Research Initiatives

Collaboration with NTID Researchers

Since fall 2003, Online Learning has collaborated with two NTID researchers, Gary Long and James Mallory, to investigate how online technologies can enhance communication access for all students at RIT. The group's current research project is entitled "Examination of Course Completion and Communication Ease in Courses with Online Discussion." The project is addressing some of the following questions:

• Does having an online discussion component in a course lead to increased interactions with the instructor and peers for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and ESL students?
• Does having an online discussion component in a course lead to increased course completion rates for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and ESL students?
• What are the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the online discussion format for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and ESL students?

Online Teaching Survey

Why do instructors choose to teach online or blended courses? What's their motivation? And what factors discourage them, keeping them from taking the leap into online education? To get to the bottom of these questions, Online Learning conducted a survey in Spring 2007 of RIT faculty teaching online and blended courses. The survey is part of a national project, one directed by Peter Shea of SUNY Albany with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, that is seeking to identify the most significant factors that motivate and inhibit participation in online teaching.

Dr. Shea has been directing an ongoing investigation of student and faculty motivations in online education for New Jersey Technical Institute of Technology and the entire State University of New York. He is an assistant professor in the department of Educations Theory and Practice at SUNY Albany with a joint appointment with the Department of Informatics in the College of Computing and Information. He is an editor of the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks and the former director of the SUNY Learning Network—the online education system for the State University of New York.

The 80-item survey, conducted in Spring Quarter 2007, went out to all RIT instructors—full-time and adjunct—who had taught at least one fully online or blended (part online, part face-to-face) course since 2001. Of about 300 instructors, 116 responded. In general, the survey findings show that RIT faculty are motivated by and put off from teaching online by many of the same things as their colleagues nationwide. RIT faculty reported relatively high levels of satisfaction and learning overall, especially in course satisfaction, continuing to teach online and feeling that students were learning. To read Dr. Shea's final report on the survey findings, click on the PDF link below.

The State of Online Teaching at RIT