Eyeball U
NH entices students to online learning
By Heidi Masek hmasek@hippopress.com

The new digs at 33 S. Commercial St. in Manchester are bright and spacious with vintage neon store signs hanging from the ceiling. A corner is divided into a cafeteria by a wall of windows. Next to that are couches where employees can bring their laptops for a break from the cube.

Southern New Hampshire University moved their online course department from their Manchester North River Road campus to Manchester’s downtown mills in August. The interior design is meant to have a start-up feel. Although SNHU has offered online courses since 1996, the pace of online education growth has increased rapidly in the past two years. SNHU now offers about 40 degrees online, from associate level to an MBA.

The new space houses student advisers, production and instructional designers and marketing staff, also known as inquiry management. Not only had they outgrown their campus space, but the university is “ramping up for an aggressive push into new markets,” said Paul LeBlanc, president of SNHU since 2003.

SNHU has one of the largest online programs in New England. Early on, they worked with the military and now are a preferred provider of online courses for the U.S. Navy. SNHU is getting close to having all their degrees available online. LeBlanc envisions a seamless transition between online courses, in-person courses at the main campus or a satellite campus, and hybrid courses that include face-to-face meetings.

The sneaky part, depending on your perspective, is that your SNHU online degree just says SNHU. If you don’t want employers to know immediately that you did some or all of your coursework virtually—as in University of Phoenix, which is widely known for online programs—than you might see this as an asset.

Upward bound
Other institutions in the state report a surge in demand in the past two years and are responding, in some cases by finding a niche.

Daniel Webster College’s year-old online MBA in aviation fills a need for pilots, air traffic controllers, military personnel and others with irregular work schedules typical of the aviation business, who might not be able to get to weekly classes. Online courses are usually asynchronous, so a student can catch up in his hotel room or at odd hours, and DWC tailors the program by using aviation industry case studies. The third cohort of the two-year program will start in January.

Rivier College started a new five-course certificate in homeland security online in September, which again caters to those in professions with strange schedules. A firefighter can log on for class while waiting at the station for alarms. There is an optional live exercise. Rivier is also offering more for evening and graduate students.

“We will always offer face-to-face courses; however, more and more students are asking for both hybrid and online courses,” said Dr. Joseph Allard, vice president of academic outreach at Rivier.

“The first great appeal of online learning has been its convenience,” LeBlanc said.

Working adults with family commitments who want to complete a degree or move up in their careers are typical online students. Rather than driving straight from work to a campus, online students can come home, eat, put their kids to bed, and then settle down with the laptop for class, LeBanc said. At SNHU, the terms are shorter and more intense—eight weeks—so you don’t have to wait until September or January to start a class.

That’s the audience Granite State College, part of the University System of New Hampshire, serves. They’ve added virtual options as another flexible course delivery mode, said Mike Marukian, dean of education technology and computing.

GetEducated.com, created in 1989 to help adult learners find accredited online degrees, ranked Granite State College number 10 in their top 25 Best Buys for undergraduate distance business degrees in 2006. The estimated cost for a bachelor’s degree is $23,720 for a New Hampshire resident. SNHU, at an estimated $30,000, ranked 25.

SNHU has about 14,000 enrollments but it’s hard to estimate actual students because there are no semesters, and some students may be taking live classes as well. Granite State had about 2,400 online enrollments this year, while Plymouth State had about 1,700 online and 1,800 hybrid course enrollments.

Markukian said they don’t have major plans to expand past their four bachelor’s degrees, two associate’s degrees and three certificates available online, but their self-designed B.S. allows students to tailor a degree. The New Hampshire Community Technical Colleges network has 157 courses from its six campuses available online for the 16-week spring 2007 semester. Plymouth State offered limited online courses for about six years but, like SNHU, grew rapidly during the past two.

Can the MySpace generation learn online?
Oddly, enough, not so well—yet—LeBlanc said. Most students say online courses are harder, he said. They require self discipline.

“There’s no back of the room online,” Dean Howard Davis of SNHU said. All students are expected to post.

That, and other concerns like saving space for adult learners, has led to caution in allowing residential undergraduate students to enroll in online courses. Undergraduates living on campus can only take one online course at Plymouth, although the school has seen an increase in day students interested in taking online, hybrid and evening courses at Plymouth’s brand new Frost School of Continuing and Professional Studies, said Stacy Curdie. Curdie splits her time between directing Plymouth State’s online education and teaching as an adjunct faculty member.

At Rivier College in Nashua, day undergraduates may only take an online course as an exception. The college experience is different for an 18-year-old than it is for a 35-year-old, said Dr. Joseph Allard, vice president of academic outreach at Rivier. The adult learner has “a thousand points of reference” and wants a degree to gain a promotion or grow in her profession, he said. Translation: adult learners have monetary motivation and lives.

Although schools are cautious about this now, LeBlanc says it’s possible some undergrads might use online work to continue courses while interning. At Plymouth, some students take intensive online courses from home during the January or summer term to get ahead or retake a class. Credits are slightly cheaper during those terms, although most schools reported the cost for online and live classes to be the same.

Granite State is finding that young adults of ages 18 to 20 are increasingly enrolling in its online courses. Often, they want to continue their education although a family or other life situation requires them to be at home, hence they are generally well motivated, Moroukian said.

And it’s really not about technology; it’s about critical thinking and writing, said LeBlanc and Davis, who have both taught online.

So what’s it like to learn online?
Most NH schools use Blackboard as their learning management system. The company recently merged with WebCT.

“You can put anything on there,” Davis said. It’s essentially a web portal that allows for a lot of sharing. Instructors can decide which tools they need to present material, and can work with instructional designers to build the course. How a course looks depends on the subject, but basically Blackboard allows teachers to post questions, and students to submit answers in discussion threads. Assignments are submitted to an electronic drop box; quizzes or exams can be taken online; a grade book is online, as well as a syllabus. Usually, lessons are text- based. Most programs started when dial-up was predominant, and Moroukian points out that there are still places in NH where dial-up is the only option.

SNHU has an ongoing upgrade in course production now that bandwidth has increased. SNHU teachers will be able to use more video, audio, and graphics, but Davis said they want to use those tools “judiciously.” For example, a micro finance expert from England provided an audio feed for a course.

The “SNHU Online: Virtual Information Session” asks you to click on the “course document” option to view either a PowerPoint or PDF presentation about SNHU Online. SNHU’s Blackboard tabs across the top of its demonstration Web page include “SNHU,” which delivers an overview of the day’s announcements, courses, calendar and tasks. The “Tools” menu on that page offers links to all announcements and your calendar, task list, grades, school e-mail, address book and personal settings. It includes a user manual, but most of the functions seem pretty self-explanatory to anyone who has e-mailed, transferred a file, or used a chat program, discussion forum or electronic organizer.

Granite State College has classroom orientation sessions for Blackboard. NHCTC has a useful preview of Blackboard to give students an idea of how a course might function. Many school Web sites offer a self- evaluation to see if you are a good fit for online courses. NHCTC has a Netiquette page, which includes advice like “Please avoid using all caps. It is often interpreted as shouting,” and “Use an inverted pyramid form of writing with the most important statements in the first paragraph.”

Franklin Peirce College uses e-College, a different learning management system. Tools include “Doc Sharing” in which students and instructor can post or update each other’s files like spreadsheets, HTML code and images. The “Journal” allows the student to record notes on the course and instructors to post questions to the student. Chat logs can be viewed for the course. A search function is included and the account lists what has changed in the course since a student last logged in. Some report that students like the fact that they can return to any lecture, discussion or other aspect of the course to review, unlike a live class.

But, really how does this work?
Most classes are asynchronous, but that doesn’t mean you can put off all your coursework until the end of your term, whether that’s eight, 12, 14 or 16 weeks. In fact, the schools reported students and professors check in much more. It’s very hard to replicate typical lecture format online, LeBlanc said. You’re not the “sage on the stage,” Davis and LeBlanc said.

“For me personally ... it’s made a profound difference in the way that I teach,” Curdie said. Curdie teaches a literature course online, in which 25 percent of seat time is replaced with online work. She used to focus on preparing lectures, worrying about what she would say to the class. But to build an online course, she must complete presentations before the course starts, leaving her to focus entirely on how students are reacting during the course.

“The level discourse has moved to so far exceeds what [happens] in the classroom,” she said. It’s a sentiment echoed by the LeBlanc and Davis.

Davis was amazed at the intelligent discussion among online students of a contemporary spirituality course he taught at the University of Vermont.

“It was just powerful,” he said. Davis teaches literature and writing and has been at SNHU for a year.

Curdie, Davis and LeBlanc think the anonymity about written discussion online allow students to express themselves differently than they would in a classroom.

“They really get down to ideas,” Curdie said.

Vlad Kulchitski teaches courses live and online for National ChalleNGe Insitute, a nationally accredited program used by National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program.

“The folks I am working with, I see them engaged and excited more when they are face to face,” Kulchytsky said, offering a different view. On average, his students are 35 to 40 years old. But he finds younger students—his youngest is 28—more skeptical about live classes. Kulchytsky teaches through Portsmouth-based Dare Mighty Things, Inc., a management consulting company focusing on social solutions.

“There’s a lot of depth of content available,” Stacey Latansion of Hollis said. She’s working on a bachelor of science in business management at Granite State. She’s taken an intensive five-day-per-week live class and an all-online class but her favorite approach is her current class, Contemporary Management Issues, which includes two short seminars face to face on Saturdays and online work. She’s juggling parenting and a full-time job.

Latansion’s professor, Michael Russell of Franconia, has taught at the college level for 35 years, primarily online for the past eight. In his online class he divides 25 students into five virtual discussion groups. They have a week to debate the question he posts and to post a summarized response.

“I think the outcome is pretty much the same. Students learn as much in an online setting as in a classroom,” Russell said, but face time is important to some learning styles. The online writing-intense environment might not be for everyone, he said.

Moroukian said Granite State students tend to report spending at least as much time online as in a traditional class, even factoring in commuting and preparing. Students are in touch almost daily online. That can also mean more work for the teacher.

“You’re dealing with a lot of individual encounters which you could do in a classroom environment all at once,” Russell said. But is also means students are thinking about the subject more.

Russell said he enjoys teaching this way and, in his semi-retirement, it allows him to teach from Florida throughout April. He has been a higher education administrator and commercial loan bank officer.

For successful online courses, “one thing you need to have as an institution is a very good online department” Russell said. Granite State spends three months training faculty.

“The overarching theory is technology shouldn’t get in the way of learning or teaching,” Moroukian said. Faculty members are responsible for content, but instructional designers help build the courses for easy navigation.

Rivier has gone from one course online last fall to 30 this fall with “a lot of hard work” Allard said. Instructors who teach online get eight weeks of professional development. SNHU also puts plenty of focus on “online pedagogy.”

Another key thing with SNHU and Granite State is making sure there is plenty of “human” support. Advisors are in frequent contact with students. SNHU has a 24-hour tech support line for online students.

What can you learn virtually?
SNHU’s business bent lends itself to the medium, while other subjects like languages, lab sciences or math might require more than just text to be taught online.

“I used to think there are courses you can’t do online,” Davis said. Davis reports that a public speaking course required students to tape themselves addressing an audience, and the instructor posted the audio for student comment. Video elements help teach math equations, and there are virtual lab specimens, Davis said.

For computer programming courses, Rivier uses iLinc, which allows students to have visual, voice and text conferencing capabilities. Instructors and students can take over the “white board,” demonstrating programming languages, showing and critiquing how students wrote software.

If you test out the learning management systems, you’ll probably soon realize that plenty of “online” tools are just as useful for traditional courses. At Plymouth, most instructors at least use their automatic course “shell” for uploading electronic files for students (think of how much photocopying that saves) or posting a syllabus or grades. It’s easy to see how fluidly a course could become hybrid. Students can use their account to keep track of classwork, grades or their social life.

Employer perspective
The Sloan Consortium at Olin and Babson colleges in Needham, Mass., just released “Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006.” It’s their fourth annual report on the matter, and after surveying 2,200 colleges and universities, they found that online enrollments are still growing quickly, with 3.2 million students reportedly taking an online course in fall of 2005, compared to 2.3 million in 2004. Most institutions reported employer perception of an online degree low on their concerns of barriers to widespread online learning, according to the report. In fact, the barriers most schools are worried about are the extra time and effort required of faculty to teach online, and student self-discipline.

“What companies want are people who can perform,” LeBrec said. Some care more about distance learning than others.

“Most organizations today use online for in-house training,” Allard said, so it would follow that they would accept online degrees. The Sloan Consortium report also showed that the vast majority of higher education administrators thought online learning quality was equal to or better than class time for the past three years, he pointed out.

However, Rivier, like the rest of the colleges in New Hampshire, doesn’t specify on a degree how you got your credits. Their degree doesn’t show that seminars, clinical work, or internships earned credits, and therefore doesn’t single out online or hybrid work, Allard said. What’s important is that the school you went to is accredited, Allard and Marukian said. The accreditation should be one with high standards, such as the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

Learning long distance
For public New Hampshire schools, online focus is usually about serving in-state students who are too distant from a campus or have schedules that don’t allow for regular class time, as Dean Mike Marukian explained about Granite State College. Also, many courses are hybrid and require some seat time.

Rivier College’s students normally come from within a 30-mile radius for evening and graduate courses, although enrollments can come from anywhere for the Homeland Security Certificate or 100 percent online degrees.

“That’s the point of online; there is no such thing as a distance,” said Southern New Hampshire University’s Davis, pointing out that “distance education” is something of an anachronism. Students in the Manchester area have the option of taking live or hybrid courses or using online courses to supplement if a course they need is full or doesn’t fit their schedule. But the school also has online students from almost every state, he said, and some other countries, and the Navy students may be stationed anywhere. Student support staff and advisors communicate by e-mail and phone with students, although it’s the tech support line that is available 24 hours per day.

Online students can access free online tutoring through a service SNHU contracts, can order textbooks, and have the same online access to library electronic resources all SNHU students do, such as full articles from Lexis Nexis. However, other library resources are a little trickier and may require interlibrary loans. SNHU is working with publishers to make electronic textbooks available, which will be the preferred delivery for China students.

SNHU is partnering with Beijing Sports University and is seeking partnerships with about four more China universities, after a recent trip to the country by SNHU’s president. It will allow for faculty and student exchanges, and initially offer 100 percent online SNHU courses to those students in English, specifically to fill the M.B.A. need for Beijing businesses. Later, SNHU might offer hybrid or live classes at those universities. Davis said Web censorship in China (Google complies) is something school officials have been told they will need to look at, but they are hoping partnerships with Chinese universities will help alleviate those issues in delivering classes. International students must take a TOEFL exam to enroll in SNHU Online.

SNHU has previously had partnerships with foreign universities.

There are now universities that are 100 percent online, but they get mixed reviews from students and two of the largest have publicly traded parent companies, whereas most traditional schools that are expanding to online and hybrid courses are nonprofits.

Most interaction is via e-mail or chat, and transactions and class registration usually via Internet. They have services like electronic textbooks or will mail books and materials from their library to students. University of Phoenix was started 30 years ago, started online courses in 1989 and now has about 300,000 enrollments and 126 degrees and certificates, and 191 campus centers, some at military bases. It’s huge, but it’s also been fined by the U.S. Dept. of Education and Dept. of Labor, and has earned a Web site devoted to it called uopsucks.com.

Capella University, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., was incorporated in 1991, founded by the head of Tonka to serve working adults, accredited in 1997, and focuses on graduate programs and serving military students. It now has about 16,000 enrollments. It’s under audit by U.S.D.O.E. and some states won’t license students from Capella programs that don’t meet state standards.

Evaluation
What you need: Most schools list technical requirements on their online program Web pages, such as minimum processor speed and memory on your PC or Mac, software like MS Office 2003 Professional or iLife Suite, a CD-ROM drive and Internet access. Depending on the program, maintaining these things is more or less your problem, so you may need to call your computer’s customer service line if technical difficulties aren’t related to your school’s network or content.

Most schools also offer a questionnaire or Web-based quiz to find out if you would be good at taking online courses. They recommend that you don’t if you procrastinate or have difficulty communicating by writing. NH Community Technical Colleges offers self-evaluation tools and tips from ion.uillinois.edu, a University of Illinois initiative that promotes effective online education practices.

What they need: Make sure the school you choose is accredited. Visit geteducated.com for a free guidebook and ratings of available online degrees, as well as tips about avoiding unaccredited “degree mills” that sell college diplomas. Most schools list accreditation on their home page. New England Association of Schools and Colleges has been around since 1885 and lists schools they’ve accredited at neasc.org. Read educator perspectives about the online education world at sloan-c.org, or insidehighered.com.