Volume 12, Issue 2 - July 2008

Information Technology Services Support for Emergencies

Donald Z. Spicer, University System of Maryland

For at least the last quarter century, enterprises—including higher education institutions—have increasingly relied on Information Technology Services (ITS) for business functions. As a result, IT organizations have had to develop the discipline of production operations as well as recovery procedures to respond when those operations are disrupted. More recently, both...

Overcoming the Financial Aid Barrier for E-learners

Bruce Chaloux, Electronic Campus, Southern Regional Education Board

Financial aid systems help make higher education available to all who can benefit. To “adjust” the existing financial aid system to make it more student friendly and open doors currently closed to many part-time learners and students with the greatest financial challenges, state policy changes and greater private sector initiatives...

Tuition/Pricing for Online Learning

Karen Paulson, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems

To make online learning an integral part of higher education, institutions must determine the real costs of instruction and what tuition to charge based on these costs. Then the question is: Is this tuition bearable by the target population of potential students?...

Introduction to the Special Issue on Policy

Bruce Chaloux, The Sloan Consortium

The seeds for this JALN edition focusing on policy were planted more than four years ago. It evolved soon after Sloan-C began its annual survey and reflected concerns that policy—at the institutional, state, and federal levels—was lagging behind the growth curve in online learning. In short, the policy constructs at all levels, with some exceptions, targeted traditional on campus and classroom instruction and, to many in the ALN community, seemed at odds with the changing landscape of higher education.

The Sloan Semester

George Lorenzo, The Sloan Consortium

The Sloan Semester was a vibrant and vitally important undertaking that required the immediate attention of a group of dedicated educators. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, though its sponsorship of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), financed this worthwhile initiative that helped Hurricane Katrina- and Rita-affected higher education students continue with their...

Critical Event Preparedness and Response: Keynote address to the 2006 Sloan Research Workshop by Jon Links

Janet C. Moore, The Sloan Consortium

At the intersection of online education and preparedness, Johns Hopkins University’s (JHU) Center for Public Health Preparedness provides all-hazards preparedness and response training for public health and public safety professionals. This report comes from Jonathan Links’ keynote address to the Sloan Summer Research Workshop in Baltimore, Maryland in August 2006....

Student Learning and Student Services: Policy Issues

Claudine SchWeber, Chair, Doctor of Management Program, University of Maryland

An increasing number of students in the United States are involved in online education, according to research by the Sloan Foundation. By fall 2004, approximately 2.6 million students were estimated to be enrolled in at least one online course, an average growth rate of 24.8% from 2003–04; this figure represents...

ALN: Policy Implications for Minority Serving Institutions and for Leaders Addressing Needs of Minority Learners

Janet K. Poley, American Distance Education Consortium

For minority serving institutions, policies that support learners call for decisions about equity, quality, cost, impact on national economic performance, and international global relationships....

The Challenges of Transnational Online Learning

Richard A Skinner, Senior Vice President for Programs and Research, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

Globalization is enabling transnational provision of post-secondary education. The leadership of higher education needs to attend to issues of quality and accreditation....

Positioning Online Learning as a Strategic Asset in the Thinking of University Presidents and Chancellors

Samuel H. "Pete" Smith, University of Texas, Arlington
Samuel H. Smith, Washington State University
Robert Samors, National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges
A. Frank Mayadas, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Within our nation’s public universities, online courses and programs have been increasing in number. This increase has led to the establishment of a National Commission on Online Learning through a collaborative effort between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. This...