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August 10, 2009, 02:00 PM ET

Obama Course-Giveaway Backlash?

Madison, Wis. – OK, maybe backlash is too strong a word.

But some distance-learning leaders are starting to raise questions and concerns about President Obama’s new online-education proposal, a great course giveaway that would pump $500-million into freely available Web-based courses.

Are new courses needed? Would students get help working through them? Would their privacy be protected as they use the material? All of those issues came up here during last week’s Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning.

Janet Poley, president of the American Distance Education Consortium, argued that course development wasn’t a “terribly high need.” Many online courses have already been created, she pointed out. Why not start from existing material?

Joel Kolberg, a U. of Wisconsin at Milwaukee student, does some of his coursework online. Colleges would get help offering online classes under a new Obama administration plan, but some distance education leaders are starting to question it. (Michael I. Kienitz for The Chronicle)

“I’d rather see more of this money go into scholarships for online learning than reinventing courses that have already been invented,” said Ms. Poley, an adult-education expert whose consortium consists of about 65 state universities and land-grant colleges.

The consortium president was one of several people to publicly worry about the fine print of Mr. Obama’s plan during the distance-learning conference, which drew about 800 people to Madison.

Chere Gibson, a University of Wisconsin at Madison professor emerita whose research has focused on distance learning, expressed concern about making courses available without an infrastructure to get students through them.

“It’s unethical to allow a student to have access to courses and not provide a support system that allows them to have success,” Ms. Gibson said during a panel discussion, prompted by a question from a Chronicle reporter. “There needs to be some kind of support system for learners, within the system. And it’s not inexpensive.”

The Obama administration has yet to release many details of its online course plan, one small piece of a sweeping community-college assistance package. But officials have repeatedly cited Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative as a potential model. The project builds software-enhanced online courses that track students’ progress and provide them with feedback on problems. If the courses are used in combination with instructors, they can feed information to professors about where students are struggling.

If government-backed courses were based on this tracking-intensive model, Ms. Poley said, that raises questions about how long the data gathered would be kept, who would have access to it, how it would be used, and how students’ identities would be protected.

“If you have people recording everything that you’re doing in an online environment, even when you’re working on a problem, to study how you’re working on that problem, unobtrusively, there are big privacy questions,” she said. “Many people in that population group will not necessarily understand how much under the microscope they are.”

She added, “I think their little experiment is a nice little experiment – and there are a lot of other nice little experiments about. I want to see something much more systemic, and with much more input. I think they should have a summit.”

Categories: Distance-Education, Open-Access

Comments

1. harrison_bergeron - August 10, 2009 at 08:06 pm

While it is true that many online courses have been developed, availability is an issue. Most of these courses are locked behind a password, along with claims of "ownership." As educators, we ought to be making these available to all. These courses may also be lower quality than we could reach with the resources to develop multimedia elements. Publishers are already working on this, and I bet they don't want the competition. As for support, isn't that the job of the institutions that adopt these courses? Money spent on course development, on a product that is unlikely to reach the quality level of these courses, would free up many resources for scholarships and other student support. That said, throw away your assumptions about how this will work. Entirely new institutions will form, quickly illustrating that the model followed for too many years is ineffective.

2. larryc - August 11, 2009 at 12:45 am

The Center for History and New MEdia should offer to develop the U.S. history surveys.

3. krn1951 - August 11, 2009 at 08:27 am

The great course giveaway might be a reversal of the typical Republican and Democratic roles. Previously we had the supply side advocates but their ideas didn't work because not much ended up trickling down. The current administration's approach has been willy nilly. On one hand, hundreds of billions of dollars have been thrown at failing industries such as banks, auto manufacturers (distance learning developers?), and lesser billions at targeted individuals such as people going into mortgage foreclosure or who can afford a new car. Interesting times.

4. kathden - August 11, 2009 at 04:14 pm

I reject the idea that as educators we are obligated to make our courses available to all. I reject it not because we don't have obligations or because its our (or my) property. I reject it because it confuses "course materials" with what the course really is. Maybe natural scientists (as one example) feel differently about this, but as a humanist I can have courses the materials of which are nothing but widely available works (novels, philosophical treatises, classic of sociology and psychology). Unless it is an introductory lecture course, which is basically a talking book about a discipline and its landmark works, a major part of what I have to teach is how to wrestle with the difficulties of works. That is a matter of encountering the students where they are. And no set of key concepts and questions with definitions and sample answers can really do that.

5. tonypizur - August 11, 2009 at 05:24 pm

This is a Pandora's Box. Okay, so the next Pres. comes from a Red State, and suddenly 25% of intro to biology is Intelligent Design. I only teach online and have developed courses which literally tens of thousands of students have taken, but I suppose that work will now go to a handful of "approved" scholars at well-connected universities. After all, only those with no practitioner experience can ever hope to craft a course useful to continuing education students...

6. gdoherty - August 17, 2009 at 03:11 pm

We practitioners of online course design and delivery would welcome a summit. There are huge stakes involved in giving proper attention to creating sustainable virtual learning communities. This is the direction our digital culture is taking. Observe the power of social networking. The Digital Revolution will not be satisfied with computer mediated self-paced programming. Regardless of this moment's funding opportunity, we need to be dedicated to developing educational environments in which learners actively engage a subject as colleagues whose corporate critical thinking reaches full potential.

7. mgozaydin - November 20, 2009 at 09:36 am

Well. It is my subject.
Bravissimo Obama. Congratulations. BRAVO .
Only solution to education from cradle to grave is ONLINE Education for today's technology. May be next generation will use another technology. In 30 years Schools are out ONLINE is in . Believe me after 30 years everybody will laugh and will say what was the thing called " school "
Do you remember steam boats ?
Being serious, ONLINE cost is nill per person if used by millions. USA has millions everywhere. 56.000.000 K12 and 16.000.000 higher education students.
Plus GOOD quality online is 10 times better than face to face education. Believe me it is so. People always compare bad online programs with good face to face education.
EDUCATION SHOULD NOT BE COMMERCIALISED.
What Carnegie Mellon is doing one revolution in the world. Fortunately that is my vision as well. I applied the same format in Turkey importing USA good ONLINE programs to Turkish Universities and assign Turkish facilitators or instructors. Then one course is viewed in USA by 500 student and in Turkey by 10.000 students. Then cost per person is nill.
Research should be done now; online can be made better.
Interactivity, simulations, animations, video clips, audio effect all needed. ONLINE makes people to live in the learning environment. Plus there is no barriers like time and space. You can learn very easily ; until you go grave.
Let us have a GLOBAL ONLINE UNIVERSITY with 5.000 courses. Open all your doors to the world.( You can charge $ 20 or so per course. Free is not appreciated always. ) It is better than spending money for Peace Corps. Image of America will be fantastic if this is done. This my hint to Obama .
First have an ONLINE English course free for the whole world. It is not expensive. It is only $ 1.000.000 . One company can sponsor it. Everybody has to learn English. And it is so easy with online.
Next thing force Netbook manufacturer make a notebook for $ 200 per netbook. That can be done. Make it a national standard. Sell by millions.Then price will go down. Today 30 % of the price of netbook goers to advertisment and promotion.

Thanks and congratulations for OBAMA all the way from Turkey . Plus Arne Duncan as well for his works for online K12 . mgozaydin@hotmail.com +90-532-291 96 76