The student enrollment in online courses has remained consistent for the last three years, and with online course growth Eastern would be more competitive, the Online Learning Committee chairman said Thursday.

Blair Lord, the provost and vice president for academic affairs, established the Online Learning Committee in the fall to analyze Eastern’s history of online courses compared to other institutions and to make recommendations to strengthen online learning.

Jeff Stowell, the chairman of the Online Learning Committee and an associate psychology professor, presented the committee’s report to the Council on Academic Affairs.

“We want Eastern to be competitive, and if we are not competitive then we are going to fall behind and not have the resources to do what we do best,” Stowell said.

In Spring 2011, 1,579 students were enrolled in Eastern online courses whereas 3,412 students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and 9,797 students enrolled at DePaul University, according to the report, which compared Eastern to 13, other Illinois universities.

Les Hyder, a journalism professor who has taught online courses for three years and a committee member, said he thinks all students should be familiar with some form of online training to prepare for future careers, and every student should be required to complete at least one online course.

“The fact is that there are a lot of students enrolling in these other institutions, and what that says to us is there is a market out there, a need, that isn’t being met by traditional colleges and universities,” Hyder said. “I think we have an obligation to the citizens of the state of Illinois as a public university to be addressing those needs.”

Rebecca Throneburg, a council member and a committee member, said one of the issues online-learning growth faces is the opposition from faculty members who think face-to-face instruction is superior to any online course.

“Just like the traditional classes, there are some students that thrive in the online environment,” Hyder said. “Other colleagues that just think of online courses as inferior don’t know what they are talking about because they are taking anecdotal information and making universal judgments that are unreasonable and unfair.”

According to the report, the committee made seven recommendations consisting of: establishing a center for online learning through the Center for Academic Technology and Support, ensuring the quality standards of online instruction, emphasizing departmental ownership for online courses, creating a compensation model for online instructors, promoting student readiness for online learning, recommending academic departments to research specific courses and programs, and using internal and external services to recruit students and support faculty.

Stowell said in order for online learning to grow, faculty members need to be invested and committed in the process, and emphasizing ownership is one way to promote faculty involvement.

“It is essential for faculty who are willing to participate to know that when they create a course they own the content and it is not somebody forcing them to teach an online course,” Stowell said. “They can teach it voluntarily and departments will continue to have the right to decide who takes their courses and who doesn’t.”

The growth in online courses could provide sustainability for university programs while bringing in tuition money that goes to pay for faculty who teach the courses and provide support for the instruction, Stowell said.

“Our enrollment is down from where it has been and that translates into less tuition money, which means we are going to have less resources to try and keep doing what we are doing currently, and online education may be able to supplement some of those resources,” Stowell said.

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].