The Provostial White Paper calls upon York to engage in a planned and coordinated effort to expand e-learning opportunities for students. E-learning is viewed in the paper as a way of improving student accessibility, engagement, and learning as well as part of a strategy for managing the enrolment pressures facing York. The Vice-President Academic & Provost charged the e-Learning Working Group with the task of developing the business case for e-learning at York. This report sets out the Working Group’s recommendations for implementing an e-learning strategy at York that will meet the White Paper’s goals.
A review of the research literature supports the White Paper’s views on the benefits that may arise from e-learning. Generally speaking, both fully online and hybrid courses that blend face-to-face with online experiences have a distinct advantage in providing students with more flexibility in their personal schedules and making higher education more accessible. Evidence of this comes from the rapid increase in online enrolments in higher education over the past several years. In the U.S., according to a very recent study by the Sloan Consortium, more than one in four students now take at least one course online and online enrolments are growing 17 percent annually compared with an overall system enrolment increase of 1.2 percent. Comparable Canadian statistics are not available; however, Athabasca University, Canada’s largest online university, has some 38,000 students enrolled in 776 courses (72,040 enrolments) in more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs. In Ontario, Ryerson University appears to have the highest number of course enrolments (58,276) followed by Waterloo (21,311) and Guelph (over 20,000). York, a much larger institution than either of these three, last year had 9421 students enrolled in 123 fully online undergraduate courses and 2741 students in 18 blended courses. Little published research is available on the costs of online or blended learning. This is appears to be because universities want to offer online courses for competitive reasons provided their costs are not unreasonable and they attract a sufficient number of students. What research there is suggests that e-learning can be cost-effective, although initial startup costs can be higher than traditional lectures and it may take several years for costs to average out. The University of Central Florida, a well-regarded pioneer in blended learning and similar to York in size and student demographics, reported recently that they saved $7 million in construction costs and over $277,000 in annual operating costs through implementation of blended and online courses.
Research on the student learning benefits accruing from online courses is much clearer. A study conducted over a decade ago by the Institute for Research on Learning Technologies of Atkinson College distance education courses found that online students achieved higher grades than their peers in the same courses offered in traditional lecture format. Since then, research has consistently demonstrated that students in fully online courses achieve slightly higher than those in face-to-face classes; moreover, students in blended courses tend to outperform those in fully online courses.
In addition to reviewing the research literature on e-learning, the Working Group analyzed e-learning policy documents available online of key universities in Canada and selected international universities. Several trends became evident from the analysis. Most universities see the adoption of technology as a way to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and improve student learning outcomes; they see e-learning as a way to increase access and enrolments; they plan to increase support and professional development opportunities for academic staff to integrate technology effectively into teaching and learning; and they seek to grow the university’s profile and reputation as a leader by taking up e-learning. Several Canadian universities stand out in their plans. For example, Carleton aims to be a national leader in distance and online learning, U of T wants to lead in developing and implementing e-learning technologies, and Waterloo is striving to become known as Canada’s connected campus. Several American universities, such as Drexel and Purdue, set out specific targets and guidelines for achieving 10 percent of student undergraduate credit hours online. What this analysis highlights is that York lags other universities by not articulating an e-learning policy that will help the institution in planning and allocating resources in this area.
From the literature review and policy analysis, the Working Group concluded that there is a unique opportunity for York to expand significantly in its e-learning course offerings. The literature suggests that students can learn better in blended courses than in either fully online or face-to-face courses and, at the same time, blended courses can meet the White Paper’s other goals of increasing student access and engagement. Additionally, no other Canadian institution has chosen a strategy to specialize in blended learning. Thus, York could grow to become a national leader and significant international player in blended learning—a path that the Group recommends. Such a strategy would not negate development of fully online courses as they should continue to be developed in key areas for strategic reasons; however, the Working Group advocates a strong and focused effort at growing the number of course and program offerings in the blended format.
For modeling purposes, the Working Group chose to estimate the revenue and costs associated with an ambitious plan to increase the number of online courses at the rate of 100 courses per year for five years with each course having an enrolment of 100 students. Although redesigning 500 courses would be a very significant undertaking, this would result in only approximately 12% of all York courses being offered in a partial or a fully online format in five years. If all of the enrolments in these courses came from new students, the University would realize additional revenue of approximately $6.2 million in the first year and $31.2 million by the fifth year. This revenue would come from the normal government grants and tuition, as well as from a modest Associated Course Fee (ACF) for technology. Moreover, the blended model could allow the University to use any remaining existing excess classroom space more efficiently than the traditional lecture model and sizeable cost avoidance is possible when it becomes necessary for new classrooms to be built.
There are two major costs associated with the proposed initiative. One is the cost of technical support during development, ongoing technical support, and the technological infrastructure. During the first year, these costs would amount to just over $1.3 million and would rise to $2.1 million at the end of the fifth year. Important to note, however, is that these costs could begin to be recouped by the third year and fully recouped by the fifth year with an ACF of $60 per student per course. The other major cost is for faculty training and course development. Although substantial (approximately $687, 500 in year one), this is an area that the Working Group feels York has chronically underfunded and that investment is required. Possible funding sources for this cost include revenue from program growth, one-time-only grants that could become available from the province, and external donations and industry partnerships.
The Working Group concludes that even though the initiative outlined in the report is ambitious, it is essential if York wishes to become a significant player in the e-learning field in Ontario. A more modest first step could be taken instead of attempting to restructure 100 courses in the first year. The University could embark on a pilot to restructure 25 to 50 courses by September 2011 and assess the costs and experiences to aid in the planning of future expansion. If this scaled-back plan is adopted, the University should realize that it runs the risk of falling further behind other Ontario institutions in its e-learning course offerings.
