Education In Nursing and Institutional Planning and Commitment for Distant or Online
Institutional Planning and Commitment In Nursing Education
At the institutional level, decisions must be made about the institution's commitment to online education in terms of human, fiscal, and physical resources. Organizational and administrative infrastructure, funding sources, technology support services, and student support services are areas that need to be addressed.
For example, who within the institution's organizational structure will provide administrative oversight for the development, implementation, and evaluation of online education? Does the institution already employ the technical and instructional design personnel needed to provide course design and delivery support or will additional positions need to be created and funded?
A decision will also need to be made as to which of these services will be centralized within the institution or decentralized to the respective academic units. How the development, implementation and evaluation of online courses and programs will be funded is another crucial area in which decisions will need to be made.
Although many online nursing programs are initially developed with the use of grant funds, it is important that sustainability of grant-funded initiatives be addressed. It is likely that student technology fees or distance education fees will need to be assessed in addition to tuition fees to sustain online education within the institution.
If such technology or distance education fees are collected by the institution, further decisions will need to be made about how the funds will be dispersed across the academic and service units within the institution. What is the cost of developing an online course? The answer varies.
The University of Minnesota (2013) has published its “good, better, best model” for estimating the cost of online course development. It was acknowledged that the ongoing cost of providing each type of course increased according to its complexity and quality. The “good” approach minimizes costs by reusing didactic content already in digital format and using only features already included in the LMS that can meet the instructional goals of the course.
The “better” model allowed for some additional instructional methods such as interactive modules. The technological infrastructure would be reused. The “best” model extends the benefits of the instructional approaches to allow for the creation of special media or programming. Reliable and effective technology support for faculty and students is essential for delivering quality online education.
As mentioned previously, a decision will need to be made about which technology support services will be centralized within the institutional structure and which will be decentralized in the individual schools and programs. A combination of centralized and decentralized support may be a more effective support model.
Outsourcing support services is another option to be considered, and may be more economically feasible depending on the extent of technology expertise that already exists within the institution. The level and extent of technology support that the institution will provide to faculty and students will also need to be determined (Halstead & Coudret, 2000).
Many institutions have found it necessary to provide around-the-clock support services to faculty and students to limit undue frustration and “down time” related to technology issues. Faculty and student satisfaction with online learning is frequently related to their satisfaction with technology support services.
The acquisition and maintenance of the hardware and software necessary to support online education and facilitate access is another area that must receive serious institutional attention. Is the institution's current computer network system and bandwidth capable of providing online access to large numbers of simultaneous users with speed and reliability, or are upgrades required?
Do faculty have convenient access to the hardware and software needed to support teaching online? Is there a plan to replace computer hardware and software on a regular schedule in faculty offices and student computer clusters to maintain access to adequate technology resources?
Do students have access to broadband Internet services in their geographic region? If not, online courses will have to be developed with these bandwidth constraints in mind and content delivery options that require large amounts of bandwidth, such as video streaming, will need to be minimized or avoided (Richard, Mercer, & Bray, 2005).
It is also important for the institution to make a decision about which LMS software will be used to support the delivery and management of online courses. Selecting an LMS may be the most important software decision that a college or university may make (Wright et al., 2014).
The LMS can be the most liked, or most disliked, application at an institution. A selection committee may be formed to set the criteria for evaluation, and the process for determining which LMS to choose. There are a variety of commercial vendors and LMSs from which to choose. Some of the larger university systems have chosen to design and support their own CMSs.
Using an LMS to deliver online courses provides faculty with a relatively easy-to-use, consistent template on which to build their courses. It also provides students with a consistent learning environment with which they can become familiar, transferring this knowledge from course to course.
There are advantages and disadvantages associated with each of the various commercial programs available; Each institution needs to evaluate the programs to determine which will best meet the needs of the university's faculty and students.
A major decision is whether to select a proprietary, open source, or cloud-based system. Proprietary LMSs are built by professionals, use current technology to remain competitive, offer training, provide technical support, and may come with a warranty. But proprietary systems can be expensive and limit customization options.
Open source systems such as Moodle and Sakai have a low upfront cost and are built by a collaborative community (Wright et al., 2014). These customizable systems are attractive to faculty who have a troubled history with proprietary systems. But open-source systems may not integrate with existing administrative systems, require more money to operate than anticipated, and lack technical support.
Cloud-based systems are composed of separate cloud-based tools to form a toolbox of web resources, including document sharing, social networking, and media delivery platforms. For example, Facebook serves as a hub for sharing course activities. iTunes U delivers course content. Skype offers face-to-face interaction.
YouTube hosts and streams video lectures. Flickr houses photographs. Students and faculty may already be comfortable using these popular tools that are available at little to no cost. But these may be misconceptions. A free application comes with a cost for advanced features that may be necessary to use it for online learning.
Users may not be as savvy as assumed, and training may be unavailable. Authentication, which is required by accreditors, is not provided by these tools and other software must be purchased to perform this function. Security and privacy must be safeguarded.
Contingency plans should be in place to handle problems that the institution does not control such as poor maintenance, shutdowns for repairs, and even ceasing to operate. The institution will also need to consider the means by which ongoing faculty and student development for teaching and learning with technology will be provided.
Faculty development issues that will need to be addressed include intellectual property policies and ownership of any developed online courses; policies related to providing additional compensation and release time, if any, for faculty who design and teach online courses; and the amount and type of resources that will be provided to help facilitate faculty designing online courses and transitioning to online teaching.
The institution or program may also wish to consider questions about what the average student enrollment numbers should be in online courses. Student development issues are primarily related to ensuring that students have the technology access and skills needed to participate in online learning and facilitating student transition to online learning.
Adequate institutional planning to address questions similar to those raised in the preceding paragraphs is essential to ensuring the success of any online education efforts.
It is also important that an institutional infrastructure be established that allows for such planning efforts to be ongoing and include input from all stakeholders, as constant advancements in educational technology will need to be monitored for the institution to stay current and informed about developing trends in online education.
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