Teaching and developing distance education courses: Issues associated with university faculty benefits.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of the study was to contribute to a better understanding of the development of distance education programs and courses delivered by four-year colleges and universities. More specifically, the study investigated policies and procedures that address faculty benefits associated with teaching and developing distance education courses.
The study queried 188 four-year colleges and universities in the United States that offer distance education opportunities. Only universities offering expanded information in the Peterson's Guide to Distance Learning Programs 2002 were selected to be a part of the population. Responses from 93 respondents were analyzed.
It was concluded that distance education is relatively new in colleges and universities. Institutions are in varying levels of implementation with respect to developing policies for distance education. Colleges and universities recognized that developing distance education courses requires intensive time and consideration on the part of the faculty. Institutions tend to show an interest in supporting faculty in the extra work and time required to develop high-quality distance education courses.
Universities use a variety of means to reward faculty for their involvement in distance education, making it a part of a faculty member's load, overload, or a combination of both. Most institutions used the overload pay model, which rewards faculty in addition to full-time teaching duties with no extra credit toward workload quota. Distance education copyright and ownership issues were also a concern.
Recommendations included (a) incorporating a distance education component into curricula designed to train higher education faculty; (b) developing continuing education opportunities for distance education faculty; (c) offering recognition toward tenure and promotion for distance education faculty; and (d) replicating this study using a larger study population.