Advancing Online Education in Minnesota State
A strategy for online education
Full report
Background
The 2017 “Advancing Online Education in Minnesota State” report was prepared by the Online Strategy workgroup, an ad hoc workgroup chartered by Minnesota State’s Leadership Council. The ad hoc workgroup convened from January 2017 through August 2017 and was comprised of appointees from each of Minnesota State’s collective bargaining unions. The final report was submitted to the Minnesota State Leadership Council for review and adoption in October 2017.
This complete report includes a total of forty-two (42) action steps aligned with fifteen (15) distinct strategies that support four broad goals to (1) collaborate across institutions in ways that increase (2) access to and the (3) quality of online opportunities that remain (4) affordable for students compared to other higher education providers.
Minnesota State institutions have their own history of defining and organically growing “online education.” For meaningful progress to occur, the authors of the report have recommended prioritizing action steps that can make substantive improvements to the existing ways we operate, rather than attempting to “wipe the slate clean” and make large transformational changes on behalf of all Minnesota State institutions. Such transformational changes are hard to accomplish in the short-term and frequently run counter to the historical missions of public, non-profit entities like Minnesota State institutions. Such innovations are not discouraged within Minnesota State; instead, the workgroup believes individual institutions are best positioned to pilot such experiments as they can nimbly adapt to the changing needs of students.
Addressing all forty-two actions included in this report would be an unmanageable undertaking for Minnesota State and it’s institutions in the short-term. The authors of this report have used an asterisk (*) to identify the nine action steps the workgroup believes the campuses should consider over the 2017-2018 academic year, with an intention to begin implementing action steps during the 2018-2019 academic year.
Defining Online Education
The term “online education” has been used as a blanket phrase for a number of fundamentally different educational models. Phrases like distance education, e-Learning, massively open online courses (MOOCs), hybrid/blended learning, immersive learning, personalized and/or adaptive learning, master courses, computer based instruction/tutorials, digital literacy and even competency based learning have all colored the definitions the public uses to define “online education.”
For the purpose of this report, strategies and action steps were developed in ways that define “online education” as having the following characteristics:
• Students who enroll in online courses or programs may reside near or far from the campus(es) providing the course(s) or program.
• A student’s course load may include offering where attendance is required in person or where an instructor/students are not required to be in the same geographic location.
• Students may enroll in one or more individual online course offerings provided by one or more institutions to that may or may not satisfy degree/program requirements.
• Student may pursue a certificate, program, or degree where a substantial number of courses, perhaps all, are taken without being in the same geographic location as others.
The authors of this report agree that institutions should continue to explore and pursue a variety of models for delivering education, but this report does not address or offer strategies for each of these. Each model of education engenders a specific method used to approach education and is accompanied by its’ own list of strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.
Organization of this Document
In fall 2016, each Minnesota State campus submitted responses to a set of open ended questions that asked campuses to describe how they were currently addressing issues related to and/or planning for online education. Campuses were also asked to provide feedback and/or suggest what Minnesota State could do collectively to support online education efforts. These questions were divided into four broad categories including access, quality, affordability and collaboration.
Responses to this questionnaire were analyzed by the Organizational Effectiveness Research Group (OERG), which is managed by a nationally recognized Graduate Program in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
The ad hoc workgroup was provided with the analysis from the OERG (see Appendix A), the raw data responses from each campus, and a qualitative dataset (see Appendix B) provided as context to common, and often erroneous assertions made about the state of online education in Minnesota State. Data included were demographics of students enrolled in online courses, the performance of these students, the levels and fields of study by students enrolled in online courses, and amount of online course offerings that currently take place throughout Minnesota State.
Additional reports, resources and data from national associations, like EDUCAUSE were also made available to the workgroup for consideration.
As the workgroup considered strategies that could advance online education, they were asked to use the primary and secondary sources listed above to support the fifteen (15) strategies that were developed. The workgroup then developed a set of action steps they believed should be pursued in order to advance each corresponding strategy.
Each action item was further categorized for its potential to positively impact student outcomes, compete against other higher education providers, and/or its potential to make online education more efficient or effective. The intention to categorize these action steps is to help align each action item with an intended purpose.
Goals
For the purpose of this document, we define a goal as a broad aspirational outcome that we strive to attain. Four goal areas guide this document. These goal areas include access, quality, affordability and collaboration. Below is a description of each goal area and the assumptions made for Minnesota State.
1. Access - Our online education strategy must ensure students have broad access and success to higher education across the state
Online education is one of the ways in which Minnesotans can access higher education. Individual institutions and Minnesota State, as a whole, should make online education options and online services available to potential and existing students, in a manner that is consistent with other in-person educational options. Access efforts should include enrollment growth, intentionally attracting and recruiting students into Minnesota State for whom online education is the best or only educational option. In addition, institutions have online education as an appropriate augmentation to course options.
Over twenty percent of existing Minnesota State students enroll in online courses as a way to satisfy course requirements. For some students, online education is a convenient option; for others, online is the only option available. When confronted with limited options to complete required courses at their home institution, students who do not want to delay their academic progress, seek out online courses, which are not bound by a specific location or time.
At Minnesota State institutions, the majority of student enrollment in online education has been in individual online courses rather than completely online programs. For-profit and private non-profit institutions continue to be highly effective in recruiting potential Minnesota State students to enroll in online and flexible degree programs, largely because they are highly resourced and designed to cater to the needs of online students. For institutions that see online education as a way for Minnesota State to strategically grow enrollment.
2. Quality: Our online courses, programs, and services must be of consistent high quality across colleges and universities
Often times, the topic of quality is often raised as somehow being unique to online course. The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accreditation guidelines review the standards and processes institutions have in place to ensure quality in all of educational offerings, including online. Individual institutions are best positioned to define, assess, and ensure quality in online education offerings. There are a number of ways in which institutions have demonstrated quality in individual courses and programs including the evaluation of course design, evaluation of instruction and assessment of student learning outcomes
3. Affordability - Online education must be affordable for our students with its value proposition clearly expressed
Ongoing financial and human resources that support the technical infrastructure, professional development, and student services are required for the continued success of online education. In order to support these efforts, almost all Minnesota State institutions choose to apply a differential tuition rate to courses that are offered online. If we intend to have online education continue to be an affordable solution for students, Minnesota State and its institutions must be good stewards of these funds and ensure these funds support online education.
Online education requires different or additional services that need to be funded; current tuition is not high even though it may not be affordable to all students; campuses are relying on tuition as operating revenue as currently established; brick and mortar costs stay constant even as more students take online classes; system and individual colleges and universities need to position themselves effectively within the market and that requires investment; transparency is important in tuition setting—students want to know why there is variability; benefit to consistent approach to setting tuition. Inherited certain models and approaches and may not be able to start from scratch
4. Collaboration - Our online education strategy must draw on our collective strengths and resources
There are existing collaborations related to online education throughout Minnesota State. Distance Minnesota is comprised of four institutions Alexandria Technical & Community College, Bemidji State University, Northland Community & Technical College, and Northwest Technical College) which collaborate to offer student support services, outreach, e-advising, faculty support, and administrative assistance for online education offerings. In addition, child development instructors from fifteen colleges worked together through the e-lect program to offer child development courses online to avoid duplication and make the best use of limited resources. These existing efforts show how colleges and universities can collaborate with one another to provide online education and online services to enhance enrollment, to help student make progress to their degree when course sections are unavailable, and to help support low-enrolled courses/programs by consolidating efforts around the state.
Strategies
In this document, strategies are defined as the overall plan used to identify how we can achieve each goal area. A brief background is provided for each strategy to describe what Minnesota State is currently doing to address this area.
Action Steps
Within each strategy are action steps that describe the specific actions to be taken in order to advance a specific strategy. Action steps include those items that allow Minnesota State to improve upon the ways we currently operate, as well as items that allow Minnesota State to fundamentally change the way we operate.
Access
Our online education strategy must ensure students have broad access and success to higher education across the state
Strategy 1: Ensure all student have online access to high quality support services.
The Online Learning Consortium suggests that students enrolled in online education experiences should have access to “three areas of support including academic (such as tutoring, advising, and library); administrative (such as financial aid, and disability support); and technical (such as hardware reliability and uptime, and help desk).”1 While many campuses provide access to these services at a space on campus, students enrolled in online courses or programs often have unequal access to these services when participating at a distance. It is true that some campuses have developed ways to support students at a distance, but often do so under special circumstances and not as something that is a common practice. It is important for students at a distance who participate in online courses and programs receive comparable support services as their peers who are on campus. As a system, students have access to a handful of statewide services, include tutoring services through Smarthinking and test proctoring sites. Awareness of these services and variability of how campuses offer these services continues to be an issue for students and faculty members.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 12 – 259 comments referenced student resources and support
• Page 13 – “Important themes varied across the three parts of the Access focus area. However, Student Resources and Support and Technology and Related Support were consistently in the top five across all three parts of the Access questionnaire.”
• Page 16 – “Specifically, most institutions conveyed the desire for more standardized structure and support with faculty training, student readiness assessments, and 24/hour technology support and/or tutoring services. Also, most institutions mentioned academic advising as an area for improvement regarding online programs and courses.”
Strategy 2: Establish and maintain measures to assess and support student readiness for online education.
There are numerous anecdotes of students who enroll in online courses, but neglect to log in to the learning management system or those who log in infrequently. A persistent issue for campuses has been to ensure that students who enroll in online course are aware of the expectations required to participate actively in an online course. In addition to adhering to course expectations, students must have the technical competencies needed to perform the tasks required for online courses. The traditional approach to support student readiness has been to communicate the course expectations to students before enrolling and/or to provide some form of a survey or orientation. Although these efforts do a good job of alerting students of course expectations, they do little to support students whose obligations beyond school (work, family, etc.) or inattentiveness to course work can hinder their academic performance.
Informed by Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 12 - 74 comments referenced student readiness
• Page 16 – “Specifically, student readiness was a major concern for most. Institutions would like to have a way of measuring a student’s readiness for an online program before enrollment and feel often times students are unprepared for the rigor of online learning.”
• Page 16 – “Specifically, most institutions conveyed the desire for more standardized structure and support with faculty training, student readiness assessments, and 24/hour technology support and/or tutoring services. Also, most institutions mentioned academic advising as an area for improvement regarding online programs and courses.”
Strategy 3: Ensure students have access to online and blended learning experiences in course and program offerings.
Due to financial needs, those responsible for scheduling courses at Minnesota State campuses try to optimize the number of course sections offered by using a variety of delivery modes to meet student needs. These efforts are complicated when decisions needed to be made about cancelling sections, adjusting the max enrollment for each course section, or running courses based on low fill-rate. These are complex exercises for any individual campus to perform on their own, but this can be exponentially complicated when trying to collaborate on offering online sections of a similar course at different campuses.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 12 - 121 comments referenced standardization and collaboration across institutions, which included topics like a standardized calendar, communication to student, course credit and numbers, enrollment, and incentives.
• Page 16 - “There is a desire for a more standardized and convenient way for students to enroll across institutions. A specific suggestion that was mentioned a couple times was to have one standardized way for students to find other courses at other institutions and register for them. One comment in particular said Minnesota State should provide the structure of the house and allow individual institutions to decorate it”
Strategy 4: These experiences should support and recognize diverse learning needs by applying a universal design for learning framework.
The OERG report included several references to efforts made by campuses related to the providing support and resources for universal design for learning, the workgroup did not offer any action steps.
Strategy 5: Expand access to professional development resources and services for faculty members
As online course are developed and while faculty members teach online courses, it is critical that faculty members have on-demand access to resources like technical support and course assistance.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 12 - 47 comments referenced improving functionality and user design of Minnesota State online services
• Page 16 - “Respondents expressed interest in professional development opportunities for faculty (and incentives and funding for these), faculty training, support in content development, and ongoing technical support throughout the teaching processes. Investment in faculty resources and support are believed to be the best way to ensure quality online learning.”
Strategy 6: Monitor and influence regulatory environments to ensure that students maintain access to online educational opportunities
Complying with and being informed of information related to the state authorization of distance education is needed to ensure Minnesota State institutions can continue to offer educational opportunities to prospective students.
Quality
Our online courses, programs, and services must be of consistent high quality across colleges and universities
Strategy 1: Establish and maintain a statewide approach for professional development for online education
As noted in the OERG report, “faculty members are a large part of ensuring high quality online learning.” In addition to support provided through individual campuses, it is important for Minnesota State to make available professional development opportunities to interested faculty members.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 11 - 282 comments were related to faculty resources and support, which included areas faculty mentoring, faculty training, peer review/course evaluations, and professional development
• Page 5 – “Strong emphasis placed on faculty (training, support in development of course content, course evaluations, etc.). Specifically, institutions would like more peer review/course evaluations of online courses to help strategize and evolve in the right direction. Many institutions also either spoke of their involvement with Quality Matters (QM) or support for further involvement with QM.”
• Page 16 – “Perhaps unsurprisingly, most institutions deem faculty to be a large part of ensuring high quality online learning. Respondents expressed interest in professional development opportunities for faculty (and incentives and funding for these), faculty training, support in content development, and ongoing technical support throughout the teaching processes. Investment in faculty resources and support are believed to be the best way to ensure quality online learning.”
Strategy 2: Ensure campuses use an evidenced based and/or nationally benchmarked e.g. Quality Matters or Online Learning Consortium) tool for enhancing quality in online course design
Formed in 2012, the Minnesota Online Quality Initiative (MOQI) serves as a central entity with the goal of promoting quality course design for those course delivered in blended and online delivery modes. MOQI accomplishes this by facilitating training sessions, sharing information on course design practices, and provides opportunities for faculty members to review the design of their course. Central to the work of MOQI is the licensed use of the nationally recognized course design rubric provided by an organization called Quality Matters (QM). The QM rubric is rooted in 21 essential evidenced based standards that promote quality in online course design. Access and use of this rubric requires an institutional subscription to Quality Matters. The cost of this subscription has been reduced for campuses as Minnesota State has subsidized the total cost. With Minnesota State subsidizing the costs associated with Quality Matters, the use of the QM course design rubric, workshops, and course design certifications have been popular among the majority of Minnesota State institutions.
Some campuses have developed their own professional development programming that replace or supplement offerings available through Quality Matters. There is some interest in finding ways to provide additional faculty learning opportunities designed at local campuses.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 12 - 70 comments referred to Quality Matters.
• Page 5 - “Specifically, institutions would like more peer review/course evaluations of online courses to help strategize and evolve in the right direction. Many institutions also either spoke of their involvement with Quality Matters (QM) or support for further involvement with QM”
Strategy 3: Ensure campuses have identified a process for evaluating and improving instruction for online courses
Just as is the practice in person courses, campuses should ensure peer review and/or evaluations of teaching are being conducted for online courses
.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 11 - 50 of the 282 comments regarding faculty resources and support refer to peer review or course evaluations.
Strategy 4: Ensure consistency of student learning outcomes among in person and online education offerings
Often times, the topic of quality is often raised as somehow being unique to online course. The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accreditation guidelines review the standards and processes institutions have in place to ensure quality in all of educational offerings, including online. Individual institutions are best positioned to define, assess, and ensure quality in online education offerings. There are a number of ways in which institutions have demonstrated quality in individual courses and programs including the evaluation of course design, evaluation of instruction and assessment of student learning outcome.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 11 - 18 comments describe how online courses currently align with institutional program review.
Strategy 5: Review, conduct, and share research in online education to improve quality.
As scholarly teachers, faculty members value opportunities to review educational literature to inform their own evidenced-based instructional practices. Furthermore, through the process of systematic inquiry, faculty members can make observations and collect data to analyze student learning outcomes.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 17 – “Overall, faculty appear to enjoy sharing best practices through workshops and conferences. They would like more opportunity and incentives to do so, especially with each other within the Minnesota State University and College System. Specifically, many find regularly scheduled meetings and CATT meetings particularly beneficial. Many mentioned wanting a standardized approach to faculty training and faculty mentoring. Specifically, standardized course evaluations to be able to conduct research on best practices and share these with each other.”
Affordability
Online education must be affordable for our students with its value proposition clearly expressed
Strategy 1: Establish system guidelines operating instructions) for setting, justifying, and evaluating differential tuition.
Online education requires different or additional services that need to be funded. Even though it may not be affordable to all students, tuition at Minnesota State campuses is not high relative to private and for-private options. System and individual colleges and universities need to position themselves effectively within the market. Many campuses are currently relying on the differential between general and online tuition as operating revenue. While more students take online courses, “brick and mortar costs” stay constant. Because students want to know why there is variability in tuition for online courses, transparency is important when setting tuition for online education. There may be benefit to a consistent approach to setting tuition.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 16 – “Perhaps one of the largest concerns expressed was the high cost of online education for students. In terms of monetary resources, one popular answer was to simply lower the differential for online tuition. Others would be to apply for grants to open up more resource opportunities, lowering costs for online textbooks, contributing resources to student tutoring/advising, and using existing technical resources (D2L, etc.) to accomplish this. Also, some have shifted on-campus resources to online resources in response to the lack of funding towards online education.”
Strategy 2: Expand the use of quality, open educational resources (OER)
Minnesota State is promoting textbook affordability for students at colleges and universities by supporting and facilitating adoption of open, low-cost, high-quality materials. We strive to do through faculty development on evaluating open textbooks and grants and programing to support campus based OER creation and adoption. OERs will make education more affordable. Certainly, faculty members reserve the right to use whatever materials that meet their needs, but faculty members should be encouraged to investigate the feasibility of using OERs when the quality and availability of materials are satisfied. If students are making decisions not to buy textbooks because they are unaffordable, students will not have access to the resources they need, when they need them.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 16 – “Perhaps one of the largest concerns expressed was the high cost of online education for students. In terms of monetary resources, one popular answer was to simply lower the differential for online tuition. Others would be to apply for grants to open up more resource opportunities, lowering costs for online textbooks, contributing resources to student tutoring/advising, and using existing technical resources (D2L, etc.) to accomplish this. Also, some have shifted on-campus resources to online resources in response to the lack of funding towards online education.”
Strategy 3: Streamline funding and access to shared services and technologies
Using the principle of economies of scale, Minnesota State can facilitate the partnering of schools with shared interests who might be able to share costs for procuring specific technologies or services to support online education.
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 16 – “Perhaps one of the largest concerns expressed was the high cost of online education for students. In terms of monetary resources, one popular answer was to simply lower the differential for online tuition. Others would be to apply for grants to open up more resource opportunities, lowering costs for online textbooks, contributing resources to student tutoring/advising, and using existing technical resources (D2L, etc.) to accomplish this. Also, some have shifted on-campus resources to online resources in response to the lack of funding towards online education.”
Collaboration
In a system as large as Minnesota State, there are long held practices in place that will be barriers to collaborate. In order to make meaningful progress in online education, it is important be open to examining our existing practices and look to find ways to overcome barriers.
Strategy 1: Identify and implement innovative shared service models for student support services.
Each of these actions steps are detailed in other areas.
Strategy 2: Offer faculty development that models and supports collaboration
Strategy 3: Support faculty collaboration on curriculum
The ability to drawn on our collective strengths and resources when working to develop curriculum, programs, and courses. This is particularly valuable when Minnesota State is asked to address legislative actions (i.e. - Transfer Pathways, Developmental Educations) or Board of Trustee initiatives (i.e. - Twin Cities Baccalaureate).
Informed by: Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations. Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
• Page 5 – “Currently institutions enjoy collaborating and sharing best practices by attending conferences, workshops, webinars, symposiums, etc. (e.g. Distance MN, POET, STAR Symposium). They would like to have more (and different) opportunities, incentives, and funding in the future in order to collaborate across institutions. They would also like to have ways to share online course materials, resources, online course structures, etc.”
Strategy 4: Identify collaborations that result in strategic advantage, based on effective campus and system academic planning
Appendix A - Online Strategy Survey Results & Recommendations
Prepared by Organizational Effectiveness Research Group. (2016). Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
Appendix B - State of the state of Online Education in Minnesota State
A "state of the state of Online Education" in Minnesota State was pulled together in April 2016. This report was used an attempt to provide context to assertions made about online education.
Appendix C - List of Prioritized Action Steps
Items to be reviewed 2017-2018 with implementation to start during the 2018-2019 Academic Year
