Division of Continuing Education, Harvard University

Distance Education Evaluation

Division of Continuing Education, Harvard University

Chapter 1

Understanding Distance Education

Distance Education Evaluation

Division of Continuing Education, Harvard University

Acknowledgements 2

Key Findings and Recommendations 3

Structure of the Report 4

Chapter 1: Understanding Distance Education 6

Introduction 6

Distance Learning at DCE 6

Research Strategy 7

Study Design 8

Student Survey 8

Faculty Interviews 10

Chapter 2: Student Experience with Distance Courses 13

Introduction 13

Results 13

The Demand for Adult Education at DCE 14

The Demand for Specific Courses 15

The Demand for Distance Courses 17

Classroom plus Internet 18

Satisfaction and Experience with Distance Capabilities 23

Student Survey Follow-up 28

Chapter 3: The Views of the Faculty 38

Introduction 38

Going Distance 39

Why do it? 39

Advantages and Disadvantages of Distance 40

Readiness to teach the course 42

The Practice of Distance 42

The impact of distance on teaching performances 42

Attending to Students and the Role of the TF 46

The Creation of Community 47

Conclusions 47

Appendix A: Student Questionnaire 49

Appendix B: Interview Guide for Faculty 58

Acknowledgements

This report was sponsored by the Harvard University Division of Continuing Education (DCE). We are particularly grateful to Len Evenchik, Director of Distance and Innovative Education at DCE, who took the initiative to have us carry out this evaluation. Throughout all the phases of our work, Len offered unflagging interest, support, and guidance. This research was supported generously by the Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Instructional Technology and Distance Education, and we are thankful to Elizabeth Hess for helping us to frame the original proposal. Our report has benefited from the contributions of many individuals at DCE: Dodge Fernald, who served as faculty advisor, Mary Higgins, Henry Leitner, James Peregrino, Tim Kelly, Susan McGee, Colin Kegler, Brenda Mahoney, Jan Jackson, and others. We also wish to acknowledge the guidance and support provided by Dean Michael Shinagel, the careful editing of Wayne Ishikawa, and the production help from the Promotions Office. We often asked DCE staff to accommodate our requests, and they did so in a spirit of collegiality. We thank the i-Commons group for granting us the opportunity to present a preliminary version of this work, and offering useful feedback. We are grateful also to the DCE faculty who gave us their time, and to the students who voluntarily provided us with data and insights.
Executive Summary

The explosion of distance education at the post-secondary school level in the United States has captured the attention of faculty, students, university administrators, and the corporate community. As technological advances that improve course delivery over the Internet coincide with labor market changes and increased demand for learning opportunities, questions about the future of distance education are foremost in the minds of many academic planners and policy makers.

For the past six years, Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education (DCE) has made a small number of its courses available to local and distance students over the Internet. In order to assist in its planning and strategy, DCE commissioned an evaluation of its distance offerings that attempted to address the following issues:

¨ Should the program expand, and if so, how fast?

¨ Why do students choose DCE for distance courses?

¨ How does distance education change the teaching and learning that goes on at DCE?

This report details the first phase of work in a multi-year process of strengthening the distance program by developing a greater capacity to create innovations in distance learning and to incorporate evaluation. It presents the findings of research carried out in the spring 2001 term, grounding them in an understanding of contemporary debates and management models related to distance learning.

Key Findings and Recommendations

The results of our study support a growth strategy for DCE’s distance education program. Not only did the courses receive high overall marks but both students and faculty were also enthusiastic in their support for distance courses. In addition, distance courses appear to generate increased demand for the distance modality in the future: once students take a course with a distance component, they are more likely to want that option again. We believe that the strategy for growing the program should include:

¨ Focus growth on ‘hybrid’ courses, those that offer both live classroom meetings and Internet video availability.

¨ Consider expanding foundation courses in the degree and certificate programs.

¨ Courses with a technology focus or content are an appropriate area for distance growth.

¨ Develop incentives for faculty members to put their courses online

¨ Distance courses should have a one- to two-year rollout.

¨ Evaluation and adoption of some of the Harvard iCommons tools.

¨ Continued study and evaluation before growing the number of Internet-only courses.

Students chose DCE distance courses for a variety of reasons. Local students are attracted by the convenience; not always having to attend class allows them to combine hectic work and family lives with being able to pursue further education. The Harvard University image and reputation is also important for the distance program. Students from outside the Boston area are attracted to DCE in part because of the Harvard name and reputation. The farther from campus, the more important the Harvard brand. Given what we have learned, we recommend:

¨ Different marketing strategies for local and non-local students.

¨ Demands for education may change, but DCE must maintain its standards and academic focus.

¨ Any rise in fees should be done with an overall price increase, not a targeted increase in the distance courses.

Teaching and learning at DCE have changed in the distance courses. Faculty and students alike are experimenting and struggling with issues of how to create communities in the classroom and online. Teaching styles are changing in some cases and the nature of teaching is also changing. Given these changes we suggest:

¨ Instituting some differential but not preferential treatment of distance.

¨ Better training for course personnel.

¨ Help faculty adapt teaching styles to both classroom and distance audience.

¨ Continued study to understand better how different student learning styles interact with technologies.

Structure of the Report

This report begins with a discussion of the distance education program at DCE and highlights some of the important issues raised in the literature that guided our research. Chapter Two presents the results of the survey and follow-up interviews we administered to students enrolled in distance courses at DCE. Chapter Three analyzes the structured interviews conducted with faculty members in the distance program. Chapter Four offers our recommendations to DCE about where we see potential for growth and how to focus on teaching and learning practices that will enhance the distance program.

March 2002

Draft -– Do not copy or circulate

Distance Education Evaluation

Division of Continuing Education, Harvard University

Chapter 1: Understanding Distance Education

Introduction

As technological advances that allow for better mechanisms of course delivery over distance coincide with changes in the labor market, changes in the type and number of students and an increased demand for learning opportunities, questions about the future structure and provision of higher education are foremost in the minds of many academic planners and policy makers.

For several years, Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education (DCE) has made a small number of its courses available to local and distance students over the Internet. In order to assist in its planning and strategy development for distance education as it looks ahead, DCE felt it an opportune time to undertake an evaluation of its current offerings. In particular DCE wanted to focus on: whether the program should expand and at what pace, to determine why students choose DCE for distance courses, and to understand how the teaching and learning at DCE changes as the result of distance education. This report details the findings of our evaluation, grounding them in an understanding of contemporary debates about pedagogical issues and management models related to distance learning. It also offers suggestions and recommendations for the future of distance education at DCE.

Distance Learning at DCE

In order to contextualize the research presented here, we start with a brief overview of distance education at DCE. In 2000–01 there were 25 distance education courses with more than 2,200 students, of whom approximately 10 to 15 percent were taking the classes exclusively at a distance either because they were living far from Harvard or because their schedule did not permit attendance in class. (In 2002, 32 courses had been made available via the Internet.) Course lectures along with other course-related material can be viewed on video over the Internet by students anywhere in the world. Registered students, including those in the Boston area, have the option of attending lectures when they are given on campus or watching them online. In some cases, courses are available online only. Students view lectures on the Internet through streaming video (video that is being fed to the user as it is being viewed.) Further information regarding the Distance Education program can be found on the Distance Education website; http://www.extension.harvard.edu/distanceed.

All students registered in a Distance Education course have access to the videos, regardless of whether they attend live lectures or not. Lecture videos are made available 48 hours after the live lecture and they remain online for the duration of the semester. DCE has a policy of not videotaping the faces of students present in class. This means that the distance students only hear the voices of their peers. Outside the classroom, much of the communication between teaching staff and students takes place via e-mail and the course website. This is true for both local and distance students. Most courses have a bulletin board or chat room to foster dialogue among students and teaching staff. Some instructors are starting to give special assignments to the distance only students, such as requiring them to post on the bulletin boards. Because students access live lectures asynchronously, they cannot participate in this more interactive arena of the course.

Distance Education and local students follow the same schedule of due dates for assignments and exams. The lag time between the actual lecture and the availability of the online video is taken into account when determining these dates. In the event that a course has an exam, arrangements can be made at a local school to have the exam proctored to the student. Because the Extension School does not distinguish between on-campus and distance students, the transcript does not specify if a course is completed via distance education or not.

Because there are no distance education courses per se, instructors have to propose a course to the Extension School and have it accepted as part of the normal course selection process that takes place each spring. If it is accepted, it might be added to the distance education offerings for the following year. At times the Extension School solicits the courses, at times instructors propose to teach in that fashion.

Over the past several years, DCE articulated the following principles to guide the development of the distance education component:

¨ There are no special noncredit or 1- or 2-unit “distance only” courses. Most Extension School courses are worth 4 units; this implies that all the courses meet a certain academic level. Any new instructional technology (such as DVDs) or new mode of delivering a course (such as the Internet) should not change this academic structure or negatively affect academic rigor. In other words, a course via the Internet should correspond to a regular face-to-face class presented in a Harvard lecture hall.

¨ All students are “the same.” Except for the obvious differences (that a distance student does not attend lectures on campus), students at a distance should be treated in the same manner as local students. When it comes to registration, student/teacher communication, grading, and student evaluation no distinction is made between local and distance students. In fact, at the beginning of the term instructors do not know who in the class is a distance student and who is not. Students who take distance education courses complete the same coursework and receive the same credit as students who take the courses locally.

¨ Technology should not take precedence over learning and teaching. An effort has to be made that technology does not dictate the pedagogical approach. Given that all the courses were large lecture type courses, the steaming video technology seemed to work well.

Research Strategy

The central task faced by this study was to respond to the question of what the pace and direction of growth of distance education at DCE should be. Although the researchers examined the trends in distance education nationally as an important contextual factor that DCE faces in the development of its own program, we also assumed that its actions will be bounded by the need to fulfill and stay faithful to its core mission. That mission is to extend the teaching and research of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to the local community. This concern with DCE’s mission also prompted us to focus on issues of how distance education may change the teaching and learning that occurs at DCE, and how ongoing research on the distance education offered by DCE can provide useful tools and feedback for enhancing the experience of students at both DCE and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Study Design

The research entailed a survey of DCE students enrolled in the distance courses and structured interviews with faculty members teaching in the distance program. In both cases, the questions were designed with the central themes of the study in mind and drew on key issues in the current academic and educational policy literature on distance teaching and learning.

Student Survey

The survey was administered to students enrolled in two types of distance courses at DCE. One was a ‘hybrid’ model, where the classroom lecture is taped and available over the Internet within 24 to 48 hours after delivery, along with Powerpoint slides of the instructor’s notes. Students can attend lecture or not, depending on how convenient it is for them to do so. The second type of course is the ‘all-distance’ course, which is an Internet-only version of a course that was usually filmed a semester earlier. This type of course has no live lectures and all students are distance students. The courses do, however, have live weekly section meetings.