Course quality and evaluation standards is the top issue of 2002 for faculty teaching online, according to a new survey. And the interest in class size and cheating online is down.

In its second annual Top Ten Issues In Teaching Online survey, the top issues were:

1. Course quality and evaluation standards
2. Institutional support for online courses
3. Student retention
4. Technical support
5. Development time and cost (Down from #2 last year)
6. Teacher pay (Up from #8 last year)
7. Who owns the course (Up from #9 last year)
8. Class size (Down from #1 last year)
9. Impact of shareable content objects (SCOs)
10. Facilitating online discussions (down from #6 last year)<?UL>

Dropping off the list from last year&#8217;s top issues were online classroom platforms, cheating online, testing online, and the role of F2F teaching.

The survey was conducted based on comments from hundreds of faculty by the Learning Resources Network (LERN), a leading provider of online professional development for faculty. The ranking of the list was determined by a LERN faculty advisory council composed of experienced online faculty from around the country.

&#8220;Our faculty advisory group unanimously chose the issue of course quality and evaluation standards as the number one issue of the year,&#8221; notes LERN President William A. Draves. &#8220;It clearly is the top issue for 2002 for faculty teaching online.&#8221;

LERN provides one-week online courses for faculty in higher education. More than 5,000 faculty from ten countries have taken the courses.



More on the survey and LERN can be found at http://www.TeachingOntheNet.org

Contact:
William A. Draves, CAE
President, Learning Resources Network (LERN)
e-mail: draves@lern.org
Phone: 715-426-9777
Fax: 888-234-8633
http://www.lern.org
LERN
PO Box 9
River Falls, WI 54022