e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Babson Survey Research Group

  • No Discernible Growth in US Higher Ed Online Learning

    By 2015, 25 million post-secondary students in the United States will be taking classes online. And as that happens, the number of students who take classes exclusively on physical campuses will plummet, from 14.4 million in 2010 to just 4.1 million five years later, according to a new forecast released by market research firm Ambient Insight.

    – Campus Technology, 2011

    On the positive side, Moody’s notes that the U.S. Department of Education projects a 20-percent growth in master’s degrees and a 9-percent growth in associate degrees, opportunities in both online education and new certificate programs, and a rising earnings premium for those with college degrees.

    – Chronicle of Higher Ed, 2014

    Q.  How likely would it be that this fraction [% students taking online courses] would grow to become a majority of students over the next five years? A [from institutional academic leaders]. Nearly two-thirds responded that this was “Very likely,” with an additional one-quarter calling it “Likely.” [That’s almost 90% combined]

    – Grade Change, Babson Survey 2013

    More than two-thirds of instructors (68 percent) say their institutions are planning to expand their online offerings, but they are split on whether or not this is a good idea (36 percent positive, 38 percent negative, 26 percent neutral).

    – Inside Higher Ed 2014

    Still, the [disruptive innovation] theory predicts that, be it steam or online education, existing consumers will ultimately adopt the disruption, and a host of struggling colleges and universities — the bottom 25 percent of every tier, we predict — will disappear or merge in the next 10 to 15 years.

    – Clayton Christensen in NY Times 2013

    You could be forgiven for assuming that the continued growth of online education within US higher ed was a foregone conclusion. We all know it’s happening; the questions is how to adapt to the new world.

    But what if the assumption is wrong? Based on the official Department of Education / NCES new IPEDS data for Fall 2013 term, for the first time there has been no discernible growth in postsecondary students taking at least one online course in the US. (more…)

  • Significant Milestone: First national study of OER adoption

    For years we have heard anecdotes and case studies about OER adoption based on one (or a handful) of institutions. There are many items we think we know, but we have lacked hard data on the adoption process to back up these assumptions that have significant policy and ed tech market implications.

    OtC Cover PageThe Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) – the same one that administers the annual Survey of Online Learning – has released a survey of faculty titled “Opening the Curriculum” on the decision process and criteria for choosing teaching resources with an emphasis on Open Educational Resources (OER). While their funding from the Hewlett Foundation and from Pearson ((Disclosure: Pearson is a client of MindWires Consulting – see this post for more details.)) is for the current survey only, there are proposals to continue the Faculty OER surveys annually to get the same type of longitudinal study that they provide for online learning.

    While there will be other posts (including my own) that will cover the immediate findings of this survey, I think it would be worthwhile to first provide context on why this is a significant milestone. Most of the following background and author findings is based on my interview with Dr. Jeff Seaman, one of the two lead researchers and authors of the report (the other is Dr. I. Elaine Allen).

    Background

    (more…)

  • A response to new NCES report on distance education

    By Phil Hill and Russ Poulin, cross-posted to WCET blog

    Last week the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a new report analyzing the new IPEDS data on distance education. The report, titled Enrollment in Distance Education Courses, by State: Fall 2012, is a welcome addition to those interested in analyzing and understanding the state of distance education (mostly as an online format) in US higher education.

    The 2012 Fall Enrollment component of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) survey collected data for the first time on enrollment in courses in which instructional content was delivered exclusively through distance education, defined in IPEDS as “education that uses one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction be- tween the students and the instructor synchronously or asynchronously.” These Web Tables provide a current profile of enrollment in distance education courses across states and in various types of institutions. They are intended to serve as a useful baseline for tracking future trends, particularly as certain states and institutions focus on MOOCs and other distance education initiatives from a policy perspective.

    We have previously done our own analysis of the new IPEDS data at both e-Literate and WCET blogs. While the new report is commendable in its improved access to the important dataset, we feel the missing analysis and potentially misleading introductory narrative takes away from the value of this report.

    Value of Report

    The real value of this report in our opinion is the breakdown of IPEDS data by different variables such as state jurisdiction, control of institution, sector and student level. Most people are not going to go to the trouble of generating custom tables, so including such data in a simple PDF report will go a long way towards improving access to this important data. As an example of the data provided, consider this excerpt of table 3:

    NCES Table 3 excerpt

    The value of the data tables and the improved access to this information are precisely why we are concerned about the introductory text of the report. These reports matter.
    (more…)

  • Response from Babson Survey author on differences with IPEDS

    I have written a series of posts on the new IPEDS data, including two that showed how this data seems to be quite different from the pervasive Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) data (formerly known as the Sloan Survey). In particular, there were two findings, one on the number of students taking online courses:

    And no, there aren’t 7.1 million [from Babson] US higher ed students taking at least one online course. There are closer to 5.5 million [from IPEDS] as of Fall 2012.

    and one on the number of institutions offering online education:

    The big difference that should be obvious is that the Babson data shows less than half the number of institutions with no online offerings than the IPEDS data – 15% compared to 31%.

    Who has an online offering?

    I have been in contact with Jeff Seaman, one of the two authors of the BSRG reports, to get his analysis on the differences, including sharing my spreadsheets used for analysis of the two data sets. Jeff has graciously reviewed the data and provided the following analysis of why BSRG data is so different from IPEDS data.

    (more…)