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e-Learning in Higher Education: Reaching New Heights

It's not just our mile-high location in Denver. E-learning in higher education really is reaching new heights. Once a peripheral offering, it has become essential to the mission. As our world has changed, so have the functions of colleges and universities; the twenty-first century academy both shapes and serves an economy that is based on ideas and information. Once, not so long ago, a college education was for the privileged elite; now it is central to a successful working life. Once, the typical undergraduate, fresh from high school, spent four full-time years on campus and emerged with a baccalaureate; now, the typical undergraduate is a few years older, has a half-time job, and may be raising a family. Once, the student bade the campus goodbye on graduation day; now that institution is a career-long just-in-time resource, providing updates, reporting innovations, and preparing its people for new jobs or new careers.

As colleges and universities address these new roles, e-learning, which changes the ground rules of everything from time and distance to pedagogy, has become a key to success. Prime example: the Web has become part of everyday life, suggesting new ways to reach students, to present material, and to structure courses and programs - whether the intended student is on campus or on another continent. E-learning is even affecting the institution's understanding of its own potential, as when MIT decided to offer the substance of nearly all it courses on the Web as open courseware, freely available to institutions and learners anywhere in the world.
E-learning is reaching new heights. There are accomplishments to celebrate, opportunities to consider, and challenges to address. That's what this conference is about.

Policies
We find ourselves reinventing the institution. Suddenly some fundamentals are in play. What's so sacred about the semester or trimester, and why shouldn't classes start at other times? Seat time as a measure of quality is becoming a quaint concept. Should transcripts record the mode of instruction, or just how the student performed in the course? How should we respond to the growing interest in measuring specific course-related competencies? Shouldn't student services be essentially the same for distant students and those on campus - and if so, how do we make that happen? How might multi-campus consortia address students in classes that are multi-lingual or multinational? How should e-learning enhance educational opportunity for those with disabilities? As institutions plan for increased e-learning, how do they determine prospective costs and potential tradeoffs?
Stay tuned. Issues like these are the stuff of this conference's policy-related sessions. How should your institution or state respond to such questions? In a field as dynamic as education today, these are not issues for abstract discussion. Policy is too important to leave to
others; we are either influencing or influenced, every day.

Practices
With experience we are getting smarter about realizing the potential of e-learning. State networks are linking heretofore separate systems and institutions. We are finding ways to keep formerly wayward students engaged and successful, increasing interaction, and introducing proactive mentoring. Some of the budget issues that seemed intractable are yielding to innovative approaches. Boundaries between campus-bound and off-campus education are being erased. Institutions are providing needed support for faculty members as they adopt the strategies and techniques of e-learning. Open source options for course management systems are being developed, and they are being taken seriously. With open courseware and related developments, the amount and quality of material available for teaching and learning could grow exponentially.
Some familiar issues remain, of course: access, technology and pedagogy, workload and compensation, copyright, the plight of registrars, and more.

Developments like these, and many others - just consult the conference schedule - are the substance of the track dealing with e-learning practices. Join in: These sessions are not recitations about magic bullets. Conversation about implications, adaptations, or reservations is always part of the agenda.

Services
Check out a really successful e-learning program, and you will find an exemplary set of support services for students, faculty, and staff. For students these services run the gamut from program and course information to advising, enrollment and registration, accessible courseware, library and bookstore services, tech support, attention to regular interaction, mentoring as required, progress assessment, and academic records. Faculty support ranges from training in the use of the technologies, to production services, to policy consultation on workload and intellectual property issues.

The subject becomes ever more important as colleges and universities seek to serve a student body that is increasingly diverse both demographically and geographically, and as the institutions themselves change with the times.

These services and their rapid evolution are the subject of this conference track. Complex institutional issues are involved - from the backend Student Information System to the inevitable questions of organization, procedure, and turf. Such matters become even more pertinent as growing numbers of colleges and universities address the prospect of erasing the boundaries between on- and off-campus education.

It's a demanding business, and some of those who know it best will be making the presentations and participating in the discussions. Bring your own experience and questions to the conversation.