Online study ups workload for instructors

Debbie Benson can't remember a time when she didn't want to teach.

"I really never saw myself in a college classroom, but I got part-time jobs at Northwest-Shoals (Community College) and the University of North Alabama in 1991, and I've been doing that ever since," said the English instructor.

Benson switched in 1999 to full-time status at Northwest-Shoals, and since then, she's been teaching grammar and world literature in the traditional classroom as well as developing and teaching those courses for students to take online.

Students have responded to this form of learning via the Internet by enrolling in droves, often filling these virtual classrooms before all the spots in a traditional classroom are taken.

But some in academic circles say that, although online classes have been around for more than a decade, a number of problems remain, especially as they involve faculty.

"The economic underpinning of a lot of online education is that it amounts to slave labor," said Martin Snyder, president of the American Association of University Professors, which is based in Washington, D.C.

"Most of (those who teach online courses) are part-time professors who can't get full-time work and are forced into taking a lot of part-time positions in order to try to make an equitable salary," Snyder said.

In addition to inadequate compensation, he said, it takes a large amount of time to teach and develop these courses.

"My experience is that it takes much longer to both prepare and deliver an online class, and the biggest reason for that is that you find yourself repeating things that might be more efficient to say to a whole group of students," Snyder said. "And, if the teacher allows it to get out of hand, having the students e-mail constantly can be difficult, and you have to exercise an amount of control over that."

Benson said she had to learn that lesson as she began teaching online.

"E-mail can be kind of impersonal, and there's also the disadvantage of not having the true college experience," she said. "For older students, that may not matter. But I spend lots of time checking on those classes. It's the first thing I do when I get up in the morning, and I get online between classes and then I check on it again when I get home."

Although professors are compensated for time spent in their offices and not time spent at home checking e-mails or grading papers, faculty at both campuses receive a stipend for developing a course.

"We also have training that faculty go through if they want to teach these courses," said April Cookson, coordinator of distance education at Northwest-Shoals. "We tried it a number of ways and decided online worked best. It's the best way for the instructor to get the perspective of the student."

Both Northwest-Shoals and UNA have been offering distance education courses for almost 10 years, and, already, students at Northwest-Shoals can complete a general education degree completely online.

UNA offers 130 classes that can be taken via the Internet, and students in the business or nursing programs can get a master's degree online.

Some schools, however, have had to look at ways of reigning in their online programs by disallowing students who live on campus from taking distance education courses. Other campuses have been slow to adapt as the technology that enables these programs to run is changing so rapidly.

"We are not at the point that we have to restrict who may enroll," said B.J. Hill, Cookson's counterpart at UNA. "Distance learning is not an either/or proposition. A student may choose to take one distance learning class, yet have all his other classes on campus. The flexibility of a distance learning class can be a lifesaver for a student who is juggling a full schedule of classes and extracurricular activities."

Flexibility and convenience have been critical to the growth in online programs as these courses offer an entirely new audience an opportunity to complete a college education, according to Ruth Gannon Cook. She is on the faculty at DePaul University in Chicago, and among those who have done seminal research on the topic of online classes and their impact on faculty.

But as the popularity of these classes has increased, faculty have lost a degree of respect among university administrators, and students may not be disciplined enough to complete the work, she said.

"If (faculty) are at a private university, they are in a little better shape than at a private university because public university employees can unionize," Gannon Cook said. "But, even if they don't, here's the deal: In the end, if (administrators would) just take a little better care of faculty I've found in my research that, to give the faculty a voice in what's being said and have some input would be invaluable to them."

Although distance education has become an almost obligatory part of the university experience, she said, most colleges and universities are still unprepared for what this means outside of the extra money that comes in from students who need classes but don't have the time to come to campus.

"We've got the basics of it down. We know it can be done," Gannon Cook said. "But now is the time to get to the next, deeper level and reach out to the students who might drop through the cracks."

Chris Maynard, chairman of the department of history and political science at UNA, is on the distance learning advisory committee at the school. He said the most important thing for faculty to do is to learn how to strike a balance.

"The main thing is keeping the lines of communication open, and, with the kind of technology we have today with texting and blogs, e-mails and chat rooms, it helps the professors keep in touch with the students," he said. "And we always have the phone. Students can call if they feel like they want a chat."

Whether online or in a traditional classroom, keeping a student interested and engaged remains the responsibility of the professor, Maynard said.

"I have students tell me that face-to-face classes are boring or they don't get a lot out of it," he said. "So it comes down to a qualified teacher who knows how to teach and reach out to their students."

Michelle Eubanks can be reached at 740-5745 or michelle.eubanks@TimesDaily.com.