Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58065
The technical infrastructure must be stable, cost-effective, and as simple as possible, and it absolutely must be buttressed by technical support for faculty and students. schedules might affect their ability to attend classes, and what advantages the faculty might gain by using various learning tools and formats. It's critical that the administration employ the right technology for its distance learning program. Innovative technology will not guarantee an ef- fective course, but misused or unstable technology is almost certain to damage a program. The technical infrastruc- ture must be stable, cost-effective, and as simple as possible, and it absolutely must be buttressed by technical sup- port for faculty and students. Faculty often can overcome their initial concerns about new technology if they're encour- aged to form support groups led by experienced colleagues. Managing the transition: A virtual program cannot be suc- cessful without the support of enthusiastic and properly trained faculty. It's rare that a school has the funds to hire new, academically qualified individuals to deliver a distance education program. Thus, the school must focus on faculty development efforts that will reframe current courses and maximize usage of the available technology. In addition, administrators must convince faculty that changing the course format will not have a negative impact on the quality of education. To alleviate these concerns, the school should design an evaluation system that systematically compares traditional and online delivery formats. Compo- nents to watch are quality of the course deliverables, grades, student reactions, and longer-term outcomes. ClassroomPlus at GMU A look at George Mason's distance learning program shows how one school integrated these three components of online education. Because George Mason is an AACSB-accredited school, even its virtual education courses had to meet high standards of education. George Mason's first client for dis- tance education was a national corporation that wanted an MBA program for its widely dispersed senior managers. Making the case: To help make the online approach attrac- tive, administrators priced the virtual program in a way that allowed them to realize significant profit after costs were met. The pricing strategy was an important element in gain- ing the support of faculty and senior leadership. Faculty also embraced the program because they were allowed to teach it either as part of their regular load or as overload, which paid a bonus of 10 percent of their nine-month salaries. 32 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2007 Designing the program: The online de- livery component was essential because the corporate sponsor would only fund limited travel for the students. At the same time, the corporation's prima- ry goal was to promote networking among its executives to create syner- gies across business units that tradi- tionally had been insular. George Mason developed a blended model of distance education and named it ClassroomPlus. Each semester began and ended by immersing participants in their courses during eight-hour face- to-face sessions with faculty and students. During the semes- ter, local students and faculty met in four two-hour sessions. Remote students participated through teleconferencing and by viewing shared documents online through platforms such as NetMeeting and WebEx. This resulted in 24 hours of syn- chronous student-faculty contact time for each course. The rest of each course—which included threaded discussions, chats, and exams—was conducted asynchronously, using the Web-based tool WebCT. Since many of these technologies were new to professors, technical and general programmatic support was critical in building faculty confidence. A technical support person was hired to train faculty in the use of WebCT and online docu- ment-sharing tools, and a full-time faculty member served as the program manager. This person handled all program lo- gistics, planned student orientation, answered student ques- tions, oversaw the technical support staff, recruited faculty, and answered faculty questions regarding the Classroom- Plus approach. Managing the transition: To interest faculty in teaching in the new ClassroomPlus format, the school convened a Community of Practice made up of professors who wanted to explore advanced learning technologies. Successful, ex- perienced faculty provided guidance. Among the questions other faculty raised were: How do I reproduce classroom learning moments in an online environment? How do I cov- er the same amount of material in this new format? How are group projects managed and executed? How will students learn from class discussions when synchronous class meet- ings are limited? These and other concerns were addressed in monthly col- loquia named The Faculty Fellows Program. This program began months before the first blended course was to be de- livered and allowed adequate time for faculty to learn and