OLC Leadership Network Event - Part 2: Post-COVID Online Futures: Clues From CHLOE 6

Concurrent Session 3
OLC Session

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Brief Abstract

Managing the COVID emergency is the mightiest distraction higher education leaders have ever faced. Short-term tactical needs are so novel and pressing that long-term strategic planning- always hard to focus on but vital for institutional health- seems impossibly abstract and low priority. Early data from the sixth CHLOE (Changing Landscape of Online Education) survey, an annual study from Quality Matters and Eduventures, delves into the messy realities online learning leaders face in 2021. In this panel, educational leaders will reflect on the design of the CHLOE 6 survey, seeking to both follow trends from prior surveys and illuminate pandemic-specific developments, and distill what early analysis of the results reveals about directions of travel for online learning in the 2020s.

 

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Presenters

Lead Presenter: Jill Buban, Fairfield University

Co-presenter: Richard Garrett, Eduventures Inc.

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.

Co-presenter: Eric Fredericksen, University of Rochester

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.

Co-presenter: Sasha Thackaberry, Louisiana State University

Extended Abstract

Managing the COVID emergency is the mightiest distraction higher education leaders have ever faced. Short-term tactical needs are so novel and pressing that long-term strategic planning- always hard to focus on but vital for institutional health- seems impossibly abstract and low priority.

Institutional leaders are caught between holding their breath until normality returns, if it does, and anticipating (or inventing) new student experience-business model equations that can thrive in what may be a post-COVID future that looks very different from the 2010s.

Early data from the sixth CHLOE (Changing Landscape of Online Education) survey, an annual study from Quality Matters and Eduventures, delves into the messy realities online learning leaders face in 2021. The survey covers questions such as:

  • On which technology types are online leaders placing bets?
  • Did fully online degree program, established pre-pandemic, see enrollment rise or fall in 2020?
  • To what extent are institutions rolling out enterprise online course development and student support arrangements?
  • Did 2020 convince more schools to lower online program prices?
  • Did more schools turn to online program management (OPM) companies for help?
  • How has the pandemic affected the internal standing of the Chief Online Officer?

Richard Garrett, Chief Research Officer at Eduventures will be joined by Dr. Sasha Thackaberry, VP Online & Continuing Education, Louisiana State University and Dr. Eric Fredericksen, Associate VP for Online Learning, University of Rochester, both members of the CHLOE Advisory Panel, who will contribute their current strategic thinking, adding local depth to CHLOE's breadth.

The panelists will reflect on the design of the CHLOE 6 survey, seeking to both follow trends from prior surveys and illuminate pandemic-specific developments, and distill what early analysis of the results reveals about directions of travel for online learning in the 2020s.

This panel serves as the second session of three sessions at OLC’s spring leadership network event, where we bring together digital leaders from academics, non-profits, and the private sector to discuss digital education strategy in times of great change.  This session will focus on futurecasting the positioning and role of online education in supporting access to education, and is open to both established and emerging leaders attending the conference.

Digital leaders are guiding initiatives at traditional academic institutions and non-profits, attempting to maintain vision through crises, developing new partnerships and approaches within the private sector, and working to establish policies and regulations within government. We see ever increasing demand for cross-sector collaborations led by digital leaders across an increasingly diverse educational landscape. 

Join us at this half-day event for featured presentations and small group discussions on opportunities for digital leaders, both established and emerging, to create new pathways to student success amidst the rapidly-changing higher education landscape.

The Leadership Network Event option is included in your OLC Innovate Virtual Conference 2021 registration fee. There is no additional registration fee to participate in the event.  Learn more about this session and all of the sessions at the Leadership Network Event page.