Business of Online Education

in USADr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy

jeyak7@gmail.comjeyv@utdallas.edu

Agenda

• Who am I?

• What is online education?• Why did it become popular?• How is it done?• Technical Architecture• Future of online education• Potential for online education in India

Who am I?

Why should you listen to me?

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Academia, Industry & Personal

• Dad was a school teacher• B.E. (ECE) in CEG Guindy, Anna University –

1986-90• UNIX System Software Engineer, HCL Limited,

Chennai, 1990-91• MS Computer Science, University of Texas at

Dallas (UTD), 1991-94

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Academia, Industry & Personal …

• Telecom Software Engineer, Northern Telecom, Dallas, 1994-97

• Ph.D. Computer Science (part-time), University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), 1994-99

• Technical Lead, Samsung Telecom, 1997-2010• Got married in 1998• Adjunct Faculty, UTD CS department, 1999-2002• Online Adjunct Faculty in several online

universities from 2000

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Academia, Industry & Personal …

• Adjunct Faculty, Southern Methodist University, 2010

• Sr. Lecturer (full-time), UTD Computer Science, 2010-present

• 2 daughters: Nila (8) and Chinmayee (4)• Passionate about teaching – happy to share

ideas to improve teaching quality in colleges• Challenging teaching environment in US

Dr. V. Jeyakesavan: Summary

• 18 years experience as Software Engineer• 12 years of teaching experience

(mostly online)

Advertisement:University of Texas at Dallas

• Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science

• Computer Science: ~500 MS students and ~150 PhD students

• Surrounded by 100s of companies in Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex

• Students can get internships right after 2 semesters and continue studies in parallel

• Flyers available – see me after the lecture

What is online education?

Online education

• Education through Internet• Anywhere, any time, any device connected to

internet• Asynchronous learning

• Fixed # of weeks• All the work is graded & final grade is assigned• Student evaluation of faculty• Degree certificate

Why did it become popular?

Snippets from history

• American higher educational system: Public, private non-profit, and private for-profit universities (companies), Regional accreditation agencies, state agencies

• Question: What is #1 priority for private for-profit university? Quality or Money?

• First online course ~20 years ago, likely by for-profit university

• First online degree program?• MBA. Why?

Snippets from history …

• How reliable is online degree? Does it help to get a job?

• Online colleges got accreditation• Turning point (my opinion): Traditional

colleges started online degree programs• Misleading ads: “Point…Click…Degree…”• Reality: online courses require more work.

Who is a typical online student?

• Working adults who have difficulty attending a traditional college

• Hard-working employee who wants to get promoted, but does not have a degree

• Military personnel• Moms with young children at home• Students from rural areas

Online education is NOT for every one!

Who is typical online faculty?

• has full-time job in the industry• works as adjunct faculty• Why?– Additional income– Passion– More interesting than regular job!

• Lot of retired people too. Why?– Flexible, travel & teaching can mix

How is it done?

Typical online course• accessible only to students enrolled in that course

within university OLS (Online Learning System).• has an assignment due every week or every 2 weeks

once• Participation in Weekly discussion questions (DQs) is

mandatory.• Courses run for only 5-8 weeks. • Has 10 to 15 students• Has students from multiple time-zones, sometimes

from other countries too.

Grading scale for typical on-ground course

• Class Participation: up to 5%• Quizzes/Attendance: 10%• Assignments/Projects: 40%• Exams: 50%

Typical Grading Scale

• DQs/participation: 25%• Quizzes: 10%• Assignments: 30%• Exams/Projects: 25%• Team assignments: 10%

Compare with on-ground course

• Student-centered vs. Faculty-centered• Lectures optional• Students need to be self-motivated• Forced to participate• Did the student actually do the coursework?

Typical online student

does the following every week:• logs into the course at least once in 2 days• reads the book’s chapter(s) for the first 3 days• makes 4 to 8 posts distributed over the next 4

days• submits other assignments towards the end of

the week.

Typical online faculty

does the following every week:• ensures that weekly material and DQs are setup before

the week starts• grades the previous week’s assignments • comments on DQ responses & offers closing thoughts• responds to “cry for help” posts/emails in timely manner• makes phone calls if needed.• responds to phone calls during office hours• spends 5 to 15 hours every week for each course

Recent focus

• Continuous improvement in action …• Utilize relevant web resources in courses• Develop multimedia lectures to explain tough

concepts• Increase academic rigor – test application of

concepts using weekly quizzes • Improved communication tools

Major issues?

• Plagiarism in popular assignments• Google-generation has limited no patience • Quality of Faculty?• Students’ preparedness• Time-discipline for both students and faculty• Micro-management from university• Low pay to faculty

Weekly DQs (Discussion Questions)

• Goal: Come up with most reasonable answers through discussion

• Set difficulty of DQs at 110%• Focus is on discussions, NOT on perfect initial answers.

Wrong answers are perfect discussion starters! • Faculty should facilitate & shape the discussion little

bit, but should NOT kill it.• Goal: each post should add value to the course,

requirement to count towards participation.

DQ strategies

• Basic: 2 to 3 questions• Expanded: 5 to 10 questions• Personalized: assign specific question for each

student for posting initial response• Empowered: designate each student as “DQ

lead” for one question

• More details in another presentation…

Team assignments

• Can it work online?• Can it be better than on-ground?• Potential for higher level of contribution from

each student• More details in separate presentation.

Compare with

• Self-paced learning• Correspondence education

Advantages?

• No commute to college• No need for classrooms• No conflict in course/work schedules• Multimedia lectures can be reused• Learning/teaching can happen any where, any

time

Disadvantages?

• Online learning not for every one• Online learning not suitable for all courses– Complex labs hard to do online

Technical Architecture

Technical architecture

Internet

OLS serverSecurity gateway

Online University

Online Learning System (OLS)

• Lots of software applications out there.• Popular ones: Blackboard, Sakai, Moodle, …• In addition to courses, OLS provides network

space accessible to faculty, courses, …• Tons of functionality to run the course

efficiently

Future?

Future of Online education?

• High quality online lecture videos– students can view them at any time

• More acceptance at workplaces• Learning experience comparable to traditional

classroom• Unlikely to replace traditional education though

Still not for every one!

Potential in India?

Higher education in India

• Attended T4E conference in IIT Chennai, July 14-16 and met several educators.

• Lot of concerns about quality of higher education, but not many answers

• Online course materials:– MIT Open courseware http://ocw.mit.edu– NPTEL National Programme for Technology

Enhanced Learning http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/

CS & Engineering education:USA vs. India

QUALITY

college rank college rank

Can online education work in India?

• Issues & needs are similar to America• Indra Gandhi Open University runs distance

courses, not clear how close it comes to online courses run in USA

• Does require reliable broadband connection• With some adjustments & planning, I believe

online education may work well here too.

Can online educational materials augment physical classroom?

• Several 3rd tier colleges in Karnataka using NPTEL course materials (including lectures) since local faculty not ready to teach those courses

• It should work in Tamilnadu too.

Thanks for coming!

Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamyjeyak7@gmail.comjeyv@utdallas.edu