Searching for Online Teaching Gigs

I am in the process of conducting a job search - preferably for a full-time job, but after reading about the challenges some face in securing a full-time benefited position in higher education, I decided to include part-time online teaching as part of my search. OK, truthfully, I'm partial to online teaching, having done it for five years. But, breaking out of the niche I am in and trying to expand my opportunities has been challenging. Finding schools with online programs and then with online courses in my field, and in need of adjunct instructors takes a lot of searching and luck.

I thought I'd share some of my attempts, successes and failures in this fora in hopes of making your searching more productive and easier.

Currently, I've applied to 29 online programs for consideration as an adjunct instructor. I've got two positive responses so far, but no offer of classes to teach. I've done one online training program and have one more to do in a few weeks. Every online program I've been associated with has a training component associated with it and to date, I've received no compensation for my time from any of them - call it paying ones dues.

My applications include the for-profit schools that you might expect (although some of these do not offer courses in my field), smaller private colleges and a number of community colleges. It appears to me that distance learning programs are exploding and I attribute this to two factors; lifestyle and the maturation of distance education and its acceptance as a professional sub-field. Educators are becoming more comfortable with the medium and they are starting to think about how to teach a course online vs. throwing up defensive barriers to online education.

This explosion in programs should result in a buyers market for those faculty members experienced in and/or willing to take on online teaching. This is perhaps true, but finding online teaching vacancies is a hit or miss challenge.

The For-Profit online programs have the budget to advertise in the Chronicle and all over the internet. If you've ever considered teaching online, you've been exposed to their advertisements.

Google searches are time consuming because the term "online teaching positions" when used for a search tends to yield results that are actually listings of universities having Human Resources websites with job listings -with nothing to do with teaching online. Searching for "Distance Education teaching or faculty positions" yields a little better mix of results. Various combinations of these search themes produce a variety of returns. I've found it to be time consuming and frustrating, but with some results. I've also found that some of the websites that say they are collecting online teaching positions are little better than just screening the search results I get. In fact, I think avoiding these sites actually saves time!

What I've found is that one must go deep into the search results to find opportunities - I'm talking pages 10-17 deep. This is where the community colleges and smaller traditional colleges with distance/online learning programs show up.

Of the 29 schools I've applied to, only 6 are at for-profit institutions; 17 are at smaller traditional schools or major univeristies. My point is that for-profits do not have the online learning market cornered. I also noted that certain states have more institutions with online programs than others - FL, AL, TN, and NH appear to be well wired - although these are not the results of a scientific study.

If you are looking for an online teaching gig and not looking at institutions where you already teach, good luck and prepare yourself for an arduous journey to finding opportunities.

I know this has been a lengthy posting. I hope it offers some value to you. I'm interested in hearing of your online teaching search stories and tips - perhaps I've gone about it all wrong.

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