The Case of a For-Profit, Online University

BLENDED LEARNING GOES TOTALLY VIRTUAL BY DESIGN

Pamela S. Pease

ver the past decade, the growth and acceptance of for-profit universities in the United States has become a reality in higher education. I have been a pioneer in developing and leading the first U.S. online virtual, for-profit uni­versity to be regionally accredited. Such for-profit universities, notably, the University of Phoenix (UOP), Kaplan College, Jones International University (JIU), and Capella University, as well as the Sylvan Learning Systems, Corinthian Colleges, and Career Education network of colleges or universities, have trans­formed higher education into a viable business model. Many of these institutions have stock that is publicly traded on Wall Street, which continues to increase in value even while the U.S. economy remains tepid.

Corresponding with this explosion in for-profit institutions is the revolution in the electronic delivery of education that has been pioneered by many of these for-profit universities. The tension between profitability and the delivery of ed­ucation has resulted in increased efficiency in the instructional models for deliv­ering education. These models range over the entire spectrum, from site-based face-to-face to totally virtual. For many, the electronic delivery is often a means of increasing their reach to students worldwide. JIU is the first for-profit that was developed to deliver all of the content and instructional experience through the World Wide Web. Although the philosophy of how the instructional content is developed and delivered may differ across all of these institutions, there no longer

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is any doubt that many of these models differ substantially from traditional models of higher education.

From a global perspective, there has been a trend toward privatization of education. In Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, where the norm is for publicly supported university structures, the privatization of education has be­come more widespread as government funding has diminished while the demand has increased to serve the needs of an expanding student population. Many of the for-profit universities like Sylvan and UOP's Apollo Group from the United States have also developed international ventures by establishing on-site universities in Mexico, South America, and Spain.

Growth Factors for the For-Profit Universities

Looking back over the past decade, four primary reasons account for the growth of both for-profit and electronic education: (1) perceived value of American edu­cation around the world, (2) acceptance of online education delivery as main­stream, (3) changes in the global workforce needs for training and education, and (4) economic and social pressure on the traditional higher education system for serving adult learners.

Perception of American Education

America is the third largest exporter of education in the world, with the United Kingdom and Australia in the top two slots. Individuals around the world view American education as a valuable commodity. For this reason, foreign students are attracted to the United States in high numbers for postsecondary education. American-based business programs are considered particularly valuable by those outside the United States who are desirous of learning the key to American com­merce. American for-profit institutions that deliver education through either site-based institutions located in other countries or electronically can piggy-back on this positive global perception by offering degrees that are in high demand and branding themselves as American based.

Online Education Becomes Mainstream

Several factors have contributed to the acceptance of online learning over the past ten years. The biggest factor has been the development and adoption of the elec­tronic tools necessary for delivery of online learning. In the early 1990s, there were

Blended Learning Goes Totally Virtual by Design

few Web-based learning management systems or platforms since there was little demand to foster more development of these systems and what existed was quite primitive. For example, JIU developed HTML Web pages for all its courses as well as a Web home page to support student services, and the interaction between stu­dents, faculty, and the university personnel through listservs rather than Web-based forums and asynchronous conferences. The development of content was quite expensive and time-consuming. As a result, it was typically only the most innov­ative faculty and students who were attracted to a totally online experience. Soon institutions such as the totally online ones developed their own learning plat­form to ensure that the content could be developed in a consistent and affordable manner.

By the late 1990s, as the use of online learning became adopted by most uni­versities, the number of learning management systems commercially available grew, and all became easy for faculty and students to use. One of the critical events in shaping the acceptance of online learning was the accreditation by one of the major regional accreditation agencies in 1999 of a totally online institution of higher education: JIU. As more and more universities blended online learning into their site-based instruction, the delivery of content in this manner has become commonplace.

A Changing Workforce

The global nature of the modern workforce requires ongoing training and edu­cation. Coordination of education is a challenge for organizations located in dif­ferent countries or states with different work schedules across many time zones. Online learning has demonstrated the ability to deliver content and instruction to any learner at any time by primarily employing the asynchronous nature of on­line learning. JIU, Capella, UOP, Kaplan College, and others have met this need by delivering courses in over fifty countries with students who access education according to their schedule.

Another example of how online learning has served the needs of a workforce is the United Nations Development Programme's Virtual Development Acad­emy. Since inception of this program in 2 001, JIU has been under contract to de­velop the Virtual Development Academy. This academy is designed to provide convenient access to ongoing training that is completely online to key leaders at the mid-range and top-level managers in more than 135 country offices.

Moreover, there are other issues that make it imperative to meet the educa­tional needs of modern working adults using alternatives. No longer is it commonplace for today's workers to have the opportunity to take long periods

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of time away from their positions to attend a management program or institute. Time away from the job probably means losing that job. Time has become a commodity for most working adults since they have too little of it and feel pres­sure to balance personal and professional goals. Nevertheless, the reality is that in­dividuals are expected to have five to seven careers over their working life, and such changes are tied to having the appropriate education. This situation creates challenges for adults who want to move forward with their careers, as most posi­tions require more training and education. Online learning can provide a viable alternative for many of these individuals. This may be the reason that Australians have come to aptly call online learning " flexible learning."

Pressure on Higher Education

The demand for education is increasing to serve the needs of students worldwide. To meet these needs, there is room for many different types of institutions. For in­stance, for-profit institutions have largely served nontraditional working adults. Since the adult student represents well over 50 percent of the student popula­tion of higher education, it is little wonder that the flexibility offered by these institutions has resulted in a decade of growth.

The increase in demand comes at a time that traditional higher education has been hit by cutbacks in federal and state subsidies, which have resulted in hiring freezes and the elimination of programs. As a result of such budgetary restrictions and shortfalls, they are not readily equipped to serve the needs of increasingly nontraditional adult learners. Nevertheless, it is not a zero-sum game, as there are too few institutions to serve the needs of students, making room for all types of models of higher education.

Blended Learning Models for For-Profit Universities

In general, there is a wide range of instructional models employed by for-profit institutions. The models are often shaped by a hybrid model, blending face-to-face instruction through a site-based classroom with content that is offered elec­tronically through the Internet. For the for-profits, the delivery of online instruction has created a boom for instructional design. As a business practice, these universities have committed financial and human resources to ensure that online delivery is as customer focused as site based. This has required imple­menting a model of design that would provide quality control of the content and the instructional experience.

Blended Learning Goes Totally Virtual by Design

TABLE 18.1. TYPOLOGY OF FOR-PROFIT INSTRUCTIONAL DELIVERY MODELS.

A Typology of Delivery

Table 18.1 outlines the variety of delivery models using a sample of univer­sities based in the United States. The delivery styles of these for-profit insti­tutions may be collapsed into three categories of delivery: (1) the virtual-only model, (2) the resource-rich but opportunistic model, and (3) the low-cost hybrid model. The virtual-only model typically requires a dedicated instruc­tional design staff to optimize educational content for Web delivery, and all financial resources are focused on the delivery of online instructional content and teaching. Student recruitment and marketing are totally focused on attracting students who want this model. The resource-rich model allows institutions to measure the effectiveness of a variety of instructional modali­ties beyond online delivery. With more extensive resources, such an institution can determine how to focus its resources by evaluating the most successful modality from an opportunistic, business perspective. For example, enrollment in UOP's online program has been growing at a faster rate than its site-based enrollments; hence, one would expect that the business would concentrate on expanding online.

The final category is the low-cost hybrid model. These include career and technical schools, which have largely built their business on site-based instruction. As online has not been their core business, they are containing costs by replicating the face-to-face content rather than optimizing content for Web-based delivery. This represents a typology of three instructional delivery models.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

All of the models typically employ part-time faculty and do not retain faculty based on a traditional tenure and promotion system. However, part-time and full-time faculty members are still central to all of these models since they retain a faculty-led approach. This is the case even in the virtual-only model, which engages the learner through simulations and Web-based pages. In addition, all of the for-profits are concerned about delivering content that is applied. They are com­mitted to blending theory with tangible practical examples and assignments that are relevant to a student's workplace.

Advantages of Instructional Options

The blended approach has served the for-profits well, as the site-based presence in a city, state, or country provides a vehicle for branding and marketing the uni­versity. Unlike a traditional university system, the newer for-profit universities are focused on marketing for student recruiting and branding their university experi­ence. On an annual basis, these universities aggressively spend billions of dollars to increase their market share of students. It is little wonder that a large univer­sity such as the UOP with multiple campuses in nearly all the states across the United States has seen enrollment more than triple over the past two years. It has become the largest university in the United States. Moreover, the blended model offers the opportunity for adult learners to select a learning model that best serves their needs. UOP offers a hybrid model offering potential learners flexibility to choose either site based or online.

In the case of JIU, Capella, Kaplan Colleges, Sylvan Learning, and others, the number of offerings by for-profits has increased as public acceptance of on­line has grown. The demand for a virtual online delivery model is replacing the model of blending the instruction with face-to-face instruction. As noted below, JIU was a pioneer of this virtual model. It was the first for-profit institution whose business model was totally predicated on a virtual model.

Jones International University: A Virtual-Only Model

JIU was founded in 1993 as a private, total virtual university. The university's ad­ministrative headquarters are in Englewood, Colorado. There is little resemblance to a traditional campus or face-to-face classrooms at JIU. Even the staffing of approximately seventy-five full-time individuals is unique in that it is augmented by other core human resources from Jones companies, such as in the areas of technology, legal, and human resources. As is typical of the private for-profit

Blended Learning Goes Totally Virtual by Design

model, JIU operations are more of a corporate business in which higher educa­tion is explicit in its core values and mission.

From the perspective of the consumer, JIU was actually launched in 1995 as an online university with one graduate program in business communication. In 1996, it added an undergraduate completion degree in business communica­tion. With these two degree programs, in 1999 it became the first virtual univer­sity to receive the same accreditation status as the majority of educational institutions in the United States. Regional accreditation granted by the Higher Learning Commission, a Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, is considered a critical event in the recent history of higher education. Importantly, regional accreditation provided tacit approval of the in­stitution (and its students) for effectively delivering education totally online. As president and vice-president since JIU's inception in 1993, 1 have been the dri­ving force for ushering this new university through accreditation and construct­ing an infrastructure to serve an international student population.

Throughout the 1990s, JIU developed its infrastructure and instructional delivery model. It has six degree areas with approximately twenty degree offerings, federal financial aid for students, and a viable degree student popu­lation with graduates. Federal financial aid is available to all accredited pro­grams with the exception for those that provide more than 50 percent of their programs through online or telecommunications. In this case, an institution that would otherwise have access to federal financial student aid must seek a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education. This procedure required that JIU petition for a waiver for access to federal financial student aid, a process that took over a year.

Committing to the Technology-Based Model

From inception, JIU's mission has been to reach learners around the world by em­ploying a technology-based learning model. Having had the luxury of spending two years to conduct market-research and to experiment with a variety of mod­els, in early 1995, it concluded that using the Internet for delivery of the content would permit asynchronous delivery of content, which would overcome many of the time barriers reported by potential students and facilitate student and fac­ulty interaction online. This was the model implemented to best meet the needs identified from potential adult learners.

Since there were stakeholders vested in other models, videotaped delivery of instruction that was highly produced and scripted with renowned experts serv­ing as course content experts was one of the models considered. The high cost and complexity of this video-based model precluded it as a viable model. Also,

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there were internal political pressures to ensure mat interaction be conducted over a proprietary e-mail system that the Jones companies had developed. However, this did not seem practical, as this e-mail system required sending via postal mail a diskette to each user around the world and required elaborate installation directions resulting in extensive customer service support.

In hindsight, JIU took a calculated risk on the Internet as an education de­livery model. This was an innovative use of the Internet and required much consideration of how to deliver this virtual educational model effectively. Fortu­nately, that decision was followed by a wide-scale adoption of the Internet for education across all educational sectors.

An Iterative Development Model

Philosophically, the JIU model has been one of continuous improvement. Never­theless, the elements as developed in 1995 are still in place. Three significant changes over the years are (1) the ease of developing content and delivering in­struction using new electronic tools, (2) the decrease in costs for developing con­tent from an average of $75, 000 to $25, 000 per course, and (3) moving from outsourcing the instructional and multimedia development to developing an in­ternal instructional design staff.

The model contains the following core elements.

A Multitiered Faculty Structure. Four faculty bodies contribute to the develop­ment and governance of the degree programs. The Academic Program Board consists of experts in the specific degree areas to provide overall curriculum as­sessment of the program. There is a board for each program. The academic program chair provides administrative oversight for his or her specific program. This includes assigning faculty, reviewing content, identifying content expert fac­ulty, and advising students. A content expert at JIU is an individual prominent in the academic field who is under contract to develop a specific JIU course. This per­son works primarily with the instructional design team and the academic chair and is guided by a JIU template for course development to ensure consistent and qual­ity treatment of such instructional components as learning outcomes and assess­ment strategies. Finally, a teaching faculty is the teacher of record for a course. He or she is responsible for implementing the course as developed by the content expert and is responsible for facilitating and assessing student learning.

Course Media Mix. AJIU course includes the following mix: a course home page; multimedia simulations to facilitate learning of concepts using Flash or other pro­gramming tools; streaming audio and video; an asynchronous Web-based forum

Blended Learning Goes Totally Virtual by Design

as well as a whiteboard for communication; the use of asynchronous or real­time tools for small-group interaction around specific class assignments; print or electronically delivered textbooks downloaded from an online bookstore; and occasionally a CD-ROM (such as a Spanish course). JIU's initial model included specific study guides designed to accompany each course. For the most part, these have been infused in a newly revised model of the online course Web pages, which was developed based on human usability testing. Another unique feature of JIU is that the course components are offered in both English and Spanish. Students in the Spanish programs must be able to have some level of reading proficiency in English, since many textbook publishers do not translate their materials from Eng­lish to Spanish.

Delivery Tools. JIU has come a long way in adopting a learning management sys­tem used for course delivery. In 1995, the university developed separate HTML pages for each course, along with access to the JIU home page and a specific list-serv to support student-faculty interaction. By 1997, JIU implemented its own learning management system (LMS). The LMS was first known as " e-education" and more recendy as " Jones Standard Software." The creation of an internal LMS allowed the instructional design staff to review and manage the entire directory of courses and easily develop multiple sections of the course at any given time.

Instructional Model. JIU courses are offered beginning the first week of each month. This monthly " term" structure offers each three-credit course in eight weeks. All courses are instructor led and facilitated with a maximum enrollment of twenty-five students per course. However, enrollment in courses is unlimited, as any number of sections may be offered in a given term. Students typically en­roll in an average of three and half classes a year, with some degree programs hav­ing an average of five courses per year taken. Students are expected to attend a formal online orientation.

Content Ownership. JIU believes that one of its assets is course content. It has always paid generous fees for course content experts. JIU retains ownership of all the content that is developed. Each content expert is paid a development fee plus a one-time copyright fee. This is a practice that has been in place since the inception of the university. The advantage for JIU is the ability to use the learn­ing models and the courses for any purpose.

Research and Development. An important aspect of the model is the role of for­mal evaluation of course content and all aspects of the instructional experience. At the end of each course, students and faculty are asked to respond to a formal

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questionnaire. The extensive data that are collected for each course are analyzed by the specific course " term" and factored into the longitudinal analyses for the university. Feedback is used to improve the content, technology, support services, and teaching faculty. In addition, JIU scans the environment for new tools to increase the effectiveness of student interaction and learning. In fall 2003, it implemented a real-time Web-based language laboratory for its Spanish I course. This laboratory allows students to practice speaking Spanish with a live tutor and a group of students. Regardless of the logistics and departure from JIU's typical asynchronous model, it became obvious that students enjoyed the opportunity to have an oral practice lab and garner the support of other students. Another database software system has been implemented to manage both development costs and intellectual property resources. This is important as JIU owns all tne, copyright of content and intellectual property that is developed for the university. By design, all the multimedia components are developed to stand independently so that a library of electronic simulations, video and audio streaming, and Flash objects, for example, can be catalogued and reused as learning objects. In turn, this library of learning objects enables the multimedia team to focus on new applications.

A University Is More Than Course Content

Since JIU is a virtual university, the entire student experience is dependent on the development of virtual tools for student and faculty support. All current stu­dents may access the home page for general information and use their password to access myriad support services, including electronic advising, the course Web pages using the learning platform, grades, the electronic library, 24/7 technical support, and student services. The academic advisers and enrollment counselors are available by e-mail and telephone.

JIU faculty members have access to similar resources to those of students. All faculty members are certified through an online learning program in preparation for teaching at JIU. There are monthly electronic meetings for JIU faculty related to ongoing professional development and interaction.

Student Engagement Through Networking and Community Building

Students and faculty find that online learning promotes a type of intimacy in that people are much more accessible and interactive with one another. Because of this, JIU students develop communication networks and shared knowledge among themselves as they matriculate through classes. This communication was strength­ened in 2003 when JIU began organizing student classes into a modified cohort

Blended Learning Goes Totally Virtual by Design

model. An informal group of students is responsible for forming the formal JIU
Student Association. >

The annual graduation is conducted as a community building event. It is of­fered completely online, including the ceremony with the commencement speaker (such as recent graduations with the presidents of Mexico and Poland) and an elec­tronic yearbook. This event is open to all students and to the public to celebrate graduation and interact with graduates online.

JIU Challenges for Development

While the cost for the development of courses decreased as JIU brought the in­structional development function in-house, the cost of hiring top-notch content experts increased. JIU is now facing significant costs to maintain, update, and revise a huge inventory of course content. This is a challenge that all online uni­versities with well-defined instructional design strategies will have to manage and plan for in order to preserve the integrity of the existing course product. If not adequately updated and revised, the academic product could be rendered less valuable as a commodity for any university but certainly for a for-profit entity.

Significant Issues and Questions

The hallmark of the JIU model is its attention to the role of quality design and instruction. The founding definition of quality includes:

• Institutional mission and purposes that incorporate quality standards

• Regional accreditation

• 24/7 technology support for students and faculty

• Customer-focused services for supporting students

• Commitment to course design for optimizing the content for the Web rather than replicating a face-to-face model

• Commitment to high standards for instructional content and teaching

• Continuous improvement of the model through evaluation and feedback

The sections below address important questions related to providing a qual­ity education that JIU has had to grapple with.

Are There Common Standards and Measures for Quality?

Because there is still controversy around the role of business in education, the attention to quality is important for sustaining credibility and integrity for both

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virtual and other for-profit educational models. Quality assurance is an elusive concept for most organizations. In higher education, there are some espoused be­liefs about quality but few core values around quality that are common across higher education. The struggle facing for-profit education is to avoid doing what it takes at any cost for profitability.

Everyone would be well served to develop a model of quality to measure, eval­uate, and discriminate among a variety of new educational experiences. Even in the case of JIU or others with current models of quality, the concept can change depending on how the mission evolves, the marketplace pressures for student enrollment and cost containment, or changes in board or management leadership that influence the core organizational values.

Hybrid versus Virtual: What Works?

While it appears that increasingly students are attracted to a total virtual model, the hybrid model may have a greater advantage in branding, marketing, and re­cruiting students. While UOP's online program is growing at a rate faster than its site-based enrollment, its physical presence in major cities across the United States gives it instant brand recognition and credibility for students. Human beings are inherently comfortable with the familiar, whether it is a university or food prod­uct. The opportunity to see and participate in a physical environment may con­ceptually be important to students.

In turn, a total virtual institution such as JIU or Capella has begun to shift the paradigm of learning to a totally online model. The branding and marketing of this concept, which is not as tangible as the UOP model, has resulted in slow but steady student growth over the past five years. The jury is still out as to how soon or whether the totally virtual model will dominate in the marketplace.

What Role, If Any, Will Traditional Universities Have in Competing with the For-Profit Models of Blended Learning?

Many people involved in distance education believe that traditional universities will have to be transformed in order to compete with for-profit models. There is some truth that the painfully slow speed of change of traditional universities pre­vents most from being competitors in the short run. Today, many institutions have substantial commitment and a legacy in supporting their physical assets and in­frastructure. However, there may be a few institutions that find a way of balanc­ing their current business, while expanding their enrollments using an online model with the active support of some visionary leadership. Eventually well-recognized

Blended Learning Goes Totally Virtual by Design

traditional universities will compete with for-profit institutions in marketing and online strategy.

Are There New Models of Instructional Design for Optimizing a Virtual Educational Experience?

With the growth in virtual applications of learning and training, there are nu­merous questions related to its impact on the training of new instructional design experts. At the very least, one would hope that the new perspective would focus on a variety of interactive strategies for student engagement and multimedia rather than computer-based instruction, which is often the background of many of the current designers.

Is There a Role for Blending Foreign Language into the Model of Blended Learning?

JIU has experimented with some success in delivering education in multiple languages. It seems that the Web offers unique opportunities to customize the lan­guage of instruction for a diverse student population; however, this feature has not been exploited.

Opportunities

At least two interesting opportunities on the horizon can offer insight into the future of evolving models of blended learning. The first relates to the role of the new generation of higher education learners, now in primary and secondary schools. Over the next five years, their comfort level and experience with tech­nology for learning and communicating will likely become accepted as normal. Many of these students are already attending elementary school or high school online. There will be no great paradigm shift for these students to attend a virtual college. Perhaps they will seek a different experience by selecting a site-based col­lege experience that might offer a hybrid model of face-to-face and online instruction.

Interestingly, the growth in virtual education offers the opportunity for cross-cultural partnership models to emerge. In theory, there are many opportunities to forge alliances for codevelopment and delivery of programs with any university in the world. These alliances offer a chance to develop new models of learning for both traditional and for-profit institutions.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

Conclusion

Higher education is becoming a global business and, some contend, a highly com­petitive commodity. Educational issues of quality and consumer protection are important enough to be considered as part of the ongoing international World Trade Organization discussions. All the while, the for-profit sector in the United States continues to blossom and grow despite some allegations of unethical prac­tices, lack of rigor of content, and other scandals. In fact, many of these American-based universities are partnering with international institutions to provide educational options for students. For example, Kaplan University recently part­nered with Nottingham Kent University in Great Britain to serve students over­seas, whereas others, such as UOP's Apollo Group and Sylvan Learning, have long recognized the importance of finding international university partners to serve the demand of the increasing global marketplace of learners.

Online learning, especially a hybrid or blended approach that facilitates some on-site presence, is one way to expand programs beyond country boundaries while still leveraging some of the infrastructure offered by traditional universities. There­fore, in general, both for-profit and nonprofit universities in the United States and around the rest of world are creating access to education by establishing online initiatives with learning options that enable either a site-based experience or a vir­tual experience. Even among the traditional-aged eighteen- to twenty-two-year-old campus-based students, the flexibility of coming to class virtually is becoming expected and desirable.

The challenges in the new flexible worldview of increasing education options are largely those that have plagued higher education for decades: quality assur­ance in the integrity of the content and the degree, as well as consumer aware­ness. Because of the Web, today's consumers are better informed than ever before of their educational options. Online learning is here to stay and is considered the fastest-growing segment of higher education. Learners may find that the content, the online instructional experience, the services, and support are more transpar­ent for online for-profit universities and, as such, they are simultaneously consid­ered competitive advantages. In the end, this transparency has translated into more accountability of the faculty and the institution for meeting the educational needs of learners.