TLTR Group A4 Final Report

FINAL REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Task Group A4
Faculty Workload Issues

Phil Carlock
Bill Hamrick, Convener
Charlotte Johnson
Kathryn Martell
Ivy Schroeder

According to Provost Sharon Hahs , key goals of the Teaching and Learning Technology Roundtable (TLTR) that we believe are most relevant to teaching are: (1) to incorporate online learning (e.g., web enhancement) and other technologies into a large number of courses throughout the curriculum; (2) to encourage the development of a limited number of appropriate online degree programs or degree-completion programs; and (3) to nurture new ways of learning and teaching and to foster life-long learning. TLTR has shown us a number of exciting technological possibilities for creating and increasing online courses and web-enhanced courses. From the TLTR discussions that emerged this Spring, it has become clear that a large number of faculty across the University are envisioned as actively participating in diverse activities related to technology and teaching in the near future. Some of the most intensive activities, such as on-line teaching (see Goal 2), may be limited to a few faculty, while utilization of technology to improve the quality of teaching and learning (see Goals 1 and 3) are envisioned as having much broader faculty participation. Moreover, given the rapid rate of technological change, and the rather significant departure that technology-enhanced teaching represents from more traditional teaching models, active faculty participation in training and development activities is also envisioned. However, it is not enough to have a vision; we also have to discover ways to actualize it. In particular, we must resist uncritical enthusiasm for technology as an all-purpose solution for improving the quality of education. One of the most significant obstacles consists in the time- and energy-commitments that such technology will impose on already severely burdened faculty. Most faculty, when asked how they are doing, will reply, correctly, that they are "really busy." Many also suffer from unhealthy fatigue.

Many of the faculty workload conflicts entail additional time commitments, such as the following:

the significant time it takes to create a new course online or to reformat an existing one into an online format.
the time it takes to enhance a traditional course with web materials.
the additional time it takes to teach an online or a web-enhanced course. For example, Wendy Shaw’s study revealed that teaching an on-line course required 4 times the amount of professor time per student (16 hours per student vs. 4 hours for the in-class format) than the traditional classroom format required.
the time it will take to participate in any of the new activities that are emerging out of the TLTR's recommendations. These include possibly serving on an "advisory board" for the FTC (D-1 recommendation); participating in training and working with liaisons (A-5 recommendation); attending all of the "brown bag" discussions (that several groups have recommended). Low attendance at many high-quality professional development activities held on campus, including guest speakers, videoconferences, and symposia, imply that active participation in training, discussions, etc., should not be assumed and may need to be encouraged through the use of various incentives.

Faculty workload questions that emerge from these conflicts include the following:

Should course releases be given for developing and offering online courses?
Will procedures be developed to ensure that course enrollments not be set by the existing cap figures? Certain faculty already involved in online education in the School of Nursing have written or telephoned the Task Force members to argue for a cap of 20-25 students in such courses. Wendy Shaw’s study lends to support to this recommendation of capping enrollments: her analysis revealed that the same amount of time would be required to teach an introductory geography course to 23 students on-line as to teach the same material to 90 students in the classroom.
How will online course development be rewarded in promotion, tenure, and salary decisions? This is central because the time invested in online courses will inevitably take time away from other commitments. Might departments develop systematic annual review criteria for rewarding faculty for working with new technology? Because such criteria will be discipline-specific, department committees will have the task of developing the criteria and the benchmarks for monitoring them. The criteria will have to acknowledge not only faculty who use technology in their curriculum, but also those who participate in the general implementation and maintenance of the University’s overall technology program (such as developing and implementing the recommendations coming out of TLTR listed above).
Conversely, how can we eliminate the danger of compulsion exercised on faculty who are either not interested or whose courses are not appropriate for online courses? Will faculty who teach these courses receive the message that they must somehow justify their "non-use" of technology?
What measures can be used to compare time spent answering e-mail with time spent providing office hours?
How might we determine whether an on-campus presence is required when teaching an online course?
How can we develop fair campus-wide policies on these matters that still address the needs of particular units?
How can we reduce other obligations in order to motivate faculty to technologically enhance their courses, where appropriate? This issue, in particular, invites a critical, systemic inspection of our existing committee structures and, as Steve Gilbert put it, the possibility of eliminating some committees no longer thought to be valuable and streamlining others.
How can we assure adequate back-up support for faculty, both in terms of solving their own technological problems and making sure that they do not have to solve those of their students?

We prefer to see these workload issues as challenges rather than fatal objections. Meeting these challenges will require the close cooperation of the University adminis-tration, the administration of particular Schools and the College of Arts & Sciences, and individual faculty members. To meet these challenges, we make the following recom-mendations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Incentives to consider:

Mini-grants to fund, or encourage participation in, technology training, such as those provided to participants of this summer’s SIUE Faculty Summer Institute.
Release time to develop and teach online courses.
Research assistance, such as graduate student support for assistance in the use of new technology.
A University-wide inventory and evaluation of current teaching awards to determine whether they provide adequate recognition of the use of technology in teaching. If necessary, new awards should be established for this purpose.

We also note in passing that there are other work-related issues that are important incentives for faculty to develop and implement technology in their courses. The issue of intellectual property rights is an obvious example that we felt were beyond the purview of this committee.

Funding recommendations:

A separate fund in the Provost’s Office to support the development and implementation of online courses and programs, by providing released time, graduate student assistance, and payment of other related expenses.
Creation of a mini-grant fund to support the development and implementation of web-enhanced courses.

Evaluation recommendations include:

A University-wide policy that values faculty efforts to increase the use of new technology in their courses. This includes web-enhanced courses, online courses, and online programs. Campus-wide principles should be established even though implementation will differ from one department and discipline to another. (A survey of SIUE deans conducted by the TLTR on current evaluation and rewards for using technology in the classroom indicates that this process is at best informal. None of the deans indicated that this process is either systematic or formalized in their Schools.)
The use of new technology in courses should be encouraged, but not be mandated.
In each discipline or department, faculty should be given the opportunity to describe on evaluation instruments how they use technology to enhance their teaching.
Deans should demonstrate to the Provost that they have reviewed current department evaluation processes and instruments to assure that technology-related creative efforts are evaluated and rewarded.
The University should undertake a study of other technologically advanced institutions to determine best practices related to evaluating faculty’s involvement in using technology in the classroom that might be applicable to SIUE.

RELATED DOCUMENTS

The following documents provide overviews of how such questions of technology and faculty workload have been addressed recently by a number of professional organizations and faculty unions. Some parts of these reports bear directly on our considerations. Unions have been forced to specifically address questions on faculty workload, so their work is a good model for us to consider. Most of the texts refer to “distance learning,” but for our purposes we substituted “online courses” or “technology in teaching.”

National Education Association

In the NEA online journal, Focus on Technology, an article titled "Distance Education: Challenges and Opportunities" discusses faculty workload issues. This document which can be found at http://www.tecweb.org/eddevel/telecon/de913-3.html, indicates, "Distance education also means new union contract issues, such as evaluation, student contact, workload, and compensation. A review of the contracts on NEA's Higher Education Analysis System (HECAS) indicates this is an unsettled area of negotiations." Also, the article states that "faculty members cannot be forced to teach telecourses and the courses are not used to fill their regular teaching load... As the use of technology grows and telecourses become part of the regular course loads of faculty, compensation will become an issue. Another issue related to compensation is class size."

Another article, found at http://www.nea.org/cet/briefs/10.html (Ed. note: link no longer active, 03/02/04), "Education Technology: National Education Association Resolutions 1997-1998," states the NEA's position on technology in the educational process and sums up its resolutions as:

"Education employees should be provided encouragement, time, and resources to experiment with and to research applications of technology in order to integrate technology into the curriculum."
"Education employees...must be involved in all aspects of technology utilization, including planning, materials selection, implementation, and evaluation."
“Additional preparation time and technological support must be made available to faculty.”

American Association of University Professors

At http://www.aaup.org/Issues/DistanceEd/Archives/speccmt/dlrpttxt.htm, a report from the AAUP’s "Committee on Government Relations" is posted, titled "Report on Distance Learning." This report dates from 1997, and was published in the May/June 1998 issue of Academe. Among its contents is a consideration of faculty workload and compensation in distance learning. The report includes these recommendations to be considered by universities incorporating distance learning:

Time needed to develop a distance education course.
Enrollment: "The need to determine class size for a distance education class should be based on pedagogical considerations."
Preparation: "Faculty who teach in distance-education programs should be additionally compensated for the extra time required to prepare for their courses…” "Faculty members teaching a course utilizing distance education technology for the first time shall be provided course load reductions to properly prepare the course."
Office Hours: "Discussions should occur and agreement should be reached on how the faculty member teaching a distance education course will hold office hours for the distance education students."

The American Federation of Teachers

In a report titled "Distance Education: Guidelines for Good Practice," issued May, 2000, by the Higher Education Program and Policy Council of the American Federation of Teachers addressed the question of technology and teaching. In the section labeled "The Standards," several recommendations are made, including the following:

Faculty must be prepared to meet the special requirements of teaching at a distance. These requirements include being prepared to spend more time constructing distance courses, and teaching them; and being prepared to spend more hours being available to students.
Required Supports: To handle these responsibilities, faculty should have adequate training and technical support as well as additional compensation for faculty to meet the extensive time commitments of distance education. Also, institutional reward systems for faculty should accord positive recognition for the creative work of formulating distance programs. The report maintains, "teaching distance education courses should be a matter of faculty choice."

A separate AFT report issued by the same council in January 1996, titled "Report of the Task Force on Technology in Higher Education," considered (among others) the following question: "Are the rights of the faculty and professional staff protected?" when it comes to dealings with management about technology issues. Some of the recommen-dations for protecting the rights of faculty included

Class size limitations.
Workload credit adjustments for faculty implementing technology.
Special pay arrangements for "telecourses."

The report also recommends "rewarding technology-related creative effort" and recommends that "higher education unions push for greater recognition of technology-related creative effort in tenure, promotion and other faculty reward processes."