e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: NCES

  • Fall 2012 US Distance Education Enrollment: Now viewable by each state

    Starting in late 2013, the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) started providing preliminary data for the Fall 2012 term that for the first time includes online education. Using Tableau (thanks to Justin Menard for prompting me to use this), we can now see a profile of online education in the US for degree-granting colleges and university, broken out by sector and for each state.

    Please note the following:

    • For the most part distance education and online education terms are interchangeable, but they are not equivalent as DE can include courses delivered by a medium other than the Internet (e.g. correspondence course).
    • There are three tabs below – the first shows totals for the US by sector and by level (grad, undergrad); the second also shows the data for each state (this is new); the third shows a map view.

  • 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.
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  • 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.

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  • Twice as many institutions as previously reported have no online courses

    Recently I pointed out that the widely-quoted Babson survey on online learning estimates 7.1 million US higher ed students taking at least one online course while the new IPEDS data indicates the number as 5.5 million. After looking deeper at the data, it appears that the difference in institutions (whether or not an institution offers any online courses) is even greater than the difference in students. This institutional profile is important, as the Babson report (p. 13) noted that institutions offering no online courses had very different answers than others, a theme that ran through much of the report: [emphasis added]

    The results for 2013 represent a marked change from the pattern of responses observed in previous years. In the past, all institutions have consistently shown a similar pattern of change over time. Different groups of institutions typically reported the same direction of change – if one group noted an improvement on a particular index, all other groups would show a similar degree of improvement. The overall level of agreement with a particular statement might vary among different groups, but the pattern of change over time would be similar. This is not the case for 2013.

    As noted above, there was a year-to-year change in the overall pattern of opinions on the strategic importance of online education, and on the relative learning outcomes of online instruction, as compared to face-to-face instruction. In both cases, the historic pattern of continued improvement took a step back for 2013, and all of the changes are accounted for in a single group of institutions: those that do not have any online offerings.

    Institutions with no online offerings represent a small minority of higher education – how are they different?

    Let’s look at the IPEDS data on institutions versus the Babson data, first by institutional control. I took the data on page 32 of the Babson report and recreated the graph, then I ran the same analysis using IPEDS data. (NOTE: these interactive charts do not come through on RSS feeds, so you probably will have to click through to post to see.) (more…)

  • New IPEDS Data: A graphical view of online ed by state and by sector

    Update: I should have guessed this, but the visualizations don’t come through on RSS feeds, so you’ll need to click through to the article.

    Reader Mike Himmelstein has rightly pointed out that our analysis of the new IPEDS data would benefit from using visualization tools instead of just tables. This comment led me to a multi-day investigation of which data visualization tool would best integrate into a WordPress blog while maintaining interactive data exploration. I tried MicroStrategy (great tool but cannot share without login), IBM Many Eyes (good public tool but limited in formatting), and several variations of Google Charts (not as rich in features as MicroStrategy, but close, and supports public sharing). In the end I’ve ended up using the Visualizer plugin to display Google Charts. All data below is for degree-granting institutions.

    Let’s first look at the state-by-state data in a Geochart. This data tracks online ed in public higher ed institutions as of Fall 2012. I’m showing the data broken out by undergraduate and graduate students. The color scale is based on the percentage of students taking at least one online course, but if you hover over a state you can also see the percentage of students taking all of their courses online.

    For the basic data combining undergraduate and graduate students in a table format, see this post.

    Percentage of Public Higher Ed Undergrad Students Taking Online Courses, by State
    [visualizer id=”4711″]

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  • Clarification: No, there aren’t 7.1 million students in US taking at least one online class

    I’ve written several posts recently looking at the new IPEDS data on distance education (for the most part equivalent to online education). In one post I pointed out [emphasis added]:

    Previously, the best data available on total student counts came from the Babson Survey Research Group with their annual survey (prior to 2012 called the Sloan survey). This is the survey tracking the total number of students taking at least one course online. When I talked to the researchers earlier this year, they mentioned that they hoped the new IPEDS data would ‘put them out of business’. I hope this comment was half in jest, as their survey measures much more information than just total student counts and they have very useful longitudinal data. I have asked BSRG for an updated statement on their plans but have not been able to get a response yet.

    Some additional notes on the data:

    According to the IPEDS data, 5.5 million (26%) degree-seeking students in the US took at least one online course in Fall 2012, which is significantly less than that reported by Babson (6.7 million / 32% for Fall 2011 data). Keep in mind the different methodologies involved – IPEDS collects data reported directly from colleges and universities, while Babson is based on a representative survey; IPEDS measures “distance education”, while Babson measures “online courses”. I would look forward to this year’s Babson survey to explain the differences, but for now, I’ll just note the difference.

    The new Babson Survey came out yesterday morning, and I was disappointed to find out that they did not address or acknowledge the differences in the data. With the new survey data (p. 15, using Fall 2012 data just like IPED), they came to a dramatically different conclusion [emphasis added]:

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  • New IPEDS Data: State by state online ed comparison / public institutions

    It’s Tuesday, so it must be time for my daily post on the new IPEDS data including online education. There are so many ways to slice this data that just was not possible before, and with a little spreadsheet engineering, I’m finding it easy to come up with new views. Today let’s look at the adoption of online education per state for public institutions (both 4-year and 2-year schools). Note that this data does not include private non-profit or for-profit institutions as I wanted to focus on official state involvement in online ed.

    IPEDS tracks information now about students taking exclusively distance education courses, students taking some but not all distance education courses, and students not taking any distance education courses. Please note the following:

    • I am using the terminology “online courses” rather than “distance education”. For the most part these terms are interchangeable, but they are not equivalent as “distance education” can include courses delivered by a medium other than the Internet (e.g. correspondence course). Part of the reason I stick with “online course” is that there is a growing use case where students local to a campus choose to take a course online, which is not really at a distance.
    • I have combined the fields for students taking “exclusive online courses” and “some but not all online courses” to derive the “at least one online course”, as this roughly equals the data reported by the Sloan survey / Babson Survey Research Group survey.

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