Leadership Network Symposium - The Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE): Empirical Findings for Digital Learning Leaders

Brief Abstract

The Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) studies have resulted in in-depth yearly reports, beginning in 2016 - with two during 2020, including a special report on the pivot to remote teaching. The CHLOE research studies, of which OLC is a Gold sponsor, have become a bellwether guide for college and university leaders over the past 5 years. They have provided insight about the current state of online education in US higher education with topics running the gamut from the day-to-day management of online learning to student, faculty, and staff support to quality assurance to strategic planning. They also serve as a guide for potential benchmarking information for those leaders on point for online learning for their institutions, referred to as Chief Online Officers (COOs) in the CHLOE studies.

The pandemic has prompted some changes in the way institutions are managing online learning and accelerated initiatives that had begun but had not yet taken hold. As we move forward with the current of the pandemic ebbing and flowing, it is crucial to have a good context for planning and managing online learning. What are the trends for online education and what do Chief Online Officers need to know – and what do they need to plan for so that their intuition can take advantage of opportunities? This session will share predictions for higher education as well as highlight key areas for COOs to focus on – including faculty development, student support, and institutional readiness. Attendees should develop a sense of how their institution might compare to US higher education overall and give ideas of how other institutions are approaching key decisions related to strategy and operations. This rich and thought-provoking session will conclude with an open discussion on future CHLOE studies and provide the most recent full report as a resource for participants to reference.

We encourage you to download the CHLOE 7 (Changing Landscape of Online Education) Report in advance.

This session is available only to registered attendees of the Leadership Network Symposium.  

Track: Digital Strategy

     

Presenters

Eric E. Fredericksen is the associate vice president of online learning at the University of Rochester and professor in educational leadership at the Warner School of Education. A national leader in online education, Fredericksen provides leadership for the exploration of online learning initiatives across the University. Previously, he was the associate vice provost at the University, where he provided leadership and services that supported the academic and research missions of the University. Prior to the University of Rochester, Fredericksen served as the director of academic technology and media services at Cornell University. As a senior manager in Cornell Information Technologies, he helped craft Cornell's presence and direction in the use of contemporary technologies to support research, outreach, and teaching & learning both in and out of the classroom. Before Cornell, Fredericksen was the assistant provost for advanced learning technology in the Office of the Provost in the State University of New York System Administration, where he provided leadership and direction for all of SUNY's system-wide programs focused on the innovative use of technology to support teaching and learning. This included the nationally-recognized SUNY Learning Network - winner of the EDUCAUSE Award for Systemic Progress in Teaching and Learning and Sloan-C Awards for Excellence in Faculty Development and Excellence in Institution-wide Online Programming. It also included the SUNY Teaching Learning and Technology Program and Project MERLOT, which were designed to complement the classroom with technology-supported instruction. Fredericksen was also a co-principal investigator and administrative officer for three multi-year, multi-million dollar grants on Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN) from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He was responsible for the fiscal management, strategic planning, policy development, faculty development, marketing & promotion, a technical support center for faculty and students, and operations and technology infrastructure. He managed a distributed statewide staff of IT, administrative, instructional design, and faculty support professionals. Under his leadership, the program grew from two campuses offering eight courses to 119 enrollments to 53 campuses offering 2,500 courses to more than 40,000 enrollments in just seven years. He has also designed, developed, and taught online courses for the Department of Educational Theory and Practice in the Graduate School of Education at the University at Albany for the past 12 years. Fredericksen is active in national efforts, including EDUCAUSE, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, and the Online Learning Consortium (formerly Sloan-C). He was chair of the Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning and previously served as chair of the Sloan-C Awards Program for Excellence in Online Teaching and Learning. He also served on the advisory board for Enterprise Learning at NYU. In 2012, Fredericksen was elected to the board of directors for the Sloan Consortium and served as the President of the Board of OLC in 2018 and 2019. He was honored as a Sloan-C Fellow in 2013.
Richard Garrett is Chief Research Officer of Eduventures Research, an NRCCUA company. Richard has 20+ years experience in higher education research, consulting, and policy. Richard is co-director of the CHLOE Project, a survey of online learning leaders conducted in partnership with Quality Matters. He combines his work at Eduventures with heading up the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, a think tank focused on global developments in online learning and cross-border higher education. The Observatory is part of i-graduate and Tribal Group.

Extended Abstract