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One of the pedagogical benefits that emerged from the pandemic period for adult learners was that teachers, in addition to supporting institutions, were more willing to consider and introduce technological innovations to the learning experience. For 2 years, teachers and institutions had no choice. Unanticipatedly, some of these innovative strategies also engaged and empowered otherwise hesitant instructors and marginalized adult learners. This article briefly introduces categories of instructional technology tools that emerged from this period to help democratize adult learning--giving all adults opportunities to be heard, manage anxiety and introverted tendencies, to work with others, and to inform learning decisions for instructor and student alike, etc. These practices are briefly contextualized and referenced within the field using both Michael Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance and Garrison, Anderson and Archer's Community of Inquiry theoretical framework. The four categories of instructional technology tools featured in this article include: (1) Annotation (social) tools; (2) Backchanneling tools; (3) Collaboration tools; and (4) Polling (student response systems) tools.

The history of educational badging is incomplete without mentioning the visionary work of the founders and distance learning administrators of the Chautauqua Institution in 1874 and, more specifically, the Chautauqua Literary Scientific Circle CLSC in 1878. The CLSC is one of the oldest continuous distance learning programs in the United States and has, from its founding to the present, incorporated a number of badges--known by its founders as "features" and "devices"-- to acknowledge progress and completion of its participants as a cohort or community of distant learners, of which many would never meet in person. The following badges (known as "features" and "devices") used by CLSC administrators are identified and described: badge, class name, motto, Memorial Days, flower, button or pin, song, yell, banner, banner pole, certificate, diploma, mosaic, seal, guild, and stole.

This article explores and summarizes trends in research and scholarship over the last decade (i.e., 1998-2007) for students completing dissertations and theses in the area of distance education. The topics addressed, research designs utilized, and data collection and analysis methods used were compiled and analyzed. Results from this study indicate that most of the distance education research conducted by graduate students in this period of time has been descriptive, often addressing the perceptions, concerns, and satisfaction levels of various stakeholders with a particular distance education experience. Studies of this type typically used self-report surveys and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics. Validating the concern of many distance education scholars, there was a lack of graduate student research aimed at developing a theory base in distance education. On a positive note, projects directly comparing distance education with traditional face-to-face classrooms to determine the merit of specific programs declined significantly in 2007 as compared to 1998. This result might indicate that distance learning is becoming accepted as a viable and important educational experience in its own right. Another encouraging finding was the decreased emphasis on studies focused on technology issues, such as those analyzing the quality of distance education technology and questioning educators' ability to provide an acceptable technology-enabled distance learning experience. (Contains 6 tables.)

The purpose of this research study was to develop a reliable and valid survey instrument for assessing the satisfaction of part-time faculty teaching in continuing higher education at Brigham Young University (BYU). This article describes the reliability and validity of the instrument that may be used by other administrators and researchers interested in evaluating part-time faculty job satisfaction at their respective institutions. The researchers hypothesized that dimensions of overall job satisfaction (adapted from the Herzberg model) would be measured by subscales on the survey instrument. The factor analysis provided empirical support for eight dimensions. The failure of two subscales in the factor analysis (status and job security) and one subscale on the test of internal reliability (challenge) will necessitate a revision of applicable survey questions. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study investigated the professional development needs, preferences, and practices of secondary school counselors in Utah. Participants included 226 secondary school counselors who responded to a 20-question survey instrument. The respondents revealed that most of them exceed minimum licensure requirements for professional development but also spend significant amounts of personal time and expense to do so. The counselors also identified obstacles with, and preferences toward, professional development that they experience in the increasingly complex and sophisticated school environment. Findings will inform professional development policy and practice in the state and also provide a basis for future research. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study focuses on the secondary counselor perspective for students using alternative credit programs, e.g., independent study, evening classes, and summer school, to complement the high school educational experience. Three hundred high school counselors throughout the United States participated in this research that examined "which" types of students most benefited from these "other" curriculum sources and some of the reasons "why." This study also profiled the characteristics of successful alternative education programs. These findings promise to better inform counselors, school administrators, curricular specialists, providers, and students' themselves about the role alternative education is increasingly having within the secondary schools.

Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha'i, Jewish, and Christian organizations are all experimenting with distance education for various reasons and to different extents, due to religious, economic, and political factors. Religious institutions worldwide are not only turning to the World Wide Web (WWW) to place information concerning religious beliefs and provide virtual services for their constituents but are also getting more involved in formally educating their members at a distance. This paper will document some of these educational efforts and the reasons behind the expanding use of distance education by several of the major religious institutions for training, edifying, and educating their religious adherents. (Contains 1 figure and 4 endnotes.)

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) has available for research a large data warehouse of enrollment and graduation information from 1993 to the present for nearly all postsecondary students in the United States. In this most recent academic year, 18 million currently enrolled students alone were added to the database. Some of the following research questions were answered by administrators at the Brigham Young University (BYU) Salt Lake Center using this data warehouse: How many of the students actually graduated? How many institutions did they attend before they graduated? How long did it take for them to graduate? This information in the hands of a distance and continuing educator can help inform strategic planning, marketing, and retention efforts for their institutions.

This article is a follow-up to a previous article, "Six Ways to Increase Enrollments at an Extended Campus," published in this journal (vol. 17, no. 4, winter 2015), wherein a seventh best practice to increase course offerings and increase enrollments at an extended campus is presented. This best practice seeks to identify those areas of greatest student demand in which courses are not consistently offered across all four university semesters. Once identified, these gaps in course availability on the main campus can be filled by offering the courses on the extended campus. [For "Six Ways to Increase Enrollments at an Extended Campus," see EJ1085163.]

The need for a reliable strategic planning framework for distance educators and their institutions has never been greater than it is now. Increased government regulations, accreditation standards, and competition are converging with decreased funding from federal, state, and private sources, and administrators require better strategic planning. A strategic planning model known as the Balanced Scorecard has met with widespread adoption and sweeping success among the business community, but, surprisingly, has not been widely adopted among institutions of higher and distance education. In this article the authors share what they have learned about this strategic planning model through a review of the available literature and their own early efforts to introduce it to their institution, the Division of Continuing Education at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

This article provides questionnaire items and a theoretical model of factors predictive of customer loyalty for use by administrators to determine ways to increase repeat purchasing in their continuing education programs. Prior studies in the literature are discussed followed by results of applying the model at one institution and a discussion of practical ways to increase customer or student loyalty. Marketing efforts, facilities, technology, quality of instruction, student learning, and customer service that are aligned with consumer characteristics and preferences impact perceived value, the institutional image, cumulative satisfaction and ultimately customer loyalty. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Program evaluations in the literature for evening classes generally fail to examine impact-related questions and focus instead on satisfaction with services and curricular offerings. This study examined the consequences for students if evening classes were not available. All student groups reported negative impacts on degree completion and increased time to degree without these courses, among other problems such as difficulty scheduling courses and an inability to accommodate work schedules. While nontraditional students depended most on evening classes, traditional students and graduate students needed these courses as well, particularly to allow for student employment, clinical experiences, and practicum. The study results engendered greater support from university administration for the evening classes program. (Contains 2 tables.)

Those in distance education are faced with a formidable challenge to ensure the identity of test takers and integrity of exam results, especially since students are physically removed from the classroom and distributed across the globe. This news digest will provide distance educators not only with a better understanding and awareness of issues surrounding cheating but also suggest solutions that might be adopted to help mitigate cheating in their programs. While technologies, including "braindump" Web sites and cell phones, are associated with the more common cheating behaviors today, the problem of cheating will always beleaguer distance educators; it is their responsibility to stay current on latest developments in the field of academic dishonesty, employ fitting interventions to mitigate cheating, and do everything possible to preserve the integrity of distance education.

Many challenges associated with distance education and technology integration initiatives focus on faculty issues and concerns. This article analyzes these difficulties by identifying from the literature current trends affecting faculty, faculty motivators, and faculty challenges. Then, following this review and analysis, the article presents seven strategies for university administrators and faculty to consider as part of their own strategic plan to mitigate faculty concerns and ensure program success. The seven strategies discussed include the following: (1) enable colleges and departments to accept more responsibility for distance education activities; (2) provide faculty more information about distance education programs and activities; (3) encourage faculty to incorporate technology into their traditional classrooms; (4) provide strong incentives for faculty to participate in distance education; (5) improve training and instructional support for distance education faculty; (6) build a stronger distance education faculty community; and (7) encourage more distance education scholarship and research.

Critics of distance education frequently assert that completion rates are lower in distance education courses than in traditional courses. Such criticism comes despite sparse and inconclusive research on completion rates for distance and traditional education courses. This article reviews some of the existing research and then describes some of the caveats and complexities in comparing completion rates in traditional and distance education. Analysis reveals that numerous factors make comparison between these two formats difficult, if not impossible. Problems include limitations in the research design itself, differences in student demographics, and inconsistent methods of calculating and reporting completion. After exploring these issues, the article presents best practices for improving completion rates while emphasizing that distance education completion rates may be acceptable after considering distant learner characteristics.

Although instructional methods are moving in ever greater number to a multimedia base, testing is not. What principles should be considered in correcting this misalignment?

The purpose of this paper is to identify and explain the best practice of using "big data" reports to help distance learning administrators better understand their own programs and represent them to stakeholders. The authors examine five reports: (1) the number and percentage of graduates from the main campus who also take classes at the branch campus; (2) an understanding of how enrollment patterns can aid in decisions to cancel or retain classes; (3) an analysis of the number of non-matriculated students who eventually matriculate; (4) a comparison of the number of students who retake classes at the branch and main campuses; and (5) the correlation between courses offered and courses required for the main campus majors and minors. The reports are designed to answer specific questions and to dispel inaccurate assumptions by creating data to use in evaluating programs and their effectiveness.

This is a "best practices" article focused on sharing six new academic scheduling strategies recently employed by the BYU Salt Lake Center to optimize course offerings and increase enrollments. These strategies are generalizable to other academic programs that help extend academic programs at a distance, including online courses. The Center is an extended campus in Salt Lake City, Utah situated 46 miles to the north of the main campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The distance between the flagship university and its Center pose unique challenges in relation to course and enrollment optimization. Some of these strategies are made possible with the help of new software tools recently licensed by the university to help mine "big course and enrollment data" (current and historical) of a large university with 30,000 students.

This article describes how E-Mail Alerts and RSS feeds can be helpful tools for busy distance education administrators by helping them to efficiently sort through the research and news information that is now available. These tools and their respective filters and aggregators make it possible for busy distance education administrators to stay current with the increasing amount of literature and news in their field. Taking time to become familiar with the alerts and RSS feeds identified in this article may be a distance learning administrator's best hope of reducing hours of inefficient searching and digesting the ever-increasing information in the field. It may also be that the answer to an administrator's next distance education question or dilemma will be delivered to their e-mail box or reader by their next e-mail alert or RSS feed.

The researchers of this study selected four pragmatic research questions that distance learning administrators with high-enrolling Independent Study courses, similar to those that Brigham Young University offers through its Department of Independent Study, may be interested in exploring. These questions included: (1) When tutoring services are made available in a high-enrolling Independent Study course, how much will they be used (demand)? (2) Would students be willing to pay for the service (sustainability)? (3) How will students prefer making contact with their tutor (logistics)? and (4) Does it appear that an on-demand tutoring service could scale with a growing distance education program (scalability)? The researchers selected a college algebra Independent Study course (Math 110) with its students for this quasi-experimental study. Math 110 had more than 1,400 enrollments the year prior to the study. The course consists of 17 lessons, 2 mid-course exams, and a final comprehensive exam. All of the exams are of the Speedback type, utilizing multiple-choice and matching questions that require the students to work through problems before selecting answers. All students (N = 331) who took their first Math 110 mid-course exam between October 2004 and January 2005 were included as participants in this study. The 51% (168) students who took the exam during December or January comprised the treatment group. All of these students were invited, at the time of their first exam, to utilize Independent Study's free Math 110 tutoring service any time they needed additional support for six months following the date of their first exam. As the tutor worked with students, he recorded the date, time, duration, and nature of each interaction; he also submitted students' frequently asked questions and his responses to a electronic knowledge base. The students were also asked at the end of their final exam whether or not they would pay an additional $30 fee for the help of a tutor if they were to take another Independent Study course similar to the Math 110 course they had just completed. The research question of primary significance in this study was how much students would use the tutoring service--the result was that only a quarter of the students chose to use it. Further, the tutor was able to help most students more efficiently than expected because of the emerging knowledge base that contained answers to previously and frequently asked questions. Thus, the amount of time spent by the tutor helping students and answering questions was lower than expected. The second research question focuses on the financial sustainability of the service. The findings for this research question seem to suggest that tutoring services for high enrolling courses may be sustainable for at least the following three reasons: (1) the majority (58.9%) of respondents reported a willingness to pay a $30 tutoring fee; (2) actual demand for tutoring time was less than expected; and (3) unexpected efficiencies gained through the use of a knowledge base. The results to the third research question revealed students' interest in communicating with their tutor via asynchronous email. Results to the fourth question regarding scalability is best addressed within the context of the previous findings. Specifically, the small demands per student on tutor time demonstrate the practicality of providing a tutor for high-enrollment, core-subject courses like Math where one tutor can serve thousands of students.

Today's distance education administrator, frequently with an expertise in another academic discipline, is also supposed to be a distance education scholar. This expectation results from the recent interest in distance learning that nearly all institutions of learning and disciplines of study have shown. More research, studies, journals, and essays about distance education also exist than at any other time. A distance education administrator and an education research librarian at Brigham Young University have teamed up to identify ten pragmatic research strategies to help new, busy, and even a few experienced distance education administrators stay current in their field and successful in their applied research. All distance education research strategies identified were required to pass a distance administrator test for pragmatism, user-friendliness, and efficiency. The ten research strategies that will be covered are accessing library expertise, books from your or others' library catalogs, academic journals, databases, current awareness services, subscription services, distance education Web portals, associations, listserv/discussions, and use of research assistants.

The decision to increase distance education enrollment hinges on the factors of pedagogical effectiveness, interactivity, audience, faculty incentives, retention, program type, and profitability. A complex interplay exists among these scalability concerns (i.e., issues related to meeting the growing enrollment demand), and any program's approach usually requires trade-offs. At Brigham Young University's Department of Independent Study, administrators have recently evaluated the effectiveness of their highly automated distance education classes, determining that more interactivity requires a trade-off with the accompanying demands. This article provides perspectives on these issues and then proposes four models that increase interactivity while allowing for some scalability.

Recent issues in this journal and other prominent distance-learning journals have established the need for administrators to be informed and prepared with strategic plans equal to foreseeable challenges. This article provides decision makers with 32 trends that affect distance learning and thus enable them to plan accordingly. The trends are organized into categories as they pertain to students and enrollment, faculty members, academics, technology, the economy, and distance learning. All the trends were identified during an extensive review of current literature in the field.