- Management:
Who will be responsible for providing the leadership of developing an
online program? The person or department in this role will be responsible
for everything from planning to instructional design to implementation.
- Institutional
Readiness: How will management determine whether or not the organization
is ready to fully support an eLearning program? An assessment must be
conduction to determine if the organization has the resources it needs to
support eLearning and if it doesn’t, is it ready to acquire them.
- Cost: What factors
should be considered when calculating the cost of eLearning? Organizations
must consider both direct and indirect cost of designing and maintaining an
online learning program.
- Funding:
How will the organization fund the eLearning program? There are several
routes an organization can take to fund eLearning from partnerships with
other institutions or with private sector companies to reallocating funds
from other programs.
- Content
Development: How will new learning technologies be created? It’s important
to determine whether instructional tools will be designed in- house or
bought off the shelf.
- Technology:
How will the organization handle the technological infrastructure of the
program ensuring that the program is user friendly and sustainable?
- Technological
Support: Is there an IT department that is able to assist faculty and
students with questions regarding technology? If not how with this issue
be addressed?
- Student
Support: Where will students be able to find out information about program
requirements, counseling, financial aid, or tech support? Student support
services are essential to a student’s ability to perform well in an online
course.
- Faculty
Support: How will the organization handle the training and development of
faculty member to ensure that they are capable of using new learning
technologies?
- Evaluation:
How will the organization approach program evaluations to ensure that the
course meets the needs of all stakeholders, such as students, faculty, and
support staff?
Monday, December 10, 2012
10 Questions Organizations Need to Ask Themselves When Considering eLearning
Monday, December 3, 2012
Learner Support
Thorpe
claims that learner support “is essentially about roles, structures and
environments, and therefore: support roles and supportive people, together with
support structures and supportive environments” (Thorpe, 2002). Students must
have service support in terms of registering for class and handling financial
aid as well as support on how to be successful in the classroom and each
learner requires their own unique support. I think that Thorpe’s claims are
still relevant for today’s online learners.
About
6 years ago, I took an online summer course at small community college. Since I
was a full time student at another institution, I was not familiar with the
college just that it was convenient for me to take the course there instead of
at my university. There was no orientation program set up for new online
students and so I did not know where to access information about campus
deadlines, financial aid, or advising. Also, the course that I took was an “off
the shelf” course that was not customized to program and so I watched videos
and took exams. There was not interaction between the professor running the
course and the students, or between the students, other than to report grades
and announce exams. Reflecting upon this experience and the article, I think
that it is truly essential to have synchronous and asynchronous courses because
the support that students receive from their
professor and classmates play a major role in that students ability to be
successful in the course.
I
have recently revisited the community college’s online learning website and I
can tell that how over the past 6 years they have made drastic changes to
learner support. The website has links for technology usage training,
frequently asked questions, how to get in contact with an advisor, etc.
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