Developing Online Courses: Ten Myths

Abstract

Online education carries many benefits for individuals in rural areas as well as individuals with disabilities. The rapid growth of online courses and the increased number of institutions moving to online education has resulted in many instructors beginning to develop online courses for the first time. The article presents ten common myths that have sprung up concerning online course design and delivery, and offers accurate information regarding these misconceptions.

There is currently widespread interest and enthusiasm about online education at all levels, particularly with regard to the great potential benefits for those living in rural areas and for those students with disabilities. One index of the near-unanimous optimism concerning the potential of online education to benefit those in rural and remote areas is that a recent search with a popular search engine using the search string +"online education" and +"benefit for rural" produced more than 3,200 hits. Many of these sites also emphasize benefits of online education for persons with disabilities, especially for those individuals who reside in rural or remote areas.

The recent increased enthusiasm for online education has prompted colleges and universities to begin to move aggressively to encourage faculty members to develop online courses, certificate programs, and even complete undergraduate and graduate degrees. The trend toward online education prompted Williams (2000) to observe that the two primary influences on today's academic institutions are the Internet and the increasing demand for online courses. Indeed, according to the United States General Accounting Office (2002), an estimated 84 percent of all four-year institutions in the U.S. offered online education courses in 2002, and about 1.5 million of the 19 million postsecondary students in the U.S. took at least one distance education course during the 1999-2000 school year (the most recent year for which statistics are available).

The increased campus administrative desire to produce online courses and offer them as soon as possible has meant that many professors who are less than technologically expert find themselves pressured to develop such courses. Unfortunately, few campuses seem to be providing adequate training and support for faculty who are willing to design, produce, and offer online coursework. Therefore, a number of myths and misconceptions have sprung up about the nature of Web-based courses, students, and course design. The purpose of this article is to identify ten of the more pervasive of these myths and misconceptions, and to provide more useful information about these topics. The ten myths were selected after a review of the literature and from experiences of the author.

Myth #1-It is not important to make sure that online courses are accessible to people with disabilities.

Given the recent increased awareness about the importance of physical accessibility on post secondary education, it is surprising that many Web pages seem to reflect little or no attention to Web accessibility (Maddux, 2001). The importance of web accessibility is especially important for online courses developed for special educators, children with disabilities, or the parents of children with disabilities. All course developers should be made aware of the fact that there are at least 35 million people with disabilities in the United States and about 740 million people with disabilities worldwide (Lazarro, 1998).

In response to the critical need for Web accessibility, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed extensive guidelines including Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (World Wide Web Consortium, 1999). (The W3C was founded by the inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and currently consists of over 400 member organizations with a goal of ensuring interoperability of Web hardware and software and providing an open forum for discussion.) Version 2.0 of the accessibility guidelines have been published in draft form (World Wide Web Consortium, 2003). A discussion of each of the specific W3C guidelines is beyond the space limitations of the current article. Interested readers are referred to the W3C Guidelines, which are available online, and to an article by Maddux (2001) written specifically for those interested in developing Web sites for rural special education. Maddux provides extensive technical advice, but suggests that novices could profit by simply keeping in mind the rule that all visual elements in an online page should also be fully explained or described in text. Additionally, tables should be used only for tabular material and the use of frames avoided.

All course developers should be familiar with the W3C Guidelines and sensitive to the fact that many individuals who stand to profit the most from online education are those who have various disabilities. It is not difficult to build accessibility into Web sites, and it is critical for individuals with disabilities, many of whom would be excluded from participation in online education if courses lack accessibility.

Myth #2-Online Education is the Newest Higher Education Fad and the Pressure to Produce Online Courses Will be Short-Lived.

Bonk (2002, 2003) identified this idea as a myth after surveying professors and corporate trainers. Both groups forecasted nothing but increased growth and emphasis, with the professors predicting that online education would comprise half of their load within five years, while corporate trainers suggested that over two-thirds of their work would be online within that time frame. Survey evidence aside, computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web are so ubiquitous, and have attained so much cultural momentum that in the future, their influence over nearly every walk of life, including education, is unlikely to do anything except increase. Lorenzo (2000) agrees and concludes that the demand for online education is substantial and growing, and suggests that the only choice for universities is whether or not they will meet this demand or allow other entities to do so.

The burgeoning demand for online courses has resulted in some highly questionable offerings from nontraditional educational entities. The trick will be finding some middle ground between the fraudulent offerings of a rapidly growing group of online diploma mills, and the shortsighted and disastrous head-in-the-sand strategies of those who subscribe to the myth that pressure for online education will go away if it is ignored. As faculty, we need to engage in conversations aimed at determining which courses are suited for totally online delivery, which can be improved through web-enhanced strategies, and which are unsuited for online conversion. The problem of ownership of online course materials needs to be settled, through legal action if need be, and we need to press for proper institutional training and support for faculty who are willing to attempt to convert their courses to online delivery. In addition, we need to pressure our various accreditation agencies to develop realistic standards that will guarantee reasonable quality of online courses from accredited institutions. Currently, too many of these agencies seem all too willing to cave in to the demands of the online diploma mills and others to accredit shabby offerings.

Myth #3-Converting to an online course will save instructor time and, institutional money.

This myth that online education will be a time or money saver is pervasive. Just about anyone who has ever developed a course knows this is not true, and will attest that online courses consume more time, energy, and money than do facc-to-face classes (Kilian, 1997). In fact, some authorities estimate that online courses require 40 to 50 percent more time than do face-to-face courses (Brown, 1999).

Two reasons that online courses are so labor intensive are that initial development is timeconsuming and online students often interact more with the instructor than do students in face-to-face classes. Then too, surveys show online students tend to expect more detailed and individualized feedback on their performance (Downcs, 1998). With regard to finances, development costs of 50 to 100 thousand dollars are not unknown (Dowries, 1998). Downes goes on to say that online education may prove to be less expensive in the long run, but we should expect it to be more expensive in the short term.

Myth #4-Online Education Will Put Traditional Higher Education Out of Business.

This myth is fueled partly by wishful thinking on the part of private entrepreneurs who hope to cash in on what they rightly see as a lucrative potential market, and partly by futurists and others who have learned that the easiest way to get attention is to proclaim that the sky is falling. There are many dire predictions such as that by Dunn (2000), who predicted that traditional universities may disappear by the year 2025, or the following by Alfred Bork: "Teaching, in the sense of someone conducting a class of twenty or more students, either locally or at a distance, will mostly vanish at all levels of learning" (Ricart, Augustson, Guida, Robers, Sadowsky, & Van Houweling, 2000, p. 82). Similarly, Peter Drucker, the management theorist and sometime futurist, opines:

Education will be profoundly changed by the Internet, and higher education most of all. I am not sure that the one American contribution to education, the free-standing four-year college, is going to survive. (Davis, 2000, p. 36).

These predictions are almost certainly far too pessimistic. I see little chance that traditional public school classrooms or traditional colleges and universities are going to cease to exist due to the availability of online coursework. Although there is little agreement, Scroggins (1998), past president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, suggests that the most authoritative predictions for the maximum percent of future higher education enrollment by distance education alternatives including the Internet tend to be twenty percent or less. Thus, there is every reason to believe that there will always be undergraduate students who need and desire the social aspects of traditional, oncampus attendance. In fact, there is a clear demographic trend emerging for those students who elect online education. The United States General Accounting Office [2002] reports that such students differ from other postsecondary students in that they tend to be older, part-time, female students who are employed full-time, are married, earn higher incomes, and take courses related to business, humanities and education.

The impact of online education will also be somewhat lessened, at least in the short run, by the effect of looming, large general enrollment increases, sometimes referred to as Tidal Wave II, resulting from the fact that the children of the baby boom generation are just now beginning to reach college age. Enrollments in doctoral programs will likely be little affected, simply because the idea of a totally online doctoral program in any discipline seems ludicrous to most students, given the present state of the art including the scarcity of fast, broadband connections to the Internet, particularly in rural areas. Master's programs in some areas may see the steepest decline due to online alternatives, particularly in areas such as business and education, in which students are likely to fit the online demographic more closely than are students in other disciplines.

Then too, it is unlikely that all students defecting to online alternatives would do so through private providers. Some research has shown that students prefer online instruction provided by their local colleges and universities over that provided by other institutions (Lorenzo, 2000). When this occurs, such students are not lost to the local institution.

While it seems unlikely that online education will totally destroy traditional higher education, there is no room for complacency by those who believe that there is much worth preserving on traditional campuses. An enrollment decrease of anything near twenty percent would be catastrophic for most campuses, and would necessitate huge sacrifices and cutbacks, and might even result in closure of some institutions. Munitz (2000) is almost certainly correct when he predicts that online education will result in a very tough future for traditional education, especially if the private sector succeeds in diverting significant numbers of students to their online offerings, and if traditional campuses fail to develop high-quality, online alternatives of their own.

What we must do is concentrate on responding to the need for online courses and find ways to do so without sacrificing academic integrity. This will call for careful planning and level-headed campus leaders who are willing to provide needed resources and incentives to course developers while resisting the urge to panic and compete with the online diploma mills by rushing to offer ill-advised, and low-quality online courses and programs.

Additionally, traditional educators need to undergo a major attitude adjustment. For far too long, we have enjoyed a captive audience and we have often treated students in a high-handed manner. Online education has now created a situation where students have many more choices than ever before. Consequently, there is an urgent need to overhaul antiquated ways of dealing with students. Only a few of the many conditions that beg for reform include rude, incompetent clerks and secretaries; antiquated systems of record keeping; professors who pride themselves on their failure rates, make courses more difficult than they need to be, ignore office hours, and do not keep appointments; punitive parking policies including exorbitantly expensive parking permits; admission of more students than can be accommodated with required classes; and a general attitude that if students do not like their treatment they are free to go elsewhere.

Myth #5-All or Most Students Will Elect an Online Course Over a Traditional Course.

This myth is part of what gives rise to the previous one. One factor in student choice (although probably not the major one, especially in the short term) is the issue of whether students can learn as well in online courses as in traditional ones. The truth is that while much of the small body of existing research seems to indicate that achievement in online courses is equal or superior to that in traditional, or face-to-face courses (Erwin & Ricppi, 1999; Follansbee, Hughes, Pisha, & Stahl, 1997; Hurlburt, 2001; Redding & Rotzein, 2001; Russell, 2001), such research is in its infancy, is plagued with methodological and conceptual flaws, is mixed in its findings, and concentrates on student outcomes to the neglect of student affective variables (Hara & Kling, 1999). Indeed, a few studies have found lower achievement from an online course (Carnevale, 2002). To say that the issue is unresolved is an understatement (Bennett, Priest & Macpherson, 1999).

The achievement question aside, some research shows that students prefer traditional classes due to the social interaction found there (Davies & Mendenhall, 1998; Hurlburt, 2001). In addition, many educators have expressed concern over high online dropout rates (Poole & Axmann, 2002; Serwatka, 2002).

What this all means is that online education is not for everyone, and not everyone will elect it over on-campus attendance. Poole and Axmann (2002) suggest that "It takes a special kind of student to pursue academic goals without the assistance of regularly scheduled meetings and face to face guidance.'" Brown (1998) identified characteristics of successful online learners including (a) those who are independent and active learners, (b) those who enjoy working independently, (c) those who are good at structuring and managing their time, and (d) those with excellent verbal ability. It is obvious that not all students have these characteristics.

We need to continue to carry out research aimed at identifying the characteristics needed to be successful online and make that knowledge known to students, parents, and others. We also need to continue to investigate student causes of online failure, and use that information when we make decisions about which courses should or should not be made available online.

Myth #6-All or most instructors can and should adapt to online teaching.

The truth is that online education is not suited for all students or all instructors. Nor is there a need for all instructors to become involved in online education. Not all instructors are comfortable with technology or the Internet. Kilian (1997) emphasizes that computers are not for everyone, that only a tiny fraction of students and faculty are computer literate, and that even among the computer literate, not everyone enjoys using computers or would choose to do so rather than attending a traditional class.

Furthermore, anyone who has ever taught a computer course knows that people vary greatly in their aptitude for computer technology. What exactly makes up computer aptitude is not known, but it is probably a complex combination of attitude, skills, experience, and certain personality traits as well. It would be surprising indeed, if faculty did not vary in their aptitude for learning and using computer technology. As Richard Powers (2003) of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Maryland suggests:

There are dynamite classroom instructors who fail miserably online, and boring, lackluster, monotone classroom instructors whose online classes ring, whiz, and shine with learning. Teaching in the classroom and online require two totally different approaches to activity and task design for accomplishing your learning objectives for the particular class.

To each, his own.

Myth #7-Students in an online course will be quick to take advantage, of interactive tools such as chat rooms., discussion groups and bulletin boards.

Instructors of online courses almost universally agree that students require instruction, incentive, and structure or they will not use interactive aids such as chat rooms, discussion groups and bulletin boards (Powers, 2003). Stcnen (2001) provided the following advice: "Instructors need to provide some non-threatening, non-graded ways for students to experiment with e-mail, chat rooms, discussion groups and bulletin boards to build confidence" (p. 131). Instructors who simply make these interactive tools available and expect students to use them will be disappointed.

Myth #8-WebCT makes it very easy for anyone to create an online course.

This is a myth for several reasons. One reason is that there is much more to creating an online course than merely placing various pages on the Web. Then too, many faculty members do not find WebCT to be easy to learn, as reflected in many published reports (Martin & Lee, 2003; Sanders & Hausler, 2003; University of Colorado at Boulder, 2003; University of Georgia, 2003.) The WebCT interface is menudriven and does almost nothing to take advantage of the drag-and-drop ability of most mouse-compatible programs. As it stands, in my opinion, it is only marginally easier to learn to use WebCT than to learn to use a good HTML editor or to learn to hardcode in HTML (hypertext markup language, the language of Web pages). In fact, if it were not for some specialized capabilities of WebCT, I would see little advantage to its use and would recommend that everyone learn HTML or the use of a good Web editor such as Dreamweaver (preferably both). However, WebCT does make it comparatively easy to create interactive tools such as chat rooms, private email systems, and bulletin boards. In addition, WebCT can be used to create and grade tests and to keep track of student grades. Therefore, it is probably worthwhile to learn WebCT. However, no one should imagine that learning will involve only a session or two, and neophytes should plan on repeated and lengthy learning sessions prior to actual use.

Myth #9-Copyright issues are nothing to worry about in distance education.

This is another myth, and a dangerous one. Every online instructor should read and understand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which can be downloaded at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/ legislation/dmca.pdf. Violators of copyright law can incur substantial legal penalty for themselves as individuals and for their institutions. The safest policy is to decline to use any material authored by others unless it is definitely known that it is not copyrighted, or unless users have obtained the written permission of the owner of the material. In addition, course developers should read an excellent article by Brad Templeton (2003), Founder of ClariNet and Chairman of the Board of the Electronic Freedom Foundation. The article (available online at http:// www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html) lists common myths about copyright along with accurate information and advice. Among other points, Templeton advised that no copyright notice is needed to ensure copyright, violations occur whether or not a fee is charged, "fair use" applies only to brief excerpts with the author clearly attributed, and some copyright violations are felonies.

Myth #10-The technology will not be a problem for students.

Instructors often feel insecure about their own technology skills, but sometimes forget that not all students are expert in their use of computers and the World Wide Web. Kara and Kling (1999) concluded that technology problems were one of the two major frustrations for students taking an online course.

Online instructors have learned the truth of the old saying that "what can go wrong, will go wrong." Many studies have found that both instructors and students need accessible, expert technical support to find success in online education. Student hardware and software is fallible, and servers and other institutional hardware and software experience periodic failure and maintenance downtimes. Both situations cause untold frustration to students who are unsure about whether or not the problem is due to their own actions.

To address these needs, telephone help lines should be maintained by institutions offering online courses and should be staffed with extended hours. Email help should also be available and there should be a physical location where students can obtain technical help and advice. In addition, institutions need to make certain that scheduled downtimes are communicated to instructors, who can inform students prior to scheduled maintenance shutdowns. Changes in URLs, logon procedures, etc. should always be sent to students prior to their implementation.

Conclusions

Online education is spreading rapidly throughout the world, and promises to bring new opportunities to students previously denied them, such as those in rural areas or those with disabilities. However, increased opportunities always carry increased problems. Because of the rapidity with which online education has begun to spread, many instructors are, for the first time, beginning to consider online delivery of courses. The present article addresses some of the common myths that have sprung up related to online education. It is hoped that the information in the article will help such instructors avoid some of the common pitfalls of online course development and delivery.

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Cleborne D. Maddux, Ph.D.

Foundation Professor of Counseling and Educational Psychology

University of Nevada, Reno

Reno, NV 89557

[email protected]

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