We are trying to adapt existing personnel policies to distance education. Like many schools, Mary-wood offers a variety of incentives and provides limited technical support to develop online courses. A more coherent distance education program requires development of standards, extensive technical assistance, pressure on recalcitrant professors by the administration, and intellectual property and faculty compensation policies that reflect the reality of teaching online. The Internet allows content, whether canned or interactive, to be standardized and distributed anywhere, at anytime. Such standardization increases the separation of course development from teaching.
Schools experimenting with online learning often ask professors to perform both functions.
On the other hand, hardened online learning veterans, schools that have provided online courses for at least two years, often maintain separate course development capabilities. Online newbies usually try to adapt existing personnel policies regarding compensation, hiring and training to the new online environment, while their less numerous but more experienced colleagues have adopted separate policies for the two groups. Newcomers to online education are trying to stamp out a slew of personnel policy brush fires. For professors, institutions are developing new compensation packages that try to balance salary, courseload and intellectual property for distance education course development and delivery. In anticipation of future revenues from standardized and distributed interactive content, professors and their employers are fighting over ownership rights.