Claudine SchWeber 
Graduate School of Management & Technology 
University of Maryland University College 
cschwebe@nova.umuc.edu 
 
Most discussions of online teaching eventually ask the question: how long does it take to teach an online course? This may be raised by senior administrators, concerned about the cost of  faculty release time; by faculty, wondering how much is really involved in this new venture; by department heads, besieged by faculty concerned about what the online environment really means in terms of other commitments. In order to respond from the perspective of hard data and to deal with the many rumors (which in several cases exceeded the number of hours in a week!) and individual stories implying valor and bravery, it was clear that a systematic study was necessary (Hiltz, 1998). The Graduate School of Management and Technology at the University of Maryland University College undertook an investigation in l997-98  (after a pilot test in spring 96-97) to discover: 1) how long did it take, on a weekly basis, to teach online? 2) what were the activities involved  (i.e., preparing lectures, providing resources, designing the course, developing and grading exams,  conducting individual communications, etc.); 3) how the online data compared with in-person classes. 

Background of GSMT/UMUC: 

The history and context of the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), and its Graduate School of Management & Technology (GSMT) are critical in understanding the implications of the data which was collected. UMUC was established in l947 as an institution devoted to the education of adult learners, particularly those in the United States armed forces throughout the world.  It offered only baccalaureate specialties until 1978, when the Graduate School was established offering one master’s degree in General Administration.  At present the GSMT offers 7 masters’ degrees  in varied fields of management (see www.umuc.edu/gsmt). UMUC serves primarily working adults who attend school part-time. In  FY98, GSMT had about 3,600 students. The faculty are also part-time, with a unique asset:  they are “scholarly practitioners” who have the doctorate (88%) plus at least 5-10 years  management experience in the field in which they teach; many are senior government, corporate or non-profit leaders whose interest in teaching has been prompted and retained by the adults in the classroom.  These faculty, a pool of approximately 250,  are supported by a small staff of administrative personnel  including approximately 30 full time faculty-administrators who manage the degree programs, design the master syllabi, supervise and hire faculty, advise students, and also teach. There are no tenured faculty at UMUC (GSMT Catalog, l997-98). 

Almost two decades after its founding, the Graduate School initiated online distance education activities via computer mediated instruction in the spring of  l996. This was one course, offered via a windows based proprietary software program called Tycho. Eighteen months later, the GSMT moved to a web-based conferencing system, WebTycho. By Fall 1998, GSMT offered 64 sections  (50 different courses) totally online via the web!  Of the 7 degree programs, 5 can be completed online without any residency: the Master of Science(M.S.) in Management; M.S. in Technology Management/ basic program; M.S. in Computer Systems Management/ Information Resources track; Master of International Management; M.S. in Environmental Management (see www.umuc.edu/gsmt/dist-ed.html) . The online degree programs are all offered asynchronously in a semester mode; students are expected to work in teams as well as individually, to be actively involved in the class, to provide a variety of graded deliverables . It should be noted that UMUC also offers distance education using interactive video (2 way video, 2 way audio) throughout the state of Maryland.  This latter program is much smaller than the online programs, and is outside the scope of the ‘time’ study. 

Finally, the GSMT is very careful about training its faculty for the online experience.  The  Faculty Training Plan (FTP) is a two semester, four phased program. At least one semester before teaching, the faculty member participates in the “ Training Certification” program (phases 1 and 2). Phase 1 involves initial training plus homework assignments which move the instructor from the student’s perspective to the faculty perspective; phase 2 involves “shadowing” an existing online class, plus using a practice class to develop and lay out the course for the future. Guidelines for the shadowing experience are given to the observors and a memo is submitted to the Distance Education director. During the instructor’s first online semester, s/he is involved in the “Teaching Certification” program (phases 3 and 4). Phase 3 involves mentored teaching by an experienced instructor; phase 4 involves an online discussion group about mid-way through the semester with a guest expert, moderated by the DE director. GSMT faculty receive payment for completing the training when they teach their first course, and receive an additional stipend for teaching an online course (Continuous Learning Program, 1998). 

The ‘Time’ Study 

How critical is the amount of time involved in online teaching-- in recruiting faculty, in budgeting for remuneration, in the teaching experience, in maintaining a teacher-student relationship?  Before we could explore these kinds of questions, we needed to develop baseline data which told us how much time was involved on a weekly basis, what the elements were that made up the teaching experience, and how this data compared with classes taught in-person. 

A survey was sent to all the web instructors in 97-98 (n=38) and in-person instructors teaching the same courses as the web ones (n=97)  . 29 web faculty responded (76%) and 49 in-person faculty (50%).  Given the small number of respondents, the data was analyzed as medians (not means) --to avoid data skewed by a single extreme response.  The survey was designed with significant input from online faculty with respect to the main activities involved in teaching; a similar survey was designed for the in-person faculty. The survey asked for weekly time estimates (in half-hour blocks) on several variables which might impact the amount of time involved in teaching: lecture preparation, online conferencing, involvement in group work, individual contact with students (such as email), telephone contact, exam preparation and grading, finding additional resources, use of alternative delivery mechanisms such as fax, and pre-course development time.  We also got background data such as class size, how often the faculty had taught the course in this medium (online or in-person) and how often they had taught online to see how these variables might impact the amount of time spent teaching when we do the 1998-99 survey. To assure confidentiality of responses--the surveys contained the name of the course so that we could do longitudinal analyses by course--the survey was sent directly to  the research assistant, who later notified us which course surveys had arrived; a check-mark was then entered into our log books. 

Findings : 

The results so far indicate that web faculty spend about 3.5 more hours per week teaching on the web (20 hours) than those in an onsite classroom (l6.5 hours). This difference may be primarily due to the amount of time the instructors spent on individual student contacts: twice as many hours per week for online faculty compared to the time for in-person instruction.(see table  1).   While these figures are much too small for statistically significant conclusions now, the amount of time spent on individual contact with students is a variable of great interest, and one to which we will be paying close attention in the ongoing study. In the other areas-- exam activity, lecture work, online conferencing/class meeting--the weekly time was quite similar for both teaching modes.  The time for  class meeting/online conferencing was essentially the same for both types of instruction (2.5 web, 3 hours in-person), as was the time for lecture work (5 hours web, 4.5 in-person) and exam activity (4 hours for each). The 3 hours for  in-person class meetings makes sense, since these classes are scheduled for 3 hours each week.(Note: the exam data was a great surprise to this author who spent, she felt, much more time grading online papers, than those from  her in-person classes). 
 

However, despite the small numbers, one area was statistically significant: the amount of pre-course development time per semester:  almost 3 times as much for a web course as for one taught in-person ! (see table 2) 

This finding may be due to the significant amount of time it takes to convert notes, charts, discussion  questions, assessment tools, etc. to the online environment plus the need to be extremely well organized in advance. This may also be due to the lesser experience of web faculty with their online courses than in-person faculty with theirs. As table 3 indicates, most Web faculty had taught their course online only once before, whereas  in-person faculty had taught their course six times. It is certainly not due to class size, since Web classes are smaller (median, 24) than in-person classes (median, 30). 
 

Several caveats are necessary with respect to this data: first, this is self-reported data and thus depends on the memories and perceptions of the respondents; second, the surveys were distributed at the end of the semester and are thus subject to a possible “recency” effect; third, the number of respondents so far was too small for statistically significant conclusions (except in the course development area).  Nonetheless, the data indicate patterns which bear watching and issues which need attention. 

Comment: Patterns and Issues 

This first year of research offers several areas which need to be observed over a longer period. First, the finding that pre-course development time is significantly greater for web courses than for in-person ones  will need to be watched to see if this changes over time as: faculty become more experienced with web teaching;  web faculty, like their in-person counterparts,  more frequently teach the same course; new technological options, such as audio, video, multi-media, must be included in continually revised courses. 

Second, the discovery that web classes take almost one-fourth more time per week to teach than in-person ones needs to be closely monitored: will this difference diminish as faculty become more experienced in online teaching?  will weekly preparation and uploading of  lecture material become more routine, thereby decreasing the time for this factor? Or,  will the difference remain the same/increase, as web faculty continually update their  web resources/lectures while the student demand for faculty contact/responsiveness remains high?  Does class size have a direct relationship to the amount of time--for example, if web classes are capped at 20 instead of the current 25, will the amount of  teaching time significantly decrease? 

Third, the area of student contact time-- the current data indicates web courses involve twice as much individual contact than in-person ones-- needs continued observation to see if this pattern persists. If so, closer examination of the elements involved is warranted, particularly to see if any one element is the reason for the amount of time . For example, in 1997-98, this category was a composite of  telephone calls, office hours, individual contact such as email.  A closer look at the data showed that for in-person faculty, telephone calls by students accounted for the largest amount of  weekly time (1 hour); for online faculty, email (2.5 hours).  Will this pattern continue? If so, how might faculty deal with this situation? 

Finally, the amount of time spent in online conferencing, that is interaction with the entire class, needs to be monitored. Interaction is the essence of the online learning process--the ability to shift to a learner-centered environment from the instructor-dominated one which is  typically associated with traditional classrooms. Thus, how much time is spent in this aspect of the online class, and whether it changes over time, may be an indicator of this pedagogical shift. 

Once we have some longitudinal data on these points, we will be in a better position to  answer related questions about appropriate faculty remuneration, recruitment strategies,  release time, teaching-learning strategies which use the best of the online environment without overwhelming the faculty, and eventually,  about the teacher-student relationship in the brave new world of cyber learning. 

References 

Continuous Learning Program for Distance Faculty. Graduate School of Management & Technology, Distance Learning and Instructional Technology office, University of Maryland University College (May 1998). 

Graduate School of Management & Technology Catalog, 1997-98.  University of Maryland University College, College Park, Maryland. 

Dr. Hiltz and her colleagues at the New Jersey Institute of Technology have been examining the online faculty’s role. This will shortly be reported. Hiltz, Starr Roxanne, Nancy Coppola and Naomi Rotter “Preliminary Results of Semi-Structured Interviews on ‘Becoming a Virtual Professor’,” to be presented at the International Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks. New York (November 1998).