Many of us dream of the opportunity to help set up a new university but few actually get the chance. Fourteen years ago, Steve Grundy did. Now associate vice-president and chief information officer at RRU, he was here in 1995 when the university was founded and shares his observations below:

Dr. Steve Grundy is associate vice-president and chief information officer at RRU. ______________________

RRU was to provide a market-oriented, post-secondary alternative to existing institutions, using what we now call e-learning. And rather than offering the entire spectrum of traditional, discipline-based academic offerings, RRU pioneered a blended model of short on-campus residencies coupled with internet-based distance delivery.

We were one of the first institutions to utilize the web completely for the delivery of learning at distance; we were the first to move, university-wide and overnight, to an open source platform for on-line delivery, and we continue to innovate using dialogues, social networking and other tools for learners.

As RRU has evolved, I have made the following observations.
 
Resistance has been replaced with acceptance

While universities are based on a spirit of enquiry and act as sources of innovation, they can also be resistant to change. In 1995, online learning was basically unknown. We offered TV learning and correspondence learning as possible options but the web was very new. Once we created web sites and integrated a discussion tool, our distance learners loved it. Other universities were initially skeptical of our model. However, we persevered and our

As a special purpose university, RRU was intended to create access for working people to applied and professional programs through online delivery. For the majority of individuals who had difficulty entering the postsecondary system, the traditional model of taking several years of face-to-face instruction was not well-suited for their stage in life.

students were successful and appreciative of our outcome-approach to learning. Fast forward almost 15 years, we’ve seen online learning become more generally accepted across the system.

Centralization can help promote system-wide innovation

The very way that we organize ourselves, while creating a supportive environment for faculty scholarship and research, often acts as a barrier for system-wide innovation. Most universities are highly decentralized, so while pockets of advancement in online learning may be found at all institutions, it is difficult to move those advances into the main business of the university. Only with a degree of centralization can faculty and students get the support they need in terms of instructional design, web site creation and learning management systems operation, to make true progress and maintain a high level of quality.

It is a team effort.

In order to create high quality online learning, collaboration is necessary between most, if not all, of the following functions in the university: the library, instructional designers, media designers, IT staff, copyright officers, the research ethics committee, and the Registrar. The faculty member is the content expert and the instructional designer is the conductor. Curriculum Committees of Senate or Academic Councils play a key role in quality control, and should take a pro-active approach in working with faculty on course development.

There are costs to e-learning

This innovative approach to learning is not inexpensive nor does it require less effort. Online learning is often more of a one-to-one scenario, rather than the one-to-many interaction that is more traditionally found in the classroom. This leads to workload issues for faculty that may be addressed with sophisticated course design. The IT and support budget can rise to approximately 10 per cent or higher of the overall budget of the university, which has an impact on other areas. The facilitation skills required for online learning are different than what is needed for face-to-face learning, and there is a significant development cost to this training.

Net generation will expect more

While online learning was, for us, initially a way of reaching more mature learners in the work-force, it is now ubiquitous among many demographics. As the so called Net generation reaches universities, we may be ill-equipped to deal with their demands. They know of no reality that does not include Facebook, Wikipedia and Google. They can (and do) Google our lectures as we deliver them, and post our errors on the web in seconds!

We are seeing first effects of integration

As online learning becomes further integrated through the system, we are beginning to see some first effects. In B.C. last year, over 40,000 students in the K-12 system were enrolled in an online course – this means they were not in the classroom.

While online learning can be a disruptive technology, it also presents tremendous opportunity. The emergence of Web 2.0 for sharing and discussion and the profound societal change that the broad adoption of the internet has engendered will only improve the ability of the universities to deliver exceptional learning and research.

At Royal Roads University, we believe that embracing these technologies is essential to achieve our vision of meeting the needs of the working professional.
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Reprinted from Dialogue, an e-newsletter published by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.