Faculty attitude can dictate the success or failure of an online program. 

In the past 10 years, college and university administrators have been embracing online learning as the next logical step in higher education, but not all faculty have been on board. Studies conducted by the Sloan Consortium, an association that promotes online learning, suggest that faculty attitudes have become a barrier to successful online programs.

After discovering that faculty attitudes were closely connected to the success or failure of an online program, the Sloan Consortium, known as Sloan-C, took action. It teamed up with the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges to form the NASULGC- Sloan National Commission on Online Learning and encourage dialogue among chief academic officers on the potential applications of online education.

“We started the project in spring 2007,” says commission project director Bob Samors. “The best we could do was figure out what the key factors [to a successful online program] were, and, thinking it through, the best way to do that was to talk to people.”

The commission’s most recent undertaking is a first-of-its-kind cross-institutional survey of faculty attitudes and concerns with online education programs. This benchmarking study was borne out of another study, the “Key Factors Underlying Strategic Online Learning Programs,” that found faculty attitudes had become a barrier to successful programs. Researchers have conducted more than 200 faculty interviews and received more than 10,000 answered surveys from 45 institutions. Although the results are still being analyzed, the commission recently released its preliminary findings.