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Winter
2001 Volume 3, Number 2
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are Logging on to Promote Learning By Celena E. Kusch
“Our department has long desired to better serve nontraditional learners and has an excellent history of using distance education, creative formats and community service to fulfill this goal,” Kuhne said. “The use of the World Campus is a natural extension of our long-standing interest in distance education and involvement with various methods for the delivery of graduate courses, including audioconferencing, videoconferencing and computer conferencing. The World Campus provides the perfect opportunity to pursue this interest further. It allows us to serve learners from around the nation and world, permitting qualified students to benefit from our nationally recognized programs without the restrictions of traditional residency approaches,” he added. Today, Kuhne serves as the lead faculty of the World Campus Master’s in Adult Education Program. He is one of more than 90 Penn State faculty members involved in teaching and developing courses for the World Campus. First launched in January 1998, the World Campus, Penn State’s on-line initiative, now provides 155 course offerings in 18 certificate and degree programs each year. Enrollments topped 1,300 students in just the first months of the 2000–01 fiscal year, and the University expects to reach an annual 10,000 enrollments in 300 courses and 30 degree and certificate programs by 2003. Dr. James H. Ryan, vice president for Outreach and Cooperative Extension, offered his vision for this 25th Penn State campus: “It is not enough to move traditional course models to an on-line environment; instead, we must re-envision our learning models if we are to meet the demands of supporting a learning society dedicated to continuous education throughout a lifetime. The World Campus has already begun to fulfill its potential by providing greater University access to diverse populations, embracing the unprecedented opportunity to use information technology in the dissemination of knowledge, answering the urgent imperative to develop human capital through lifelong learning and offering a student-centered approach to education. In the coming years, we look forward to expanding our programs to achieve more.” Dr. A. J. Turgeon, professor of turfgrass management, believes this vision is in line with the future of pedagogical practice and with his students’ educational needs. Turgeon was the first faculty member to begin teaching in the World Campus, and, like Kuhne, his World Campus involvement grew out of years of his own efforts to improve teaching methods. Turgeon noted, “The evolution of the World Campus and my activities in experimenting with and employing educational technologies were a happy coincidence.” Relying heavily on graphics to illustrate course content, Turgeon had already accumulated an extensive collection of slides for use in the classroom more than a decade ago. In the early 1990s, he developed an interest in newer educational technologies. Over the course of about five years, he moved from presentation software to electronic scanning and digital imaging to Web page authoring. “By 1996, I had all of my case studies for Turfgrass Management 403 on the Web,” Turgeon explained, “and I was developing instructional modules to provide knowledge-based learning resources to support students’ case work and to support instruction at the introductory level as well. By the time the World Campus was getting ready to kick off, I had accumulated about 50 instructional modules and 12 case studies.” According to Turgeon, his own Web-enabled Turfgrass Management courses and the World Campus initiative were a perfect match in terms of mission and vision. “The World Campus came along at just the right time for me, and I am very happy to have played the role that I have in helping it along while realizing my own vision of effectively using educational technologies to enhance the quality of resident instruction while extending its reach to students from around the world. I believed from the outset that the World Campus would be the vehicle for realizing that vision,” Turgeon stated. His commitment to the on-line learning ideal and his willingness to experiment enabled the World Campus to conduct tests and trials of its system. With the benefits of the learning experiences of innovators like Turgeon, today’s faculty can much more easily turn to the World Campus to meet their department’s outreach teaching goals. In fact, a growing number of departments are recognizing the need to place priorities on programs and courses for nontraditional learners. The World Campus is helping them meet these new demands for lifelong learning.
Peck added, “I see many advantages to the World Campus’ flexible schedule that makes it work for teachers and other professionals. By using the World Campus system, we can work toward our service mission by making high-quality, interactive course work available to people who would not otherwise be able to participate.” In the College of Education, these new students include working teachers and mid-career professionals, people who cannot take time away from work but who wish to continue their education. In answer to their desire for flexible learning opportunities, reported Dr. Eunice N. Askov, former head of the Department of Adult Education, Instructional Systems and Workforce Education and Development, two of the three programs in the department are already involved in the World Campus. “The Instructional Systems Program offers the Educational Technology Certificate for teachers and others who are interested in integrating technology into instruction. The Adult Education Program is offering the World Campus' first on-line master’s degree and is also developing an emphasis area in adult education community development, involving graduate students in course development and working collaboratively with a community site in Johnstown,” she said. Although these programs provide good examples of the kinds of courses that are well suited to the on-line environment, the new nonresident student cohort enrolling in the World Campus is not limited to the disciplines of education or computer technology. According to Dr. Peter A. Rubba, director of academic programs for the World Campus, “The World Campus has degree program, certificate program, or course initiatives in some state of discussion, development, or delivery with every Penn State college.” Dr. James Bardi, director of associate degree programs in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management at Penn State Berks and assistant professor of hospitality management, sees on-line learning as a way to expand opportunities for many professionals in his field. “I feel that working with the World Campus is an excellent way to offer Penn State’s expertise in hospitality management to future leaders of the hospitality industry,” he said. “There are many adults in our industry who want to advance their positions from operations to leadership roles, but they seek additional knowledge in how to manage teams, control costs, develop marketing ideas and other issues. Because of the nature of our industry, employees can’t fit the Monday, Wednesday, Friday mode of course delivery offered through traditional higher education. The World Campus offers an anytime, anywhere style of learning that allows hospitality employees to fit learning into their schedule,” Bardi continued. Other disciplines involved with the World Campus programs include acoustical engineering, business logistics, management development, dietetics, counselor education, and information sciences and technology. The complete World Campus curriculum includes courses and programs designed for a variety of targeted audiences. Programs offer a mix of professional master’s degrees and postbaccalaureate certificate programs, undergraduate certificates and degrees, and noncredit professional education or subscription service programs that address specific lifelong learning needs. In addition, some departments offer certificate programs that are subsets of on-line degrees in order to provide students and employers with shorter-range learning opportunities. One new area of study being developed for World Campus delivery is the Community and Economic Development Certificate program. Dr. Drew W. Hyman, professor of public policy and community systems, is the senior faculty coordinator for this 13-credit program offered by the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. According to Hyman, the program is designed “to build a basic level of knowledge and skills required for practitioners to address the important issues in community and economic development.” The four core courses are: Principles of Community and Economic Development and Leadership; Principles of Economic Development Planning; Rural Organization; and Population, Land Use and Municipal Finance. In addition, each student will complete a 1-credit project or internship that integrates the concepts and practices of the core courses. “There are 2,500 local governments in Pennsylvania, and each needs people who understand accounting, sociology, demography and public administration and can apply this knowledge in their communities,” Hyman said. “This certificate program will provide students with the knowledge they need to help solve community problems.” Dr. Gary E. Miller, associate vice president for Distance Education and executive director of the World Campus, noted that the World Campus curriculum continues to expand.
“As the World Campus has grown, we’ve evolved from a set of individual signature programs to the beginning of a more integrated curriculum,” Miller said. “The curriculum is taking shape around three main themes: managing in the professions, technology and engineering, and the service professions, along with a general course portfolio. In each of the three main areas, we are developing a set of related professional development, undergraduate and postbaccalaureate programs. Each will have an anchor program. For instance, the master’s of education in adult education is the anchor for the service professions area.” Programs and courses from all colleges are selected to support these priority areas. As with conventional teaching, such course development initiatives require an investment of faculty and staff expertise and instructional resources. In the on-line environment, course development can be even more resource-intensive. Early World Campus programs relied on external partners and related professional associations to support course design, but the University has recognized the continuing need to offer funding for course development of on-line courses, particularly for high-enrolling general education requirements that do not have a direct relationship with external stakeholders. In the fall of 1999, Penn State established the President's Fund to support course development through the World Campus. Departments are now beginning to see the first fruits of that program in on-line versions of courses in journalism, agricultural education and introductory biology. (For a complete list of funded programs, see below.) The fund promotes the use of Web-based distance delivery to provide courses for which there is demand in both on-line and resident campuses. All funded courses enhance the ability of Penn State campuses, including the World Campus, to offer certificates and degrees that meet the needs of their local communities. This includes general education and other high-demand courses that are needed for World Campus students and that affect the ability of resident students to continue their study at a single campus location. An amount of $250,000 each year for the next four years has been set aside for this initiative. According to Miller, this is a natural evolution in World Campus development. “The World Campus started by looking outward and developing courses for which there is an external need. Now we have started to look inward and explore where any traditional students and campuses are interested in the same courses,” he said. To take advantage of the President’s Fund, academic leaders from colleges, campuses and the World Campus meet periodically to discuss curricular needs. Academic units then submit follow-up proposals for the development of courses that meet fund criteria. Current emphasis is on the areas of communications, business and general education. Dr. Stuart Selber, assistant professor of English, is among the faculty developing World Campus courses through the President's Fund. His course, English 202C, Effective Writing: Technical Writing, is a requirement for all Penn State students in technical fields. Selber noted that the department has traditionally been committed to exploring issues of pedagogy and supporting good teaching. The move to distance learning seemed the next logical step. He became interested in the World Campus as a way to “test the enormous pedagogical and social claims made about distance learning in academic settings.” “The President’s Fund enables academic units to design a course or two for distance learning without committing to an entire on-line program,” he said. “From a political point of view this is crucial, because departments need to set the terms under which they proceed with distance learning. Those who want to move skeptically and carefully should be able to do so.” For Miller, Selber’s work is a perfect example of fulfilling the mission of the President’s Fund. “Ultimately, the goal of the President’s Fund is to diminish the increasingly artificial barriers between what we do on campus with technology and how we use technology to reach and serve students at a distance. Our goal is that faculty, students and administration will begin to think about using technology to extend Penn State to all students, everywhere,” Miller explained. And Selber is doing just that. “As a humanist, I tend to be skeptical about technical fixes when it comes to the very real education challenges we face today,” he commented. “I wanted to see if we could come up with an approach to distance learning that was not only efficient and pragmatic, but also responsible and worthwhile. The World Campus made it realistic for us to engage in investigations related to distance learning.” According to Selber and many other World Campus faculty, the contributions of World Campus staff are major factors in enabling such experiments with distance learning. World Campus Instructional Design and Development works closely with the Education Technology Services unit of the Center for Academic Computing to provide instructional design and technical support for faculty developing courses. “Without the infrastructure and instructional support provided by the World Campus, we simply would not be designing on-line courses,” Selber declared. “The course development experience with the World Campus was really terrific. In English, we already have experience thinking about pedagogy and instructional design and literacy, but our instructional designer — Ann Luck — was essential in the process. She brought her vast experience to bear on our work, and that made a real difference.” Although Selber and many other faculty developing courses with the support of the President’'s Fund will not begin teaching for at least another semester, for those faculty already in the World Campus environment, careful design and an attention to the specific demands of Web-based pedagogy are producing good results. In adult education, for example, Kuhne and his colleagues have received encouraging feedback about their program. “Student responses have been very positive about their learning experience in our World Campus courses,” he said. “A viable learning community has been created in each course, and the learners have demonstrated graduate-level learning outcomes through their involvement. The faculty involved have felt the experience of designing and delivering World Campus courses was valuable professionally, and they were excited by the learning outcomes in their students.” Commenting on the impact the World Campus has had on faculty in his department, Kuhne added, “Since we are the experts on adult learning, I think the World Campus has learned more from us than the reverse. Yet the involvement in the asynchronous learning environment of the World Campus has helped our faculty to better understand the development of critical thinking skills and transformative learning experiences within this unique learning environment.” Indeed, creating an on-line learning environment that fosters a sense of community has been one of the World Campus’ goals from the beginning. Miller noted, “World Campus programs are built on the idea that interaction is an essential part of a Penn State degree, especially at the upper division. We also know that learning does not take place only in the ‘classroom,’ even if it is a virtual classroom. Our courses emphasize active learning, in which students are actively engaged in research, problem solving and collaboration around issues. At the same time, we want to ensure that our students — regardless of how distant they may be from Pennsylvania — are part of this community. This is a very real part of how the World Campus serves students.” World Campus faculty member Dr. Barbara Grabowski, associate professor of education and professor-in-charge of the Instructional Systems Program, agreed, saying, “The courses we offer are rigorous and student participation collaborative. It takes a commitment to students and course quality to enjoy teaching in this way. The social aspect of the learning needs to be nurtured as much as the cognitive aspect. But doing so provides unique rewards to faculty — ‘seeing’ growth in the way students think about your content. I always learn as much as the students because of the diversity of students in the course,” she said. Peck, who teaches in the same World Campus postbaccalaureate certificate program as Grabowski, added, “Teaching for the World Campus is a lot of work, but it is worth it. Students really engage in the assignments and conversations, and they learn a lot — both about the course content and about how technologies can be used to promote learning. It’s not the same as teaching face-to-face (you can’t hear them laugh at your jokes), but it is rewarding in other ways. Students will tell you as a course draws to a close that they really appreciate your work, and Penn State’s making this possible. They also describe important relationships they have built with other students. “I believe that the quality of the interaction in World Campus courses is superior to the quality of interaction we see in face-to-face classes. The World Campus courses elicit participation from all students, rather than just a few,” concluded Peck. Other faculty are finding that teaching in the World Campus can bring greater recognition to their programs. At the Lightfair International 2000 Conference, the largest North American trade show of architectural and commercial lighting industries, the World Campus architectural engineering Architectural Daylighting course (A E 565) received two prestigious awards: the Category Innovator Award in the Publications/Research/ Other category and the Judge’s Citation Award presented annually to new products that meet and exceed the current challenges of the 21st century. Dr. Richard Mistrick, associate professor of architectural engineering, is lead faculty for the World Campus' Architectural Lighting postbaccalaureate certificate program. “This is very exciting for us,” Mistrick said. “The World Campus is the latest in distance learning technology. It has the potential to revolutionize lighting education for practicing professionals, as well as for college students in building-related degree programs. For the judges to recognize our efforts is very rewarding.” Although World Campus faculty are justifiably proud of such successes, they do acknowledge that on-line learning has not yet achieved such widespread recognition. Turgeon noted that the World Campus has “proved that distance education via the Web could be successful. It’s no longer an abstraction; it’s a reality. But,” he added, “there is still more to be done.” “My frustration is with the slowness with which on-line learning is being embraced within the academic community,” Turgeon admitted. “Despite the concerns raised by many academics, the World Campus is not about replacing instructors with computers. Rather, it’s about improving the quality of instruction and extending its reach to students, many of whom would not have access to educational opportunities of the nature provided.” Adding that “good instruction requires good instructors,” Turgeon questioned continued criticism of on-line learning initiatives that expend the resources to ensure the highest quality of instruction. “The new educational technologies, when used properly, provide instructors with powerful resources for enhancing their effectiveness and extending their reach. How can anyone be opposed to that?”  Current World Campus programs
Postbaccalaureate Certificate Programs
Counselor Education-Chemical Dependency Educational Technology Integration Noise Control Engineering Reliability Engineering Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Degree Programs
Associate Degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management Undergraduate Certificate Program
Customer Relationship Management Dietary Manager Early Childhood Education Turfgrass Management Noncredit Professional Development Programs
Fundamentals of Engineering Webmaster Geographic Information Systems Individual Credit Course
Who are World Campus students?
World Campus student evaluations:
World Campus Help Desk technical support at a distance As part of its commitment to creating a real learning environment in cyberspace, the World Campus provides distance-based forms of the learner support services available to resident Penn State students. These services include: a Penn State computer account, program-related support, program application processing, course enrollment processing and status changes, financial aid and account information, student advocate activities, advising, disability services, library services and general problem solving. Most of these services are provided through the World Campus Learner Support Help Desk, which accepts inquiries by phone, e-mail, on-line chat service, or in person. To accommodate students in other time zones or those completing course work in the evenings, the Help Desk offers extended evening hours Sundays through Thursdays. Nearly 25 percent of all Help Desk requests are logged during these after-business hours. Help Desk support includes:
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