The authors discuss the transformational potential of blended learning and the importance of alignment with strategic initiatives of the institution. They show that key elements for student and faculty support result in numerous positive outcomes, including increased access and the ability to manage growth effectively. Research findings with very large student samples show the impact of blended learning on student achievement, identify predictors of student success, and illustrate correlates of student satisfaction with blended learning when ambivalent feelings mediate student perceptions of the educational environment. By illustrating these principles through a case study in a large metropolitan research university, the authors contend that strategic alignment and evaluation results inform each other in an incremental, transformational process.
The authors describe relationships among infrastructure, student outcomes, and faculty satisfaction at the University of Central Florida (UCF). The model focuses on developmental process that progresses from courses with some Web presence to those that are driven by ALN. Faculty receive support for online teaching in the form of release time for training and development, upgraded hardware, and complete course development services. Students receive assistance in the form of orientation, around-the-clock help services, a Pegasus Connections CD-ROM, and a learning on-line Web site. The results of the impact evaluation at UCF indicate that faculty feel that their teaching is more flexible and that interaction increases in the ALN environment. On the other hand, they are concerned that on-line teaching may not fit into the academy culture. The authors argue that faculty satisfaction and student outcomes are strongly related and that their interaction is the most important outcome. Finally, the authors conclude that faculty satisfaction is both a dependent and independent variable that is nested within colleges, departments,and program areas.
PurposeThe paper aims to present a strategic model for online program success in higher education and to discuss the implications of web‐based teaching for learning assessment and program evaluation.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses an analytic approach to deconstruct a successful online program to identify necessary elements for the initiative to become apart of the institutional culture.FindingsThe paper traces the evolution of online learning in higher education over the past decade, poses the necessary strategic planning questions that must be answered, identifies critical success factors, argues that that the broadening scope of evaluation will have to encompass emerging constructs such as information fluency, and hypothesizes online learning as a systemic initiative.Research limitations/implicationsThe study intends to stimulate case study research at other colleges and universities using the template of this paper to assess whether or not the model constructs and elements are robust with respect to institutional context.Practical implicationsThis paper outlines a planning and assessment protocol that may be used for establishing successful online programs and assessing the outcomes of the initiative in terms of the original objectives as well as unanticipated side effects.Originality/valueThis paper unifies many heretofore disparate components of online learning as they effect student populations, faculty development, necessary support services, program accountability, infrastructure issues, and new models for evaluation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.