to another state, potentially resulting in double taxation. Generally, if the employee may only carry out their work in that specific state location, they may be exempt from this rule. Specific conditions by state and the employee’s situation will apply. The following are recent notable and unique developments:

  • Arkansas’ Governor signed a bill in April 2021 amending its convenience rule.
  • Connecticut’s Governor has signed a bill amending its convenience rule for the 2020 year only.
  • The Commonwealth of Massachusetts instituted a new income sourcing rule in March 2020 requiring employees of Massachusetts based employers to pay income tax to the Commonwealth if they were a remote (non-resident) employee during the pandemic. In October 2020, New Hampshire filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that the emergency regulation violates the Commerce and Due Process constitutional provision by imposing tax on New Hampshire residents even though they did not enter Massachusetts to work. New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Iowa filed an amicus brief supporting New Hampshire. Similar suits in other states have escalated in the past, however the U.S. Supreme Court has historically held to the determination that states hold broad latitude to tax in-state activity, including nonresidents on in-state earnings.

As an employer, it’s important to be aware of these rules as they may carry implications for remote employees working in new locations because of the pandemic, working in localities on a short-term basis, or in the long term, have an adverse effect on competitiveness to recruit in a particular state. As an employee, it’s critical to inform your employer of your location to ensure it withholds tax from the correct state.

Action steps to take at the institution

…the expansion of a multi-state workforce introduces a set of complex compliance requirements which require close, coordinated, and detailed communication with a multitude of cross-campus constituents. This team may include the hiring division or department, business operations, general counsel, human resources, payroll, IT, and finance professionals.”

Registration and taxation aside, the expansion of a multi-state workforce introduces a set of complex compliance requirements which require close, coordinated, and detailed communication with a multitude of cross-campus constituents.

This team may include the hiring division or department, business operations, general counsel, human resources, payroll, IT, and finance professionals. The following are few considerations to begin:

  • Re-create your institutional compliance team to align campus stakeholders in the institution’s strategy, procedures, policies, and risks addressing remote work and multistate operations.
  • Institutional contacts in HR and Payroll are critical resources when considering potential remote positions. Payroll services may support compliance functionality for tax purposes, however verification of laws and compliance at the local level should always be encouraged.
  • Well-defined policies are critical:
    • Determine factors and parameters to define which campus positions may be remote.
    • Location is everything. Acknowledge that where employees want to be, and where it is realistic for them to be, may not always align. Consider the institution’s level of risk and investment in investigating specific states and potential issues. Institute language which requires the remote employee to notify the institution if they move or if a current on-premises employee desires to transition into a remote capacity.
    • If fully remote, articulate expectations for in-person engagement, travel, and related expenses.
    • If temporarily remote, define an end date for the work agreement and include parameters for reconsideration or extension.
  • Communicate and document determinations regarding state laws, employee classifications, and agreements meticulously.
  • Schedule an audit: Review the respective state laws, reassess the goal(s) of operating in a multi-state capacity, and revisit the cost-benefit analysis of remote work.
  • Engage and ensure the institution’s government relations contacts are aware of the interest and investments in the institution’s multi-state workforce. Help them stay connected to local laws and congressional interest in efforts to simplify nonresident tax laws such as the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act or the Multi-state Worker Fairness Act.

Student and organizational culture considerations are critical

It can be tempting to allow the burdensome process of managing state-by-state compliance to determine where remote work may occur. However, it’s important to weigh the investment of resources against the strategic direction of the respective department, division, or institution as a whole. I encourage institutions to review the numerous stories shared in the Chronicle of Higher Education over the last several months addressing campus and student culture considerations. Some key conversations to consider in addition to aspect of compliance:

  • How dependent is the program or campus culture on in-person engagement? How does that factor into student support? How has virtual student support been received?
  • What is the goal of remote work? How does it factor into individual roles? Are roles hybrid or fully remote? Are there implications for employee retention?
  • What does the out-of-state(s) expansion achieve? Does it support access to a broader or specific talent pool?

Share your questions, progress, and challenges with WCET & SAN

The information provided in this piece is sourced broadly and intended to provide an overview of some considerations relative to managing a multi-state workforce. I encourage you to evaluate any determinations alongside specific details of the institution, employment situation, and locality with general counsel. There is a myriad of additional state-by-state provisions pertaining to the American’s with Disabilities Act (ADA) or Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), protected class, WARN laws, reimbursement rules, employee privacy, hiring practices, unions, etc. not included in this piece.

Your experiences and reflections navigating these issues are helpful to inform additional research, tools, and conversations with the WCET State Authorization Network (SAN) going forward. Myself and my colleagues would love to hear from you. Please reach out: rstachowiak@wiche.edu or 303-541-0289. If you have questions or want to discuss the considerations presented here, engage the WCET membership through our DISCUSS or SAN Network member communities.

Tags ,
Categories
Practice

Don’t Lick Any Doorknobs and Roll Tide – Virtual Bama Bound and Shifting Operations

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date September 14, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

Today we continue our celebration of 2021 WOW awardees with a post from Rachel S. Thompson, Director, Center for Instructional Technology Office of Information Technology with The University of Alabama. When the higher education world moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alabama’s ITAS and CIT teams collaborated to shift their student orientation online, and then doubled down to help the rest of the university shift operations remote as well.

As started last week, Frontiers is currently hosting our annual blog post series featuring posts from our 2021 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award Winners.

This year we took a slightly different focus and asked for stories that described the intensely hard work that WCET member institutional staff, instructors, administrators, and students heroically stepped up with to the meet the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Congratulations to the 2021 WOW awardees:

  • Colorado Technical University.
  • Miami University Regionals E-Campus.
  • University of Alabama.
  • University of Louisville.
  • University of North Dakota.
  • University of Texas at San Antonio.

Congrats to the University of Alabama and the digital learning heroes highlighted in today’s post. Stay tuned for the rest of this blog series as we lead up to this year’s WCET Annual Meeting!

Enjoy the read and enjoy your day,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

“Hey! Are we going entirely remote?”

“Yup. Faculty and students get an extra week of break. We go fully remote for the rest of the Spring 2020 semester on March 31.”

“Wow…how many Zoom accounts can the System office spin up quickly? How many of the 10,000 courses offered this term are already fully online or meeting virtually?”

“We’ve requested a Pro account for each of the 5,400 instructors and staff. And teaching assistants. Oh and tutors and advisors need them too. 

"About 1,000 of the 10,000 sections this term are fully online now, but every class has a shell in Blackboard as of this morning.”

“Well, I guess we will get them up to speed quickly. Glad instructors and students get an extra week of break. We can use that time to get our cats herded and our ducks in a row. ?”

“Sounds good. I’m going into the office tonight to get my plants and my laptop.”

“Stay safe. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Don’t lick any doorknobs. Roll tide.”

A Quick Shift

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels

In March of 2020, The University of Alabama joined universities across the world in a quick shift to emergency remote teaching.

The conversation above and others like it happened throughout the Capstone, many of them between the Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) and UA’s Department of Instructional Technology and Academic Services (ITAS) as we moved to remote operations. Together, these two teams ensured faculty, staff and students could continue their learning experience during the unprecedented circumstances associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the University of Alabama was thrust into remote operations in March 2020, the ITAS and CIT teams exemplified their on-going commitment to faculty, staff, and students by collaboratively assisting the Department of Orientation in delivering Bama Bound – what we call our student orientation – virtually to over 7,000 incoming Fall 2020 main campus students.

Over the course of a five-week period, ITAS staff provided instructional design, media production and technical support to the development of the online version of the orientation. CIT staff provided technical support for the learning management system and virtual web conferencing sessions.

As a result, the Department of Orientation was able to deliver Bama Bound to all incoming freshmen and their families, in a virtual environment, in preparation for their fall arrival on campus.

It wasn’t just orientation that had to go virtual. Now that orientation was available remotely, we needed to ensure our other operations could shift as well.

screen shot of UA orientation website
Bama Bound orientation information – https://orientation.ua.edu/

Shifting Operations

ITAS and CIT had helped push orientation online, and next the ITAS and CIT teams were called upon to collaboratively provide the entire University of Alabama campus with innovative and creative solutions in the areas of instructional design, technical support for faculty/staff and students, media production, and faculty training. ITAS and CIT expanded available tools and support for:

  • web conferencing,
  • assessment,
  • evaluation and proctoring,
  • accessibility, and,
  • rights and resources and collaborative writing tools,

… to meet the needs of the campus during remote operations.

These collaborative ITAS/CIT initiatives have been implemented at the University of Alabama since March 2020:

  • Delivered Faculty Roundtables and co-offered faculty development sessions to share ideas and explore issues.
  • Developed resources and training about flexible learning modes based on Quality Matters and on Online Learning Consortium suggested practices.
  • Provided online content (from Bama By Distance online courses) for main campus faculty to enhance the delivery of their face-to-face courses that had been moved to the virtual environment.
  • Provided 24/7 technical support, in collaboration with Blackboard Student Services, for all University of Alabama main campus and Bama By Distance students.
  • Opened the University Hall media production studios, using appropriate covid-19 mitigation strategies, so that faculty could record media content for online delivery during remote operations.
  • Developed and promoted resources for on-campus students who were suddenly studying remotely.

As a result of the efforts of ITAS and CIT, the University of Alabama persevered to deliver instruction to students all over the world, and without interruption.

All of our faculty, staff, and students are proud of the work our ITAS and CIT teams accomplished in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remember, don’t lick any doorknobs and Roll Tide!   

Tags , , , , ,
Categories
Practice

Enhancing Quality in Digital Learning

Post author By Lindsey Downs
Post date September 9, 2021
frontiers feature image logo

WCET’s staff and Steering Committee work groups continue their efforts toward increasing access to quality higher education. Previously our work groups have shared incredible research and discussed opportunities for creating a more equitable and inclusive future for higher education and next up we’ll focus on the ROI of digital learning.

Today we’re highlighting to work from our Steering Committee work group on quality in digital learning. This work is ongoing, but today’s post provides real world examples of how postsecondary instructors and administrators can be involved with quality assurance of course design and programs.

We’re thrilled to welcome several members of the work group who discussed quality in digital learning with WCET staff member Megan Raymond. Megan shared several questions on ensuring quality of teaching and learning, especially as we head back to school this fall, and the future of digital learning in higher education. Thank you to today’s interviewees:

  • Brenda Boyd, Senior Academic Director – Program Services with Quality Matters,
  • Gary Chinn, Assistant Dean, Digital Learning, with The Pennsylvania State University,
  • Shannon Riggs, Executive Director, Academic Programs & Learning Innovation, Oregon State University, and,
  • Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Faculty Mentor, Online Teaching & Learning with CCC California Virtual Campus, Online Education Initiative.

I’d like to extend a special invitation to WCET members to join us for our upcoming WCET Closer Conversation on Ensuring Quality in Digital Learning – September 17, 12:00 pm MDT. During this event members of the WCET Steering Committee quality work group will discuss:

  • Quality metrics across modalities,
  • Developing internal policies to drive quality,
  • Integrating continuous improvement and backward design into high-quality course design,
  • Including the voice of the student and ensuring students that they are making a sound investment with their time and money,
  • Quality in program development vs. ensuring quality in mature programs.


Bring your stories and experiences! Registration is free and open to current WCET members but limited to the first 50 registrations. Participants are invited to interact via video and or chat.

Now, onto our interview with Megan and our interviewees!

-Lindsey Downs, WCET

Q: From what lens are you approaching quality in digital learning (i.e., instructional and curriculum, program management, student support, or other)?

Brenda Boyd (BB): Instructional and curriculum, continuous quality improvement, and quality assurance.

Gary Chinn (GC): COVID has asked us to confront so many aspects of quality in digital learning, it’s hard to choose a particular one. While we had strong quality guidelines for the creation of digital course materials for fully online courses, we are now looking to build out resources that address quality in hybrid and synchronous remote classes. This expansion in focus does require that we look more closely at the student experience. What does a better Zoom-based learning experience look like? How might we harness the good thinking that has gone into the past 18 months to make lasting changes to our design practice?

Michelle Pacansky-Brock (MPB): Through the lens of achieving educational equity for all humans.

Shannon Riggs (SR): All the above! Providing high-quality online educational experiences is complex and requires quality assurance measures in several areas. Quality Matters has long used the concept of a “quality pie” to explain which aspect of online education their Higher Education Rubric addresses, course design. Other pieces of the pie are important, too, though they are not directly addressed by the QM Rubric: course delivery, course content, institutional infrastructure, the learning management system, faculty readiness, and student readiness.

Online Learning Quality Pie – Quality Matters

Q: From your vantage point, what are the most significant concerns about quality in digital learning?

BB: The most significant concerns about quality in digital learning include the same concerns we have always had about digital learning. The pandemic has amplified and scaled these concerns and shone a spotlight on the lack of comprehensive support provided to online learners that on-ground students have long had available to them. The key concern is to make clear learning promises and to deliver on them, regardless of modality.

GC: Historically in my role, I have primarily been concerned about the quality of the student experience in fully online programs. In that context, it’s both the quality of the program experience, as well as the quality of individual courses, that have been the focal point.

Because of the work we’ve undertaken to help navigate our response to COVID, quality has taken on new aspects. With the emphasis on hybrid models of learning that I expect going forward, the opportunity ahead of us is to build supports for the thoughtful design of learning opportunities that use digital learning tools in the most beneficial ways possible.

MPB: The most significant concern is the paradox that digital learning presents to the increasingly diverse group of students served by higher education. For decades, online and blended courses have increased access to students who have traditionally been left out of higher education. Increasing access to college for students who are low income, first generation, Black, Hispanic, and other students of color is something to celebrate. But we also know that these same students are less likely to succeed in online courses than their White and Asian peers.

SR: Right now, my main concern is that students, faculty, and administrators might not understand that the emergency remote education is not the same as “traditional” online education – that is, online courses and programs that were intentionally and methodically designed to be delivered in an online format.

What faculty have been able to do with remote instruction during the pandemic has been remarkable. What a feat to pivot to a new way of teaching in such a short and stressful time. At Oregon State, we have heard many times through the pandemic that our faculty who had training and experience in online course design and delivery had a much easier time shifting their campus-based classes to remote courses. However, I’m sure that nation-wide, many faculty who did not have that training and experience struggled.

On the flip side of that concern, though, is a lot of excitement and hope. This is a very exciting time to be working in online education. Experienced online educators are poised to serve as leaders to all who work in higher education right now. Online educators, administrators, instructional designers, and faculty development professionals know a lot about how to design and deliver high-quality online education. Once we move into a post-pandemic era in higher education, it is likely that students will seek the flexibility that blended and online education afford and those more experienced online education leaders can share what they know.

Q: Where do opportunities exist in improving quality of digital learning and/or what opportunities come from improving quality in digital learning (programs, courses, management, etc.)?

BB: Providing professional development for faculty and staff to help support learners across modalities is a major opportunity area. Faculty who never anticipated teaching online are doing so now or have pivoted from emergency remote instruction toward online learning that is more organized and thoughtful. Instructional designers have been amazing allies and supports throughout the pandemic to help faculty learn to use technologies for teaching and how best to leverage them, if faculty did not know already.

No matter where a campus is in terms of their evolution in digital learning, there is always room to improve. If campuses are already on the pathway to continuous improvement, the opportunities that come from that investment include growing programs, increasing enrollments, and improving the student experience. Institutional leadership supporting what works well across the institution is another area of opportunity. Willingness to change and use a growth mindset to learn from this experience and pivot to providing students with quality learning experiences through faculty and staff development will be critical during this time of many models and flexible pathways for student success.

Learner support services and initiatives were highlighted as major drivers of student success in the recent QM President’s Summit report. Through making services and supports available to students in digital environments, all students are helped. How to provide learner and academic support at scale is a big opportunity area for institutions.

GC: I believe that the opportunity we have collectively for improving digital learning is the creation of a more flexible and coherent student experience. Can we marshal the ideas, technologies, and institutional will to create reliable and varied pathways for our learners? This runs the gamut from individual courses through full programs. A quality lens plays an essential role in this transformation because our students will benefit most from learning designs, policies, and supports that are consistent and advance their educational experiences.

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

MPB: Too often, educators (which I use as an inclusive term for all faculty, staff, and administrators) approach quality through the lens of equality, as opposed to equity. Equality implies that it is fair to treat everyone the same. But we know everyone is not the same. An equity lens enables us to see that each student brings unique needs, and our learning and support environments must be responsive in order to be high-quality and meet those needs to ensure all students can succeed.

A great opportunity for improving quality lies in creating institutional cultures that value teaching. Course design rubrics serve a valuable role for faculty but course design is just one side of the coin. Teaching is the other side. In the past ten years, course design rubrics have gained significant traction in quality efforts in online education across the United States. And that work has been important. I can remember when I first saw a course design rubric a few years after I started teaching online. I made really valuable changes to my course, as a result.

But a well-designed course doesn’t translate directly into a meaningful online learning experience that supports the needs of our diverse students. The quality of faculty-student interactions is critical to building trust and motivation in digital learning environments. Cultivating positive instructor-student relationships is a huge opportunity for advancing equity in high-quality digital learning environments. And the moment is ripe for this. Human connection is revitalizing, particularly when a person feels depleted and burned out.

SR: One of the challenges we faced during the pandemic was with exam proctoring. The inability to proctor exams in person was a significant hurdle. Online proctoring helped in many cases, but there are still some concerns about student privacy. To my mind, this means that we have some opportunity to improve our approach to assessment in digital learning.

Peer review tools seem especially promising – they foster active learning and critical thinking while also keeping the grading burden on faculty reasonable. Who doesn’t want rigorous assessment options that aren’t prohibitive workload-wise? Some faculty may have qualms about relinquishing grading to a peer review system, because providing feedback is so much a part of their identity as an educator. The research on these systems is very promising and I believe that once faculty understand how critical their input is in the design process of an assignment using a tool like this, and that they can override a grade in the rare cases when something goes awry, that they may be more open to using these kinds of tools.

Q: As we enter the 2021 Fall semester, what is top of mind regarding high-quality digital teaching and learning? From your perspective, this could mean a high-quality learning experience, a high-quality teaching experience, or supporting high-quality teaching and learning?

BB: What’s top of mind is how administration and faculty support must be in place to support students as they enter a precarious and uncertain academic year. How is the institution committing to supporting quality teaching and learning through faculty support and student support? Providing these crucial services at scale challenges the most committed institution because it is the culture of the institution that may need to pivot now to support learning. Culture eats strategy for breakfast, so said Peter Drucker, so institutions will need to align their strategies with their institutional cultures to drive successful change.

GC: For this fall, what is top of mind for me is broadly the professional development aspect. How can we support instructors who might be experiencing new teaching modalities, new tools, and very unpredictable environments? What do they need most right now? How can they hear from students in a way that might benefit teaching practice? How do we introduce instructors to tools that may be of benefit, while being mindful not to overwhelm people who are navigating a very stressful experience? So, a collaborative strategy for the provision of guidance and tools is part of what’s on my mind this fall.

MPB: We need to shift mindsets about online courses and misperceptions about quality. One thing we can do more of is locating bright spots from the past year and a half – and you must believe that there are bright spots. Have faculty at your institution been given the opportunity to share why they love teaching online? Or share something they are proud of about their course? Create a stage for these examples and be sure to cast a wide net to include a diverse array of faculty in your efforts.

From my experiences working with and supporting educators who teach at a distance, online professional development can also shift mindsets about online courses. When an educator participates in an online program facilitated by an engaged, empathetic instructor with high expectations, they begin to comprehend how relationships can be developed at a distance and fuel intrinsic motivation. Faculty want to be proud of their courses. If they haven’t experienced an online learning experience that inspires them, how will they see that high-quality online teaching can be transformative? And if they don’t have the digital fluency to use technologies beyond a learning management system, then we aren’t serving them as we should.

SR: Top of mind for me heading into fall is investing in the continual improvement of mature online programs at Oregon State, in addition to developing exciting new online programs. I am especially interested in exploring standards for online program quality that will help us set stretch goals for improving our students’ educational experiences and collaborate with academic partners using a common language around online program management.

Q: What effective strategies have you implemented at your institution or what piece of advice do you have to share regarding quality in digital learning with the WCET Community?

GC: I think it’s been a plus to have an established quality assurance design standards for digital learning experiences. These standards have been around for years, and address aspects like accessibility, orientation, learning activities, assessments, and student feedback for course improvements. While the standards were built with fully online courses in mind, the framework was a great starting place when supporting large-scale remote teaching. One positive outcome of all we’ve learned might be that more institutions could establish their own quality standards. We’ve all learned so much that could benefit a resource like that.

Photo by Lagos Techie on Unsplash

BB: My best advice is to define a measurable goal and work toward it incrementally. A commitment to continuous improvement with incremental change is a path that everyone can follow. Save big changes for when there are blocks of time to devote to redesign or work in parallel. Have a goal and work toward it in small ways regularly.

MPB: As institutions move forward with Diversity-Equity-Inclusion (DEI) efforts, we must recognize that each of us plays a role in creating a more inclusive and equitable future for all.

SR: One strategy I am especially excited would be the Oregon State Ecampus Online Teaching Principles. These research-based principles help faculty new to online education appreciate what good online teaching looks like, and help experienced faculty reflect on their teaching practice. As a Quality Matters institution, we felt we had a strong foundation for online course design, but we felt there was a need for a tool that could paint a picture of what good online teaching looks like, after the design work is completed. We made our teaching principles openly available under a Creative Commons license to help fill that gap for other institutions that felt the need to better support online teaching.

Q: Other comments/reflections?

BB: Every institution and their faculty and staff are in a different place with their efforts toward quality. Getting the right people at the table to implement any kind of quality assurance plan is the first step. The next step is defining goals. What is important to administrators may not be the same things that are important to faculty, so those conversations are crucial to coming to common goals that enable everyone to achieve them. When those goals are not met, what supports are in place to enable continuous improvement?

Lastly, I know that Every Learner Everywhere has put out resources including the Playbooks that are very helpful for online course planning and helping faculty do incremental changes to their courses. QM has also provided the Bridge to Quality: An Online Course Design Guide that is free to everyone. It is designed as “an instructional designer at your elbow” for those who don’t have instructional design resources available to them at their campus to help them move online in an intentional and quality way. The design process is aligned to QM Standards and helps faculty ensure they include important things in their courses such as institutional policies and links to support services for students.

SR: The pandemic and the need to provide instruction remotely has pushed higher education to be more student-centric in how we deliver education. I believe that students will now (rightfully) expect a student-centered approach to continue. Experienced online educators know a lot about delivering education in a student-centered manner and have much to offer higher ed in leading us to more student-centered ways of doing business. There’s never been a more exciting time to be working in online, blended, and digital education.

Thank you again to our wonderful interviewees and interviewer for today’s discussion. Remember to register now for our WCET member-only Closer Conversation on quality in digital learning, September 17, 12:00 pm MDT!

Thank you to our interviewees:

 

  • Brenda Boyd, Quality Matters
  • Gary Chinn, The Pennsylvania State University
  • Shannon Riggs, Oregon State University

  • Michelle Pacansky-Brock, CCC California Virtual Campus, Online Education Initiative.

 

Tags , ,