Outsourcing online learning is selling students short

In recent years, many US universities have transferred their online learning to contractors with increasing frequency, positioning them as “partners”. They manage everything from enrolment to graduation and certification and provide the web-based learning platforms that encompass all audio, video and text components, whether asynchronous, in real time or both. The results are worrisome.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any industry or sector using contractors if they do things better, offering process expertise and management capabilities that can be critical when dealing with a high volume of consumers. However, these third parties are getting it wrong, bypassing best practices in instructional design and overlooking key elements of learner behaviours and communication that have been known for decades.

At its best, online education is a rich, engaging experience, integrating resources from around the globe, and offering students reliable access to ideas and people, including faculty and peers, whom they might not otherwise encounter. The underlying dynamics are complex, requiring attention to every detail, timely response to problems or enquiries, and exceptional skill in process management.

The platforms are falling short on too many counts. Originally designed to host massive open online courses (Moocs), which offer no credit and have modest need for interaction, the learning frameworks are not adapting well to the demands of credit-granting, theory-driven higher education. They rely too heavily on one-way videos and page after page of scrolled text with insufficient graphical support.

The result is virtual highway hypnosis; hitting the occasional “next” button does not relieve the boredom. While many courses do include online discussions, they are often structured as response-to-assigned-case or readings, rarely providing an opportunity for students to integrate their own workplace or personal experiences. Quality varies wildly, from abysmal, with obsolete, error-ridden content and out-of-focus visuals, to very good, with ongoing administrative and technical support. The extremes suggest a lack of standards from either the contractors or the client institutions.

Even more troubling is the absence of interaction with faculty, assuming that the faculty member is even known. Faculty are described as hosts or conveners and appear as talking heads. Grading is frequently done by tutors or tutor teams, which are labels, not people with clear identities and demonstrated credentials. Given the high volume of students allowed into each course, turnaround on grades can take weeks instead of days, at odds with expectations in the fast-paced online environment.

These unsatisfactory experiences risk undermining the excellent progress made in online education in recent years. I have spent 18 years as a web course developer and instructor of working adults at four institutions of higher education as online education matured from disk-based computer conferencing to instructional software and then comprehensive learning management systems. Each step represented an improvement to the benefit of learners, faculty and their institutions. 

I’ve also been an adult learner myself on programmes provided by three different platforms, ranging from a one-day presentation by a leading development bank to a three-month certificate offered by a top-tier university in the UK. The conclusion? Higher education’s strategic and tactical shift to third-party providers is not dependably serving anyone’s interest, which begs the question: where are the external overseers?

Oversight of higher education varies considerably in structure, emphasis and reporting mechanisms. The US focuses on accreditation, with accreditors organised regionally as well as by topical specialisation. In Canada, the UK, the European Union and Australia, the organisations are national or federal and emphasise quality assurance and published standards, providing time-limited registration rather than accreditation.

Nonetheless, the investigative processes are similar – reviews of institutional policies in two areas of assessment: design and delivery of learning experiences, and support of students. The overall goal is attainment of demonstrated “best practices”, both person-to-person and online. A few overseers do have warnings about diploma or cheating mills. However, a keyword search for content specific to contracted online learning yielded nothing. Third-party platforms are not mentioned as a factor impacting institutional integrity, so there is no discussion of the associated risks of online learning that has too little interaction and too much anonymity. This lack of attention is unnerving and startling, as overseers are typically committed to careful process review and suspicious of drastic change.

In the past year, the jump into online learning had an impetus that no one wanted: a global health pandemic. The unprecedented pressures to deliver learning programmes away from campus caught many institutions off guard, which in itself can result in poor choices.

Higher education as an industry and endeavour needs to pause and reconsider this wholesale offloading of programmes before another crisis ensues.

Nora Carrol is owner and president of Educative, LLC, an adult education and business advocacy consultancy in Washington DC.