Developing Online Courses

Publication No. 02-743 Developing Online Courses

by William A. Draves, CAE About this publication This is a publication of the Learning Resources Network (LERN), the leading international association in lifelong learning programming, offering information and resources to providers of lifelong learning programs, with more than 5,000 members in 12 countries.

LERN serves a variety of institutions involved in lifelong learning programming, including four-year colleges and universities, community colleges, vocational-technical institutes, public schools, recreation departments, museums, associations, hospitals and health care organizations, community organizations and independent programs.

Established in 1974, LERN is a nonprofit tax-exempt educational organization governed by a Board of Directors. It maintains a 15-person staff in offices across the country.

LERN offers publications, newsletters, seminars, conferences, in- house programs, individual consulting, and membership services.

For more information on available services contact: Learning Resources Network (LERN) PO Box 9 River Falls, Wisconsin 54022 800-678-LERN (5376) www.lern.org

ISBN 1-57722-020-X

© 1998 by Learning Resources Network. All rights reserved by the publisher. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form by any means without written permission from the Learning Resources Network (LERN).

Guarantee This publication is guaranteed. If, for any reason, you are not satis- fied, simply return it within thirty days for a refund. LERN publications are designed to be concise, providing practitioners with only practical, how-to ideas that work. Just one technique or tip from a LERN publication can make, or save, your program hundreds of dollars in increased enrollments, income, or reduced costs.

♦ Developing Online Courses 189 About the Author William A. Draves, CAE, is President of the Learning Resources Network (LERN), the world’s largest consulting organization in lifelong learning.

He attended Carleton College and graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with honors. He did his master’s degree work in adult education at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Draves worked for the Department of Labor and Kansas State University before joining LERN full time. He has served as the executive of LERN since 1976. His current work includes speaking, writing and consulting.

He has been interviewed by NBC Evening News, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” CBS Radio, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and numerous other national magazines and metropolitan newspapers.

Draves’ most recent book is Energizing the Learning Envi- ronment. His book How to Teach Adults is the most popular text in the field, having sold 100,000 copies. His work has been translated into Japanese and Chinese.

Draves has consulted with hundreds of programs and conducted seminars for professionals all over the world, including Germany, England, Canada and Australia.

♦ Developing Online Courses 185 About LERN The Learning Resources Network (LERN) is an international organization in lifelong learning programming, providing information and consulting expertise to providers of lifelong learning programs.

Begun in 1974, LERN serves more than 9,000 professionals every year. LERN provides practical, how-to information on marketing, finances, management, and product development not available anywhere else. Our slogan is “Information That Works.”

Services include publications; newsletters; seminars, conferences, institutes and in-house training programs; and consulting to members and others. LERN operates a service on the Internet of more than 500 reports on the management and marketing of continuing education programming.

LERN serves a wide variety of institutions, including state universities, four-year colleges, private colleges, community colleges, vocational technical institutes, schools and colleges within universities, associations, public schools, recreation departments, museums, community agencies and private businesses.

More than 100 professionals are involved in the LERN leadership. Professional consultants and staff of 15 are located in offices across the United States.

LERN provides the best investment of your consulting For More Information dollars, yielding ten times your investment in increased enrollments, higher income or saved costs.

Consulting is done on site, via phone, and correspondence, and at the LERN headquarters office. It is available on a one time basis or annual retainer basis.

For more information, contact us at 800-678-5376; fax: 888-234-8633; e-mail: [email protected]; or visit our web site at http://www.lern.org.

♦ Developing Online Courses 186 Contents I. Introduction II. How the Internet Will Change How We Learn Overview...... 4 How the Internet Will Change In-Person Learning ...... 9 The Era of Lifelong Learning ...... 10 Learning on the Internet ...... 11 III. What an Online “Classroom” Looks Like Written and Graphic Technology ...... 14 Audio Technology ...... 18 Video ...... 19 The LERN Model for an Online “Classroom” ...... 20 Online Classroom Providers ...... 28 IV. How to Develop an Online Program How to Develop Your Online Courses ...... 35 The Economics of Online Learning ...... 38 Steps to Establish Your Global Niche ...... 41 Strategy, Vision and Position ...... 49 Building Online Content ...... 55 Contracting with Online Instructors ...... 65 How to Offer CEUs Online ...... 80 V. Budgeting Online Programs The Finances of Online Programs ...... 83 Pricing Online Programs...... 86 Teacher Pay ...... 88 VI. Promoting Online Programs Your Marketing Strategy ...... 92 E-Mail Promotion ...... 106 How to Sell Your Online Course ...... 112 How to Buy Online Courses...... 116 VII. Online Program Formats ...... 132 VIII. Keys to Success: Summaries ...... 147 Appendices A. Develop Seven Market Segments for a Successful Program .. 150 B. Your Seven Market Segments ...... 152 C. How to Select Market Niches ...... 156 D. Program Development: Shift from Products to Markets ...... 157 E. Put the Customer in Charge of Your Promotion ...... 160 F. Establish Your USP & Secure Your Market Position ...... 162 G. Building Your Marketing Database ...... 164 H. Demographic Data ...... 164 I. Purchasing History ...... 165 J. Best Database Marketing Strategies ...... 166 K. Your Biggest Asset: “Intellectual Capital” ...... 167 L. Mastering Your Web Site: AIDA Still Applies ...... 171 M. The “Perfect” Course Description ...... 174 N. How to Measure Financial Success ...... 182

♦ Developing Online Courses 190 Part I Introduction Part I. Introduction

The Internet is the biggest technological change in education and learning since the advent of the printed book some 500 years ago. It will destroy the traditional classroom and replace it with an even better way to learn, and to teach. Almost every teacher in America, from professional trainers to college professors to Sunday school teachers, will have to learn a different way of teaching.

Learners will learn more, while working at their own speed, time and manner, over the Internet. The average class will have 1,000 participants; anyone can ask a question and get an individual and personal response from the instructor; a daily test or quiz will tell you exactly what you have mastered, and what areas you still need to work on. Learners will come from all over the world, There will be little and they will form a virtual community that will kindle room for traditional long term relationships. in-person information You will learn from the best teachers in the world. And the cost? Cheap maybe $25 to $50 a course! transfer, because The Internet will not just change how we learn, it will teachers and learners also change the way we learn. Up until now, most all can accomplish so teaching has been information transfer. Information transfer is simply transferring information from the much more using teacher to the learner. This is true of seminars, courses, formal education, training. Some 90 percent of teaching online learning. has been information transfer. A person talks. Others listen and write notes. Discussions, group projects, participant interaction and other kinds of learning are there, but they comprise a distinct minority of the time devoted to learning and teaching. All that will now change.

What the Internet has done is to explode apart the traditional way of teaching and learning, information transfer. The Internet has blown it into two separate and increasingly distinct pieces. 1) Information transfer or cognitive learning; and 2) affective and integrative learning. The In- ternet will dominate the information transfer or cognitive learning. There will be little room for traditional in-person information transfer, because teachers and learners can accomplish so much more using online learning.

In-person or on-site learning will be dominated by affective and integrative learning. This includes group discussions, group learning projects, helping people understand their own learning more fully, helping people unlearn, and much more. In-person or on-site learning

♦ Developing Online Courses 1 will proliferate, but it will look very different from the traditional classroom information transfer of today. The teacher will need more expertise in learning and facilitating learning than in the subject matter. Teachers will need to know how to lead discussions, generate ideas, create and manage constructive dialogue, monitor disagree- ments, and much more.

Information and cognitive learning will be better conducted with online learning. So the role of your online course, seminar or conference is to deliver information faster, better, and with more concrete or tangible learning results acquiring knowledge than traditional classrooms and seminar rooms.

Marketing online programs successfully does not involve simply taking an existing course or program and promot- And each provider, ing it online successful online programs are not an ex- tension of your existing offerings. Instead, they are a radical each one of your departure and reconstruction of your entire program competitors, will try around the new environment that the Internet has created for all of us. to dominate that niche. Not just be a player, Hundreds of thousands of niches

but be THE player, The competition will double and triple. Each provider will choose, or try to choose, a very well defined and tar- the ONLY source geted audience. And each provider, each one of your com- for learning for that petitors, will try to dominate that niche. Not just be a player, but be THE player, the ONLY source for learning for that particular group particular group of people. Niches will range from 10,000 people to 50,000 people. There will be hundreds of thou- of people. sands of providers.

A niche might be all people interested in mango trees. A niche might be everyone interested in the life of Thomas Jefferson. A niche might be everyone interested in the history of France, and so on. In continuing professional education, a niche might be an occupational specialty, such as home care nurses, or secretaries to small town doctors, or female treasurers of large corporations, and so on.

♦ Developing Online Courses 2 About this publication

This publication will show you how to market online courses, seminars and conferences.

We will show you:

What an online classroom or conference center looks like and how it works.

How to develop an online program, including how to choose your topics, audience, formats and teachers.

How to budget your online program, including how to price the program and what to pay your teachers.

How to promote your online program, including us- Marketing online ing traditional direct mail techniques, developing e- mail lists, and finally buying and selling courses. programs involves a Some specific recommendations for various types of whole different online programs, including the annual conference, training for business and industry, continuing profes- approach and strategy. sional education, and credit and degree programs.

It is not a matter of Marketing online programs involves a whole different taking your product to approach and strategy a different paradigm shift if you will. It is not a matter of taking your product to market. market. You will get You will get killed that way. It is a matter of choosing your market and your market niche, and then dominating killed that way. that market niche. With our extensive appendices, we will also present related information on finances, marketing, intellectual capital and other resources.

After reading this publication, you will have gained a long-term strategy to position your program for success on the Internet. You will also have a set of proven techniques for promoting your next online offering successfully.

Welcome to the Information Age. Welcome to the era of lifelong learning. Welcome to online programming.

♦ Developing Online Courses 3 Part II How the Internet Will Change How We Learn Part II. How the Internet Will Change How We Learn

Overview

In Manhattan, Kansas (alias the little Apple), a college town of 50,000 nestled in the beautiful Flint Hills prairie, Mary Smith, a 29-year-old working mother, car- ries a bag of groceries from her car to her house. As she walks up to the door, she sees her next door neighbor, Dr. Tom Brown, a philosophy professor. Im looking forward to your class today, she calls out.

After putting the groceries away, Mary sits down at her computer and logs onto her philosophy class from New Sound unreal, awful, York University (in the Big Apple). She takes the daily quiz to see if she got the main points of yesterdays lec- disconnected, ture, downloads an article in the recommended reading, and then gets into a live chat room with some of the other impersonal or an 1,000 students in the class and the professor teaching the course, Dr. Tom Brown, who, at this moment, is also sit- educational nightmare? ting at his computer in the house next door to Mary, an- Nope, it is online swering questions and posing still more. learning Sound unreal, awful, disconnected, impersonal or an educational nightmare? Nope, it is online learning, and Mary is actually learning more by communicating with Tom via the computer than if she was sitting in his lecture class at the local university.

Whether it be continuing professional education, training for business and industry, seminars, association conferences, avocational and leisure courses, or college classes, the Internet will change the way we learn. For example:

You will have hundreds of thousands of topics from which to choose. Want to learn about mango trees, living on Mars, brain surgery, canoeing on the Hudson River, or the presidency of James Garfield? Think of a topic it will be offered online.

Your teacher may be famous, but almost certainly your instructor will be the worlds foremost authority in the subject. You wont settle for just any teacher.

The number of fellow participants in your class will zoom from about 20-30 today to around 1,000 online. Even so, youll be able to talk with the instructor more online than you can in-person today.

♦ Developing Online Courses 4 The cost of your course will plummet to a range between $25 and $99, about what you pay for dinner for two at your favorite restaurant.

You will spend about one to two hours a day learning, most of it online. Your work will demand it, but you will also enjoy personal development and fun learning online.

But the two biggest changes in our learning will be:

1) You and your fellow participants will form a virtual community, and you will be able to stay in touch, discuss and continue to interact with them for as long as you want.

2) How you and I learn will change dramatically. We The Internet is the will learn more, better, faster and more enjoyably than we do right now in the traditional classroom, biggest technological seminar, training or conference of today. invention for education The Internet, while changing the way companies do business, people communicate, and consumers get entertain- in 500 years since ment, will have an even bigger impact on how we learn. It the invention of the is the biggest technological invention for education in 500 years since the invention of the printing press made printing press made printed books available to the public. printed books available The Internet will not only change the way we learn, but it will make it better. We will be able to learn more, expe- to the public. rience more, learn about more subjects, learn from the foremost authorities. We will also receive more personal attention, more interaction with the teacher, and get more individual feedback on how well we are doing.

Want to sit in the back of the room and daydream or write a few personal or business letters during the class? Forget it. When youre online, the teacher can track the individual progress of all 1,000 students in the class.

The most important thing to understand about how the Internet will change how we learn is that this is not about childrens schooling or even about college classes this is how you and I will be learning in a few short years.

The revolution in online learning is starting and making the most advances in the area of adult learning, including continuing professional education, training for business and industry, and seminars and conferences sponsored by your national association.

♦ Developing Online Courses 5 But the ramifications, implications, and spread of online learning will be so penetrating and irresistible that it will also change higher education, and hopefully eventually elementary schooling as well.

Lets go back to our prairie pupil, Mary Smith, because Mary is a lustful learner, not only taking a credit college course, but also involved in learning at work, and for her own personal enjoyment.

When Mary arrives at work the next day, she is pleased to learn that her employer has finally signed up everyone who works in the shop for training to improve sales and customer satisfaction. Actually, the vacuum repair shop owner has just discovered online learning himself and has gone a little over- board, registering his employees for three courses this month:

Theres an exclusive training for her employees on running a vacuum repair shop while the boss is gone, taught by a training consultant in Atlanta who has just written a book, How to Boost Vacuum Sales and Repair While the Boss is on Vacation. The Atlanta consultant has his own online classroom where everyone in the shop logs on for this exclusive training.

Then theres an online seminar on customer service with 10,000 business people signed up, just $25 per person, taught by the famous author of more than ten best selling books on customer service, D. Vader.

Finally, the National Vacuum Cleaner Association is having an online forum on customer service just for the vacuum cleaner sales and repairs shops around the world. There will be more than 50 separate chat rooms for specific discussion topics. Mary wants to join the discussion group that is addressing the issue, What do you say when a customer asks whether a Hoover or a Kirby is better?

It has been a long and interesting day at the vacuum cleaner shop, but our perpetual pupil is not done learning yet. Mary has logged onto a master web site with all the online classes in the world listed there, and discovered a short course on Adlai Stevenson, the Illinois politician who ran for president of the United States in 1952 and 1956. The course is sponsored by the Adlai Stevenson Historical Society in Springfield, Illinois. There are 4,000 people signed up for the course, and Mary checks the participants list four people from Singapore, five from Seoul, and it looks like 3,000 people whose last name is Stevenson (maybe they want to know if they are related to the guy).

♦ Developing Online Courses 6 There are video clips, comments from some of his bi- ographers, and an interesting anecdote from a former speech writer for Adlai Stevenson who happens to live in Manhattan, Kansas (hey, thats interesting).

There are hundreds of thousands of people whose untapped experiences, knowledge and skills will be unleashed globally by the power of the Internet and online learning.

While these cyber anecdotes have not happened yet, enough online learning is taking place today to know that this is where it is headed. In my organizations first online course, for example, we had 300 people (ten times as many as we get at an on-site seminar) from all over the world. They learned from six experts (we normally have two people teach a seminar). And people paid just $45 for the seminar, instead of our normal fee of $400. We made more When online learning money than ever, with fewer costs and no planes to catch.

hits, there will be Heres how your learning will change in the 21st century with online learning: hundreds of thousands of topics, each one Geography goes from local to global. Courses and training are offered worldwide, where you are, where the in- offered almost structor is, and where the course sponsor is does not matter.

continually. Content goes from general to specific. Hundreds of thousands of topics will be offered. The global market is huge and very diverse. So instead of 500 general philosophy courses, you will be able to find The Ethics of The- atre Productions or The Philosophy of Aging or....

Today, a course in philosophy, customer service, or computers is offered in hundreds of places. We have relatively few courses offered all over the country by hundreds of providers. When online learning hits, there will be hundreds of thousands of topics, each one offered almost continually. The result will be more choices and more options for us as learners.

Teachers arent just knowledgeable, they are authorities. Because you will have a choice of instructors worldwide, you will tend to want online teachers who are authorities in the field, the best, most expert, in both their subject area and in presenting online.

Cost goes from high to low. The cost for all this online learning will be low, very low. Most courses will range from $25 to $99. This is because there will be so many people taking the courses.

♦ Developing Online Courses 7 Participation goes from around 20 to 1,000 per class. Today theres an average of 20 people in a typical continuing education class; in school and college, between 25 and 40. In an online class, there will be an average of 1,000 participants.

Will this mean change?

Online learning will mean tremendous structural changes in our traditional educational organizations. Here are some of them.

Training Training in business, which reaches only about a third of the work force, will zoom to 80 percent of the workforce. Most of it will be online training. Training experts and consultants will specialize in very specific industries and/ Online learning will or business processes. They will conduct their training from their homes, sometimes wearing only pajamas. mean tremendous Association Conferences structural changes in The annual conference of your favorite national associa- our traditional tion will be bigger and better than ever mainly because online participants unable to afford the travel and hotel educational costs will triple attendance and revenue for the conference.

organizations. Continuing Professional Education Competition will be fierce as universities, associations, private providers and others all compete in the lucra- tive market of continuing professional education. There will be winners and losers one winner to a market niche only, please. Providers will not only deliver online classes, they will also create virtual communities where people in the same industry or profession can chat, get news and conduct business on a daily basis at the providers web site.

Higher Education Colleges and universities will see dramatic restructuring. Around 50 percent of the curriculum will be online courses purchased from another college or university. That means faculty numbers will be cut in half, and most faculty will become expert in in-person teaching, leading small groups, and facilitation. Worldwide authorities on faculty will teach online courses, but half of them will be located in other cities and visit the campus twice a month. With half of the curriculum delivered online, there will be need for only about half of the buildings on campus, and expensive old buildings with useless lecture halls will liter- ally be blown up, this time by the administrators.

♦ Developing Online Courses 8 Elementary Education Hopefully online learning will impact elementary and secondary education for our children as well. Classrooms will be turned into carpeted discussion rooms where teachers can help children grow emotionally as well as intellectually. Online courses will free up teachers to spend more time in personal, individual and small group sessions. With fewer teachers, school systems will be able to afford higher salaries, better teachers, and student educational attainment will go back up.

How the Internet Will Change In-Person Learning as Well

Not all learning will be online. Far from it. For every online course offered, there will also be an in-person live The need for class with a teacher in the room and other participants seated around in a circle. information will be Live, interactive learning will thrive. As futurist John replaced by the need Naisbitt noted way back in the 1980s, for every new high to discuss, receive tech development there is a need and huge urge for a high touch experience. encouragement, debate, But the Internet will change how we learn in-person as reflect, get angry, well. There will be almost no demand for information that you will have already received better and faster on- shout, relax, unlearn, line. The need for information will be replaced by the need integrate, disagree and to discuss, receive encouragement, debate, reflect, get angry, shout, relax, unlearn, integrate, disagree and a whole a whole lot of other lot of other things that we cannot do online, that we can only do in-person with other people in the same room. things that we cannot The teacher, for example, wont be talking; she or he will do online. be listening. You and your fellow participants will do most of the talking. You wont be seated in rows, but in a circle. The teacher wont provide answers, but will ask questions. In fact the teacher may not know very much about the subject at all but she will be an expert in facilitating learning.

While this may appear at first glance to be familiar and similar to what we experience today in our classrooms, seminars and conferences, it is in in-person learning that learning researchers and professors will do most of the new research about effective learning and teaching. This is really the unexplored territory of how we learn.

♦ Developing Online Courses 9 The Era of Lifelong Learning

When I moved to Manhattan, Kansas, twenty years ago, I became subjected to regular repetition of the question Hows Toto? every time I did a seminar or traveled out of state. Finally I took a course on the Wizard of Oz, the classic American fairy tale.

It turns out the Wizard of Oz was written one hundred years ago, as our nation moved not just into another century but from an agrarian society of farmers to the Indus- trial Age of big factories. The author, Frank L. Baum, was against this shift, and knew it meant tremendous changes for every aspect of our lives, including our work, family, lifestyle, attitudes, even morals and ethics.

Back then Kansas was the promised land. Horace Greeley We know that just a had just written in his newspaper to go west, young man. Back then people actually believed New York journalists few years ago, and so over 1.5 million people had just moved to Kansas, employers worried, to the land of opportunity. But even in Kansas this awful transition to the Industrial Age was occurring. What if I train my Today as we move into another century, another millen- workers and they nium, the bigger change is the shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. It will again affect every as- leave? and now in pect of our lives. the Information Age We dont know all of the changes the Information Age employers worry, will make in our lives. We do know that the computer and more specifically the computer chip and the Internet will What if I dont be the driving economic force of the Information Age.

train my workers We know training will increase dramatically. Business and the economy of the Information Age will require more and they stay? and more learning, and that lifelong learning will be a central feature of the Information Age and the 21st century. We know that just a few years ago, employers worried, What if I train my workers and they leave? and now in the Information Age employers worry, What if I dont train my workers and they stay?

The era of lifelong learning is just beginning. It is at the same point today as the automobile industry, the hallmark of the Industrial Age of the 20th century, was in 1920. To- day if you ask someone if they have been to a class or seminar recently, they will most likely respond that they have just been to a class or seminar in the last month. And if you had asked someone in 1920 if they had driven in a car recently, they might report that yes, just last Sunday they went for a ride. If you told that person in 70 years

♦ Developing Online Courses 10 people would spend at least one hour a day in their cars, the person would have looked at you like you were crazy. Who would milk the cows? Who would do the chores while everyone is driving up and down these dirt roads, would likely be the response. So too with lifelong learning; sometime during the course of the 21st century adults will spend at least one hour a day learning.

The Internet will change the way we learn. And all these changes will help us learn better, keep learning fun, enjoy- able and enriching our lives. Because, as some of the founders of the lifelong learning revolution wrote in 1967, the natural state of humankind is ecstatic wonder, and we should not settle for less.

Learning on the Internet Online learning will So, heres how the Internet will change how we learn: create a better format Traditional learning and teaching today is primarily for cognitive learning. information transfer. Whether in a business seminar, cor- And it will instigate porate training, continuing education class, a workshop at a conference, college course, or even in an adult Sun- the changing of in- day School class someone (the teacher) talks, and the rest of us listen. person learning. A much smaller portion of the class time is spent in group discussion, where participants share what they know and bounce ideas off each other. An even smaller portion of the teaching time can be devoted to individual attention. If a participants knowledge acquisition or progress is measured, that comes at the end of the course. At the most there are one or two check ups during the course.

Online learning will create a better format for cognitive learning. And it will instigate the changing of in-person learning.

Heres what can happen:

Information. Lectures, talks, whatever the instructor has to say, will be transferred better than before. The participant will be able to access the information at the time of day or day of week that she or he is most receptive. You got a headache at 2 p.m.? Take an aspirin and log on at 8 p.m. Another bonus you can access the lecture or talk over again, as often as you want. The instructors lecture will be illustrated with color pictures, drawings, charts, maybe video clips. If relevant, some interviews with other people could be inserted, or even recordings from the past.

♦ Developing Online Courses 11 Want more? Check out the reference or reading section. There you will find not only references to hard copy books and materials, but immediately accessible articles you can download. So you can go in depth into the areas you want to learn more about. Some of the information will be available on other web sites on the Internet, and you will hot link to them immediately.

Audio Yes, the lecture is available not only in text but also with the instructor speaking. Video Yes, thats possible as well so you can see the instructor. People have different learning styles. Some of us learn best by just reading the text. Others of us want to hear it. Oth- ers of us want to see the instructor. Others of us want to read it, but with pictures and charts and more visual presentation. To each his own. In traditional teaching, you take it or leave it. In online learning, you can access In online learning, the information in the way you want, at the time you want, as often as you want. you can access the information in the way Questions? Got questions? You cant get your question answered with 30 people in the room, how in the world you want, at the time are you going to get your question answered with 1,000 other people taking the course online? Actually, you will you want, as often get your question answered better, more in-depth, and tailored to your situation when the course is online. In- as you want. ternet guru Leonard Charnoff says that a teacher can respond to more than 200 e-mail messages or questions a day, making individual questions much easier for a teacher to answer. And that is composing each answer.

If you have ever taught a course, you probably know that there are only about one hundred commonly asked questions. Each one is important to the learner at the time, and the sequence or timing of questions fall into the persons own learning development sequence. So just dumping the answers on everybody wont work. But teachers will be able to compose answers to the most commonly asked questions, then tailor or customize additional comments for each person, thus making it even more personal.

Discussion. Your fellow learners are a tremendous resource for your learning, not just for new ideas and information, but also the process of being involved in a group discussion stimulates the learning tremendously. Limit- ing a group to 30 to facilitate discussion is ridiculous over the Internet. Ever sit in a discussion and count the number of people actually contributing substantive comments? In a group of 30, if 6 or 8 people contribute sub-

♦ Developing Online Courses 12 stantive comments, everyone would agree that is a great discussion. It is not even possible for all 30 people to talk in a one-hour discussion.

But on the Internet, the standard for a good discussion is much higher, because the possibility is that all 30 people can participate. So if only 6 or 8 people contribute comments to an online discussion, everyone asks why arent the others commenting? Thats a positive statement. In online discussions, everyone can not only talk, but using asynchronous chat room or bulletin board technology where your comments are written, not spoken, everyone can talk at the same time. And since the discussion can go on for 24 hours, people can participate at any time. You dont have to sit in front of your computer all day, you just check in twice a day, read the comments, make your own, and stay with it as long or as briefly as you want. In online discussions, Another advantage is that you and everyone else has a everyone can not transcript of the discussion. Out of town and off-line for a only talk, but couple of days? No problem, just download the transcript and youre caught up on the discussion in minutes. everyone can talk Test yourself. If acquiring skills or knowledge is the ob- at the same time. jective of your learning, you often have to wait until at least half the course is done before you get tested to find out how you are doing. And a lot of us dont exactly like the pressure of tests and the possibility of embarrassment in front of our fellow learners and colleagues. But with online learning, the teacher can construct a daily quiz so you can see how well you are doing each and every day. And you can test yourself anytime, with no one looking, no one grading, no one, not even the teacher, able to em- barrass you.

You get tested. For some learning experiences, someone else wants you to learn, or requires that you learn in order to get qualified or recognized. No slouching here. If the teacher wants to know how well you are doing, that daily quiz can be monitored and the teacher can find out exactly how well you are doing on a daily basis.

For all these reasons, online learning in the cognitive will be far superior to how we learn today.

♦ Developing Online Courses 13 Part III What an Online Classroom Looks Like Part III. What an Online Classroom Looks Like

With the area of online programming still very new, some things have not been decided yet. One of those undecided things is what to call the physical cyberstructure (if that is not an oxymoron). Some call them online classrooms, other conference centers, etc. Another of those undecided things is what an online classroom looks like.

In the next few years various models of online classrooms will be developed, and eventually some models will gain greater acceptance and usage than others.

Currently, most online classrooms are textual in nature, with words and buttons to get from one area to another. Few are very visual in nature. That will probably change, as more cyberclassrooms become more visual and graphical.

An early attempt at a visual cyberclassroom has been developed by LERN. It utilizes a floor plan visual scheme to try to make the online classroom experience easier to understand and relate various aspects of the online classroom in ways with which we are visually familiar. You can see the LERN floorplan by going to our Education Center at www.lern.org and looking at our Internet Con- ference Center. What we do know, however, is that the technology of online classrooms will basically come in three stages of development: 1) written and graphic; 2) audio; and 3) finally video.

Written and Graphic Technology

Written and graphic technology is available and in use. It is also almost always technically available to anyone who can access the Internet, so your target audience and participants should be easily able to use written and graphic technology without any extra hardware or software.

Written and graphic technology may also be the most important technology from the point of view of how the Internet will change learning. Most of the changes in how we learn may very well come from the innovations and opportunities available over the Internet in written and graphic capabilities.

Here is a list of most of the written and graphic capabilities for online learning:

♦ Developing Online Courses 14 1. Text, lecture notes, instructional presentation. The presenter or instructor can upload her or his lecture notes, text or instructional presentation and make it available to all participants at any time they want to access it.

One advantage from a marketing point of view is that the participant does not need to take notes but can download and print any of the presenters information. An- other key marketing point in promotion is that the participant can view, or review, the material anytime she or he wants and at the pace, intensity and time commitment that the learner wants.

2. Readings. Related text and lecture notes, readings, references, articles and other information for which distribu- tion permission has been granted can be uploaded and made available to participants.

An advantage of this feature from a marketing point of view is the significant reduction in the cost of producing the program. Much more information can be made available to participants on your web site than can be mailed or sent. And it costs your organization nothing in reproduc- ing and mailing costs to upload the readings, so your costs are cut. Maybe more importantly, costly staff time spent mailing readings and information is reduced or eliminated.

3. Links to other web sites. Providing links to other web sites and information is a delightful plus in online learning. The links can be in a reference section, but they can also be integrated into the class material and even online discussions or chats.

For example, many college credit courses establish a relationship with an online library so students in the course can have access to a wealth of other reading materials.

Another illustration is that the instructor or participants can reference a technique, drawing, quote, or explanation on another web site and invite the rest of the participants to click on the address to see the reference immediately.

For marketing purposes, we have not begun to explore fully the variety and depth of uses that links to other web sites can provide. For example, the participants list could contain links to the participants individual home pages with information about each participant, his or her interests, history, and so on that will be a valuable networking and peer learning tool. Such links will give each participant far more information about the other participants than is currently available during in-person introductions.

♦ Developing Online Courses 15 4. E-mail. E-mail capabilities give the instructor and individual participants the opportunity to communicate directly, personally and confidentially. This one-to-one communication allows participants to ask questions, and may lessen the reticence of some participants to venture forward with so-called stupid questions, thus encouraging more people to ask more questions. This capability actually expands a presenters physical ability to respond to questions that is, the instructor can actually answer more questions using e-mail than the instructor could in- person. Internet guru Leonard Charnoff estimates an instructor can answer 200 questions a day, with each answer individually written and tailored. Since experience suggests that learners ask the same questions over and over again, instructors could write a prepared response to the most commonly asked questions, giving the instructor the ability to answer even more questions individually. Because people can and While much question and answer discussion is more do participate at any beneficial in a group online setting, nevertheless e-mail time of the day (a day also gives the instructor the opportunity to deal with sensitive, remedial or individual learning styles when an in- meaning a 24 hour dividual response is desired.

period, not daylight or 5. Asynchronous chat rooms. One of the truly remarkable and breakthrough technologies provided by the Internet work day), people from is the opportunity to have an asynchronous group dis- all over the world can cussion using what is called a chat room. participate in your The technology allows any participant and the instructors to submit written comments, questions and responses online program. to the chat room, where everyone can read the comments.

Asynchronous means that the comments submitted do not have be done at a given time, and that people can read them no matter what time of day they log into the chat.

From the marketing perspective, the asynchronous nature of the chat opens up global opportunities for participation and increased registrations, income and profits.

Because people can and do participate at any time of the day (a day meaning a 24 hour period, not daylight or work day), people from all over the world can participate in your online program. This opens up enormous marketing potential. A second tremendous marketing opportunity is that even participants in the same time zone do not have to participate at the same time, thus an individual can participate in your online program anytime during the day or night she or he wants or has available.

♦ Developing Online Courses 16 Another opportunity from a marketing point of view is that individuals can review what was said the prior day, previous week or even past month as chat room dialogue can be archived and saved. This gives participants an opportunity to catch up on what they missed, and an opportunity to gain a written transcript of the conversation for future review and learning.

There are more marketing advantages of the asynchronous chat room, and undoubtedly additional ones will be discovered. The asynchronous chat room is a distinctive, unique feature of online learning that gives online programming a significant marketing edge.

6. Live chat rooms. Live chat rooms allow a given number of people to engage in a written group discussion live. The actual number of people allowed varies according to the software program used.

This has the advantage of more immediacy, less waiting time, more spontaneity in dialogue. It is more difficult for people in various time zones to participate, and for the most part participants have to be committed to a specific time of day for the discussion. To have a live chat room, the sponsoring organization needs to have IRC program established, a software program called Internet Relay Chat, or some equivalent. Participants also have to have some kind of software added to their computers capability, usually downloaded off the Internet, as well.

7. Quizzes, tests and exams. Another defining and unique advantage of online programming is that participants can take quizzes, tests and exams. This technology can be used in several ways.

A) Learners can test themselves without other participants knowing their scores or even the instructor knowing the persons score. This capability enhances self directed learning and measuring learning without imposing any feelings of inadequacy on the part of the learner.

Thus, a daily quiz could be created by the instructor and participants could test their progress daily. Or potential participants in your online program could test themselves in advance of the program to see if the program material is too advanced, too elementary, or just right for them.

B) Instructors can gain access to a participants test scores. If the test is set up so that the instructor can have access to the participants test scores, then the instructor can aid the participant in his or her progress in the pro-

♦ Developing Online Courses 17 gram. This would allow the instructor to provide specific recommendations for each learner.

C) Surveys can be conducted. Surveys can be taken on a daily basis and that information can aid in the instruction of online programs. Opinions, behavior, and other things can be surveyed and the results tallied and posted almost immediately, so that all participants can see the results.

While the opportunity of testing may vary according to the type of online program you are offering, there are many positive marketing advantages to having these capabilities in an online program.

Audio Online Technology

Whether taped or live, The technology for written information transfer and chat room discussion is currently available and very exciting, audio will provide allowing for interaction, information delivery and discussion. Adding to the capabilities of the Internet is audio. another enhancement Audio is delivered in two ways: to the learning power of the Internet. 1) Recorded tapes that can be downloaded to your computer and then played whenever you want.

2) Live, real-time audio like radio.

The recorded audio, like tapes and cassettes, can be stored on your web site. You can have as many as you want. A person downloads a particular tape, and then lis- tens. The main consideration at this point in time with audio tapes is whether or not the majority of your participants will have sound cards and the technical capability to download the tapes. If they do, audio tapes are a great resource. The most obvious use of tapes would be for the teacher to tape her or his presentations so that participants can listen to the lectures. Another possibility is for the instructor to interview or have a discussion with another resource person, and to tape the conversation. As people learn in different ways, having the audio capability will be an enhancement to the learning process.

Live, real-time audio involves a more complex and costly kind of technology. It will be useful for cybercasting conferences and other live events where the here and now is more important than a class lecture. At some point it will be possible for instructors to broadcast over the Internet their lectures in real time and tape them for future replay by participants who were not able to hear the original delivery.

♦ Developing Online Courses 18 Whether taped or live, audio will provide another enhancement to the learning power of the Internet.

Video

Coming at some point in time will be video. But video is not necessary for online learning to happen. The written, chat room and audio capabilities currently available are more than enough technology to deliver a successful class or seminar over the Internet. Do not wait for video to conduct your online course.

The video capability involves a larger tube in technical capacity for the Internet and thus will take some time before the engineers of the Internet can build that larger tube to carry video. Do not wait Video will allow you to see the instructor. Eventually it for video to conduct will allow the instructor to see you as well. This will have some positive benefits in group discussion and interaction. your online course. But in our television-oriented culture, the benefits of video to learning over the Internet may be overrated. Much great learning can already take place with written, chat room and audio technology.

Online course delivery is not dependent on video for success. You should not wait for video to begin your online course delivery. The video technology for the Internet will be developed by the for-profit sector sooner or later. When video does come to the Internet, it will be an enhancement, not a replacement, to what you have already built.

How you develop your online program is even more important than how you promote it. You can do a less than perfect job of promoting a great online program and be successful. But if you do not have the right online program in the first place, even a great promotion will not make it successful.

So how you develop your online program is 80 percent of your success. The components of a successful online program are: The topic The instructor The price The format And, most critically of all, the audience.

♦ Developing Online Courses 19 The LERN Model for an Online Classroom

LERN has developed an online classroom, seminar room or conference center. It has been successfully used by our association. A number of other programs are interested in using the LERN model.

The LERN floorplan model is copyrighted. If you want to use it, contact LERN for written permission and the small fee involved.

Heres how it works. On the following page is the floorplan for the Education Center. Here, Participants read about upcoming seminars, courses and conferences, find out dates and titles in the Schedule of Events and get the details in Event Information. They can register for online events at the Registra- tion Desk. If they want to know what the online classroom looks like, they can see the Room Map.

At the time of the online event, participants go to the LERN Internet Conference Center, where they enter the password given to them at the time of registration. When they enter the LERN Internet Conference Center (see the floorplan on page 22), they find: Presentation Hall an asynchronous chat room or discussion forum where the presenters provide information and answer questions several times during the day. Participants also make comments here directed toward the presenters. Discussion Group an asynchronous chat room or discussion forum where participants discuss whatever they want and answer questions posed by the presenters. Audio participants can download audio cassettes of talks or lectures by the presenters. Reading Room participants can download readings or other material posted there by the presenters. Quiz Center participants can take self quizzes to see how well they are progressing. Live Chat Room at certain times a live chat room will be available with the presenters. Coat Closet a listing of all the participants so people can see who else is attending the event. Cybersnack a cartoon, updated during the week, for a little break. Welcome the online agenda is posted, along with instructions for how to participate.

♦ Developing Online Courses 20 Welcome to LERNs Internet Education Center

Please Enter

Registration Room Map Desk

Welcome LERNs Internet Dedications Conference Center

LERN Leader Meeting Schedule of Events Event Information Room

♦ Developing Online Courses 21 Welcome to LERNs Internet Conference Center Enter

Welcome

Coat Closet Cyber Snack

« « « Discussion Reading « Group « Room « « Presentation Hall

Self Quiz Audio Live Center Chat More About Room Your Presenter

♦ Developing Online Courses 22 ♦ Developing Online Courses 23 ♦ Developing Online Courses 24 ♦ Developing Online Courses 25 ♦ Developing Online Courses 26 ♦ Developing Online Courses 27 Online Classroom Providers

Online classroom providers have developed the software to conduct and deliver online courses. They provide the software, and your organization provides the content. You contract with them to deliver your online courses.

Here is LERNs list of recommended online classroom providers. A LERN Recommendation means we recommend you contact the company and consider them.

Education To Go, http://www.educationtogo.com.

Education To Go, PO Box 890516, Temecula, CA 92589, Phone: 909-698-2264, Jules Ruggles, [email protected].

Education To Go specializes in developing and marketing noncredit professional online courses. There are two services. One, programs can offer Education To Go online classes to their local communities and only have to promote the program to get a share of the registration fee. Two, programs can contract with Education To Go to use their virtual classroom software to develop their own online courses.

eCollege.com, http://www.ecollege.com

eCollege, 10200 A.E. Girard Avenue, Denver, CO 80231, Phone: 303-873-7400, Fax: 303-873-7449, [email protected].

Formerly known as Real Education, eCollege offers credit, degree, and certificate programs on its web site. Colleges contract with eCollege to offer the courses. eCollege currently offers hundreds of online courses in scores of subject areas, sponsored by more than 100 colleges and universities.

University Online Publishing, http://www.uol.com

University Online Publishing, 8251 Greensboro Drive, Suite 500, McLean, VA 22102, Phone: 703-893-7800; Fax: 703-893- 1905.

UOL is one of the oldest and most well established online classroom providers. UOL works with corporations and colleges to deliver degree programs and other comprehensive educational programming online.

♦ Developing Online Courses 28 Placeware, http://www.placeware.com

Placeware, Inc., 201 Ravendale Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, Phone: 650-526-6100; Fax: 650-526-6199.

Placeware offers software to deliver real time synchro- nous online seminars and meetings. Clients include corporations, colleges and associations. The format is a real time seminar-type format in which there is audio, chat, and even a blackboard-type feature to deliver information.

Apps To Go, http://www.appstogo.com

Apps To Go, Minneapolis, MN, Phone: 612-914-6697, [email protected].

Appstogo is developing several different Internet features for web sites. One of the features is an online classroom. The founder of Apps To Go developed LERNs current virtual classroom with discussion forums, audio, and more.

JonesKnowledge.com, http://wwwjonesknowledge.com

JonesKnowledge.com, Inc., 15395 Thomas Street, Glen Ellen, California 95442. Phone: 1-800-701-6463; Direct: 707-939- 9634; Fax: 707-939-9635

A full service online classroom software provider, with features for asynchronous online courses. Contact Bob Cole, Regional Manager, [email protected]

Blackboard.com, http://www.blackboard.com

Blackboard Inc., 1111 19th Street, NW, Suite 600, Washing- ton, DC 20036; Phone: 202-463-4860; Fax: 202-463-4863

A full service online classroom software provider, a growing company, with features for asynchronous online courses.

eSocrates, http://www.esocrates.com

eSocrates, 425 Pheasant Ridge Road, Lewisburg, PA 17837; Phone: 570-523-0030; Fax: 570-523-0067; contact Dr. Paul Shrivastava, President, at [email protected].

A personal online classroom provider service offering software for asynchronous online courses.

♦ Developing Online Courses 29 ♦ Developing Online Courses 30 ♦ Developing Online Courses 31 ♦ Developing Online Courses 32 ♦ Developing Online Courses 33 ♦ Developing Online Courses 34 Part IV How to Develop an Online Program Part IV. How to Develop an Online Program

How to Develop Your Online Courses

Here is a brief overview and outline of a step-by-step process to develop your online courses. This area of programming will grow tremendously in the next few years. Keep in mind:

1. It is more important to position your organization for long-term success than short-term profits and registrations.

2. This is a whole new world. Online learning will change. There will be a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty in the next few years.

Step One. Strategy and position.

Decide your long term strategy and position with online courses. Determine what niche you want to dominate. Decide your global strategy. Conceptualize where you want your organization to be in 10 to 20 years.

Step Two. Choose your audience.

Choose your audience. Show me the names of the people you want to reach. If you do not have a list of names, you probably dont have a niche. You dont have a market. Just saying our customers is a start, but not the total answer. Choosing your audience and picking your topics are critical. Spend as much time as you need to research, plan and target your prospective online audience.

Step Three. Pick your topics. Pick your topics. The best online topics right now are: Hot or current Not readily available in-person Have presenters or teachers who are authorities or experts.

Not even offered in-person.

Pick topics or subjects that are narrow in scope and sought after by your target audience. Begin with only a few online coursesdont try to offer too much.

♦ Developing Online Courses 35 Step Four. Determine a format.

Online learning comes in all kinds of formatssynchro- nous; asynchronous; one hour; one day; one week; eight weeks. There are online certificate programs, seminars, conferences, training and courses. The format should match the audiences interest and the requirements of the topics you are offering.

Step Five. Select teachers.

Online learning is still new, still an adventure, still many unknowns. Look for teachers or presenters who recognize that there is a great deal of uncertainty and experimenta- tion and are excited about that prospect. Move from presenters to teachers in your terminology. Look for people who are flexible, willing to put in some work for the glory of it, and are less motivated by money than by the opportunity to teach online.

Step Six. Choose your online software.

There are a number of online software providers from which to choose. LERN has a recommended list of online classroom software providers from which you can choose. Do not make a long-term commitment to a software provider. Look to protect your organization from high costs here. Be less concerned about the up side if there are profits. If the online provider makes money, thats fine. Right now you just want to break even.

Step Seven. Model a budget.

Play with the financial numbers. Budget to break even, no more, on your first few online programs. Spend lots of money on promotion. Spend as little as possible on development costs for the course or program, because that can eat up a lot of money. Dont plan on covering your staffing costs. If the program is an initial financial success, wonderful. But dont count on it.

Step Eight. Devise your promotion strategy.

Put all the elements from steps one through seven together and see if it fits. See if it works. Then devise your promotion strategy. Develop the brochure. Select your lists.

Step Nine. Develop the online course

Start the instructor or presenters working on the online

♦ Developing Online Courses 36 course content and delivery. Think about a discussion forum. Put the program into action, but give yourself plenty of lead time so you are not too rushed. About six months of planning time before the online event is to take place is a good timeline.

Step Ten. Fail, and do it again.

If your first online program is a success, congratulations, you got lucky. If it is a failure, congratulations, youre in the ballgame. Either way, begin work on your second online program. Online programs will take many years to perfect. Now is the time to begin.

♦ Developing Online Courses 37 The Economics of Online Learning

The economics of online learning dictate niche markets national or global in scope. To understand how to position your online course globally, we can look at the example of online learning in higher education.

The shape of online learning and higher education in the coming century will largely be determined by the needs of adult learners, and the economics of online learning.

Todays model of 20 students each paying $500 in tuition for an online course in a college will give way to a model that better meets the needs of learners and better meets the financial requirements of higher education.

One hundred years ago 75% of people lived on 40-acre farms. Within twenty years, an entire population shifted to factory work and the Industrial Age. Today the Internet is doing what the tractor did for our great grandparents totally changing the way we live and work.

Today about 1,000 institutions are offering 100,000 online courses in 1,000-2,000 subjects. In brief, heres what will happen in higher education:

1. Hire the foremost expert. A college will hire or contract with the foremost authority in a given subject area to teach online. Lets say a university hires Henry Kissinger to teach a political science course.

2. Franchising can make money. The college will realize that if it sold seats in the online course to other colleges, the money generated would be pure surplus.

3. Buying courses makes money too. At the same time, hundreds of other collegessuch as community col- legeswill realize that they can purchase seats in online courses from universities in a diverse range of subject matter that cannot be offered at their campus. Using our imperfect example, the Des Moines Area Community College could offer Political Science by Henry Kissinger to its students.

4. Lesser competitors fade. Colleges that offer Political Science by professors with fewer qualifications than Dr. Kissinger will not be able to compete in the online market for Political Science.

5. Prices drop. To make sure other colleges do not compete, the university with Dr. Kissingers course will

♦ Developing Online Courses 38 lower its fees so no other Political Science course is less expensive.

6. More niches are created. Other colleges will discover niche subjects. While Political Science is offered online, Political Science of Sweden will be a niche. They will hire or contract with the foremost authority in the subject area to deliver the course online.

7. Summary. Soon instead of 1,000-2,000 courses online, there will be 100,000 courses online. Colleges and universities will buy and sell seats in online courses, developing online courses in areas in which they have a particular expertise, and buying online courses in areas where they cannot afford to hire their own faculty.

This scenario is already happening in consortiums of colleges and universities, and will soon spread so that any college can purchase seats in any online course.

Development costs for online courses are already high, and will grow higher. It will simply not be feasible for a college to develop a quality online course with 20 students paying $500 ($10,000 income). Development costs can be sustained with a franchised online course enrolling 1,000 students at $100, or $100,000 in income.

In the graduate arena, whole degrees will become more specialized and niched, creating tremendous opportunities for graduate schools to offer masters degrees in thousands of specialty areas and occupations where there is an insuffi- cient local audience, but a huge audience worldwide.

In the past, four-year colleges and universities had to be comprehensive because of geographic service areas. In the information age, they will have areas of specialities, supplemented by online courses from other institutions. Four-year colleges and universities will be able to develop worldwide reputations in niche or subject areas.

With 100,000 different subject niches, not even the largest, most prestigious and well-endowed universities will be able to dominate all subject areas. There will be opportunities for any four-year institution willing to be competitive.

Community colleges will be able to offer an increasing array of courses to their students, focussing on affordability, in-person teaching, and counseling for its largely local student bases. Community colleges will also find their own global niches in training for business and

♦ Developing Online Courses 39 industry, where they will be offering online courses in everything from Vacuum Cleaner Repair to Refrigera- tion and high-tech fields.

The needs of business and employers will also be a driving force in the economics of online learning. Every new person coming into the workforce after 2010 will need to learn for about an hour a day to maintain his or her own skills and to keep the company profitable and competitive. So just about every knowledge worker will learn online throughout their careers. Colleges unable to produce graduates with online learning skills will be found less desirable by both employers and students alike.

Business guru Peter Drucker was the first to predict the demolishing of campus buildings and the redeployment of valuable resources towards technology and intellectual capital. Higher education will be no different than other sectors in society in the need to find its competitive edge in intellectual capital. The franchising of online courses will provide professors with greater reputation, opportunities for new research, and the greater dissemination of preferred ideas and methodologies. Franchised courses will also be the only economical way for institutions to keep valuable professors and programs.

In order for society to advance in the Information Age, twice as many people will need to attend college. Online learning will allow tuition to drop and attendance to double, providing the educational foundation for a knowledge-based workforce.

♦ Developing Online Courses 40 Steps to Establish Your Global Niche

In online programming, the beginning and the end the alpha and the omega of success will be the list of names of people you want to attend your program.

The list is everything. Show me the names!

The objective is to define your target audience so clearly and specifically that you can produce the list of names of people in your target audience.

You identify the interest or need that everyone in the list shares. And the interest or need matches your organizational strength.

Long-term strategy is even more important than short- The list is everything. term success in online programming, because online programming is here to stay. If you can capture the market, Show me the names! you can keep the market. So long term, begin thinking of your audience less in geographic terms and more in terms of interest and need. Think globally.

So if you are a hospital association in Maryland, think less of your audience as the hospitals in Maryland, and more in terms of the hospitals in North America. Then think about every hospital in the world. Then think of every hospital in the world with a specific interest or need that matches your organizational strength. Theres your list.

Here are some ballpark numbers. Your universe your total potential audience should be at least 10,000 people, and top out at around 100,000. If you have more than 100,000 people, you likely have more than one target audience. Now these are not just people in the world, these are names you can acquire. It is like the tree that falls in the forest and you dont hear it. If you cant get the names, they really dont exist.

The place to start in defining your audience is with your current participants. This is your core. Build on it. Go after people who look just like your current participants.

You already have a core group of supporters. They already have a positive image of your organization. You already deliver something of great value to them. This is where to start. This is the foundation upon which you build.

Do not think of going after a totally new audience. Do not think about renting e-mail lists. Do not think about chas- ing untested and untried lists of names. Develop something

♦ Developing Online Courses 41 very successful for your existing audience. In particular, develop something very successful for your existing audience on the broadest geographical scale possible. Then acquire names of people with the same demographic characteristics as your core present participants.

Choosing the Program Topic

Here are the best measures of success for a topic for an online program:

Narrow and specific in scope

Not offered by the competition

Not offered on-site or in-person

You can offer the same Compelling, high interest Difficult or costly to hear the instructor/s in-person program as is offered by the competition, Narrow and Specific in Scope Whatever you offer online should be an offering that but it will have a far you want to be known for, that strengthens your organizations image, and that will assist you in dominat- lesser chance of success ing your market niche.

than if you offer So the subject areas you want to focus on are those in programs not offered which you excel, your main bread and butter subject areas with your target audience. by the competition. Within the subject areas that match your organizational strength, narrow the subject area down to a topic that is very narrow and specific in scope. What is very narrow and specific in scope will vary according to your target audience. If you an organization in Austra- lia and marketing a history course to North Americans, the History of Australia would be a topic narrow and specific in scope. If you are marketing a history course to Australians, however, the History of Australia would NOT be narrow and specific in scope. The His- tory of Melbourne might qualify.

Not Offered by the Competition You can offer the same program as is offered by the competition, but it will have a far lesser chance of success than if you offer programs not offered by the competition.

When we talk about same program we do not mean the same broad subject area. If your competition offers an online program on computers, that doesnt mean you

♦ Developing Online Courses 42 should avoid offering a computer course online. It does mean you should find a different angle, perspective, subspecialty or some other distinction that will make your online program different.

Not Offered In-Person or On-Site One way to enhance your success is to offer topics that your audience cannot get from in-person or on-site seminars or courses. You can have a successful online program competing with an in-person program, but steering clear from in-person program topics will just give you another edge and another opportunity for greater success.

Twenty years from now, all types of subjects and topics will be offered online. But right now, there is a very defi- nite rational in not competing against a program that is offered in-person or on-site, even or especially if it is of- Twenty years from fered by your own organization.

now, all types of The reason is simply that online programs are new and different and our audiences are not used to them. So fa- subjects and topics miliarity and inertia will dictate that many people will opt will be offered online. for the program in-person or on-site. But if the only way I can get this program is online, then more people will risk the unfamiliarity of online learning because they want so much to learn what you have to offer.

Compelling and High Interest You can succeed with a program title that is not necessarily compelling or showing high interest with your target audience. But having a compelling and high interest topic will, once again, enhance your chances for success online.

So if there is a hot topic with your audience, a current topic area that has just arrived, or a big problem or concern with your audience, find your online program topic there.

One area that has proven successful for many organizations is to offer online programs on such topics as the Internet, World Wide Web, and computers. This kind of program, tailored and specific to your audience segment, is likely to have high interest because the Internet is still so new and everyone eligible for your online program obviously has access to the Internet, so it is a natural.

Difficulty in Hearing the Presenter/Instructor In-Person Another way to position your online program for greater success is to line up one or more presenters or

♦ Developing Online Courses 43 instructors not available to your audience for in-person or on-site programs.

The person or persons may not be available for on-site or in-person programs because 1) The travel distance is too great; 2) The person has a busy schedule; or 3) Your audience could not afford what you would have to charge for this person.

For whatever reason, if you can line up an otherwise unavailable presenter or instructor, even for a day, to teach or present online, you will enhance your online programs chances of success.

Not every successful topic has to meet all of the above criteria. Each of the above will give you an additional edge, pull in a few more people, and make it all that much easier The more advantages for you to score a success with your online programming.

your online program The more advantages your online program has, the more reasons you can give your audience to take your online has, the more reasons program, the better your chances of success. you can give your audience to take Choosing Your Teachers your online program, Your teachers or presenters represent another critical el- ement in the online mix that goes into making your online the better your program successful.

chances of success. Your teachers or presenters are those people who play to your organizational strengths, and who can best deliver the program to your target audience. The second condition almost always will mean that the teacher or presenter is an authority. She or he should be the best, the foremost authority, the top gun, the best expert, the guru in whatever she or he is teaching.

Your Teachers

Your teachers or presenters represent what they call In- tellectual Capital. And intellectual capital is your organizations biggest asset. For more on intellectual capital, see Appendix J, Your Biggest Asset: Intellectual Capital.

There is no room for the average teacher, the good teacher, the nice guy presenter, the best available presenter in the tri-county area. There is only room in your program for authorities, for the best instructors in the world. Be- cause if you dont have the authority, then someone else does, and then they own your niche. Because why would

♦ Developing Online Courses 44 someone want to take a course from anyone other than the best authority in the world? They dont, they wont.

Some illustrations:

If Alan Dershowitz, the famous lawyer from Harvard, is hired by an organization to teach his specialty of law, that organization will own its niche. There will be few, if any, attorneys who will want to take the same course from the law professor at Singapore State, as nice as that person is, as great a teacher as that person is. If Alan Dershowitz is a lousy teacher, of course, he loses. But if he is the best, everyone else loses. UNLESS the law professor at Singapore State is an expert in something else like why Alan Dershowitz is wrong or has a subspecialty in law the law of engineering in the state of Wyoming The world will only that Alan Dershowitz doesnt. Then the law professor from Singapore State isnt competing with Alan need one good course Dershowitz. She is the worlds best expert in another per topic, because topic, appealing to another niche. anyone in the world If you are offering a course on the presidency of Grover Cleveland, you want the best biographer and histo- can take the course. rian of President Cleveland.

If you are offering a course on mango trees, you want the foremost authority on mango trees to teach it.

Up until now, instructors could compete offering the same course because of geography (a teacher could not be in New York and Los Angeles at the same time); and because of time (an instructor can teach only so many classes on Tuesday morning). Now those boundaries are gone. The world will need only one good course per topic, because anyone in the world can take the course. And because it is offered on demand, up to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so anyone can take it any time.

So after you have chosen your niche, and chosen your specialty, your organizational strength, your instructor or instructors will need to be the best. Go after the best. If you already have the best, you can build an organizational strength and niche around that person.

You can do this in one or both of two ways:

1) You can go after the best people. There will be stiff competition for the best people in many niches. Go after the best people you can find. The person does not need to live near your organization. The person

♦ Developing Online Courses 45 can be anywhere in the world. The person does not have to work for you full time. Hire the person on a contract basis.

2) You can develop a niche from top notch people already associated with your program.

For example, there is a person at Georgia State Univer- sity who has degrees in both nursing and law. Have you ever heard of that before? Me either, so there cant be that many people out there with those two areas of specialty. So this is intellectual capital. This is a person Georgia State University can utilize to develop a niche, a specialty, where they are the leaders in the world.

The best instructors for your program will be fairly familiar to you already. You are not starting from scratch. The best instructors for You are starting with an existing audience that values your education highly. And you are starting with an ex- your program will be isting organizational strength, that existing USP, and along with all that comes people who want to be associated fairly familiar to you with your organization. So you may already have the already. You are not best people within reach. starting from scratch. The advantage you have now is that most online niches are still wide open, so you can call any one of thousands of potential instructors or teachers to teach for you online, and have a good opportunity of getting them. Most organizations do not have a clue as to the competitive environment online, so you are way out in front of the game for the most part.

Call up your top three picks for best instructors and ask them to teach online for you. Go after the best. Many people are very pleased to teach online. It is new. They have not made a commitment yet. The pay can be good. The hours are flexible. They dont have to leave their city, house, living room, or even get dressed.

How to Become the Foremost Authority

My wife grew up in a town of just 400 people. When she was a little girl, she thought her father was famous. And she had proof everyone in town knew him.

You can turn yourself or another person into the foremost authority in the world. Heres how. Choose a topic area narrow and specific enough that the instructor is the foremost authority in the world.

♦ Developing Online Courses 46 It is not simply that it is better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond. In the age of online programming, it is essential that 1) the pond be small; and 2) you are the biggest fish. Otherwise, you get eaten.

Example. You want to do a course on World War II. Your instructor is not a famous authority on World War II. Your course stands little chance of success. But your instructor does know more than anyone else, including those famous guys, about the Battle of Strasbourg. Bingo: your instructor is now the foremost authority in the world on the Battle of Strasbourg, now eminently qualified to teach a course on that battle and its implications on the entire war. You have an excellent chance of success with a course on the Battle of Strasbourg.

The above example about our course on World War II You start with your rests on one assumption we want to capture a market of people interested in World War II, and we want to be market the target known as the organization with expertise on the Battle audience and you of Strasbourg. find an instructor With instructors or teachers, the objective is not to start with a person or a course and find a market. It is the exact or course. opposite. You start with your market the target audience and you find an instructor or course.

In practice, you already have some kind of target audience, and you have some kind of expertise or niche with that market already. So we are linking needs and resources our audiences needs with our organizations resources.

We are clarifying our target market the audience, and our niche our organizational strength. We are becoming narrower in focus, and more global in visibility.

Format

Like in-person programs, online programs will have to have the right format time, day, length and number of sessions in order to be successful.

With online programs, there will be even more formats from which to choose. Even more formats will be possible if your online program is combined with an in-person or on-site component.

And like the key to success with in-person and on-site programs, online program format success will be joined only by surveying your potential audience.

♦ Developing Online Courses 47 If the right question is asked using the proper neutral probing, your potential participants will tell you when to hold your online program, how long a session should be, and how many sessions to hold.

Your participants will also tell you the best format simply by their participation in your online program. For example, if your participants have not enrolled in an online program before, they may know what topic they want and the best time of year to participate, but they may not be the best judge of how long the online program should last.

One organization was offering one-week courses online. Then they surveyed the audience whether they would like the courses to be one week, two weeks, or a month in length. The vast majority said two weeks. But when the organization offered the online courses for two weeks, par- Your participants will ticipation fell off dramatically in the second week, so they went back to one-week courses. tell you the best format There are two lessons here. One is that your data on simply by their peoples behavior is always a better indicator than what participation in your they say or think. The other lesson is that people cannot accurately gauge their interest in something they have never online program. experienced, tried, or known about before.

♦ Developing Online Courses 48 Developing Online Courses

Strategy, Vision and Position

Where does your organization want to go, and where do you want to be in ten years with regard to online learning? The whole venture will require some persistence, pa- tience and commitment from the entire organization. It is important that your leadership and members, as well as staff, understand the long-term strategy. Your CEO has to be a primary player in the decision.

Here are some options. Several overlap. Some are interrelated. You can do more than one.

Recapture your audience.

The Internet has created a whole new environment. Ev- ery organization will need to re-establish a viable relationship with its audience.

Be a University.

Many organizations are moving to establishing themselves as a source of the best education available. This was once a role reserved for universities. Now many other organizations are taking on the name and also the concept of being the best at some area of knowledge. This involves a comprehensive curriculum and plan for professional development going beyond seminars and courses.

Form a virtual community.

Internet experts believe a key to success in the 21st century is to provide ongoing communication and dialogue, a virtual community with ones audience.

Develop a new position.

The old order of business/organizational relationships may not apply anymore. Were not sure. But stock bro- ker is quickly fading as an occupation, and a huge percentage of books and cars are being sold online. All organizations may need to reposition themselves with regard to the entire knowledge industry.

Go global.

There is the opportunity, or maybe the requirement, to become national and then international in scope and serve

♦ Developing Online Courses 49 members/customers around the globe.

The Internet has created a whole new environment. This is a new environment for learners, for teachers, and also for organizations. And it is a whole new competitive environment. Decision makers will need to think out of the box way out of the box. There are new opportunities. And there are new threats.

By the year 2020 the Information Age and the Internet economy will be in place. Between now and then there will be many new developments, new ideas, and positioning by all information organizations.

You and your organization will want to make the fullest commitment in resources, staff time and energies to re- establishing your organization on the Internet.

You may not need a written Internet vision. But you and your decision makers definitely have to have a broad vision and a deep commitment to move forward with online learning.

Does your boss get it? Do YOU get it?

A recent New Yorker magazine article by Erik Larson noted, In Netspeak, there are two kinds of people: those who get it, and those who dont. To get it means that you understand the extent to which the Internet will change work and commerce in the next millennium.

Does your boss get it? Do YOU get it?

In order to be able to attempt to move your organization into the Information Age, your boss has to get it. Your boss has to understand why before you can understand how.

A big part of being able to have a vision of where your organization will be in ten years is getting it understanding how the Internet is changing how we work.

They dont get it

Homer Simpson, a cartoon father, doesnt get it. He looked over his sons shoulder and said, Wow, the Internets on computers now.

LERN recently did a presentation before a large associations board of directors. They wanted to know how to do online programs, but not why. They dont get it.

♦ Developing Online Courses 50 In the book Main Street, Sinclair Lewis classic 1920 novel about the last transformation, from the small village to the city, the people of the small village of Gopher Prairie didnt get it. When they saw factories being built in cities, they recruited a factory to build wooden automobile wheels. They didnt get it.

Kids counted down the days to the new millennium. Adults didnt understand all the excitement. They didnt get it.

Get it

One hundred years ago, some 75% of people lived on small 40-acre family farms. Then they invented the automobile, and along with it the tractor. It wasnt just a new way to get around, or plow. It was a new way of life. Within ten years, between 1910 and 1920, our whole society changed as small towns went into steep and irrevers- ible decline, and factories and cities and suburbs and unified school districts replaced them.

One hundred years later, everything is changing again.

Why why is important

Why is so important right now, because no one really understands the how. The entire stock market is invest- ing in online businesses, yet only one E-bay, claims to be making money. In lifelong learning, we know we need to form virtual communities, but we dont know how yet.

We know half of all learning will be online, but we dont know how to moderate an online discussion yet.

But if you get it, if you know why, then you have the perspective to find out the how. Without the why, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to discover what works online for your organization.

Quiz How much does your boss get it? Take this quiz. 1. Work will be done: a) in offices b) at home 2. Supervision will be done: a) in-person b) using an Intranet 3. Staff will be: a) at headquarters offices b) all over the country 4. Your brochure will be: a) mailed regularly b) replaced by your web site

♦ Developing Online Courses 51 5. Automobiles will be: a) even better b) replaced by trains 6. Staff meetings will be: a) in-person b) done online 7. Most shopping will be done: a) at malls b) online, and delivered to your house. 8. Your boss will: a) spend time to save money; b) spend money to save time. 9. Computers will be: a) standard; b) 1,000 times more powerful.

10. Seminars will be: a) half day; b) gone, replaced by online courses.

If your boss doesnt get it, you responded with the a answers. If your boss gets it, you responded with the b answers.

Everything is changing. More than we know. More than we want. Hope you get it. Hope your boss gets it.

Who Else is Doing Online Learning

Online learning is hot right now. Many companies, organizations and individuals are getting into online learning right now. Heres a look at some of the players.

Companies. 90% of the Fortune 1000 companies have intranets for their employees. Online training is becoming a major feature of their Intranets. Training magazine has a fall conference called Online Learning with several thousand attendees.

As soon as large companies build online courses, they will realize they can market their courses to smaller companies and make money from them. This will happen.

Trainers. Individual trainers, consultants, and training firms are getting into training online because the market expands and becomes global. While most contract training is localized and in-person, this is changing.

Colleges and universities. A huge push for online learning is going on in colleges and universities. This includes certificate programs, masters degree programs, and contract training for business and industry. There are 1,100 colleges and universities offering about 100,000 online courses right now, mostly in credit areas. Niche graduate degrees are growing. Contract training will soon move from CD-ROM delivery to Internet delivery.

♦ Developing Online Courses 52 For-profits. The Internet provides a way for anyone working out of his or her basement to create a presence on the Internet. This is a big X factor, or unknown. Today there might not be any competition. Tomorrow someone could put up a web site and be stealing your marketshare.

These individuals and entrepreneurs know no boundaries, and dont believe they have to know content in order to deliver a service or product online. They are people looking for gaps, niches and markets. When they find one big enough to serve, they try it.

Online companies. Online companies are for-profits, but with money. Instead of just being an individual or small group, these companies have millions of dollars in capital. They either raise the money from scratch, or they are part of another corporation. HungryMinds.com is one such company that has started from scratch, and has over ten million dollars in capital. SmartPlanet is another venture, a project of Ziff-Davis, a big publishing and Internet company.

Associations. Associations are looking for ways to expand their markets. Declining associations are looking for new territory to bolster their membership. And growing associations are looking for new territory to continue their growth.

In the online competitive environment, your competition will not do what you are doing. You will say, Theyre not offering what we are. Which might be true. But if they are reaching your members and customers, they are likely pulling business away from you. So the competitive question is not Are they offering what we are offering? but Are they reaching my members and customers?.

Competitive strategy. The environment is very fluid and fast changing right now. The best competitive strategy is not to look at your competition, but to look to being as technologically cutting edge as possible and looking to create online services and products for your members and customers.

If you look to your competition, you may get surprised overnight by a new web site. Playing catch up will then be very difficult. Instead, you should try to stay cutting edge and continue to try to find that online service or product that will capture your audience anew. Then you will be in the best competitive position of all.

♦ Developing Online Courses 53 Developing Your Online Course

After you have planned your online course, including selecting your area of expertise and choosing the intended audience, you can develop your online course, seminar, training or meeting.

There are three major components of a typical online course:

A. Content

B. Interaction

C. Assessment

Definition of an online course. An online course is an educational program delivered over the Internet and having both content and interaction with participants, the interaction being either asynchronous or real time. An online course must have both components content and interaction.

There are many self-study or tutorial, sometimes called CBT (computer based training), programs on the Internet. This is a precursor or part of what we mean by an online course, but it does not have the interactive component necessary for the online course.

There are many online chats with authors, speakers and other experts. These experiences, while possibly very valuable, do not have an educational program content. There is not a systematic delivery of information, desired outcomes or knowledge to be acquired, nor the potential for assessment.

While I am taking a stab at definitions, let me provide another preliminary definition. These definitions may change as online learning grows.

Online seminar. An online learning experience that focuses more on the interaction between instructor and participants and among the participants themselves. There is less content provided in an online seminar than in an online course.

♦ Developing Online Courses 54 Building Online Content

You have chosen your subject or topic area. You have probably come up with a course title. The next step is to build your online content.

Create Modules

Your instructor divides up the course or topic up into five to ten modules. Each module will be a separate, if interrelated, component of the course. Each module will have several knowledge skills or concepts associated with it. Each module will have a given amount of text or reading.

Heres an illustration. In our industry, the lifelong learning programming field, LERN has developed a Certified Program Planner (CPP) course. It is composed of these ten modules:

1. Learning and Teaching

2. Finances

3. Brochures

4. Marketing

5. Promotion

6. Needs Assessment

7. Program Development

8. Program Analysis

9. Pricing

10. Program Management and Customer Service

Each module has:

A set of learning objectives.

Readings, or pages of readings

Study guide questions (optional, but helpful)

A self quiz

Modules can be sequential, beginning with the basics and then moving to more advanced information.

♦ Developing Online Courses 55 Modules can also be entities unto themselves. That is, a module in your course could also be expanded and developed further into its own future advanced online course.

For example, LERNs module on Marketing has been expanded into its own course. The same with the module on Brochures and also the module on Finances.

Modules should lead somewhere horizontally to the next module, and/or vertically to a more intensive and advanced set of modules about the module topic area. Modules should also be able to stand-alone. That is, some of your learners will already possess the knowledge about a given module.

Modules are also composed of subunits.

Illustration: Customer Service

For example, in our online course illustration above, Customer Service is a module (Unit 10). Now Customer Service can be broken down into these subunits:

1. Why customer service is important

2. Answering the telephone

3. Dealing with complaints

4. Responding to customer interest and inquiries

5. Writing correspondence to customers

6. Doing follow-up contact with customers

7. Measuring satisfaction in customer service

A subunit might just be a page of copy, or a single concept, or a small set of techniques or ideas.

Learning Implication

One of the advantages of breaking up an online course into modules and subunits is to help learners focus on their learning.

If a course is one huge glob, as a trainer from Oracle has described traditional courses, then learners have to spend an equal amount of time on all aspects of the course.

But if a course is divided into modules and subunits, a learner can spend more or less time on each module or

♦ Developing Online Courses 56 subunit. Where a learner already knows the content, she or he can take the quiz and quiz out of the module. The learner thereby saves time and also reduces boredom. On the other hand, if a learner needs help in a certain module or subunit, she or he can spend more time in that area, thus enhancing the persons knowledge. And if the person has a particular interest area, she or he can go into more depth in that particular module or subunit and pursue the knowledge area even more.

In this way, modules and subunits both increase the speed of learning, and also improve the quality of learning.

Where Knowledge is Headed

Standards for developing online content are now being worked on. When standards are adopted across the education industry, modules and subunits will then become transferable.

The idea is that a module or subunit of knowledge will be created only once, and then used and reused in as many different online courses as is needed.

For instance, LERN offers a course on Brochures. And we offer a course on Customer Service. In both courses, we teach a subunit on Registration Information in the brochure. The information is the same for both our Brochure course and our Customer Service course. By creating this subunit only once, and then using it in both courses, the provider saves on development costs. More importantly, the best, highest quality, subunit or module is designed so that the learner receives the highest quality content.

Eventually not only online courses will be bought and sold, but modules and subunits will be bought and sold as providers package their online courses to be tailored to a specific audience or subject matter.

While this coming attraction may not impact your online course development immediately, you can use the in- terchangeable module/subunit idea in your own online courses.

Develop Competencies and Outcomes

For each module, develop competencies and outcomes. These should be phrased in terms of knowledge concepts, skills, facts, or figures.

♦ Developing Online Courses 57 This goes hand in hand with the third part of developing your online course, designing online assessment.

Select Your Readings

Next, select your readings for your online course. The readings can be both online readings, and print materials.

At the time of this writing, most teachers of online courses find that print materials, such as books, magazine articles, and other publications, are valuable if not critical material for the readings. So we would recommend you have print readings for your online course.

Within those readings, mark the pages or sections that are:

*** Critical. They must be read.

** Important. They should be read.

* Nice. They could be read.

This will give your learners guidance in what you deem important. It will also give them the opportunity to pursue readings in those subject areas that are of particular interest to them. In the Information Age, the reality of the situation is that there is always more information to read than one can possibly read, no matter what the subject matter. Questions on tests should be covered in the readings that are critical for your course.

Estimate the time it takes to read the critical sections or pages in the readings. This will assist you in realistically planning how much material can be covered. And it will inform your participants how much time they should plan to devote to reading.

A rough measurement for reading time is 20 pages an hour for nonfiction, 10 pages an hour for extremely technical information, and 40 pages an hour for fiction.

If you expect your participants to spend ten hours reading nonfiction material, then you can allocate 200 pages of reading in your Critical category.

For online reading, you will want to keep the information brief. Your learners will not be able to read for long amounts of time looking at their computer screens. Also chunk the information. Divide it up into very small bits of information, say from one to three paragraphs per chunk.

♦ Developing Online Courses 58 At this time the limits of online reading all point to having your print readings be more extensive than any online readings.

Select links to other sites

Tap the unlimited wealth of information on the Internet. Select links to other web sites on the Internet. Again, divide those links into categories: Critical, Important, and Nice.

Think about whether you will want to write a short paragraph about each linked site, why you chose it, and what the learner should look for at the site.

Make Your Online Presentations

You can make online presentations in one or more of these ways:

1. Written text

2. Visual graphic presentation

3. Audio

4. Video

Written text

You can write your presentations and present them as text online. If you do this, break up the copy. Divide your information into chunks.

Visual graphic presentation

Create pictures, graphs, charts, and other visuals online, accompanied by either text, or verbal presentation, or both. There is a variety of software available to help you create good visuals.

Think of the pictures as online overheads or slides.

The best visuals are not merely words enlarged or put into color. The best visuals are usually true pictures or graphics.

There is a small but growing art and science of creating a new kind of visual which combines a picture with words to convey a concept better than either words or pictures could do alone. Julie Coates, Vice President of Information

♦ Developing Online Courses 59 Services for the Learning Resources Network (LERN) is one pioneer in communicating in this form.

You can also incorporate text and/or audio to accom- pany the visuals. This is more effective than either text, visuals, or audio alone. Type a paragraph or two above or below each visual explaining the visual. Or number each visual (Exhibit A, for example) and in your audio presentation, call attention to each visual as you speak about it.

Together, the audio and visual presentation is a better version of the traditional in-person lecture.

In your recorded online presentation, you will be able to perfect both the content and the delivery. For the learner, she or he will be able to target those portions of your presentation most relevant to their learning. They will be able to listen and view the presentation at the optimal time of the day for their learning receptivity. This will be one of the truly remarkable aspects of online learning.

Audio presentation

You can do either real-time oral presentations, or prerecorded oral presentations. By far the more effective will be the prerecorded oral presentations.

Prerecorded audio presentations have these advantages and characteristics:

They allow you to present your best shot, both content and delivery-wise.

You only have to deliver the information once. There- after, you can conserve your time and energy for interaction with your participants or developing new information and presentations.

Your participants can listen to your presentation at their optimal time of the day.

Your participants can review and relisten to portions of your presentation.

After doing an audio presentation, develop a written table of contents for the presentation, much like songs on a CD. This highlights the primary concepts or points of your presentation, and it will tell the learner where in the presentation she or he can find each section of your talk. In this way, the learner can replay those portions that are more difficult or require extra attention on the part of the learner.

♦ Developing Online Courses 60 Illustration

Handling Complaints (15 minutes total)

:00 Introduction

2:15 Hearing what the complainer has to say

3:33 Six ways to express empathy

7:48 Five steps to follow in handling the complaints

11:03 Giving the complainer options

14:17 Thanking the complainer

14:48 Closing the conversation

As with your text presentations, chunk your audio presentations. Devote 15 minutes to 30 minutes per audio presentation.

Video presentations

At the time of this writing, the bandwidth or size of the tube of the Internet is not large enough to provide high- quality video. Video is possible, however, and you may want to consider it.

Another option that is currently being practiced to a good degree is to create a separate videotape presentation and ship it to your participants. This has worked quite effectively for a number of online courses.

If, or when, you start using video presentations, be sure to approach the video presentation much differently than you do traditional in-person lecture presentations. You will lose much if you view the Internet as just another technology for delivering your traditional lecture.

Development Time and Cost

One of the top questions teachers have about teaching online is the time and cost involved in developing the content of the online course.

If you are going to have a content rich online course, development costs and time for the content aspect of your online course are high. It does take a good deal of time to develop content. There may be costs involved. But you only experience this development cost once per online course.

♦ Developing Online Courses 61 The high cost of development is why: a) you want to have as large a number of participants as possible; and b) you want to run your online course over and over again. It is also why you want to be as sure as possible that your online course will be the leading online course in your chosen niche subject or topic area.

It is uneconomical to run an online course with fewer than thirty participants. It is uneconomical to run an online course only once. And it is uneconomical to develop an online course and have it be overtaken by another online course of higher quality.

Once again, this is why you want your online course to be: first, best, and largest.

The Amazing Rise of Quizzes and Tests

Theyre everywhere. And everybody is taking them. At least it seems that way. More and more learners are taking, and even liking, quizzes and tests.

The amazing rise of quizzes and tests has just begun. And for many reasons, it will continue to grow.

Your program can take advantage of the opportunity of quizzes and tests to enhance the quality of your programming, and meet a new demand: the demand for quizzes and tests.

Heres how to take advantage of the amazing rise in quizzes and tests.

1. Use quizzes as learning assessments.

When given before the course or event, a quiz can serve as an excellent learning assessment tool to help your instructors understand how much their participants know, what areas need more attention, and what level of advanced information to present.

2. Take the heat off your presenters.

A quiz given before the course or seminar can take the heat off your presenters at evaluation time. For too long, seminars and courses have been seen as consumer activities, as entertaining Johnny Carson shows, where the presenter has all the responsibility for making the seminar or course a success. No longer. Now you can help your participants take more responsibility for their own learning.

♦ Developing Online Courses 62 When they take, and flunk, the pre-seminar quiz, they will be less likely to be overly critical of the presenters. Instead, they will be more apt to be concentrating on learning the subject matter so they can pass the quiz again at the end of the seminar or course. Create a pretest and posttest for your next seminar or course, and watch the evaluation scores go up.

3. Divide up the group by knowledge level or area.

A quiz given prior to the start of a seminar or course can help the instructors to divide up the group by knowledge level or area. For example, if you are doing a course on technology, you will have beginners in the course and also some advanced participants. If the instruction would benefit both levels of learners by having the group divided into two for some aspects of the course, then the learning assessment quiz can help you do that.

4. Measure the success of the course or event.

A test at the end of the event or course is one way in which you can measure the success of that course. Tests are going to show you objectively what people learned, and what they did not. Evaluations are subjective, but a test helps you measure the progress of the learners.

5. Give employers measurement tools.

Employers and others working with an individual like tests, and respect their validity. They are usually not so much interested in how well a person did compared to others, but they do want to know whether the learner has passed the course and met the benchmark for understanding the courses essentials.

6. Motivate learners.

Learners, of course, have mixed feelings about quizzes and tests. But with the right wording and brochure copy, you can make your quiz or test a positive motivating factor in recruiting more people to your course or event.

7. Give them something to take home.

The end test result is a tangible item the participant can take home, something of which to be proud. Use your test results, and maybe a certificate if that is appropriate, as a benefit of the course.

8. Measure daily progress.

♦ Developing Online Courses 63 Quizzes and tests can now be created, taken, scored and instantly returned to the learner using the technology of the Internet, e-mail and your web site. This now allows any instructor to help the learners by providing frequent, or even daily, quizzes. The quizzes help the learners measure their own progress in the course or event. The quizzes can be made nonthreatening and a benefit simply by letting the learners know that only they will see the results and that the daily quizzes are not being monitored or recorded.

9. Help teachers to track their success daily.

By doing frequent or even daily quizzes, learners can measure their progress, but teachers can also determine the success of the teaching by looking at the scores. Some areas of the course or event can be strengthened, have more time devoted to them, or even repeated. Other areas, where the majority of the participants readily understand the material by virtue of getting very high marks on the quiz, may mean that the instructor can skip some material and be able to concentrate on other material, or even add more advanced material or take the course to the next level.

10. Tell people whether they should take the course.

Another learning assessment advantage of quizzes taken before the course or event is to help potential participants decide whether to take the course or not. If a learner scores very high on the quiz, maybe that person knows the material and should take a more advanced course. If the person knows none of the answers, maybe the course is too advanced or not right for the person. Using a quiz, potential participants can be given some good data on whether they are right for the course, and whether the course is right for them. When they do register, they will come in with more confidence that the course will benefit them, and this positive attitude will help in the success of the course and their evaluations.

There are many ways in which your organization can take advantage of the new acceptance and popularity of quizzes and tests. They can be used in nonthreatening and positive ways. They can be used as learning assessment tools, to measure learner progress, and in documenting the success and achievement of the learner.

Quizzes and tests can be another product line, benefit or featured aspect of your program. Use them to:

♦ Developing Online Courses 64 Act as a recruiting benefit to increase registrations;

Enhance the quality of the experience;

Boost satisfaction and evaluations;

Assist teachers in measuring the progress of the class;

Provide a tangible outcome for attending;

Give you measurable data for future courses and events.

Contracting with Online Instructors

Not everyone is interested, motivated or talented enough to teach online. You will want to be choosey in working with online instructors.

Here are the qualifications that appear to be important for an online instructor.

1. Interested. The person should be interested not just in teaching online, but in learning online and being on the Internet. The person should have sufficient interest in the Internet and learning online.

2. Motivated. Do not try to motivate a teacher to teach online. Instead, look for individuals who are already motivated to teach online.

3. Talented. You are looking for experts, or individuals who are willing and able to do what it takes to become an expert or authority.

4. Invested. Look for individuals willing to make an investment of their own time. If someone is willing to invest in his or her own online course, that person will be easier with which to work, and feel more responsibility for the outcomes.

There are high development costs for initially developing an online course. If you can reduce your costs of developing the course by having the instructor develop the course using his or her own time, you are much closer to making that course work financially for both you and the instructor.

5. Author. We are going to recommend you use instructors who are authors of original material. It doesnt have to be a book. It could be articles, a publication, a thesis, or unpublished manuscript.

♦ Developing Online Courses 65 By using instructors who are also authors you will save on development costs, reduce your concerns over copyright issues, and develop your online courses faster.

Using Authors as Instructors

Use authors of original material as your online course instructors. The potential instructor could have authored articles, publication, a thesis, a book, even an unpublished manuscript. After doing much research on developing online courses, we have reached this conclusion for a number of reasons.

A. You want an authority or expert.

You want your online instructor to be an authority or expert. Preferably, we are trying to have this person recognized as the leading authority in the world on the topic of the online course.

Having an authority or expert is key to dominating your niche subject area and positioning your online course for long term success. A fundamental way a person establishes that recognition is through writing.

It may not matter if the person has had his or her work published. If there is no other clearly recognized authority or expert, then you are trying to establish your instructor as the authority. Publishing, even (and sometimes especially) self-publishing, is a good way to gain recognition. But being unpublished is not necessarily a detriment as long as the person is intent on becoming the authority or expert in the niche subject area.

B. You want original work.

You want your online course content to be both good and original. There is a famous joke about a professor grading a students paper. The professor wrote, Your work is both original and good. Unfortunately, the part that is original is not good. And the part that is good is not original.

You need online course content that is both good and original. Instructors will need to provide content which is both.

In the global competitive environment of online learning, a learner will have access to many different kinds of courses, instructors and experts. If your instructor is merely

♦ Developing Online Courses 66 quoting or using other sources, then the obvious question for learners is, Why not take my course from the source? If your instructor is the original source, that increases credibility. It increases recognition.

C. You want to avoid copyright issues.

You will want to reduce copyright issues. If the online instructor also is the author, you reduce the copyright issues to just your organization and the instructor/author.

If you are using an instructor who is not the author, the conditions for obtaining rights to use copyrighted copy on the Internet are a little vague right now. The other issue with using another authors copy in your online course is ceding recognition that your instructor is not the best authority or expert, and we dont want to do that.

D. You reduce your development costs.

Heres the real, bottom-line benefit of using authors as instructors. They have already done the work of putting together the curriculum and the body of knowledge into a written text.

This is the majority of the work involved in putting up content for an online course. The instructor has to decide on what to cover, the order, the depth, what it is, get the information and material, and so on. With an author, all that work has already been done.

By using an author you reduce your development courses tremendously. You also speed up the time it takes to develop the online course.

E. Your textbook or readings are already there.

Finally, the advantage of using an author for your online course is that the text the instructor has written then serves as the primary readings for the participants in your course.

Readings are an important aspect of the online course. Using readings from another author brings up the same question: Why arent I taking the online course from the original author? By providing the authors works as the readings, the readings and online course content are both structured the same, the instructor gains increased credibility because of the authorship of the readings, and the readings presumably will be more available at the lowest cost possible than any outside textbook.

♦ Developing Online Courses 67 Who Owns the Online Course

One of the hottest issues in online learning right now is the question of who owns the online course. Does the instructor own the online course? Does the provider own the online course? This section is not intended to be legal advice in any way. It is informational only.

At the time of this writing, there were no clear standards or industry norms with relation to this question.

The ultimate answer, of course, is whatever you and the online instructor agree to. Regardless of what standards exist or dont exist, whatever you and the online instructor agree to is what it is.

Now here are some guidelines.

Model A. Whoever pays for development costs owns the course.

This is a standard practice. If your organization pays for the development of the online course, then you have the right to ask for ownership of the online course.

From the instructors point of view, this is often referred to as fee for hire. It means the instructor understands that she or he is being paid for a service. That service is writing the content for the online course.

On the other hand, if the instructor is not paid for developing the online course, then he or she has the right to ask for ownership of the online course because, in effect, the instructor is paying for the development of the online course with his or her own time resources.

Posting of the material on the Internet is not related to ownership and is simply a technical service.

Model B. The author/publisher relationship is established online.

There is a clear standard when it comes to authors and publishers of written works. The author owns the work. He or she has provided the time to write the work. The publisher does not pay the author to write. Any advance is not money to write, but merely an advance on royalties.

The publisher, however, has a contract with the author. It states that the publisher has the exclusive rights to pub- lish and promote the book.

♦ Developing Online Courses 68 The publisher, then, while not owning the copyright to the book, owns all the rights to publishing and promoting the book. If the publisher chooses not to promote the book, the author has no recourse. It is only when the publisher ceases publishing or selling the book that all rights revert back to the author.

These same standards could be applied to an online course. That is, the instructor owns the copyright to the material or content of the online course. But in a written agreement with your organization, the instructor gives your organization exclusive rights to produce and promote the online course.

If and when your organization ceases to produce and promote the online course, then the rights to the content revert back to the online instructor.

Model C. Have your cake and eat it too.

Instructors may want, and may ask for, the copyright to the online course. And the instructor may want and ask for money for the development of the online course. This is the best of both worlds for the online instructor.

And it could work in reverse. Your organization could ask the instructor to develop the online course without reimbursement, and then ask for the copyright to the online course as well.

Recommendations

First, throw out Model C, where the instructor not only has the copyright but also gets paid for developing the online content. At the same time, throw out any hope that the instructor will develop the online course for free and your organization will get the copyright.

Second, you as a program administrator need the flex- ibility and the marketplace opportunity to run any online course you feel is desired by your audience. Any contrac- tual relationship you engage in should give you the opportunity to contract with another online instructor if the working and financial conditions are not feasible for your organization.

This is a much more important issue for you as an administrator than the copyright issue. Structure your agreement with your online instructor in such a way that you agree on the working and financial conditions in advance. If a contract is not renewed because of working or financial

♦ Developing Online Courses 69 conditions, then you need to have an understanding and an ability to recruit another online instructor.

Third, cede the copyright to the instructor. The issue is not so much the issue of who owns the course, but your written contract with the instructor giving you the ability to produce and promote the online course. As long as the instructor is teaching the course with you, then you have exclusive rights to the online course. In addition, you have reduced liability (again, this is our understanding, not a legal opinion) for the online course content. If the online instructor owns it or has the copyright, then that person is responsible for making sure that all permissions have been granted, material is original, and so on.

Fourth, we would recommend that the instructor invest her or his time in developing the online course if she or he is to own it. This also has the financial benefit of limit- ing your development costs. If you are to pay development costs, then the relationship should be fee for hire and your organization would own the online course.

It is unclear what benefit, if any, would accrue to an organization owning an online course for which it has no instructor, or then needs to contract with a different instructor, with different needs, content, and so on.

In conclusion, at this time Model B, the author/publisher relationship, seems to be the most clear cut, well established, and successful model. It seems the most reasonable candidate for an industry standard for online courses as well.

Creating the Online Course Content

Your online course, regardless of the subject matter, audience, or length, will have these three components:

1. Content

2. Discussion

3. Assessment

In developing your online course, you and your instructor will develop the content and assessment ahead of time. The discussion occurs during the course.

♦ Developing Online Courses 70 Content

Content for an online course should revolve around a book or set of readings. The reading material is obtained in advance before the start of the online course. Hope- fully, learners are engaged in the reading before the online course starts.

Content is composed of one or more of the following: You will engage an instructor in creating the content for your online course. You will be engaged in the process of setting the parameters of the content. The instructor will determine what the content is.

Here are guidelines for creating online course content:

3-credit course, graduate level.

Test: 100-question, multiple-choice exam

Modules: 10

Readings: 1-4 books, 400-2,000 pages, depending on intensity of readings; approximately 80 hours of reading

Audio: 5-10 hours of audio presentation

Online reading: 10-40 articles, each 1-3 screens long, no longer

Module quizzes: yes, ten 10-question quizzes to prepare for final exam

Estimated time: 10 week course (2-3 months)

One-week online course or seminar 1.5 CEUs

Test: 10-question multiple-choice exam

Modules: 5

Readings: 50-100 pages

Audio: 1- 2 hours

Online reading: 1-5 articles, each 1-3 screens long

Module quizzes: yes, 5 modules, 5-10 questions each

Estimated time: One week

♦ Developing Online Courses 71 Online Course Parameters

Using the above guidelines, you as the administrator and curriculum designer or program coordinator are responsible for developing the parameters of your online course. You can work with your online course instructor, but the decision is yours.

You decide:

1. Length of course.

2. Number of modules.

3. Number of multiple-choice questions on final exam.

4. Award or recognition (credit, CEUs, certificate, etc.)

5. Length of readings.

6. Amount of online readings.

7. Number and length of audio presentations.

8. Length of module quizzes.

9. Estimate total amount of time a learner will spend on the online course.

You decide the parameters. The instructor then is responsible for the content, what questions are asked on the quizzes and exam, and so on.

What the Online Instructor Does to Develop Content

Heres what you are contracting with your online instructor to do:

1. Develop number and name of modules and subunits within modules.

2. Select readings.

3. Set learning outcomes and objectives.

4. Create audios for each module. There should be 1-4 audios for each module, depending of course on the length of the online course. A typical audio would be fifteen (15) minutes for optimum listening by learners.

♦ Developing Online Courses 72 5. Develop PowerPoint slides or visuals to go with the audio lectures or presentations.

6. Write the final exam.

7. Write module quizzes.

8. Choose or write online readings. There should be 0-4 online readings per module, again depending on the length and depth of the online course. The online readings should be no more than 3 screens long.

The bulk of the work is in designing the course curriculum. This is the work outlined in points 1-3 above:

- Develop number and name of modules and subunits.

- Select readings

- Set learning outcomes and objectives.

What this really is is designing the entire online course. It involves selecting what is relevant, what is important, what is critical, what follows what, and so on. This is the most time consuming aspect of teaching an online course.

For this reason, we recommend you work with an instructor who has already written extensively on the subject matter she or he is going to teach. This will make the whole process simpler for the instructor and less costly for you in development costs.

You have the added advantage of reviewing the written work beforehand to judge the instructors quality. And having written on the subject, you are more likely to get an authority or expert in the field and thus have a higher quality course and therefore a more financially successful course. You will also be more able to be competitive out there with the other online courses in the same area if your online course is taught by an authority or expert in the field.

Paying Online Teachers

There are two aspects to teaching an online course. The first is developing the content for the online course. The second is the teaching of the course.

In online learning, those two functions are distinct and separate from each other. As online learning becomes more sophisticated and registrations approach the 1,000-people-

♦ Developing Online Courses 73 per-class mark, there may even be different people involved in each function. For now, the developer of the online course is usually the one teaching it. But the functions and what you pay for each are different.

Developing Course Content

If you have to pay someone to design the curriculum of the course (modules, selection of readings, setting learning outcomes and objectives), you will pay about three times as much as if you contract with an instructor who has already authored this material.

Costs for development of a typical average online course are about $5,000. If you are a college paying adjunct faculty, or an organization using your own employees, the cost will be about half that, or $2,500.

If you are not working with an instructor who is also an author and therefore has already designed the course curriculum, then you will pay about three times the above amounts.

In the future expect costs for development of online courses to rise steeply. This will happen for three reasons:

a) Multimedia will become available on the Internet

b) To gain a global audience and marketshare, online course content will have to be of the highest media quality possible.

c) Learners expectations will grow with the capability of the Internet for multimedia.

The cost for a world-class online course with multimedia will be about $50,000. This is probably about the cost to produce a multimedia course using CD-ROM technology today.

Paying the Instructor to Teach Online

The above costs are for the one-time development of a typical online class. You will also need to pay your online instructor to present some material online in a discussion forum.

And most importantly in terms of learning, you will need to pay your online instructor to answer questions from students, moderate and facilitate dialogue, and encourage discussion among the learners.

♦ Developing Online Courses 74 For a short online course lasting from one day to two weeks, an online instructor should be present in the online classroom answering questions and making comments about four (4) times a day.

For a long online course lasting from two weeks to six- teen weeks, an online instructor should be present in the online classroom answering questions and making comments at least one (1) time a day.

For this work, a typical online instructor would get around $40 an hour. This equates to $80,000 a year, based on a 2,000-hour work year, which is a reasonable wage.

Total instructor costs for your online course would then range between $1,000 and $2,500, depending on how long your online course is and therefore how much time the instructor spends online.

Examples:

One week 4 hours a day X 7 days = 28 hours total X $40 an hour = $1,120

12 weeks 1 hour a day X 5 days = 60 hours total X $40 an hour = $2,400

Consultants

Consultants and others in business for themselves will charge about double what you would pay an employee or existing adjunct faculty member.

Faculty members

The above estimate of around $2,400 for a 12-week course is an average based on our preliminary surveys of higher education institutions. It is for an adjunct faculty member, not a full-time tenured faculty member. The costs for a tenured full-time faculty member will be about triple that of an adjunct faculty member. Given that a typical online campus course has 20 students at about $500 in tuition, or $10,000 in income, you can see why institutions prefer to hire adjunct at $2,400 and make money on the course rather than hire full-time tenured faculty at $8,000 or more, and essentially lose money on an online course.

Online Guests

A number of organizations pay guest presenters to appear online for a day or even an hour. The rate of pay for

♦ Developing Online Courses 75 online guest presenters ranges from $100 an hour to $200 an hour, depending on the reputation of the person. The minimum you would pay someone would be for an hours worth of time online.

Percentage Bonus

It is highly recommended that in addition to a base sal- ary per hour for your online instructor, that you also stipu- late a bonus per student over a certain figure.

This encourages the teacher to welcome additional students in the class. It allows you to make more money by having more participants, and rewards the instructor at the same time. It is a win-win situation. And, as we have stated before, a larger number of students in your online course will actually increase the learning gained as students interact with each other. In the world of online learning, learners are sources of knowledge, experiences, perspective, and ideas.

As a percentage bonus, we would recommend one or both of the following:

1) Either adding hours to the instructors online work load.

2) Paying a bonus of 10% of the tuition or registration fee for every student over a certain number, such as 20.

The 10% is well below what the instructors total fee is as a percentage of income, so your organization benefits financially. However, it is a bonus to the instructor. The added students will not take up much extra time, and that can always be additionally compensated by agreeing on additional paid hours online.

♦ Developing Online Courses 76 MODEL ONLINE INSTRUCTOR CONTRACT

The following is an agreement between ______(name of your organization), hereafter referred to as the Provider, and ______(name of individual), residing at ______, to teach the following online course: ______(name of course), hereafter referred to as the online course.

The online course will be ______(weeks or days) in length.

It will be composed of ______(number of modules) modules.

The online course will initially be offered starting on ______(date) and ending on ______(date). This agreement also covers the subsequent offerings of the online course of ______(number) of offerings, the dates of which are ______(dates of subsequent offerings, OR TBA to be announced).

This agreement covers the time between ______(date) and ______(date).

PROVIDERS RESPONSIBILITIES

The Provider is responsible for:

a. providing the online classroom software,

b. posting materials and information to the online classroom,

c. maintaining the technical aspects of the online course,

d. promotion and registration of students/learners/participants, and

e. ______(add other responsibilities).

INSTRUCTORS RESPONSIBILITIES

The instructor is responsible for development of the online course content, including:

1) Selection and naming of the modules and subunits within modules as instructional units.

2) Selection of readings.

3) Setting learning outcomes and objectives.

4) Taping ______(number) ____audio___ video presentations, each approximately ______(minutes) minutes in length.

5) Developing visuals, graphics, PowerPoint slides and other visual aids to go with the presentations.

6) Writing the final exam questions and answers.

♦ Developing Online Courses 77 7) Writing module quiz questions and answers in multiple-choice format for computer grading and feedback.

8) Choosing or writing online readings. There should be approximately ______(number) screens of online readings total.

The instructor is responsible for leading the online course, including:

9) making comments online during the course,

10) answering questions from students/learners/participants, and

11) facilitating online discussion and dialogue among the students/learners/participants.

The instructor will make one or more comments every ______(number of hours, day, week).

The instructor will log into the online class at least ______(number) times a ______(day or week).

The instructor will spend ______(number) of hours online per ______(day or week).

The instructor is also responsible for providing answers to the online quizzes and final exam or grading the exams and providing scores to the students/learners/participants.

The instructor is responsible for the content of the online course, including obtaining any copyright permissions that are required for non-original work.

EXCLUSIVITY

The Instructor grants the Provider exclusive rights to promote and offer the online course during the time period covered by this agreement.

______This agreement is nonexclusive and allows the Instructor to teach this online course for other providers.

PAYMENT

The Provider agrees to pay the Instructor $ ______(dollar amount) for the content of the online course.

The Provider agrees to pay the Instructor $______for the teaching, moderating, and discussion facilitation of the online course. This amount is for ______hours of online work.

The Provider also agrees to pay the Instructor ______(dollars) for each online student/learner/ participant above ______(number) enrolling in the course.

♦ Developing Online Courses 78 AGREEMENT

This agreement can be modified, changed, or canceled at any time with the assent of both parties.

PARTIES

For the Provider:

______(signature)

______(name)

______(title)

The Instructor:

______(signature)

______(name)

______(address)

______(city, state/province, postal code)

______(phone)

______(fax if any)

______(e-mail address)

♦ Developing Online Courses 79 How to Offer CEUs Online

CEUs, or Continuing Education Units, are a standard way to measure continuing education. But awarding CEUs for online courses involves a different benchmark and process. Here we tell you how to award CEUs for online courses.

Traditionally, CEUs are awarded based on attendance and seat time in a particular class or activity. A learner receives .1 CEUs for every hour of attendance. So 1.0 CEU is earned by attending ten (10) hours of instruction.

But this calculation does not work with online courses.

There are two problems with the traditional measurement of CEUs for online courses:

1. On the Internet, seat time is irrelevant.

Firstly, it is possible but enormously difficult to measure the amount of time spent online. But more importantly, on the Internet knowledge gained has no correlation to the amount of time spent online.

That is, someone logging into an online course two times could learn just as much as someone logging into the course ten times. Someone spending a half-hour online could learn as much as someone spending five hours in front of a computer screen.

People learn at different rates of speed. The rate of speed of ones learning is irrelevant. What is important is that the person learned the content.

Heres an example. This author wanted to learn PowerPoint, so I took a two-hour class and then spent another two hours online practicing PowerPoint. If the class had offered CEUs, I would have earned .2 CEUs for my effort, not including any time for my practicing and self-learning. Unfortunately, even after spending four dili- gent hours learning, I still did not know how to use PowerPoint. So I asked my 12-year-old son to learn it. After 5 minutes online, he was able to do everything I could not do in four hours.

Now, if we were using traditional CEU measurements, I would have received .2 CEUs for PowerPoint and my son would not have had enough time to even earn .1 CEUs. This obviously is not right. With the Online CEU formula below, my son would earn CEU credit and I

♦ Developing Online Courses 80 would not, which is how it should be, since he learned it and I did not.

Furthermore, there is evidence that we should NOT be spending hours and hours a day learning online. Online learning experts indicate not only can people learn faster online than they do in person, but also that too much time in front of a computer screen may be detrimental. Quantity does not equal quality when it comes to learning online.

2. On the Internet outcomes matter. In fact, with online learning knowledge outcomes can be measured through online tests.

With in-person courses, knowledge outcomes could be measured, but they routinely are not measured. The traditional CEU measurement does not require any outcomes to be measured. The traditional CEU measurement does not say that any learning has to occur, only that attendance is documented.

Online, things are different. Online, one would not have to measure outcomes. But as a standard practice, most online courses do measure the knowledge outcomes through online multiple-choice tests.

While multiple-choice tests are not totally satisfactory for all kinds of learning, they certainly have withstood the test of time and are a documented and valid way to measure cognitive knowledge gains.

How to Offer Online CEUs

Given that the traditional way of awarding CEUs is not relevant for online learning, here is how you should award CEUs for online courses.

1. Create modules or units within your online course. Most online courses already are structured this way, with the course divided up into discreet units. Each unit focuses on a different set of knowledge skills.

2. For each module, develop an online multiple-choice quiz. A good number of questions is ten, but it could vary depending on the module content.

Each question must be contained in the online course, and would not be found outside of the online course. So the answer to each quiz question would be learned

♦ Developing Online Courses 81 from the online course and not from another course or simply life experience or common knowledge.

3. A passing grade on the online quiz is 70%. Your Internet software will automatically grade and store the results for those persons wishing CEU credit.

4. A person may take the quiz more than once. The object is to pass the course.

5. For each module or quiz a person passes, the person is awarded .2 CEUs. A five-module online course would award 1.0 CEUs, and a ten-module online course would be worth 2.0 CEUs.

How that compares

LERN has studied online courses and the time participants do and should spend in an online learning course. Awarding .2 CEUs for a module equates to two hours of attendance at an in-person class, seminar or conference. Spending two hours on a module is an appropriate and fair average amount of time according to our research. Once again, however, if a participant can learn the same material in a half hour, that person should be awarded .2 CEUs, and if the person requires four hours to learn the same material, the same .2 CEUs should be awarded.

The New System

This new system for awarding Online CEUs maintains an equivalency with traditional seat time CEUs. It also re- establishes the credibility of the Online CEU by creating a more relevant and valid standard for online learning. At the same time, it is a positive guideline for online course developers that will help in creating successful curricula to meet adults learning needs online.

We recommend your organization adopt the new On- line CEU guidelines for online learning.

♦ Developing Online Courses 82 Part V Budgeting Online Programs Todays in-person and on-site programs generally have a 40 to 50 percent operating margin.

Online programs have the potential to make 50 to 60 percent operating margin, a much higher profitability.

Individual courses, seminars or conferences may have a much higher, or lower, operating margin, but when you combine them all at the end of the fiscal year, the range for your total program is generally 40 to 50 percent. This is a very distilled and concise summary of a very sophisticated, complex subject full of variances. For a complete treat- ment of the subject, see the LERN Financial Handbook.

So financially there is a strong motivation to offer online programs. They will be very profitable.

Online programs A Different Structure cannot achieve higher But online programs will also have a different financial structure, which we will explain here. profitability by In order to gain those higher operating margins and functioning financially profitability, your online programs will need to be finan- like in-person or cially structured according to how successful online programs are run. You will need to play by the rules of the on-site programs. online game, not the in-person game.

Online programs cannot achieve higher profitability by functioning financially like in-person or on-site programs. You cannot make money that way.

Heres how a typical in-person or on-site program is structured financially: Income 100% Promotion 10-15% Production 35-40% Direct Costs 50% Operating Margin 50%

In other words, promotion costs are kept relatively low and production costs take up most of the expenses.

But in the online world, the numbers are almost reversed promotion costs are much higher, and production costs must be much lower. Heres how a typical online program is structured financially:

♦ Developing Online Courses 84 Income 100% Promotion 15-25% Production 15-25% Direct Costs 40% Operating Margin 60%

To achieve these results, you offer only a few online programs, promote them heavily, and garner hundreds or thousands of registrations per online program. This is not idle forecasting; it is happening today and there are success stories to back it up.

On the other hand, there are few success stories if any using the in-person or on-site financial model. That is, if you try to offer a large number of online programs with Offer only a few online fewer than a hundred registrations per program, you cannot be profitable. programs, promote You will simply have teacher or instructor costs being them heavily, and too high. You will not be spending enough money on promotion to generate income. And you will have to garner hundreds charge a much higher fee. The fee will not be higher than or thousands of your in-person courses, but it will be much higher than other online program providers charge. registrations per You may be able to do that in the short run and break online program. even or make a small profit. But over the long run you will get killed as your audience discovers they can get the same or better online programs for much less money.

So you will pay teacher or instructor fees which are much less as a percentage of your income. The dollar amounts may be fine, but as a percentage of income teacher costs plummet.

You will spend more money in promoting your program and generating registrations and income. The higher income will lower your costs as a percentage and raise your operating margin as a percentage and as a dollar figure.

Break Even First

All new ventures are lucky to break even the first time out all new ventures, not just courses, seminars and conferences. But certainly all new courses, seminars and conferences should be expected to only break even the first time out.

♦ Developing Online Courses 85 Pricing Online Programs

Price your online programs low, very low, cheap, dirt cheap. Pricing online programs does not follow the same guidelines as in-person or on-site programs.

There are several reasons for this.

1. Appeal. The lower the price, the more appeal your online program will have with your target audience. Be- cause there are no travel costs and very little perceived time commitments involved in online programs, a low price is very appealing. The person almost signs up just in case she or he might actually want to take the program. How can you lose? Even one idea would pay for the program are the kind of thoughts you can instill in the minds of your target audience with a low price. Price your online Again, the low price helps to lower the barrier, lessens programs low, very the risk for the participant, in this new and different experience with online learning. low, cheap, dirt cheap. 2. Competition. If you have a great topic and the most authoritative instructor or presenter, there is only one way the competition can beat you by offering a lower price. So once you have the hot topic and the best instructor AND, most critically, once you have captured the market, the only way you can lose it is by charging a higher price than someone else.

So you will want to keep your market, as well as recruit more people, by having the lowest price possible.

3. Numbers. The financial way the online game will be played is with high numbers of participants. With a low number of participants, what we would consider normal or average or even good for in-person or on-site programs, an online program is not financially profitable.

A program with 20 to 50 people in it will not be financially profitable online. But a program with 100 to 1,000 participants will be extremely profitable. And so to get those numbers, you charge a low fee.

For all these three reasons, prices for most online programs will be very low, cheap.

Now there will be a market for some elite, high priced programs. But these programs will be priced very high in order to intentionally break the pricing rules the excep- tions will prove the rule. Or the program will be oriented

♦ Developing Online Courses 86 to people who are used to and expect to pay higher fees. Or the program will intentionally keep people out that is, limit the numbers.

But the long-term objective of online programming is to capture the market and be dominant in your market niche. The problem with appealing to only a small number of people is that it leaves open the thousands of other people in your target audience for your competitors. That is why lower priced programs will predominate.

As of this writing, the following are some estimated price ranges for various kinds of online programs:

Seminar or noncredit course. We are seeing online seminars and short noncredit courses being offered from $25 to $99. Basically, we see $100 as the ceiling for on- The long-term objective line seminars and noncredit courses. The marketability of programs under this price is very good, very appeal- of online programming ing. Above this level price starts to become a consideration, and that starts to inhibit numbers. is to capture the market and be dominant in College credit course. Paula Peinovich at Regents Col- lege in Albany, NY, has an inventory of 8,000 distance your market niche. learning courses. In 1997 she estimated that the average price for a credit college course was $250 - $300, and falling. Her college offered a course at $200 to be below the competition, because she sees price sensitivity with the college student market.

Continuing Professional Education. Long-term from three months to a year continuing professional education can be priced according to what one might pay for the program on-site. The person will save thousands of dollars in travel, hotel, and other costs. So you might see intensive continuing professional education a series of courses, an institute, a certification program, an entire curriculum, etc. offered from $500 to $3,000 depending on the current price range of on-site programs for that occupation or occupational speciality.

Corporate training. At this time we have no estimates on corporate training fees. We know contract training with business and industry is a competitive market, and value sensitive. It may or may not be price sensitive, depending on whether the employer sees the training as being higher quality (less price sensitivity) or little difference in quality (more price sensitivity).

♦ Developing Online Courses 87 Annual conference. If you are with an association offering an annual conference, there will be three pricing strategies for cybercasting of the annual conference.

The first strategy will be to price it higher than actually attending the conference in person.

This strategy will be employed by associations with significant trade show or exhibitor income, and for those associations trying to recruit in-person attendance for another reason. It is unclear whether this pricing strategy will work over the long haul.

The second strategy will be to price it lower than actually attending the conference in person. This strategy will be employed by associations with significant in- person attendance and no concern over losing in-person attendance. It will be appealing to generating additional income from those unable to attend the conference. This income will be seen as pure profit rather than income necessary to cover conference costs.

The third strategy is to price the cybercast conference exactly the same as the fee for attending the conference in-person. In this way, the association or conference sponsor receives the same income whether the person attends in-person or not. It allows the association to be unbiased and to just meet the needs of the potential participants. It will enhance marketing of both the in-person and cybercast conference. This third strategy of pricing the conference the same whether a person attends in person or online may predominate over the next few years.

Teacher Pay

Right now an authority not a famous person, but nevertheless an authority in a given subject area will work for $100 to $150 an hour. And, if the course, seminar or conference fits into his or her schedule, be pleased to do it.

Pay only for the time you need, for the time the instructor is online. That might be as little as one to two hours a day.

Multiple Presenters

One of the great opportunities of online programs over in-person or on-site programs is that you can have numerous presenters or instructors. Travel costs, expenses and

♦ Developing Online Courses 88 honoraria limit the number of presenters or teachers for in-person or on-site programs. But online you can contract with a person for as little as one hour of time.

This adds to the promotion of your course, as well as the variety and perspectives that can be offered in your program.

How to Price Online Programs

With online programming being so new, there are few averages or benchmarks for pricing association programs online. Prices are all over the place, from $45 to $2,000 or more. So it doesnt help much to ask what other associations are changing.

But there are some guidelines to follow. Here are the three things to take into consideration when pricing your online program.

1. Establish a break-even point.

One place to start is to look at your costs and then establish a break-even point. This is helpful but also dangerous if you dont also take into consideration the other two variables, especially considering what people will pay.

One misconception is that you should cover your costs. Wrong. You need to figure out how much income you can reasonably expect, determine your operating (profit) margin, and then price accordingly. Unfortunately, too many programmers incur production costs first, and then try to cover those costs. That is a backward way of proceeding.

Lets say you estimate your costs for the program at $50,000. If you can reasonably expect 1,000 people to take your online program over a three-year period (a good benchmark for the lifetime for any association program), then you would need to charge $50 to break even.

So a bottom, starting-point price is $50. Now lets see if we can do better than that.

2. Compare with other programs.

Next look at what your people are paying for other programs. You can look at other online program prices. Another closer-to-home comparison is what your people are paying currently for your existing seminars and other programs.

♦ Developing Online Courses 89 Say a participant pays $300 for a two-day seminar right now. That seminar is 10 hours long and covers 10 different subject or topic areas. So they are paying $30 an hour per subject area.

Your online program will cover three subject areas of comparable length. So at $30 a subject area (called modules, units or lessons in online learning), then $90 for the online program is in line with what they would pay for an on-site program.

You also have the added pricing advantage of letting your participants know that they are saving money in travel and hotel costs, so the $90 is a good deal.

3. What will people pay.

How much are your participants and other customers willing to pay for your online program? This is the third, yet most important, variable. It is also the most difficult to determine.

Asking your participants about price does not work. Dont even try it. What you have to do is to test different price levels.

One way to do that is to have a substantial early registration discount and use that as a test. For instance, you set the normal price at $195 and the early price at $95, and see how many people register at each different price level.

Another way to test the price is to advertise the first program at $95, but only accept a limited number of participants, such as 20. In the same announcement, let people know the normal price is $195, and people can register for the second program immediately.

If you get registrations for both offerings, then price is not a factor and you should charge $195. If the $95 program fills immediately and hardly anyone registers for the $195 program, you can reasonably conclude that price was a factor.

4. Current pricing.

In general, people will pay less for a seminar or conference, and morea lot morefor a certificate program.

Thus pricing of online programs currently falls into two areashigh and low. For short programs, prices are below $100 because they are seen as being very reasonable. A

♦ Developing Online Courses 90 second reason is that online or distance programs are not yet established enough to have a positive image and value in the minds of your members and participants. So a low price lowers the risk in the mind of the participantnot much to lose if it doesnt work out.

At the other end of the pricing spectrum, a number of online programs are being priced relatively high$500 to $2,000. They can be priced this high if they meet at least one of two criteria: a) the program is unavailable in person, or so costly time- and money-wise that the person cannot take it in-person or on-site; or b) there is a certificate, certification or some other external award or recognition that is valued highly.

If your online program can qualify as being either unavailable in any other format or offering a highly regarded certificate or certification, then you charge a much higher price for it. Of course, the program then has to be comprehensive and deliver a valuable program to justify the fee.

♦ Developing Online Courses 91 Part V. Budgeting Online Programs

The Finances of Online Programs

Long term, online programs will:

a. Be very profitable, showing higher operating margins than your current programs; and

b. Have a fundamentally different financial structure than your in-person or on-site courses.

Short term, you should budget your online programs so:

a. They make a 50 percent operating margin or better; Online programs will b. Your first few have no financial pressure other than be very profitable to to break even on direct costs; and

run, making more c. You begin moving your financial structure to the ra- money than your tio for success for online programs. current programs. We will explain further all of the points made above.

Profitability

Online programs will be very profitable to run, making more money than your current programs.

Here is how to look at the finances of courses, seminars and conferences.

Income 100%

Promotion

Production

Total Direct Costs

Operating Margin

Direct costs are promotion and production, so promotion plus production equals direct costs. The operating margin is your gross profit (the term used in the for-profit section), so income minus direct costs equals operating margin. This financial format is the only way to measure and analyze your finances. For more on this financial format, see Ap- pendix M, How to Measure Financial Success.

♦ Developing Online Courses 83 Part VI Promoting Online Programs Part VI. Promoting Online Programs

More Not Less

One of the earliest misconceptions about marketing on the Internet was that all you had to do was put your program on your web site, and maybe other web sites, and presto, registrations and business would come flowing in.

The organization offering Personal Finance on the Internet listed the course on numerous distance learning master web sites, and yet did not receive one registration from them.

Far from devoting less resources to promotion and marketing, successful online programs will devote more re- More marketing, in sources to promotion and marketing. More marketing, in fact, not less, will be necessary in the twenty-first century. fact, not less, will be necessary in the That being said, however, we cannot emphasize enough the reality that increased promotion, even ter- twenty-first century. rific quality promotion, cannot save or rescue a program that does not meet the perceived needs of the audience. You simply have to have the right program as defined by your audience.

If you do have the right program, it will not sell itself, of course. But you will find it much easier, and spend your promotion dollars more efficiently and effectively if you are promoting the right program.

So promotion will follow program development. And be prepared to do more promotion, not less, over the long run.

Your Marketing Strategy

Your online promotion strategy is part of your overall marketing strategy, and the concepts of demographic characteristics, purchasing history, market segmentation, USP, and building your marketing database are all important and relevant for promotion of online courses, seminars and conferences. Since this publication is devoted to promoting online programs, we will not cover those topics here, but we have provided a number of articles in the Appendices that deal with these critical issues.

See the following: Appendix A, Develop Seven Market Segments for a Suc- cessful Program

♦ Developing Online Courses 92 Appendix B, Your Seven Market Segments Appendix C, How to Select Market Niches Appendix D, Program Development: Shift from Products to Markets Appendix E, Put the Customer in Charge of Your Promotion Appendix F, Establish Your USP and Secure Your Market Position Appendix G, Building Your Marketing Database Appendix H, Demographic Data Appendix I, Purchasing History Appendix J, Best Database Marketing Strategies

What Doesnt Work

Your web site Here are things that do not work especially well today. If you do them, do them as tests, as adjuncts or supple- alone wont sell ments, but do not expect results. They dont work, at least not yet. your programs. 1. Listing your program on master web sites.

2. Listing your program on other organizations web sites.

3. Unsolicited e-mail. E-mail users can receive dozens of junk mail solicitations a day, but they do not like junk e-mail messages.

4. Rented e-mail lists. A few e-mail lists exist that you can rent, but most likely you will be wasting your money on them.

5. Listing your program on your own web site. You should list your online program on your web site. And you should provide complete or more than complete information about your online program on your web site. But your web site will be a follow- up to traditional direct mail promotion. Your web site alone wont sell your programs.

Of course, you should continue to develop and build your web site to make it as accessible, attractive and income producing as possible. That includes taking registrations on your web site.

For more ideas on creating a successful web site, see Appendix K, Mastering Your Web Site: AIDA Still Applies.

♦ Developing Online Courses 93 What Works

Direct Mail

What works today is to develop a traditional brochure and mail it out at least once to your targeted audience.

This medium will bring in the bulk of your registrations for one simple reason. People are used to it. People are familiar with it. People find out about in-person or on-site programs through direct mail and register for them.

Brochures

Brochures promoting online programs need to use the A.I.D.A. (Attract, Interest, Desire, Action) approach and follow all the rules of success for program brochures. What works today is to In addition, consider these additional points: develop a traditional 1. Whenever possible, use visuals and graphics that are brochure and mail it computer-age. Your audience is by qualification technology literate and attuned to computer graphics. Us- out at least once to ing computer-age visuals and graphics sends the right your targeted audience. message that your organization understands technology, and that youre practicing what you preach.

2. Your brochure may be shorter in length. This has not been tested, but we suspect you can produce a shorter brochure for online programs.

With in-person or on-site programs, higher quality and higher cost programs have often benefitted from longer brochures to project that quality in image. However, in promoting online programs, participants are not likely to need long brochures for one percep- tual reason: They will expect complete information on the program to be available on your web site.

For an excellent example of a web site course description, see Appendix L, The Perfect Course Description.

3. Online benefits. Be sure to include benefits of taking the program online versus taking it in person.

For example, you could stress that participants can be involved anytime day or night, there are no time restrictions. Or that you have more presenters than available for an on-site program. Or that they can network with participants all over the world.

♦ Developing Online Courses 94 4. Relate the technology necessary. Tell people how they will log on, what hardware or software is required, and briefly state how they will participate technologically in the program.

Do not be too elaborate. Provide only enough information to attract interest. Send details and specifics with confirmation or explain it further on your web site, not in your brochure.

5. Reference, but dont require, a visit to your web site. Tell people there is more information on your web site. They will expect that. But dont require a visit to your web site to get any vital information such as agenda, instructors, price. People should be able to have all the info they need in the brochure in order to be able to make a decision and register. You now have the 6. Accept traditional ways of registration. Online regis- opportunity to go tration is happening and will grow. Someday, maybe soon, almost all of your registration will come off global, so do it. your web site. But not now. Be sure to include a traditional registration form in your brochure, and invite people to register via mail, fax and phone as well as by e-mail and on your web site.

On the following pages is an example of a successful brochure for an online seminar, LERNs first online seminar a tremendous success with ten times as many participants as we get at an on-site seminar.

To Whom Should You Mail?

Mail to best prospects, to your past participants. Your best customers for your online programs are likely to have the same demographic characteristics and be the same people who are your best customers for your on-site programs.

With one exception. You now have the opportunity to go global, so do it. For in-person or on-site programs you mail to the surrounding geographical region. But for online programs you can and should begin to mail internationally.

The place to start is with any names currently in your mailing list from around the world. Next, begin to strategize low cost ways of obtaining addresses of people who look just like your best participants demographically speaking.

At the time of this writing, gathering a global mailing list is an opportunity. In a few short years it will become a

♦ Developing Online Courses 95 ♦ Developing Online Courses 96 ♦ Developing Online Courses 97 ♦ Developing Online Courses 98 ♦ Developing Online Courses 99 necessity in order to maximize income and registrations. And shortly thereafter the global mailing list (it may be an e-mail list by then) will become critical. That is, if you have the list you can dominate your niche and be the global winner for your particular online program. And, without the global list, you will be far behind the winner or maybe not able to be a player at all.

So right now you may not want to dump thousands of dollars into finding international customers. But you do want to start right now thinking globally. And every international name you can acquire in a low-cost manner is golden. Mail to any international names you have.

Another important aspect of whom you should mail to is to not explore a totally new audience. In general, if you explore an audience that does not demographically re- You do want to semble your current audience, you are playing a high-risk game. And online programs for the next few years will be start right now high enough risk as we find out what works and what thinking globally. doesnt we dont need any more risks. There may be some of you who discover a huge untapped and ready market for online programs. If you can design a product line around your newly found untapped market, go for it.

But most of us will want to stay with our organizational strength and build on our best customers.

Here are two illustrations of what I am talking about.

Example 1. You currently offer a program of courses for electrical engineers. You develop an online program. You find a mailing list of electrical engineers in Finland, along with the fact that Finns have a high rate of access to the Internet (which they do).

Yes, you should definitely mail to the Finnish electrical engineers (all other things being equal).

Example 2. You currently offer a program of courses for nurses. You find a large mailing list of Finnish electrical engineers, along with the fact that they all have access to the Internet. No, you should not try to promote to Finn- ish electrical engineers, or American ones either its not your market niche.

♦ Developing Online Courses 100 How Many to Mail

This is a very good question and there is currently little data on how many brochures to mail for an online program.

So heres what to do.

1. Mail the same number of brochures as you would for an in-person or on-site program. Add to this number any international names you have. Now you can compare your response rate with existing programs.

2. Budget your online program to break even in the beginning and allocate 25 percent of income for promotion. This is a long-term This will give you your best shot. You are not spending too little on promotion at 25 percent. game, and the And your objective is to get your online programs immediate objective working. Later you can increase your operating or profit margin. is to capture the online market. One organization mailed 4,000 brochures to its best customers, including international people. Normally, the organization mailed 6,000 brochures to 3,000 people (averaging two brochures per person) to a specific geographical region for an on-site seminar. The one-time mailing was expected to generate 50 registrations for the online seminar. Instead it generated 300 registrations, so promotion was less than 10 percent of income.

So you can achieve immediate success, a high number of registrations, and low promotion costs. But do not expect such immediate results. This is a long-term game, and the immediate objective is to capture the online market. If you do, you will then be able to capture the online dollars.

When to Mail

Mail at the same time as you would for an on-site program. This is 14 weeks out for most successful seminars and continuing professional education programs. Allow- ing two weeks for bulk mail, people will get the brochure three months out.

Currently there is no evidence that people expect an online program brochure any earlier, or any later, than an on-site program brochure. And there is no evidence

♦ Developing Online Courses 101 people make the decision to attend an online program any later than they would for an on-site program, even though an online program involves no travel, hotel, or even no canceled meetings.

There is evidence to suggest that people register right up until the first day of an online program. In fact, some people register after the online program has started and read the transcripts to catch up.

But the registration pattern does not necessarily mean the time of deciding to register has changed.

At this point it is safest to assume that most people still make their decision to attend one to two months out, ac- customed as they are to this time frame for their on-site program commitments. That may very well change as on- The nature and line programs become more common, but there is no reason to believe at this point that mailings less than 14 weeks function of brochures before the online program starts will be any more effective. So mail 14 weeks out. and mailing lists are

likely to change. What Will Work Next: From Mail to E-mail

We will probably always have brochures and mailing lists. Our experience with technology is that new technologies dont replace old ones they just add to them. Fax registration did not replace phone registration, it just added to it. E-mail registration will not replace fax or phone registration, just add to it.

But the nature and function of brochures and mailing lists are likely to change. Right now your brochure and mailings are everything, or almost everything, in generating registrations. That will not be the case for online programs in the next stage of marketing development. We will be moving from mailing lists to e-mail lists.

The transition will be enormous and change all aspects of our marketing and promotion. E-mail will become the predominant way of communicating with past participants and best prospects. E-mail will become customized and tailored to each individual. It will become visually and graphically pleasing, with color and typesetting and pictures. E-mail will also be able to include audio messages from you, the instructor, or past participants. In doing all of these things, e-mail will also impact the other aspects of our promotion and marketing, from mailed print brochures to broadcast fax to registration and more. But more important than e-mail to your program will be your e-mail lists.

♦ Developing Online Courses 102 Your e-mail lists will be the e-mail addresses of your past participants and your best prospects. To be on your e- mail list, two things will need to happen:

1. The person will have to want to be on your e-mail list; and

2. You will have to want the person to be on your e- mail list.

First, the person will have to want to be on your e- mail list.

There will be no junk e-mail. There can be no junk e- mail. People will not tolerate junk e-mail. Every e-mail they receive they demand it be a message they want to receive. No unwanted messages. We are moving to We are moving to an era when there will be no junk an era when there will solicitations. No junk e-mail, no junk mail, no junk telemarketing. be no junk solicitations. Customers will create such negative impacts on organi- No junk e-mail, zations and companies that send junk e-mail that it will no junk mail, not be worth it for anyone to send junk e-mail. At the very least, if your message is perceived to be junk e-mail, it will no junk telemarketing. not be read. The result, however, is that you can lose the customer for life. You and I wont want to risk that.

So everyone on our e-mail list will want to be on our list. That means they will want to get our messages, and they will not perceive our e-mail to be junk e-mail.

Second, you will have to want the person to be on your e-mail list.

You will not accept everyone who wants to be on your list. You will accept only those people who are likely to register in the near future, and you will have sophisticated measuring devices for evaluating whether a person is likely to register in the near future. These measuring devices are the persons past purchasing history and demographics.

Even though the cost of e-mailing unlikely prospects is low, you will have more at stake than simply promotions. You will want to form a virtual community a select group of people. And others like them will want to join that group. And that marketing edge having the group that others will want to join means you will limit the group to only those people most likely to benefit from the group and from your online programs.

♦ Developing Online Courses 103 Your e-mail list will be a precious source of intellectual capital, a marketing and competitive edge. You will not want to dilute that precious resource.

Your e-mail list is likely to be your past participants and those prospects who want to become new customers of your program. Your participants represent anywhere from 50 percent to 70 percent of your registrations for your next online program. So cutting down mailing and printing costs to 50 percent or more of your participants will represent a good savings to your program. You will then be able to reallocate those savings to promoting to non-customers.

The e-mail stage of promoting online courses, seminars and conferences is starting now and will become dominant sometime in the next three to five years. Your e-mail list will be You should begin building your e-mail list either: a precious source of 1. Now; or intellectual capital, a 2. As soon as 50 percent of the people in your current marketing and audience have an e-mail address. competitive edge. Generating E-mail Addresses

Do not look for anyone with an e-mail address. That is the wrong strategy. The right strategy is to get e-mail addresses from your best customers and current participants. You will probably get e-mail addresses from three types of people:

1. Current and past participants;

2. Prospects, those interested in attending your program;

3. Those casually interested or you have just collected the e-mail address.

These are different types of people. Code them as such, or keep them on different databases.

To get e-mail addresses of your current participants, do a survey. Develop a card that is 8 ½" wide by 3 ¾" high approximately, printed on card stock. On one side put a business reply address in which you are paying the postage. On the other side put a message similar to this:

♦ Developing Online Courses 104 SURVEY

We are developing additional benefits for our program participants available via e-mail. To get more information about these benefits and being on our e-mail list, please:

A. E-mail us at (your e-mail address). Include the following in the “Subject” field of your e-mail:

List. Send information.

B. Or write your e-mail address below and mail this card. No postage is necessary. ___ My e-mail address is ______. ___ I have no e-mail address.

You should develop two Thank You! to five different possible Put the persons mailing label on this side of the card. Insert the card in a #10 window envelope, with the mail- benefits to being ing label showing through the window, and mail.

on your e-mail list. You may want to consider dropping the mail-back option and only ask people to e-mail you. The reason for this is that we have found that handwritten e-mail addresses are hard to read and 50 percent of them get misread and thus are useless. You may find yourself sending a follow-up post card saying We cant read your e-mail address. You could replace the word write with type, but undoubtedly some people will hand write them. Your decision.

Creating the Benefit

After you get your e-mail addresses, do NOT start e- mailing people with your upcoming events and programs. Instead, begin testing for benefits. There needs to be a reason why someone would want to read your e-mail messages and promotions of your online programs. Just finding out about them will not be a good enough reason for most of the people on your list, even though they are your best customers.

You will want to test several benefits. You should develop two to five different possible benefits to being on your e-mail list. Then work with a small group, an advi- sory board or a focus group, to test and refine or discard each possible benefit until you discover the best benefit, and the best way to deliver that benefit.

♦ Developing Online Courses 105 Here are three possible benefits to test:

1. Registration Discount. By being on your e-mail list, the person receives the lowest possible fee for a program, lower than the fee for people not on your e-mail list.

2. Information. By being on your e-mail list, the person will receive exclusive information not available to other people. The information could be: a. Selected tips, ideas or knowledge from the program you are promoting; b. Other selected information valuable to the persons career or aspirations; c. A review or references to recent excellent articles or books of great interest to your audience.

Begin now to think, 3. Chatroom. Exclusive access to an ongoing chatroom so people can network throughout the year. This last ben- plan and then generate efit is the kind of benefit which will help form, so- e-mail addresses from lidify, reinforce and promote that virtual community of participants, using your participants as asset, a mar- your best participants. keting resource that in and of itself is a reason why others would want to participate in your program to communicate with others just like themselves.

Begin to E-mail

After you test for your best benefit and decide how often to e-mail your people, you then begin to promote your programs via e-mail.

Gradually your e-mail promotions will generate more and more registrations. As e-mail promotions become more effective, you then redesign your direct mail promotions.

Begin now to think, plan and then generate e-mail addresses from your best participants. We will soon move from mailing lists to e-mail lists as the principal way of promoting online programs.

E-Mail Promotion

The following is an example of a good e-mail promotion. It won an international award from the Learning Re- sources Network for 1998.

The e-mail was produced by Brenda Cusick of Califor- nia State University in Bakersfield and produced a positive number of registrations for her program.

♦ Developing Online Courses 106 ♦ Developing Online Courses 107 ♦ Developing Online Courses 108 ♦ Developing Online Courses 109 Syndication

A third stage in the promoting of online courses, seminars and conferences will involve a dramatically different information delivery system.

Two components in this different information delivery system are master web sites and other providers.

Master Web Sites

Master web sites are web sites listing all the online programs available. Several sites exist now. LERN will be building its own master web site as well. The trouble with most current master web sites is that the general public does not access them frequently and regularly.

We know that there When a master web site is promoted to the point where millions of people use it frequently and regularly (these are enough people are not synonymous terms), then the great panoply of online lifelong learning opportunities will unfold. interested in just about We know that there are enough people interested in just any topic imaginable about any topic imaginable to form a course. Its just that to form a course. all the people are not in the same place or on the same list. There are four people in Singapore, five in Seoul, and so on. Reaching this scattered global audience for a specific topic is not feasible right now.

But if those people located your online program themselves through a master web site of all learning opportunities, then online programs could reach the general public on a global scale. Some day that will happen, hopefully within the next five to ten years.

Other Providers

A hot new information delivery system that will be developed will involve other providers. You will promote your online program through other providers. And in turn, they will promote their online programs through your program.

Heres how it will work. You will sell your online program to other providers. They will recruit participants to your program and they will get a share of the registration fee. Part of your marketing strategy will be to build a stable ongoing core of organizations to con- sistently promote your particular online program. Oth- ers will be doing this as well.

♦ Developing Online Courses 110 Part of the all-or-nothing, dominate-or-dwindle scenario of competition in the online age involves the enormous power of selling your course to other providers.

The organization that can engage the most providers in promoting its online program will gain a huge edge over other courses in the same topic area.

Again, the organization with the best authority, lowest price and largest share going to its allied providers will win. To do that, organizations will specialize more and devote more resources to the few areas of specialties where they can be world leaders.

That means cutting back elsewhere, and so we all will be marketing a few online programs where we are world leaders. And we will be buying online courses where It will mean forming we are not world leaders, because it will be far more inexpensive to buy an online course than it will be to alliances and develop our own. partnerships, buying So we all as providers will be marketing a few online and selling courses, courses, and then buying many other online courses to meet the needs of our particular audiences and custom- and shifting our ers. This is an entirely different arrangement or structure for program delivery than exists now. It will mean own organizations forming alliances and partnerships, buying and selling courses, and shifting our own organizations intellec- intellectual and tual and staffing resources. staffing resources. But the process has already begun. There are already providers buying online courses and others, of course, selling or remarketing them.

To prepare for this stage of development in marketing your online courses, seminars and conferences you should:

a. Not spend any big money right now.

b. Not spend large amounts of time on this.

c. Focus planning on specialization and global competi- tiveness.

d. Stay current in your field with regard to online marketing of programs.

e. Begin to think about resale alliances and global part- ners.

♦ Developing Online Courses 111 How to Sell Your Online Course

The geographically specific, comprehensive approach to online courses will not succeed in the long term.

The model of 20 students at $500 tuition is not viable economically.

The concept of offering many different online courses to people in a specific geographic area will not with- stand global competition.

Offering the same online courses as everyone else will not distinguish your organization nor be able to compete with the foremost authority or expert teaching the same course.

Buying seats in online courses taught by the foremost authorities is both less expensive for your organization and provides higher quality learning for your participants.

Your best online course strategy is to develop and market relatively few online courses, and achieve a national or global niche for your areas of specialty.

Niche courses marketed nationally or globally will succeed and thrive.

What you want to do is to develop your niche course based on a) having the foremost authority or expert as instructor; b) specializing in a subject or topic area where no other provider can offer the same high quality; and c) where there is a demonstrated audience.

Having developed such an online course, you then want to market your online course to other institutions and organizations who will offer your online course to their students or participants.

You do not sell the whole course. You sell seats in your existing online course. Their students or participants are involved in the same online course as your students or participants.

Larger online classes are both more economically viable for all concerned (participants as well as providers) and participants will learn more, not less, than from online classes with fewer participants.

Jim Randle of the University of Nebraska has documented that distance-learning classes with 100 or more

♦ Developing Online Courses 112 participants make a profit. And using the discussion forum as your instructors communication and dialogue tool means that large numbers of people can participate and learn more from their fellow students and the instructor.

Structuring the Arrangement

You should have the same arrangement with any institution wishing to purchase one or more seats in your online course. Heres how to structure the arrangement:

There is no risk on the part of the institution. Aside from any promotion they choose to do, they are not paying for anything unless a student registers for your online course.

You are selling individual seats, not a group of seats or a course.

You will give the partnering institution 50% of the tuition or registration fee.

The student or participant can either register with your partnering institution, and the institution forwards to you your half of the fee, or the student can register with you and you pay the partnering institution half of the fee.

You are responsible for providing the course. The partnering institution is responsible for any certification, credit, or other recognition; in-person counseling or information; and any in-person guidance, tutoring, or group discussions.

Financial Guidelines

Splitting the Fee

One way to structure the financial arrangements is for each institution (you and your partnering institution) to each take a percentage of the fee. It is in your best interest to split the fee equally with your partnering institutions. It is actually in both parties best interest to do so. Heres why this is the best financial arrangement:

Any money you get is mostly surplus. Aside from a few more hours the instructor may spend answering questions from a larger group of students, there is no cost involved for you. The course content has already

♦ Developing Online Courses 113 been developed and paid for. You are not providing student services. There is no individual e-mail correspondence the instructor is responsible for. So almost all of the money you receive is surplus. So almost all of the income goes directly to the bottom line, or surplus, for you.

Promotion is an important contribution. Your partnering institution is paying for the promotion of recruiting students and participants. It is not feasible for you to try to do a national or global marketing effort for your online course. Partnering with other institutions and organizations is the most cost-efficient way to recruit more students.

They will like you for it. A 50-50 split is regarded as fair in our world of perceptions. And if other organizations are offering less than 50%, then you are regarded as generous. This will create loyalty and positive relationships. This will lead to other long- term benefits.

Less than 50-50 is not viable for your partner. You may think the costs are with producing a course, but they are really in promoting the course. At less than a 50-50 split, your partnering institutions may be covering costs, but not making any money. Long term there is little incentive in it for them. If they can make 30% or more profit after promotion costs, it is viable financially for your partnering institutions.

Charging a discounted fee

Another way of structuring the financial arrangement is to charge the partnering institution a set fee per person, and allow that institution to set the fee it charges to its students, customers or participants. Again, because your costs are so low and the money generated is almost all surplus, there is little risk in offering your online course at a steep discount for your partnering institutions.

This may be a good option if your partnering institution is providing in-person instruction, is a credit- and degree- granting institution, or has other cost considerations.

For instance, if your partnering institution has costs, or is using your online course as only one component of a program, this might be a good option. For example, they might offer their program or course for $500, and you might charge them $100 per person for your online course.

♦ Developing Online Courses 114 Steps to Take

Heres what to do:

1. Offer your online course regularly. Not necessarily frequently, but regularly. Have a schedule at least six months in advance, and preferably one year in advance.

2. Develop a short course description for another institutions brochure, catalog or web site.

3. Develop a generic non-institution-specific course description on your web site. Other institutions can then link to it to provide complete information for their students.

4. Sell seats in your online course.

5. If the partnering institution recruits no one, there is no penalty or cost. If the partnering institution recruits one or more persons, they receive 50% of the income.

6. Consider, but dont box yourself into, exclusivity. Your partnering institutions will want geographic territory to be your exclusive partner. This may or may not be viable or in your best interest.

7. Communicate regularly, personally and positively with your partnering institutions. Build up your cli- ent list and keep them happy. They will make you lots of money.

♦ Developing Online Courses 115 How to Buy Online Courses

Buying online courses will be central to your organization. Heres why:

You want your audience to look to you, and only you, for its educational needs. If they start to look elsewhere, you may lose them. Therefore, you will act as a filter. That is, you will select those online courses most of interest, relevance and benefit for your audience. They will rely on your judgment.

A filter is any system that looks over the Internet (or world) and makes some choices about what is good for a particular audience. With millions of web sites, millions of teachers, hundreds of thousands of courses, an individual does not have the time, energy or expertise to determine which courses (in this case we are talking about courses) are the most relevant and beneficial. So in many areas of life we will rely on filters to help us make choices.

Heres another reason why your organization and mine should be buying online courses. Much knowledge is ap- plicable and relevant for a variety of settings, conditions, audiences, jobs, industries, and so on. It is very expensive to develop your own online course. If there is another online course that already meets the needs of your audience, it is much more cost effective and profitable for you to buy seats in that online course for your audience.

Down the road, when industry standards are developed for online learning, you will even be buying modules or parts of courses, and putting various modules or parts together to form a course. For example, if you want to offer an online course on poetry, you might buy a module on French poetry from the foremost expert on that topic, and then one on 16th Century English poetry from another source, and so on.

For now, begin to think about buying online courses. Then buy your first course and see how it works.

Buying Online Courses in Higher Education

If you are a community college, you stand to gain immediately from buying online courses. The reason is simple: you will be able to offer to your local audience courses not available at your community college. In fact, the courses may not be available at many four-year universities either.

♦ Developing Online Courses 116 If you are with a four-year university, the same thing applies. It is likely however that community colleges will lead the way in buying online courses because they do not perceive their role as being a research institution, but instead are focused on serving a local, area or regional audience.

Officials at the Des Moines (Iowa) Area Community College contacted LERN recently and asked where they could buy online courses. This is a smart move.

There are 1,200 institutions of higher education offering Introduction to Religion right now, according to Mar- keting Data Retrieval. But there are only five institutions offering Greek and Roman Religion. If the Des Moines Area Community College, or your institution, could offer Greek and Roman Religion to your students, it would be a win-win situation all around.

How many students at the Des Moines Area Commu- nity College would we need to sign up for this online course on Greek and Roman Religion? Only one. There is no risk for the institution buying the online course using this model.

Heres How to Buy Online Courses

1. Look for subjects and topics that might be of interest to your students, but are not offered at your institution.

2. Find an institution offering a subject you are interested in buying online. You can search the Internet, get catalogs from other institutions, let LERN know of your search, or post your request in various listservs and web sites, such as LERNs Market- place, a free web site listing for buying and selling online courses.

3. Offer to buy one or more seats in the institutions online course for a certain price, beginning at around 50% of what a student would normally pay for the online course.

4. Stick with a 50-50 split in tuition, or if you have other costs to cover, make an offer for a price that is financially feasible for you. Your financial objective is to make the same amount of money from buying an online course as you would make if you offered the course yourself.

♦ Developing Online Courses 117 5. Advertise the online course in your student catalog and on your web site.

6. You provide all the guidance and student services for the student. You also issue the credit for the course. The credit comes from your institution, not the institution providing the online course.

As we move further into the 21st century and age of online learning, the majority of courses we as educational institutions offer will be seats in online courses that we purchase, not develop ourselves. We will develop a smaller number of online courses and market them nationally and globally. We will buy a variety of online courses that are of interest to our audience.

♦ Developing Online Courses 118 E-mail Newsletters: 10 easy steps to create your first e-zine

by Leonard Charnoff

Every day I receive scores of unsolicited e-mail proclaiming that the Internet has millions of users just bursting at the seams ready to deposit money into my bank account if only I would accept their offer. Of course, the truth is that the vast majority of netizens (85%) intensely dislike unsolicited junk e-mail (spam).

There is a formula for marketing and selling on the In- ternet. Part of the formula is understanding that most netizens are busy and dont want spam. A second part is that e-mail is the most direct, inexpensive way to reach your audience.

E-zines, online newsletters sent by e-mail, are a wonderful mechanism for bringing more traffic to your web site and building a database of prospects for your products or services. Here are 10 easy steps to develop your first e-zine.

#1: Is there an interest for your product or service?

The Internet is not a mass market medium. It is made up of thousands of communities. See if there is information about your product or service already out there. For example, if you plan to market a newsletter to owners of rescue dogs, how many prospects are there?

1. Is it on the web? Use a variety of search engines (http:/ /www.netogether.com/search) to find the depth of coverage.

2. Is it covered in a mailing list? Use the new list directory (http://listserv.nodak.edu/archives/new- list.html) to see if there are any similar lists.

3. Can you find information about your expertise on a newsgroup? Use the directory tile net (http://tile.net) or Dejanews to see.

#2: How big is the community?

In the case of rescue dogs, there are many entries on the web. The more important are two mailing lists and one newsgroup devoted to the subject. Tile.net produced these helpful demographics: Actual readers of this group: 7100; Average # of messages per day: 15; Kilobytes per day: 20k;

♦ Developing Online Courses 119 % of Internet sites that receive this group: 51%; Crossposting: 19%

Dejanews produced almost a thousand messages on rescue dogs in the past month.

#3: Join these communities

You have to formally join a mailing list. Take precau- tions before joining you are giving out private information which may be picked up by spammers. Use an e-mail account other than your business address try free web- based e-mail like Hot Mail (http://www.hotmail.com) so you wont clog up your business account with more mail. Check the instructions or FAQ (frequently asked questions) to see how many messages the list generates a week. L-Soft (http://www. lsoft.com/lists/list_q.html) is a great reference for this.

Set up filters so that multiple lists go into different e- mail folders. Dont lose the unsubscribe instructions! Most lists are dispensed by automated software.

#4: Lurk in the communities

Lurking, in this context, means watching, not participating. Get the tone of the group and look for an opportunity to join the discussion. Make sure your signature file directs people to your web site or autoresponder. My signature file is very simple: Lenny Charnoff, Netogether Managing Partner Phone: 503-985-9539 Autoresponder: mailto:info@ netogether.com Web Site: http://www.ultimate-mail.com

#5: Create a business plan

Write a simple document on how you are going to use your e-zine. Establish the following:

Content who writes and how often?

Advertising will you accept? What will you charge?

Bounced e-mail who removes old addresses?

Archives do you provide access to past issues? Free?

How will you promote the e-zine so people find it and subscribe?

♦ Developing Online Courses 120 #6: Create a small web site.

One of the most popular ways of publicizing any e-zine is through the web. This means that you need a web page to back up your e-zine. Your web page does not have to be elaborate. It does need to have an easy interface for an e- zine subscription.

A woman I know moderates The Alpaca Chronicles, an e-zine devoted to the discussion of alpaca ranching. Her web site has an easy subscription interface, and creates more interest than the three-year-old web site ever did alone. (http://www.alpacanet.com/request.html)

#7: Mailing list software

Choosing the mailing list software depends on several factors: budget, the size of your list, how much mainte- nance you want to perform. Listserv has a free edition (http://www.lsoft.com/free-edition.html) and the coollist (http:/ /www. coollist.com) is free because it is supported by advertising. Your Internet Service Provider may have mailing list software that comes with your account or is added at a nominal price.

I have used two services with a great deal of success. Oneworld Internetworking provides the Mailing Group Manager (http://www.oneworld. com) and I use that on my Netogether mailing list (http:// www.netogether.com/sub.html). The Ultimate E-mail mailing list (http://www.ultimate-mail. com) uses Post.Office (http://www.software.com).

#8: Plan your e-zine

I find that most e-zines should be under 1500 words. Make sure you plan:

Fonts/margins your text should be a fixed ASCII font and your margins should be less than 62.

Topics highlight your topics with underscoring or ASCII symbols for easier reading.

Links have your web sites in the form of http:// www.ultimate-mail.com and your e-mail addresses in the form of mailto: [email protected]

Unsubscribing information have clear unsubscribing instructions in your e-zine and put it right up at the top!

♦ Developing Online Courses 121 #9: Write many issues of your e-zine

Your subscribers will depend on scheduled delivery of your e-zine. Write several issues ahead so you can slip one in when you dont feel like writing or a holiday surprises you unprepared.

#10: Promote your e-zine

Your e-zine must be advertised to be successful. Hot Sheet (http://www.hotsheet. com) has several resources to promote your site. For a complete list, see http://thetransom.com/ chip/zines/resource/publicz.html.

Discussion Forums: Why a chat room is critical to your programs future

A chat room is critical to your programs future. It is the first step in helping your organization create a virtual community. And it is a terrific help in developing your programs online seminars, conferences and courses.

At this point in the article we want you to copy this page for your organizations president or CEO. She or he will want to read this.

Organizations have to redesign themselves totally for the Information Age and the new economic reality of the 21st Century. Your web site is your new business center, replacing your brochure (and eventually your physical office) as the place where your participants come to do business with your organization.

To keep participants coming back, you will need to create a virtual community, a place on your web site where your participants will return frequently for information, services, communication and benefits. This will be true whether or not your program offers online courses.

So, to get started on creating your virtual community create a chat room on your web site.

Terms first

We recommend an asynchronous chat room. Most technical people call this a bulletin board or at best a discussion forum. This is not the same as a real time live chat.

Asynchronous means any person with access can get on anytime day or night and make a comment. And we

♦ Developing Online Courses 122 call it a chat room because it is meant to create an ongoing conversation, dialogue, or chat. It is not meant to be a posting of static infrequent messages on a bulletin board.

Create your chat room for these reasons:

1. It orients your participants to functioning online, especially interacting and making comments in a chat room setting.

2. It gives you and your staff the opportunity to experiment and test with the delivery of interactive online services, such as online courses and seminars.

3. It provides a current and constantly updated service for your participants on your web site. It is a reason to come back to your web site.

4. It helps your organizations leadership think about how to create your virtual community.

5. It is low cost.

6. It gives you a dynamite mechanism or tool for staying in touch with what your participants and customers are thinking about, wanting, and talking about.

How to Make Your Chat Room Work

Message posted in a society for association executives chat room: If the association community is so hot on web sites, why arent people using the bulletin board? Is anyone using this? Char Beales. At last glance, no one had yet responded to Ms. Beales.

Running a chat room on your association web site is one of the best ways to create a successful web site. Yet most associations are not getting a good response to their chat rooms because they are not designed and managed well.

Association educators are primary players in making your association chat room work. In this article, well tell you how to make your chat room work.

A chat room is an area on your web site where a member can post a message, ask a question, reply to someone else, offer a thought or provide some other kind of written message.

There are at least three technical ways to construct an association chat room:

♦ Developing Online Courses 123 A real-time live interactive chat room, sometimes called an IRC.

The threaded bulletin board where members post messages.

The single chat room where members post messages.

Few associations have enough traffic on an hourly basis to have real-time live interactive chats all day. Wait to use this technology until your web site is active.

The threaded bulletin board where members post messages is the most common technical and design approach to generated member input and chat. It is also the most ineffective.

The single-thread message board chat room is a highly effective and highly trafficked chat room when designed, promoted and managed properly.

Single-thread Chat Room

A conversational chat room is a single thread message board where messages can be posted at any time.

The messages appear together on the page, one after another, chronologically. This allows a member to make a comment and another member can respond, and the two messages are seen one after another so it reads like a conversation.

It is asynchronous in that it is open 24 hours a day, and someone can post a message from Australia at 3 a.m. U.S. time and get a response back the next day from someone in New York.

While many Internet web developers might not call the single threaded message board a chat room, it is designed to encourage conversation and in non-technical lan- guage should be thought of and referred to as a chat room.

The single thread message board is the most effective design for an association chat room because:

Messages are related to each other. Thus it runs like a conversation.

It does not appear static. Instead, it appears as a running conversation.

It encourages posting of messages.

♦ Developing Online Courses 124 It best structures a topic discussion.

It is focussed. It is not scattered, but very specific and focussed.

Threaded bulletin board

The threaded bulletin board is a technological marvel, and a wonderful tool for the Internet, and has many uses. But it should not be used as a way to conduct discussions and conversations among association members. And if you check out most threaded bulletin boards, they dont work very well.

A threaded bulletin board may work well if you have an audience of 100,000 members or more. You can see active sites with great threaded bulletin boards, but they are accessed by thousands of people on a regular basis. If your association is like most associations, you dont get that kind of activity on your web site. So the threaded bulletin board is a disincentive to communicating and discussing ideas on your web site.

The threaded bulletin board doesnt work to encourage conversations and discussions for these reasons:

a) It is static. It just sits there. It posts messages to a static bulletin board.

b) There are too many threads. Two or three threads is simply too many when you are just starting and your members are just getting acquainted with your web site. Because there are too many options, members choose none. It is too scattered. It is not focussed.

c) It does not encourage members to post messages. When you read a message, it is not followed by an invitation to reply.

d) There is no flow. Someone posts something one week, or one month. Someone posts something else another week, or even another month. That is not a conversation. That is a jerky unproductive way of communicating.

What Works Best

The single-thread message board is constructed to take advantage of the adult learning concepts of discussion, questions and answers, and responses among people in the group. It also allows a moderator to facilitate the chat

♦ Developing Online Courses 125 room discussion, making comments, encouraging others, asking questions, and responding to others. The threaded bulletin board is not accompanied by any facilitation or moderator.

Another feature of the single-thread message board is that you can designate time periods for the discussions a week, a month, a day. That allows association member to understand when a chat is taking place and encourages them to look in. After the chat is over, you can archive it so anyone can see the discussion later. A threaded bulletin board has no built-in time period. It has no beginning, middle or end. A conversation or discussion has a beginning, middle and end.

Conclusion

The design of your chat room can greatly impact the success of your association chat room. To generate more interaction and communication, construct a single thread message board rather than a threaded bulletin board. The single thread message board, with all the messages ap- pearing together, creates a conversation and a flow to the messages you cant get with a threaded bulletin board.

Creating Topics Key to a Successful, Useful Association Chat Room for Members

In order to serve members, recruit members and retain members, your association will have to build a virtual community. A virtual community is a place where people can gather to exchange information, network, learn and find a sense of community or belonging.

Online seminars, cyberconferences and other online association education is a key component to creating your associations virtual community. Online association education will also eventually comprise half of all the association education activity and income of your association.

The place to start in building your virtual community and your online association education is with an asynchronous chat room. Asynchronous means the discussion is both real time and delayed time, so anyone can participate in the discussion at any hour of the day or night. The asynchronous feature also allows your association to serve people in any time zone, thus making it a key tool in taking your association global.

In other articles we discussed why a chat room is criti-

♦ Developing Online Courses 126 cal to your associations future, and why the single thread asynchronous chat room is superior to both live chat rooms and threaded bulletin boards.

But, like everything else in life, you cannot just throw up your association chat room and expect it to be successful all by itself. There are keys to making your association chat room successful.

Create topics

One of the keys to making your association chat room successful is to create topics for your chat room.

Many associations make the mistake of creating a chat room and then letting it exist without any structure or guidance, hoping the members will magically take the ini- tiative and make comments, create dialogue, and respond to each other. It doesnt work that way.

If you put up a chat room on your web site and let it sit, it will do just that.

You will want to create a structure for your chat room and guide it. Then members will become interested and participate.

Tips for creating topics for your association chat room:

1. Survey members for topics.

Either survey a random selection of your membership (200 -400 members is usually plenty) or active users of your web site. Give them 10-20 possible topics and ask them to select their top 3-5 choices. Then go with the most popular topics.

2. Create a schedule of topics.

Create a schedule of chat room topics based on your survey results. Make your schedule three to six months in advance for greatest efficiency and promotion.

3. Have a moderator.

Your chat room discussion will not succeed unless you have moderators for each topic. The moderators can be association staff, association leaders, or drawn from active users of your site.

4. Dont schedule too many topics.

♦ Developing Online Courses 127 Schedule one or two topics a month for a start. Too many topics dilutes participation and fewer people are engaged per topic. You want to build as much enthusiasm and excitement about each topic as possible. Not every chat will be well attended, but you want to create as many successful chats as possible. And scheduling too many topics or chats will decrease your overall feeling of success.

5. Open weeks are okay.

In between scheduled topic chats, it is fine to have open discussion where members can ask questions, respond, share ideas, or talk about anything they want. But topic discussions will generate more participation than just leaving the chat room open all the time.

6. Best length is one to two weeks.

Experiment and see which length of time for a topic does better for your membership. But you will want topic discussions to last either one week or two weeks in length.

7. Promote the topic chats.

Promote the schedule in your web site, in your newsletter or magazine, e-mails, and even with special post card mailings.

8. Just do it.

This is new territory. No one has all the answers. And certainly members of different associations will have different preferences, needs, and interests. So dont wait. Get in there and fail. Just keep trying. The stakes for your association are too high for you to wait.

Options to consider in choosing topics

While your association members should have the final say in determining which topics you discuss in your chat room, you will need to give them the choices from which to select.

Here are some options to consider in proposing topics.

Technology versus generic topics. Since the people on your web site are already involved in the Internet, technology or online topics often are a hit. But you may want to mix that with broader, generic and non- technology topics as well.

♦ Developing Online Courses 128 Narrow versus broad topics. Pose a few narrow topics, very specialized, that people wont find elsewhere. And then pose a few broad topics that may appeal to a larger audience.

Sharing versus experts. Pose a few topics that your association members will have experiences with and can contribute ideas and share online. Then pose a few topics that experts might be needed to provide input and ideas.

Moderators, guests and leaders. Who moderates or leads the chat might impact participation. Try using some association leaders. Try using staff or association professions. And try having some guests or outside experts who are interviewed by the moderators.

Moderators key to success for your association chat room

One of the most common mistakes associations make in setting up a chat room (discussion forum, bulletin board) is not having a moderator for the discussions.

Heres what happens when you dont have a moderator:

Few people make a comment.

Comments often dont get a response.

Members dont know when to start talking.

Members feel abandoned, like no one is there.

Members feel a lack of direction, no one is in charge.

Conversation can go way off track.

If there are problems, either technically or with the comments, there is no one to take care of them.

Would your association hold a discussion group or session at your conference without a leader? Probably not. Imag- ine what would happen if you just left a meeting room open at your conference with a sign outside. People would wander in, see only a few people there, listen to a scattered and directionless conversation, and quickly leave. The same thing happens on your web site without a moderator.

Most successful chat rooms on the Internet have moderators, including those at a) Talk City, a site with a series of

♦ Developing Online Courses 129 different chat rooms for different people and on different topics; b) Echo, a virtual salon for New York City folks run by Stacey Horn and chronicled in her excellent book Cyberville; and c) New York Times discussion forums on different issues and news events of the day; to name a few.

Heres what a moderator can do or say for your discussion forum or chat room:

1. Introduces the topic.

The moderator frames the issue or topic discussion at the beginning of the discussion.

2. Makes people feel welcome.

This is one of the most important functions of the moderator. Without feeling welcome, people will not participate as easily. The moderator creates a comfortable atmosphere that encourages people to make comments.

3. Encourages comments.

A primary role of the moderator is to encourage others to make comments. You do this with positive and rein- forcing messages.

4. Reinforces comments.

After people make comments, the moderator thanks them, encourages them, helps reinforce the positive aspects of the comments.

5. Answers people.

The goal is for no one to make a comment or ask a question without getting at least response. Sometimes others will not respond to a particular question or comment. Then the moderator needs to respond, even if it is to say that no one has responded.

6. Acts as a model.

The moderator is a model comment maker and shows others how to make a comment just by the way she or he formulates questions and makes comments.

7. Keeps up the chatter.

It is important for the moderator to keep up the comments even when others are silent. Sometimes folks just want to lurk or listen. Other times there is a slow day. So

♦ Developing Online Courses 130 the moderator keeps the discussion going by getting on frequently and just keeping up the banter until others start to participate again.

Sources for Moderators

There are various sources you can tap to get moderators:

Staff. Staff are a good source for moderators. You want staff to become familiar with communicating with association members on your web site, and this is excellent experience. In order to train others to moderate, staff will want some experience themselves. Staff are close. Staff can be easily corralled into moderating. Staff are a good place to start with moderators.

Association Leaders. Association leaders are a good source for moderators. They are easier to ask than asking your entire membership. They are more apt to volunteer. They see their role as representing or communicating with the membership anyway, so this is a natural role for them. When they moderate, your association leaders will be more supportive of your web site and virtual community efforts.

Members. Members are a good source for moderators. Members create the most democracy, the most community for your web site discussions. They also can spot some trends or issues that staff and leaders may miss. This is another good way to spot future leaders for your association as well.

Having moderators for your chats or discussion forum is one of the keys to success. Dont start a chat without one. Or more than one moderator. Having two or three moderators just adds to the fun and excitement of the chat.

An online discussion without a moderator is like walk- ing into a session at the annual conference and finding there is no leader.

♦ Developing Online Courses 131 Part VII Online Program Formats VII. Online Program Formats

Cybercasting Your Annual Conference

It seems like a direction most associations should pursue.

Currently there are at least two models for cybercasting your annual conference. Undoubtedly other models and combinations of models will be created in the future. The two models currently in existence are live cybercasts and follow-up online conference.

Follow-up Online Conference

The delayed asynchronous cybercast is a separate event hosted on your web site after the conference is over. It requires little investment, does not compete with the on- site conference, and is especially suitable for audiences that may not have sound cards or audio download capabilities.

Heres how it works:

A month after the on-site conference, there are two weeks of time when the conference presenters get into a chat room and provide follow up comments, answer questions and engage the group in discussion.

One association picked its top twenty sessions and ran two chat rooms a day for ten business days, each topic lasting one day using an asynchronous chat room.

During the on-site conference, the sessions are audio taped and the cassettes mailed to the online conference participants so they can listen to the audio tapes before the online conference. When enough of your associations members can easily download audio from your web site, you wont have to mail the cassettes.

When online participants can download the audio cassettes, it will also be possible to run the online conference concurrently with your on-site conference and/or immediately afterwards, as you load the audio cassette shortly after each conference session ends.

Online participants also receive the conference pro- ceedings, handouts and any other reading materials that on-site conference participants receive.

It is also possible to have a pre-conference online session. One to four weeks before the on-site conference, a

♦ Developing Online Courses 132 pre-conference online session would give both on-site and online conference participants the opportunity to ask the conference presenters questions and suggest things they would like the presenters to cover. This would aid presenters in designing the most effective session. As of this writing, this pre-conference online session has not been tested, but it is one more way that the Internet can enhance your annual conference.

The follow-up online conference has several advantages. It is a way for people not able to come to the conference in person to obtain valuable information. It is a way for new people who have never come to your conference to see whether your conference is right for them without a major investment of time or money. And it is a way for people in other countries without the time or travel money to experience your conference. The online The follow-up online conference involves no new equipment, no expensive set ups at the conference. It is another benefit for those who conference has attend the conference in person. several advantages. Financially, the follow-up online conference is a money maker. The cost of audio taping is minimal, and many associations already sell audio tapes of conference sessions. The cost of sending out the tapes and manuals is easily covered by the follow-up online conference registration fee. If for any reason the online conference registration fails to make muster, you have lost little or no money.

Live Cybercast

The live cybercast involves broadcasting over the Inter- net live from your annual conference. In order to participate, your audience will need to be able to receive live sound.

The International Association of Jazz Educators has pio- neered this model. They have a jazz radio station at their annual conference which broadcasts the music at the jazz conference over the Internet. They also have interviews with jazz educators and musicians.

They have the potential of broadcasting any session in the conference. For this association and its members, the Live Cybercast makes perfect sense. It allows the association to have a worldwide audience for its conference. Members and others not able to travel to the United States can experience the conference. Because the association is involved with music, its members are more apt to have sound cards on their computers.

♦ Developing Online Courses 133 Pricing the Cybercast Conference

There are obviously three ways to price your cybercast conference:

1. Price it higher than the fee for attending the conference in person.

2. Price it lower than the fee for attending the conference in person.

3. Price it the same as the fee for attending the conference in person.

For associations that depend heavily on exhibitors and trade show income, having someone choose the cybercast conference may diminish those revenues. Thus those asso- The beauty of the ciations may want to price the cybercast conference higher than the fee for attending the conference in person. No cybercast or online association has done that to date, and the higher price may be a big disincentive to participating in the cybercast conference is that conference. Thus this option may not be very desirable. it costs almost nothing For associations that can count on good or strong in- to promote. person attendance and have no concerns over the cybercast conference competing with the in-person conference, a lower fee will be possible. And at this point in time, it appears that the lower the fee for online events, the higher the attendance, so this is a good choice.

The third option price the online conference the same as the fee for attending the conference in person has advantages as well. One advantage is that the association does not have to push one conference over the other, because it is receiving the same registration income. Another advantage is the implicit message that the online or cybercast conference is of sufficient quality to merit the fee. Another advantage for the follow-up online conference is that the costs are so low, that charging the regular registration fee will make the online conference very profitable very quickly.

Promoting the Cybercast Conference

The beauty of the cybercast or online conference is that it costs almost nothing to promote. The ideal way to promote your cybercast or online conference is to devote one-half page to one full page in your regular conference brochure to the cybercast or online conference option. An extra page of your brochure will cost you very little, and of course, no extra cost for postage, and no extra staff time involved.

♦ Developing Online Courses 134 Another advantage of promoting your cybercast or online conference in your regular conference brochure is that you send the message that this is the same event, the same quality. You do not force your audience to choose between two annual conferences (the in-person one and the cybercast one). You do not force your members and customers to try to distinguish between the two, decide which is better, and so on. That takes work. And it sets up one of your two events as the loser. Instead, the only question for the potential participant is whether to participate in-person or online. Either way you win.

Finances

As you may have realized, the finances for the cybercast or online conference are the reverse of the finances for The finances for the online seminars and online courses. That is, promotion costs for online or cybercast conferences are low. cybercast or online The costs come in the production of the cybercast or conference are the online conference, either up front equipment and reverse of the finances cybercasting costs, or staff time in producing a follow-up online conference. Eventually the enormous potential and for online seminars ultimate success of cybercast or online conferences will result in the necessity to develop special staffing for the and online courses. cybercast or online conference. As soon as the cybercast or online conference generates enough income for your association, it will be financially worthwhile for some staff, either your own staff or professionals contracted especially for your conference, to develop a whole new way of broadcasting, covering the conference, inter- viewing presenters, and creating other interactive aspects for the cybercast or online conference. The good news is that you develop your cybercast staff only after the interest shown justifies the expense, and the profit, in doing so. But what it means is that the cybercast or online conference will add a whole new and exciting di- mension to your annual conference.

Training for Business and Industry

Business and industry increasingly require the training of their employees. The year 1991 was the first year of the Information Age. In that year companies bought more in software and computer related equipment than they did in capital investments. Before 1991 many employers worried that if they trained their employees, the employee might leave the company for a better job. Today employers have a bigger worry. They now worry what will hap-

♦ Developing Online Courses 135 pen if they dont train their employees and the employees stay. Today and in the future untrained workers are a huge cost, while trained employees are a great investment.

Thus business is doing more and more training of its employees. The training used to come mostly from trainers hired by the company. But today more and more training is being purchased or outsourced. Other firms come in and do the training.

Three types of training firms make up the majority of organizations doing training today:

1. Community colleges, vocational technical schools, universities and other nonprofits;

2. Individual private trainers who are self-employed or The Internet and online in partnerships with one or two other private trainers; learning will impact 3. Specialized training firms that focus on a specific industry or a specific type of training. training for business in The Internet and online learning will impact training the same way it will for business in the same way it will impact other types of impact other types learning and education. It will change everything. of learning and One thing it will do is to increase the frequency and regularity of training. Some training may only take 15 min- education. It will utes a day. Because almost all workers currently or will have access to computers at work, it will be very easy to change everything. conduct online training on a frequent and regular basis.

Depending on the industry and type of job, up to one hour a day may be spent on what could loosely be called training learning new skills, updating ones information, learning about new products or audiences, and so on.

For contract trainers, there are enormous opportunities to: 1) specialize; and 2) go global. A private trainer working out of her basement can be involved in training companies all over the world.

Contract training online will have these features:

1. Specialties. If you are a contract trainer, specialize by industry, job title, process, technique, strategy or function. Select a narrow niche that is not dominated by anyone else, and then declare your ownership of that niche.

2. Develop a mailing list. From speaking before industry

♦ Developing Online Courses 136 groups, from referrals from current clients, from directories, or from a newsletter you develop, generate a mailing list of employers needing information and training in your specialty area.

3. Your site or mine. Decide whether to build your own training web site or to use the companys intranet. If you have certain materials, software, programs that require a certain kind of web site, then build your own training web site so that your training classroom is ready to go. Then the companys employees log on into your web site for training. If you have to use the companys intranet, you may limit your capabilities to do the kind of training you need to do, as well as limit your audience to those companies with an intranet training classroom. So building your own training classroom on the In- There are enormous ternet might be a wise investment.

possibilities and 4. Develop one or two packaged training programs. Better potential for contract to create one dynamite training program than a dozen average ones. Create some things that cannot be ac- trainers who can define complished in person, or at least are far less costly than in person, such as performance measurements, their niche and then computer assisted design or modeling, and so on.

locate interested Skills, information and cognitive learning can all be de- companies on a livered online by contract trainers. There are enormous possibilities and potential for contract trainers who can national and then define their niche and then locate interested companies on a national and then global scale. global scale. Currently one of the most active areas where online learning is taking place is business and industry.

Business and industry is likely to continue to be a leader in online learning. First, because businesses need ongoing updating and can now see training as an investment that will help, not hinder, the bottom line. Second, because large business and industry will be the first to be able to afford the technology. Third, business and industry is driving the whole economic shift from the Industrial Age to the Infor- mation Age, so it is making money from the computer chip and can see where the economy is headed.

And because business and industry is contracting out more training, it offers unheard-of opportunities for trainers in both the public and private sectors.

Online learning in business and industry will eventually be the major reason why colleges and universities will

♦ Developing Online Courses 137 turn to online learning as the standard way for college students to learn. As industry adopts online learning as a standard way of keeping up to date, they will require workers who are adept at learning online. Colleges and universities, because one of their main missions is to prepare people for the workforce, will adopt online learning because it will be what business and industry will want new workers to be trained for in this important function updating and keeping up in the workforce via online learning.

Continuing Professional Education

Tremendous opportunity exists for associations, universities and other organizations targeting a particular profession or industry job title for professional development.

New market niches in Here you have the opportunity to create lifetime customers, of having participants come back to you time and continuing professional again for their professional development.

education are being Certification programs, certificate programs, institutes, created every day. conferences, courses and seminars all can be delivered successfully online.

What makes continuing professional education so appealing?

1. Lists of professionals by industry, profession or job title are relatively easy to acquire or to create.

2. People stay in their industry or profession for a number of years, thus the opportunity for repeat participation is enhanced;

3. Business and industry welcomes market segmentation. Professionals and workers are always looking to their colleagues and competitors for networking, benchmarking, standards, and averages, and the more narrow the segmentation the more professionals like it.

Thus, you have a greater opportunity to create a market niche.

New market niches in continuing professional education are being created every day. In fact, there is a new association created every day, but with all the new associations, many niches go unnoticed, and other niches go unserviced by continuing professional education providers.

♦ Developing Online Courses 138 Here is an example of how market niches emerge every day. Twelve months before the writing of this manual a new occupation emerged in America: Web master. Nine months ago the International Association of Web Mas- ters was formed. Six months ago a university working in collaboration with the new association developed a curriculum for web masters. And three months ago someone said her job title was web diva a whole new market niche emerging again.

In addition to new professions and industries emerging, our world is becoming increasingly specialized. Take an occupation and subdivide it. Youve just discovered a new market niche.

For example, say your organization provides continuing professional education to nurses. Here are a few of the Take an occupation and subspecialties for nurses:

subdivide it. Youve Home care nurses

just discovered a School nurses

new market niche. Corporate nurses

Nursing home nurses

Emergency room nurses

Hospital nurses

and so on.

Each of these subspecialties presents an opportunity for a continuing professional education provider to create and then dominate the market niche by providing continuing professional education.

The two types of organizations that can most easily take advantage of the continuing professional education market are associations and universities. But if they leave a gap in the market, then there is room for centers, institutes and other professional development organizations.

Professional Development Formats

If you are providing continuing professional development online, pay some attention to the type of formats that can be offered. Different formats are best suited for various types of training. Get the format right, and you may have a winner. Get the format wrong, and you may have a loser.

♦ Developing Online Courses 139 Consider these online formats:

Conference The participant feels more like an equal and can contribute to the sessions, as well as choose among a number of different sessions. Conferences have several to numerous different presenters, as well as choice in selection of sessions. A conference is perceived less as training and more as interactive sharing.

Seminar An information update, good for new or current topics. The New Tax Law is a classic successful seminar. It is one to three days, one to two presenters, and fairly specific in topic.

Course This is usually seen as more extensive and longer than a seminar, and to be more strictly educational in that training is implied or even promoted as the benefit of a course. A course is often seen in terms of progression, so that one course may lead to another. Courses are also used as a comprehensive curriculum, so a course in a given specialty is often seen as the complete guide to that subject matter.

Certification Generally used by associations, it is a professional credential voluntary in nature and recognized by that association. It is seen as the gateway to a knowledge expertise in the profession or industry. There is usually an exam to pass.

Certificate Program These are usually a series of courses, after which there is a certificate awarded, often only after satisfactory completion of the courses.

Symposium A less clearly defined term, it connotes a gathering on an important issue, sometimes participants being invited, making it sometimes a more exclusive audience. They are often led by a panel of experts, with audience members seen as having a great deal of expertise and experience as well, thus leading to a good amount of give and take among presenters and participants.

All of these formats can be used for in-person and on-site programs, but also as variations for online Internet programs as well. For continuing professional education, the choice of format is important for providers, not only for content design but also for promotion and audience appeal.

♦ Developing Online Courses 140 Credit and Degree Programs

Nowhere is the adoption of online learning and Inter- net courses more complicated and problematic than for higher education in the credit and degree program area of its offerings.

On the one hand, colleges and universities not only are leading the exploration of online learning on the Internet, they invented the Internet. So Internet development has always begun with higher education. And online learning is no exception. Colleges and universities, next to business and industry, are doing most of the creative exploration of how online learning will work. And almost all of that work is being done with credit and degree programs.

On the other hand, higher education faces a huge and Colleges and painful restructuring as it moves from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. universities, next to Higher education is currently in a state of crisis. It faces business and industry, continued downward support from public funds, a bloated are doing most of the faculty, high tuition, too many buildings that are costing too much, too many outdated and unnecessary adjunct creative exploration services, a tenure system that desperately needs revision, and, in many areas, is looking backward rather than look- of how online ing forward at what can be.

learning will work. Like every other sector of the economy moving from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, higher education must serve twice as many people at half the cost. It must double or triple its productivity. Through the miracle of the computer chip, it can. But only by going through an enormously painful restructuring.

That restructuring includes physically blowing up half the buildings on campus, as business management guru Peter Drucker has suggested in a Forbes magazine article, as necessary to lower overhead costs. It includes downsizing faculty, and more importantly it means re- training faculty. It means reducing its adjunct services and the cost of those adjunct services.

All of this will happen, the main question being how quickly or how slowly will American higher education move into the new world of the Information Age. The alternative is to remain an Industrial Age institution, with higher costs, lower services and high tuition, and continue to turn away people who not only want to learn but who our economy needs to learn in order to keep our Information Age economy running and creating good jobs for its workers.

♦ Developing Online Courses 141 So it is much easier to project where higher education will wind up than how it should get there.

It would appear that several higher education institutions will make the break to the Information Age first. The general public, both as potential students and as tax pay- ers, will then force the rest of the institutions into realign- ing education along the lines of online learning and learning via the Internet.

Thus, getting from here to there will be far more difficult for most higher educators than for educators in other settings.

Currently professors at more than one thousand colleges and universities are experimenting with distance learning using the Internet and online learning. Never- Developing a specialty theless, one expert estimates that only about 300 higher education institutions have online learning as a strategy will give the institution for the institution. It is definitely important to have online strategy for the institution. an edge, a strong position in a given Here are some observations and recommendations for various types of institutions in higher education. niche, and a Graduate Education global market. Graduate education is an area where it is easiest to see how online learning can be a driving force.

Colleges and universities with a good graduate degree program in a particular area, such as business, engineering, or social work, can take that degree program global. To gain a real advantage and establish a market niche, the university can develop a specialty, such as International Business or Social Work in Latino Communities. De- veloping a specialty will give the institution an edge, a strong position in a given niche, and a global market. Ob- viously many graduate degree programs already have a strong specialization those programs are already posi- tioned to take advantage of the global market. The strategy is to be recognized as one of the top three best programs in whatever market niche is chosen.

A market niche can be established using a criteria other than subject matter, and one of the interesting things to watch is whether colleges and universities can establish a market niche at the graduate degree level based on convenience, friendliness, counseling, individual attention, or another institutional strength.

♦ Developing Online Courses 142 Quite clearly a great strategy will be to form a virtual community where students and graduates of the program interact on a regular basis, with graduates returning via the web site to discuss issues, share ideas, and to update their own knowledge. This rich give-and-take and interaction can be turned into a major recruiting tool.

Another interesting development will be the extent to which a person must, can or would want to participate in the on-site, in-person interactions with faculty and other students. It would seem logical that there would be plenty of opportunities to do so offered by the institution. But whether a person could attend and graduate with minimal on-campus contact will be an interesting educational and business decision for each school or college.

Undergraduate Degree Program Online learning will be While the area of undergraduate credit and degree pro- the predominant mode grams is a much larger subject involving many related issues other than marketing online courses, some observa- of learning on-campus. tions can be made.

1. Online learning will be the predominant mode of learning on-campus. Undergraduate students will need to know how to learn online. So even where hundreds or thousands of students are physically living on campus, online learning will be prevalent for at least these reasons:

a) This is the mode of learning that business and industry will require after graduation, and college will continue to be seen as a training ground for careers and future employment;

b) For many courses the lecturer or professor will be located somewhere else. There may be discussion leaders, assistant professors or other faculty working with students on-campus, but many courses will be purchased from outside the campus;

c) And online learning is superior to traditional classroom learning.

2. Courses will be bought and sold, or put into syndication. It will simply be much more cost effective for a college or university to purchase a course than to have someone on faculty develop it. And syndicated courses will be better, because the professor doing a syndicated course will get better over time after doing the course over and over again.

♦ Developing Online Courses 143 Refinements will be made to the course. One-time expenses, such as a video or computer simulation or field trip, can be recovered over a period of time as the course is repeated. And the syndicated course will be likely to be taught by one of the worlds foremost authorities in the subject area. For those students wanting variety, specialization, or who are intrigued by one particular area of study, syndicated courses will also open up a much larger horizon of learning opportunities and course options, since a given college can purchase a course for one individual as well as for hundreds of students.

3. Syndication will likely be complemented by in-person learning. Faculty on-site will likely be retrained as discussion facilitators, learning counselors, and will work more directly and in-person with students. The Faculty on-site will in-person aspect of undergraduate education may continue to be seen as very valuable and essential to likely be retrained as undergraduate education. discussion facilitators, While many colleges and universities have online courses, learning counselors, most online courses at present are relatively high cost, have low to modest enrollments, are taught by faculty without and will work more recognized national or international authority in the subject area, and lack a global marketing orientation. directly and in-person with students. These kinds of online courses are not sustainable over the long run because they are simply financially not sup- portable. They cost too much and deliver too little.

These shifts will occur:

Hoigh Cost ttLow Cos

Doozens of Students tsHundreds of Student

Regular Authorities to Faculty Members and Global Experts

Local or Area Students from to Concentration Around the World

Single Institution Syndication or Multiple to Sponsorship Institution Sponsorship

Deans and central administrators at colleges and universities should begin now to develop a strategic plan for the age of online learning. Now is the time to position your institution for success.

♦ Developing Online Courses 144 The Internet will not just change higher education, it will change it for the better. More learning will occur. More people will be involved in learning and have access to higher education. Faculty will be able to display more of their expertise. And society will be better prepared for the Information Age.

Avocational or Leisure Subjects

General interest, avocational, leisure subjects and personal development courses may take a lot longer to develop over the Internet. Right now it is way too early to be offering these kinds of subjects.

The growth of online avocational and leisure subject courses awaits the development of syndication the abil- The Internet will not ity to publicize an online course at very low cost to a wide audience. just change higher Avocational online course success depends upon: education, it will 1. Master web sites becoming active and used by mil- change it for the better. lions of people; and

2. Program providers begin to buy, sell and trade online courses and publicize them in their own brochures.

Until then, it is difficult to see avocational subjects as more than just break-even experiments for a program. There are very few avocational courses online right now. The leading course is Wine Online, targeted to high- tech Internet users.

But here is an example of how a successful avocational course could be offered online. It was designed for a college in Augusta, Georgia, the home of the Masters golf tournament. The course is on the history of the Masters golf tournament and a background to the current tournament. It is to be offered during the next Masters golf tournament there.

The college lines up the author of the book on the Mas- ters golf tournament history, along with a former golfer like Lee Elder. They provide daily commentary from the site of the golf tournament.

The course is offered for $25. There are hundreds of thousands of golfers around the world as the potential audience.

♦ Developing Online Courses 145 The course is promoted in two ways:

1. An arrangement is made with the predominant golf web site (www.golf.com or something) to promote the course in exchange for something of value, or simply educational good will. There is a link to the colleges web site and registration page.

2. Other programs around the world run the Masters golf tournament online course in their brochures and list it on their web sites, along with about fifty other select online courses they have deemed worthy of interest for their audience.

The other programs receive $10 for each person who registers for the Masters online course.

It certainly is not too The course runs for one week. The targeted registration is between 5,000 - 10,000. The income is between $100,000 early to begin planning and $250,000, and the net operating margin is projected at 60 percent or between $60,000 and $150,000. what avocational At some point in time you will want to determine courses your program whether promoting online courses is worth it in your could take global. community brochure. You will probably need about 50 online courses to give people enough variety and choice before you begin promoting them. That means almost certainly buying about 50 percent to 75 percent of your online avocational courses.

You will devote part of your brochure to online courses, and then provide complete descriptions and registration on your web site.

Again, it is a bit early to begin offering avocational courses online. But it will happen. It certainly is not too early to begin planning what avocational courses your program could take global.

♦ Developing Online Courses 146 Part VIII Keys to Success Part VIII. Keys to Success

Quick List of Success Criteria/ Keys

Keys: Not Success vs. Success

NOT SUCCESS:

- Lots of online programs

- Regular instructors, not authorities

- High prices

- Broad audience

- General subjects

- Attendance objective is between 20 and 50

- Most expenses go for production (instructor cost, etc.) less goes for promotion (marketing)

End results: 1) Operating (profit) Margin is low; and 2) You are an also-ran competing in a huge market with little chance of distinguishing your program.

SUCCESS:

- Few programs, very selective

- Instructors are authorities

- Low prices, extremely low prices

- Very targeted audience

- Narrow topics

- Attendance objective is 100- 1,000

- Expenses: production expenses low, promotion expenses high

- Operating (profit) Margin is high

End results: 1) Operating (profit) Margin is high; and 2) You dominate your niche and are the primary player with your market segment.

♦ Developing Online Courses 147 Keys to Success: The Audience

Clearly defined target audience, by interest or demographics

You have a list of names, roughly 10,000 - 100,000 names

Audience is, or can be, global geographically dispersed

Start with your current audience

Keys to Success: The Topic

Narrow and specific in scope

Not offered by the competition

Not offered in-person or on-site

Compelling, with high interest

Difficulty in attending in-person course

Keys to Success: Finances

Low fees

High volume

High operating margins

High promotion costs

Low teacher fees and production costs

Keys to Success: Promotion

Direct mail - Brochure - Mail to targeted list

E-mail - Survey present participants - Offer a special benefit

Syndication - Master web sites - Other providers brochures

♦ Developing Online Courses 148 Steps to Market an Online Program

1. Decide what you are good at. Select two or three areas of specialization where you feel you can compete globally.

2. Determine the market size for your program. Look at the total market for your subject area, and the market for various specialties within the broader subject area.

3. Analyze the competition. Find out if your market niche is already taken.

4. Decide whether there is a fit or match between your organizational strengths and specialty and the size of the market for your online program.

If there does not seem to be a suitable match or fit, go back to determining the market and then figure out if you can create a specialty which will match what the market wants.

5. Generate lists of names of potential participants. De- cide whether the mailing list is large enough to support your program.

6. Begin offering online courses for your current participants.

7. Promote your online program by mailing to the mailing list.

♦ Developing Online Courses 149 Appendices Appendix A Develop Seven Market Segments for a Successful Program

We serve everyone... and We only serve... are both going out the window as strategies.

The we serve everyone approach may be good public relations, but it is not good marketing. Your program does not serve everyone, despite your pronouncements.

And serving only one target audience is simply not sufficient in todays changing environment. Having your whole program dependent on one market or audience is simply too dangerous today. If that audiences interests change, or the numbers decline, you are out of business.

So you want to diversify with your audiences, but not We serve everyone... serve everyone. How many market segments should you try to serve? and We only serve... The answer is seven. are both going out the In The Marketing Revolution, (Harper Business, New York, window as strategies. 1991) expert marketers Kevin J. Clancy and Robert S. Shulman say that seven market segments is the best number to shoot for. Why seven? Well, it is more than three, which they do not recommend because it is too few, and less than 20, which is too many. As a practical matter, its just about impossible to deal with more than ten segments or so, they write. If you are targeting six or eight market segments that is close enough.

What Clancy and Shulman are saying is that you need a number of different market segments in order to continue to be successful. With seven market segments, you can seek to retain your best market segments, try to develop your growth segments, and experiment with one or two potential new growth markets.

Measure your markets

Measure your market segments in several ways. First, count the numbers. Then compare your numbers (market share) with the total universe (market potential). Then measure each market segment by dollars instead of numbers. Some market segments will have higher dollar contributions than numbers. Others will have a larger share numbers-wise, but smaller dollar-wise.

Using these comparisons and measurements, you can then prioritize your market segments. Some will be your

♦ Developing Online Courses 150 strongest market segments, and you will want to retain them and devise marketing strategies to retain and increase your enrollments in those market segments.

Enhance growth

Some market segments will be growing and you will want to devise marketing strategies to enhance that growth. And finally, some market segments will be on the margin or fringes. Some you will drop as targets. Other marginal audiences you will experiment with to determine if they can become growth markets for you.

After determining your seven market segments, you can then move to devise or enhance your program offerings to each market segment. Maybe you have a possible market segment which would participate more heavily in your Marketing in the 1990s: organization if you tailored some programs or created new ones just for that audience. more targeted, more Maybe some audiences will come to your programs if tailored or customized, you tailor the promotion or publicity.

and if you do it right, Clancy says to structure your marketing plan around more effective. your market segments by developing programs for each market audience, then develop promotion or marketing for each market segment.

If it sounds complicated, Clancy and Shulman say that is going to be the case with marketing in the 1990s: more targeted, more tailored or customized, and if you do it right, more effective.

♦ Developing Online Courses 151 Appendix B Your Seven Market Segments

Dividing up your audience into seven market segments is a critical and fundamental procedure today for successfully marketing your seminars and conferences.

In the previous section, we discussed a process for discovering and developing your market segments. Here we try to simplify the process further and provide examples.

As we discussed, for continuing professional education, there are basically four variables that distinguish or differ- entiate your audiences:

1) SIC code, or industry. This can also be a specialty within an industry.

Dividing up your 2) Job title. audience into seven 3) Size of company or organization. This can be either dollar sales, or number of employees. market segments 4) Geography, or zip code. is critical. From the above list, and considering any number of other variables, choose the most critical variable.

You probably already know what it is zip code, job title, size of company, or occupational or business specialty.

If you are not sure what the critical variable is, take a list of your 100 best or most frequent participants, and look at all four variables for each of those 100 people. Of course, you can look at more than 100 people, but it takes a lot longer.

Divide your 100 best people into seven distinct groups based on one or more of the four criteria.

Here are two examples of market segmentation.

Example I. State Veterinary Medicine Association

By specialty

1. Cat vets

2. Dog vets

3. Small animal vets

4. Cattle vets

♦ Developing Online Courses 152 5. Pig vets

6. Equine vets

7. Large animal vets

Note that segment 3 is vets that treat cats, dogs and others, and segment 7 is vets that treat cattle, pigs and horses.

The important aspect of this is that each veterinarian is in only one category.

By size of company

1. One-person free-lancers

2. One-person clinics

3. One-person with clerical help

4. Two-person clinics

5. Two-person with clerical help

6. Three-person clinics

7. More than three-person clinics

By job title: Not very relevant.

By geography

1. Des Moines proper

2. Des Moines suburbs/area

3. Quad Cities area

4. Omaha/Council Bluffs and area

5. Northeastern rural counties

6. Northwest and north central rural counties

7. Southwestern, south central and southeastern rural counties

Example II. National Stationery Store Association

By specialty

1. Upscale stationery stores

♦ Developing Online Courses 153 2. Discount stationery stores

3. Stationery & book stores

4. Stationery departments in department stores

5. Stationery & office furniture stores

6. Card shops

7. Chain stores

By job title

1. Store owner

2. Store manager

3. Franchisee

4. Assistant store manager

5. Full-time clerks

6. Part-time clerks

7. Stockroom employees

By size of store

1. Sales 0 $100,000

2. $100,000 $250,000

3. $250,000 $500,000

4. $500,000 $1M

5. $1M $2M

6. $2M $4M

7. $4M up

By geography

1. Northeast

2. Mid-Atlantic

3. Southeast

4. Great Lakes

♦ Developing Online Courses 154 5. Plains and South Central

6. Rocky Mountains

7. West Coast

You may want to explore combining two variables and coming up with your market segments. For example: Des Moines cat vets; store owners in chain stores. But this is much more complicated and difficult to do.

Instead, it is better to just choose one variable, and come up with your seven market segments. After you have exhausted your marketing capabilities using a single variable, then you can try using two.

But that will be a long while, because even just one After you have variable and seven market segments will give you enormously greater marketing capacities to strengthen your exhausted your seminar and conference attendance. marketing capabilities using a single variable, you can try using two.

♦ Developing Online Courses 155 Appendix C How to Select Market Niches

Determining your best market niches and then developing ways to serve them is an important, if not critical, marketing strategy. Here are some ideas on how to do that.

Write down four to eight different market segments you currently reach or want to reach. Think about each market segment as being different, not similar, from all the rest. How is each distinguished from the others?

Stop thinking in terms of our average participant is... or we have a lot of students who... That tends to lump people together. Instead, think how each group is different.

Characterize each market segment or niche with one to four demographic variables. As previously discussed, the It takes some thinking, demographic variables that are important will differ depending on the type of program you run. not much writing. The characteristics should be very much tied to the way in which you reach them. For example, can you get a list of engineers? Can you mail to the east side of town?

Discover and write down briefly each market niches top interests, concerns and problems. This is what you develop courses around. You may need to survey people in that market niche to find out their particular needs. Or you may look at the types of courses they take from you to determine their interests.

Either way, discovering the needs specific to that market niche is the idea behind market niching.

Thats it. It takes some thinking, not much writing.

From there you develop courses and programs around your different market niches, and then determine whether you need to develop separate kinds of marketing strategies for each one.

You may have courses that appeal to more than one niche, and one brochure may work with more than one niche, and that is great. But if it takes a special course offering or a special flier and mailing to reach the niche, then all the marketing literature suggests it is worth doing.

For more, read Making Niche Marketing Work, by Robert E. Linneman and John L. Stanton, Jr., McGraw-Hill Inc., 1992; or The Marketing Revolution by Kevin J. Clancy and Robert S. Shulman, Harper Business Books, 1991.

♦ Developing Online Courses 156 Appendix D Program Development: Shift from Products to Markets

Most of us, as professionals doing programming, have responsibilities for certain types of educational programs, or products.

But in todays world, a product orientation is obsolete. Just ask anyone offering Disco or TQM or whatever yesterdays trend course was.

In The One to One Future, business authors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers (Currency Book, Doubleday, New York, NY, 1993) urge organizations to manage your customers, not just your products.

In the traditional marketing organization, products are They recommend that managed, and customers are simply counted at the cash register. managers stop They recommend that managers stop managing prod- managing products. ucts, which in our field are courses and other educational programs. In most lifelong learning programs, professionals (coordinators, managers, directors) are responsible for managing a certain type of course (business courses, leisure courses, management courses, nursing courses, etc.). In the business world this is called brand management.

Instead, they suggest we manage customers.

Heres why.

In the old world, we have a product orientation. We start with a product (a course or a type of courses). Then we promote those courses to people.

Old World

Product → Promotion → People (courses)

The problem with this scheme is that the real force here is people, our markets, our target audiences.

And people change. Their numbers go up (for example, 45-year-olds in the mid-1990s) and their numbers go down

♦ Developing Online Courses 157 (for example, 35-year-olds in the mid-1990s). Their interests change (for example, from TQM to Reengineering). And their situations change (for example, some Baby Boomers now prefer Saturday morning classes to late evening classes).

With a product orientation, we are unable to foresee, plan and adjust our products to the changing interests and demands of our learners. All we know is that enrollments decline. And that is no way to run a learning business.

In todays world, we need to have a people orientation. We start with our markets, our target audiences. Then we build products (courses) around each different market segment. And then we design promotions to best reach our target audience for a particular product.

With a product Today’s World orientation, we are unable to foresee, plan and adjust our products People → Product → Promotion to the changing interests and demands of our learners. In this way, we as professionals become responsible for markets, for our learners, for people instead of products. We are then able to do better market research, listen to our customers better, understand their needs and changing situations, and adjust our courses accordingly. We are also able to go after new markets, new audiences, shift to growing audiences, and look for new opportunities.

Peppers and Rogers call this a customer-management organization.

A customer-management organization is one in which every individual customer, by name, is the direct responsibility of some one, and only one, individualsome particular customer manager.

Here are some examples of customer-management areas of responsibility.

For community programs:

Older adults Children

Young adults Teens

♦ Developing Online Courses 158 Suburban residents

Residents in the next county

and so on.

For continuing professional education programs:

Nurses Lawyers

Executives Secretaries

Nurses in Iowa

and so on.

It means we switch from managing teen courses to managing programs for teens, or from managing nursing That switch may seem courses to managing programs for nurses. That switch may seem superficial, slight, or a matter of semantics, but it is superficial, slight, or a deeply profound. It changes everything. matter of semantics, but It means we are responsible for marketing as well as it is deeply profound. course development. It means we are responsible for research and planning, understanding what the future trends It changes everything. will be for our learners. And it means we have more opportunities for growth. Once we shift from nursing courses to nurses, we discover all sorts of different types of nurses, different market segments, and thus new opportunities.

Turn your job upside down. Revise your job responsibility from product to people. And watch your whole area grow.

♦ Developing Online Courses 159 Appendix E Put the Customer in Charge of Your Promotion

Put the customer in charge of your promotion, says Dor- othy Durkin, a leading marketing authority in continuing education. Durkin is Associate Dean for Public Affairs and Student Services at New York Universitys School of Con- tinuing Education, the largest institution of its kind in the nation. She spoke at LERNs recent annual conference.

These are some key concepts from her talk:

Put the student in charge

Put the student or customer in charge of your promotion. If you build it they will come does not work anymore. You have to listen to your audience.

If you build it they In an integrated marketing plan, the customer defines the marketing. This happens each time a consumer comes will come does not into contact with your program.

work anymore. Your program has to be needs responsive, and this is central to planning. While some programming is ahead of the curve in meeting needs, it is better to be ahead of the curve than to miss it.

Three ways to determine needs

There are three ways of doing research with an immediate impact on your program:

1. Database analysis

2. Environmental scanning

3. Primary research

Database analysis is looking at your registration data, including marketing source, to determine where your participants are coming from, what they are buying, who your participants are demographically, how they are buying, and much more. This analysis is a continual process. Al- ways keep looking at your data and records to see what is happening in terms of purchasing.

Environmental scanning is looking at broad trends, demographic changes and other changes with your audiences. You do this less frequently than database analysis, maybe annually. It can be done by looking at secondary sources, such as magazines, newspapers, census data, mailing list numbers and other information.

♦ Developing Online Courses 160 Primary research is using focus groups and surveys of your participants. Durkin does this every two to three years, not all that often, she says.

Ideas so big

Increasingly, your marketing success is determined by ideas ideas so big your program is grounded in them.

Look at consistency in positioning your program. Do not have a dispersed message.

Develop multiple ways of delivering the same message. Durkins program uses posters, post cards, subway posters, magazine ads, brochures, radio and other advertising all with the same message. This gives us a multiple chance of succeeding, she says. We look at everything Develop multiple ways were doing. of delivering the same message.

♦ Developing Online Courses 161 Appendix F Establish Your USP and Secure Your Market Position

Whether good, bad or indifferent, your organization has an image in the marketplace among those people you are trying to attract to your programs. Willingly or inad- vertently, you have created that image.

All too often, an organizations image is established in- advertently. Yet, one of the most important concepts of marketing in todays highly competitive, cluttered, message-filled environment is staking out a clear position of what your organization stands for. And that staking out is what a Unique Selling Proposition or USP is all about.

A Unique Selling Proposition projects the image you want to project to the target markets you want to reach. It Your USP hails your proclaims your uniqueness why your prospective customers should want to favor you over your competition. strength in no Your USP hails your strength in no uncertain terms. uncertain terms. Said Said another way, your USP foretells an important benefit another way, your USP you render to your customers. foretells an important Framing Your USP

benefit you render to A good USP can be framed around great service, quality (high end, high price), exclusivity (for the select few, for your customers. members only, for...), availability (when others arent), ease of use, location (the only XXX in YYY) and even lowest price. Whatever the frame, it must be around some value held by those who you are trying to attract as customers.

One way to define your USP is to ask your customers what they hate about doing business with you and your competitors. Then, systematically change the way you do business and tell the world that you dont and wont do what they hate.

One college offering night programs, for example, found that their customers hated that they had to walk a long distance from parking to classrooms. Customers felt put out, insecure, at-risk. The solution? Commandeering close- in faculty parking for night program parking and then telling customers they no longer had to worry about parking inconveniences when they enrolled.

As in this example, a good USP addresses a void, fills a gap or another specific need and does so in the minds of prospective customers. Also as in this example, a USP only works when it zealously tells your customers how you are

♦ Developing Online Courses 162 different, what gap, void or special need you have filled. Proclaiming ease in parking worked for this college only because parking was an identifiable hassle among the target market. If parking wasnt a hassle, staking an identity on it simply wouldnt work.

Making Your USP Work

To work, a USP must directly or indirectly pronounce how you are different from the competition. And, that difference must be clear in the minds of your prospective customers.

Tylenol, for example, stakes its identity on not upsetting ones stomach. This clearly distinguishes the product from aspirin Tylenols major competitor because aspirin is known to upset the stomach of some who use it.

To work, a USP must How powerful is Tylenols indirect claim of being different from its primary competitor? Well, in a survey of directly or indirectly Tylenol users, the company found that over 80 percent of its customers had never had an upset stomach from aspi- pronounce how you are rin but used Tylenol to avoid the possibility! Thats a po- different from the tent position to stake claim to in the marketplace. competition. USP Checklist A good USP is simple. It is your best marketing shot. And, it will stick in the minds of your customers as what you stand for that has value to them. A good USP also... Aggressively stakes out a position in the market. Addresses a void, a gap, a specific need of importance to your customer group(s). Is what people will remember about you AND is what you want them to remember. Is not platitudinous but is as specific and as direct as you can make it. Makes it clear how you are different from your competition, and, Makes it easy for people who value what you stand for to pick you out of a crowd.

Framing and then heralding a good USP wont have your doors broken down by the masses. If you develop the right one, however, you should have more than an ample supply of the kinds of customers you really want banging at your door.

♦ Developing Online Courses 163 Appendix G Building Your Marketing Database

We have known for awhile that your customer database is the best way to do target marketing. Right now the role of your marketing database in your continuing professional education program is critical, central and key.

Your marketing database is the names of all your customers, along with demographic data and purchasing history, and the question today is not whether you should have one, but whether you can have a prosperous program without one.

Appendix H Demographic Data

This includes separate fields for the persons identification, which includes first name, last name, prefix, suffix (optional), middle initial (optional), address, city, state, zip, phone, fax, e-mail (optional now, maybe not in a few years), and identification number (social security number or some other number assigned to that individual).

From there, you add demographic data to the persons record. The four top fields for demographic data for continuing professional education are:

SIC code. Standard Industrialization Classification. This is doctor, lawyer, plumber, etc. If you serve all one SIC code, then break it down by some other interest or professional type within that SIC code.

Size. The size of the company, firm or organization with which the person is affiliated. This is normally measured by either sales volume or budget of the organization, or by number of employees.

Job title. This coding helps you expand horizontally (into specialties, interest areas, and so on) and vertically (level of authority).

Geography. This is the persons zip code.

If you do community programming, and your audience is the general public, here are the top demographic data to collect about your participants:

Residence. The ZIP code, the carrier route, of where the person lives.

Age. Most programs set up age ranges, such as 45-54.

Sex. Male or female.

♦ Developing Online Courses 164 Education level. Attended high school, high school diploma, attended college, completed college, and so on.

The more you know about your participants, the better you can serve them. And demographic data is critical.

When compiling demographic data, start with one field and make sure you have a record for every one of your past participants for that field before designing another data field. One field describing your participants can make a huge difference in improving your marketing effectiveness. To survey and enter the data for just one field is also a lot of work. So take it one field at a time.

To find out the persons area of interest, specialty, job title or any other demographic variable you deem important enough to affect their participation in your program, design a simple, short survey and mail it to all of your past customers. Enclose a business reply envelope or postcard for easy return. Then enter the data in your computer.

Appendix I Purchasing History

This should be a different screen on your computer under the persons file. It is automatically entered every time a customer registers with your program.

Purchasing history should include the following:

Date of registration: month, day and year.

Course, activity or program for which the person reg- istered. If the person registers for more than one, it should be recorded.

Amount of registration fee for that course.

Usually, your system will also indicate whether it has been paid for and the check number.

Here are some things to think about in choosing or reviewing your marketing database:

1) Find one that has a relational database capability. That means you can produce a list of names by mix- ing, crossing, or specifying any fields you want.

2) Have control over your database. Whether it is in your office, in the registrars office, or somewhere else, you need immediate and continual access to your database.

♦ Developing Online Courses 165 Appendix J Best Database Marketing Strategies

Level one. Fundamental level.

Start here. Look at how well you implement these marketing strategies before moving on to more sophisticated marketing strategies. These are not simple strategies. The are simply the most successful ones. So even the most successful and most sophisticated programs always go back to these strategies to see how well they are doing.

♦ Developing Online Courses 166 Appendix K Your Biggest Asset: Intellectual Capital and How to Use it

It is a scary future that awaits every program yours and mine.

In just less than 30 months technology will make it possible for any organization to offer any course, seminar or training over the Internet to a global audience, including your current participants.

Right now your program (and mine) has three defenses to protect it from the competition:

1. Geography. You are the Bucks County Commu- nity, or the Dallas Public Schools, or the National Association of Cement Mixers. You have a geographical territory.

2. Time. You offer your programs on Tuesday night, or Saturday morning.

3. Your participants. You serve an audience with similar characteristics, and they come to you because you serve them.

In just 30 months all three defenses will be gonewiped out by online courses.

Consider how online programming makes these assets irrelevant and useless:

Great buildings and classrooms.

Time of day, day of week, week of month.

Parking, hotels, meals

Audio visual aids

Convenience

Location

Content and subject matter, courses, seminars

Reasonable fees

Every organization will be stripped of its defenses against competition. We will have only one competitive edge, only one defense, only one chance Intellectual Capital

♦ Developing Online Courses 167 Intellectual capital is your people, and what you do with them. It is your brains, and what you do with them. It is the sum of everyones brains and contributions in the organization.

I first heard about intellectual capital from Ed Schroer, Vice President for New Product Development for the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the largest association of trainers in the world. He pre- dicted it would become the single most important asset for any organization. He was right.

Today you can find two hot best selling books on the subject. You dont need to know the authors or the publishers, because neither is worth reading for our field. They are more intent on quantifying intellectual capital for the corporate world. But they do indicate the credence of the Intellectual capital interest in intellectual capital.

is the sum of Heres what intellectual capital means for your organization. We have to put together our human resources everyones brains and in such a way as to build a tremendous mass and force contributions in the of intellectual capital. In the 21st century, it will be our intellectual capital that will allow us to succeed, organization. make us different from the competition, and attract people to our program.

The wonderful thing is we all have and can get intellectual capital. Even more tantalizing is the fact that while some people are motivated purely by money, many others are not. So if you get a person who is not motivated by money, another program cannot steal the person away with strictly financial incentives.

In the lifelong learning field, there are three big components to intellectual capital. Your programs intellectual capital consists of your staff and leaders, teachers and participants.

Heres how to start now to think about your organizations intellectual capital, and how to build it up.

Staff. Think about:

Who to keep. If a given person on staff left and started working for the competition, consider whether that would hurt your program or not.

Who to acquire. Consider whether there is a person who could help your organization tremendously by being on staff.

♦ Developing Online Courses 168 Contract it. In this age of computers, e-mail, phones and faxes, you can hire someone anywhere in the country for a few hours a month to do a specialized task. You dont need to spend big dollars, and more and more jobs are so specialized that they do not require a full time person on staff. Think about recruiting top notch people in a very specific area for a few hours a month.

Teachers. Think about:

Gems and gurus. Do you have a few teachers who are simply outstanding and unique treasurespeople with expertise you just cannot find other places? Think about how to position your gems and gurus in your program, whether to develop an online course around the person, whether to increase the number of offerings the person teaches, whether to add other courses around that persons expertise taught by other instructors.

Good teachers. Think about your instructors who may not be authorities in their subject areas, but are just great teachers, facilitators, and discussion leaders. Think about how you can promote this aspect of your program and this valuable resource.

Who to drop. Every organization has to have a new starting line up every season as needs change, people change, customer demands change. Think about developing a system to drop those teachers who do not fit into your organizations scheme, for whatever reason.

Who to recruit. Which teachers would you die for, which ones do you crave, and are there ways to offer attractive nonmonetary incentives to get them to teach for you?

Participants. Think about:

Who they are. Get a better handle on who your best or core participants are. Get as much demographic information on each person as possible. Get their purchasing history in your computer so you can analyze your programs and offerings better.

Why come. People want to be where there are other people just like themselves. Think about why a new customer would want to come to your program in terms of your participantsthe other participants with which they will be interacting. What is so different or good or unique or special about your group of participants?

♦ Developing Online Courses 169 Enhancing community. Think about ways in which to enhance the value of your participants. Enhance the value of your participants to each other, and to potential new customers. Think about open houses, networking opportunities, directories, newsletter, chat room on your web site, and other low-cost high-value ways to enhance the value of your participants.

For lifelong learning programs, intellectual capital consists of your staff, teachers and participants. These hidden resources are likely your programs biggest assets. As we move into an ever-more competitive era of lifelong learning, your human resources are likely to play a more critical role in your organizations success. Start thinking and planning now about ways to build and enhance your intellectual capitalbefore someone else takes it away from you. Start thinking and planning now about ways to build and enhance your intellectual capital before someone else takes it away from you.

♦ Developing Online Courses 170 Appendix L Mastering Your Web Site: AIDA Still Applies

Your web site or home page on the Internet is becoming an increasingly popular and important marketing tool.

All evidence is that promoting your program through your web site on the Internet will grow in effectiveness. And there is tremendous potential for your web site to register participants and reduce registration staff time enormously. So there are many good reasons why developing a good home page or web site is important.

In reviewing a number of LERN members web sites, there is one overwhelming conclusion: AIDA still applies.

AIDA is the formula for a good brochure

A = Attract

I = Interest

D = Desire

A = Action

and it is clear that those four words apply to the In- ternet just as much as to your brochure.

ATTRACT

1. Access to your program has to be visible from the first page the viewer sees on the Internet.

Most programs are parts of a larger institution, and thus part of that institutions home page or web site. In order for people to find you easily and quickly, you need to have your name and access to your program from the main menu or first page of your institutions web site.

2. The first page viewers see should be attractive, with color and good graphics, making people want to continue.

INTEREST

3. On your programs first page, put your unique selling proposition (USP) and a paragraph about what your program is and why someone would want to participate.

♦ Developing Online Courses 171 Many web sites we visited simply went from their name to their classes, forgetting to tell people who they are and why someone should be interested.

Make sure you tell folks right up front why they should keep looking at your program.

4. On your programs first page, you want the Internet equivalent of a Table of Contents.

Make sure the choices are clear and understandable to your readers. We visited one web site where we found these separate choices: a) catalogs; b) programs; c) schedules. We were confused, and so were their readers.

DESIRE Make sure you tell 5. Run a description of your courses. Dont just list titles. folks right up front Have the full description for each of your activities listed and available for viewing. why they should ACTION keep looking at 6. Include registration as one of the options a person your program. can move to from your programs first page.

Always look to move people to registration.

Some Neat Features

From our initial review of home pages, here are a few features we liked:

News and information. From San Jose State University, there is a News and Information option off the first page to intrigue and interest readers.

Register online. While still under construction, the Infor- mal Classes program at the student union at the Univer- sity of Texas in Austin has a registration form online.

Course browser. From San Jose State University, there is a browser so that readers can type the name of the subject or topic they are interested in, and then find out if the program offers it.

Whats new! People always like whats new, and at Cali- fornia State University at Bakersfield they have Online professional development certificate program listed under Whats New!

♦ Developing Online Courses 172 Check Out

Here are some home pages of continuing education programs in higher education institutions worth checking out:

ühttp://conted.sjsu.edu (San Jose State University)

ühttp://www.utexas.edu/student/txunion (Informal Classes at the Student Union, University of Texas at Austin)

ühttp://www.csubak.edu/home/acadpro/extuniv (California State University at Bakersfield)

Heres a nifty line from a home page:

____Yes, Im interested in CSUBs Extended University programs!

Tell me how to register for a class!

Other registration information

Policies and procedures

♦ Developing Online Courses 173 Appendix M The Perfect Course Description

Course descriptions on your web site can be much more informative and detailed than course descriptions in a printed brochure or catalog. Whether your course is in- person/on-site or whether it is an online course, follow these guidelines:

1. Write a 30-50 word overview of the course, similar to what you would see in a typical brochure.

2. Create a click or go to to a more complete description. In this description, tell everything and anything you want about the course, including:

ì Agenda and schedule

ì Comprehensive explanation of what will take place in the course

ì Illustrations or samples of information

ì Graphics or pictures that illustrate the course or the course content

There is no maximum length to your complete description. Say as much as you want. Anyone here wants to know all about the course.

3. Have a click or go to to information about the teacher. Here you can provide the teachers background, experience, testimonials and even a picture of the instructor.

4. Have a click or go to to register for the course or event.

In a printed brochure or catalog there are space limits. The limits are both a) what a person will read; and b) financial a longer description costs more. Both these limits disappear with your web site course description.

Because you provide a concise overview before the comprehensive information, only people wanting to read more will click on the comprehensive course description. And there is no more cost to a long course description than a short one.

Most programmers have not yet completely discovered how web site course descriptions are superior to printed brochure course descriptions. Now is the time to start

♦ Developing Online Courses 174 planning for a more intensive, more detailed, more informative course description on your web site.

Whether your courses are offered in-person/on-site, or at a distance, this four-part formula for success will work for web site course descriptions.

Heres a model course description

Want to see a model web course description? Robert LaRose teaches the course Introduction to the Informa- tion Society at the Virtual University for Michigan State University. This happens to be an online Internet course, but the format and design of the web course description is just as relevant for in-person/on-site courses as well.

Heres what we like about the course description, which < Nice Site is shown on the following pages: To see this great web course There is a brief overview, then a click on Preview to description online go to: http:// see the full description. www.vu.msu.edu/preview/tc100. To see other web course descrip- You can click on a sample lecture to see an example of tions go to: http://www.vu. the kind of content and topics discussed in the class. msu.edu/#EAD860. To start at the beginning of the web site, go to: You can click on a sample quiz to see how you will http://www.msu.edu. take quizzes, and a sample question or two.

Nice site. There is a picture of the instructor and a bio.

For an online course, there are subheads in the course description like: What do I need? How do I access the class? and What are lectures like?

♦ Developing Online Courses 175 ♦ Developing Online Courses 176 ♦ Developing Online Courses 177 ♦ Developing Online Courses 178 ♦ Developing Online Courses 179 ♦ Developing Online Courses 180 ♦ Developing Online Courses 181 Appendix N How to Measure Financial Success

There is only one way to accurately measure the financial success of your programs. It is by using the financial format recommended and implemented by LERN as the industry standard. No other financial reporting format can answer the questions Are we making money? and How can we make more money?

This financial format, shown on the next page, can be used internally by your administrators to improve the programs financial performance. It should be used in budgeting or forecasting. It should be used for reporting the financial performance of the program as a whole, but also for divisions or groups of programs (e.g. contract training; conferences; weekend courses; foreign languages; etc.) and even individual courses or events. It should be used for all No other financial time periods, including monthly and annual reporting.

reporting format can If this financial format is not the same as the financial answer the question reporting format normally required by your institution, you or your executive should use two formats, one for institu- Are we making tional reporting requirements and this one to measure the financial success of the program and how to improve it. money? No other There are four unique aspects to this financial format financial reporting that make it so effective:

format can answer the 1. It includes percentages, which usually tell you more question How can we than dollar figures, and often provide the clues or even answers to enhancing financial performance. make more money? Without percentages, you have little comparison ability. With percentages and dollar figures, you have adequate information to do analysis.

2. It separates promotion from production expenses. In continuing education promotion is an important, and different, kind of expense. Promotion is a different animal than production. It is an investment. In order to analyze your investment, promotion must be sepa- rated from production.

3. Operating margins are highlighted. Your program functions in the marketplace. The operating margin is the benchmark for success, the measuring stick as to whether the program is financially succeeding in the marketplace. Without a good operating margin, all other expenses cannot be covered.

4. It works at different levels. This format can and should be used for the overall program. It should be

♦ Developing Online Courses 182 Financial Format

Income $______%

Promotion $______%

Production $______%

Direct Costs $______% Operating Margin $______% Administration $______%

Net $______%

♦ Developing Online Courses 183 used for divisions within the program. And it should be used for individual courses and events.

Here is how to read and utilize the financial format.

INCOME. Income is always 100 percent, no matter if it is over budget, under budget, or on budget. It is 100 percent no matter if it is budgeted income, monthly income or annual income and regardless of if it is income for a single course, a division or the total program.

DIRECT COSTS. Direct costs, sometimes called variable costs because they vary according to income, are those costs directly attributable to the income generating activity to which they are assigned. There are two kinds of direct costs promotion costs and production costs. To- gether they comprise total direct costs. For your adminis- The operating margin trators to analyze cost effectiveness, it is imperative that promotion costs be separate from production costs. is a critical benchmark. OPERATING MARGIN. This is not an expense but what is left over after you subtract direct costs from income. It is sometimes called contribution margin and in the for profit sector it is called gross profit.

The operating margin, as we will see, is a critical benchmark. Without a sufficient operating margin, it is not possible to be financially self sufficient or generate a surplus. This line also separates the financial real world or marketplace from the internal finances of the institutional world.

ADMINISTRATION. This is program administration, including staff salaries and benefits, computers, office sup- plies and any other expense of running the operation.

By subtracting direct costs and program administration costs from income, you can determine whether or not your program is financially self sufficient. If the net is positive, you have a financially self sufficient program. If the net is a negative, you have a program that is not financially self sufficient, or losing money.

Institutional overhead costs, no matter how calculated, are part of the net. Whether institutional overhead is charged as a percentage of income, a percentage of expenses, or a flat figure, it is still financially recorded as part of the net.

If institutional overhead or costs are recorded as an expense to the program, the program may very well appear to be losing money.

♦ Developing Online Courses 184