Interview with Andy Casiello, AVP for Distance Learning

OnlineColleges.org conducted an interview with Andy Casiello where we discussed his contributions as a leader in distance learning as well as how students can benefit from online education. Andy Casiello is Associate Vice President for Distance Learning at Old Dominion University. In that capacity Casiello is responsible for ODU’s Distance Learning organization, which delivers 59 degree programs servicing one-fifth of ODU’s entire student population at 50 locations, and to homes, offices, military facilities and other institutions worldwide. Casiello is responsible for managing the systems and operations that integrate technology with pedagogy – from live distance education classes with over 25,000 registrations per year to online classes and faculty support systems.

1. Tell us about your experience serving as the Associate VP of Distance Learning.
2. What are your key responsibilities as the VP of Distance Learning?
3. What is ODU doing to grow their online programs and secure their reputation in the space of online education?
4. When evaluating which schools to apply to, both online and traditional, what factors should a student look for and value the most?
5. What qualities or skills make someone a good candidate for online education?
6. What do you believe are the benefits of online education?
7. What are the disadvantages of online education, and can they be overcome?
8. Are job prospects the same for graduates of online colleges and universities as they are for traditional university graduates?
9. What do you think are the most common misconceptions about online education?
10. How do you see online education changing in 5 years’ time?
11. How do you think federal or state regulation and legislation will impact online education in the coming years?
12. What challenges do educators face in an online learning environment and what is being done to overcome those challenges?
13. How are traditional universities incorporating online education into their curriculum?
14. What do you see as the most notable online learning developments in the past 5 years?

1.Tell us about your experience serving as the Associate VP of Distance Learning.

Old Dominion University is a fantastic, forwarding thinking institution, and it is a joy to be part of the team here. ODU has wonderful longstanding relationships with the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) campuses, as well as many U.S. military bases. These relationships helped to establish ODU as a big player in distance education. In the past few years we have really been ramping up our high quality undergraduate and graduate online programs. The growth in these programs has been phenomenal. We’re really proud of the work we are doing in this area, and are eager to expand our offerings across the United States and internationally. We are particularly proud of the work that we do with improving the pedagogy of online and distance delivery. We set a high standard for ourselves in educational quality, student success, student engagement, and technical capability and flexibility. It’s an exciting place to be with all that is happening in distance education these days.

2.What are your key responsibilities as the VP of Distance Learning?

Distance Learning at ODU is a centralized office that facilitates the delivery of 59 degree programs from all six of the colleges at ODU. We have both location-based and online distance education. Most of our 50 locations are within Virginia, but we have facilities in Arizona, Washington state, and at military facilities around the country. Distance Learning enrolls approximately ¼ of the total student population at ODU. That’s about 7,000 of the 25,000 total student population. We offer programs via a variety of technologies including online, satellite, 2-way video, DVD and video streaming. Our fastest growing modality is, of course, online delivery. I run this operation, which has over 130 staff both here at the main campus and out at the sites around the State and the country. I report to the Provost and work with the rest of the university administration on a day-to-day basis. Beyond the distance learning function, this department manages television production, graphics development, technical support, instructional design and faculty development functions.

3.What is ODU doing to grow their online programs and secure their reputation in the space of online education?

A few years ago we were a big player in live “extended classroom” delivery, but had a much smaller set of online offerings. As bandwidth to the home opened up, the demand for online programs has grown dramatically. In the past two years our administration has supported the development of many new online degree programs. We have 12 programs online, 10 additional programs currently in production, and another 15 or 20 programs being reviewed for development.

State support for institutions of higher education has been falling, and we knew we couldn’t look for that support to build our online programs. We developed a tuition revenue share plan that funds individual departments for the needed faculty positions to properly support the students. That really allowed our departments to come forward with the support needed to create these new programs.

In the meantime, as we move from “site based” distance learning more towards serving the individual via the web, we’ve completely redesigned our web environment. We built a large marketing program that includes Google search advertisement, social media engagement and a number of innovative approaches to reaching out to the specific target audience we’re interested in. ODU will be a growing force in online learning over the next five years.

4.When evaluating which schools to apply to, both online and traditional, what factors should a student look for and value the most?

One area that students don’t always understand is the value of regional accreditation. Students should look to make sure the program they are applying for are both regionally and nationally accredited. Many students think that national accreditation must be better than regional accreditation, but it’s actually the other way around. Also, look for the national rankings of the program and faculty in the program areas they are interested in. We have top research faculty who are creating new knowledge in their fields. These are the faculty that you will find a high quality, doctoral research institutions. Many online schools aren’t operating with this caliber of faculty, and therefore the degree you earn may not have the value of one that you would get from a higher-ranked institution.

They should also look for strong evidence of student support, advising, career management services, etc. Many institutions welcome your application and registration. Fewer of them really take good care of you once you are a student. The best schools really care for their students and help them through the process. Speak to someone at each school and get a feel for the services they offer in support of enrolled students.

5.What qualities or skills make someone a good candidate for online education?

To be a good online student you need to be a motivated self-starter. You should have enough self-discipline to urge yourself to stay current with all coursework and communications with the faculty and students. Communications and self-discipline are critical. If you are motivated, you will be committed to complete the work. If you have self-discipline you will be able to get the work done. In order to be highly successful you need to be engaged and communicate with the faculty, other students and with the institution. Having comfort with technology certainly helps, and having access to a high quality computer and broadband access are required. The biggest requirement is to have desire. You have to not only want a degree, but you need to want to earn it. If you have passion for your career and for your area of study, you are a long way toward earning your degree.

6.What do you believe are the benefits of online education?

They are the same benefits as a traditional education, with the added benefits of flexibility in participating in coursework according to your own needs and schedule, and the benefit of not having to travel, potentially take time off work, or find special daycare for your children, etc. The real benefit is that it works for real people. There are a lot of people out there that want to receive an education, but can’t simply drop what they are doing and come on to a campus from 9-5 Monday through Friday. That’s not realistic, unless you are a full time student receiving a fair amount of support from family, the state, Pell grants, etc. That’s a small percentage of today’s higher education student.

Another big benefit to online education that is not entirely realized yet is pedagogical. The classroom is a technology. It is not necessarily the best technology for all instructional activities. The interaction and collaboration potential are very high in online education. Also, the idea that you don’t have to speak up right then and there in class, but can take time to reflect on what fellow students are saying, and can formulate a thoughtful response to the interaction. That is very powerful and hard to do in a traditional classroom.

7.What are the disadvantages of online education, and can they be overcome?

One disadvantage is that you can’t see and hear your fellow students, because you aren’t working at the exact same time and place. You can’t hang around after class and ask the faculty member a question in real time. However, there are great tools to assist with that. We use tools like Adobe Connect, which allow real-time two-way video and audio via the web, where students can work together in groups, or meet with the faculty members. They still don’t have to come to campus to interact.

Another disadvantage in a way is that, because you select the days and times that you work on your coursework, you have to be disciplined enough to keep up with the work. There isn’t that pressure of a class at 4 PM that will force you to get your work done the night before. However, good faculty and fellow students work together to keep the workflow going, and keep students engaged. Good faculty can tell when a student has trailed off, and will work with them to keep them motivated. But, you have to be self-motivated as well, or online can be tougher to get through. You have to understand that online is NOT easier. It’s more convenient, but not easier.

8.Are job prospects the same for graduates of online colleges and universities as they are for traditional university graduates?

Absolutely. The transcripts at our university don’t differentiate between online learners and on-campus learners. In fact all on campus students are taking some amount of online component as well. The reason we don’t differentiate is that there is no difference between the learning goals of an online program versus a traditional program, nor are there any differences in learning between the two methods. Studies that have been done over the past few decades continually show no significant difference between what is learned via distance versus on-campus programs.

We believe that the online programs in many ways can be superior to standard classroom programs. That’s because we employ a very structured review of the goals of each course, and look for the most effective instructional approaches to use in reaching those goals. That rigorous approach really forces faculty to consider every activity they are conducting, and to detail the objectives of the course in ways that are in some cases new to them. We have a terrific instructional design team that works with each faculty member to create the courses. We also have graphic artists, videographers, photographers and multimedia specialists that assist with content development. The result is a really refined, very thoughtful approach to the design of instruction.

9.What do you think are the most common misconceptions about online education?

A couple misconceptions are pretty common. First is that online education is going to be easier. It’s not. In some ways it is harder, because you have to add a level of self-motivation with online. You don’t have a classroom there with a faculty member to face on Wednesday afternoon. You need to motivate yourself to log in and get the work done.

Another misconception is that online education is somehow lower quality. That’s wrong. You can have an excellent on-campus course, and an excellent online course. You can have a poor quality online course, and a poor quality on-campus course. The technology is the vehicle to facilitate the education, but it doesn’t make the education better or worse. If the design of the instruction and activities are high quality, and the technology component is well managed and reliable, the outcome will be a high quality educational outcome.

10.How do you see online education changing in 5 years’ time?

Mobile devices, expansion of broadband access and speeds, and improvements in video and audio tools will bring about significant improvements in live, collaboration tools and interaction. We used to be severely limited by issues of bandwidth, and limited multimedia capability on the user end. Now, broadband speeds are improving, and the tools on the student side are very advanced. You have iPhones with multiple cameras and high definition capability, Android phones and iPads with great multimedia capability and good connect speeds. This will allow advancements in capability and flexibility. The 1980’s and 90’s were an era of televised distance education that was primarily one-way, lecture. The last decade opened up web applications, but much of the online content was limited in interactivity and media. Now we’ll really see improvements in interaction and collaboration tools.

Also, of course, social media tools will be widely adopted by educators and will have a big impact. Students in classes will have the same types of tools you see in Facebook in their university’s learning management system (LMS). This will allow students to “tweet” comments to each other, find and meet each other and have discussions outside of class, and incorporate ideas and activities from outside the boundaries of the “classroom” into the experience.

11.How do you think federal or state regulation and legislation will impact online education in the coming years?

Well, there’s a debate going on, and a fight going on with regard to federal input into higher education. This use to be the domain of the individual states, but with federal Title IV funds being involved, the federal government has influence in what happens in higher education. A recent court ruling vacated a Department of Education decision that would have had sweeping effect on what institutions are allowed to deliver online education into each state. The Department of Education position would have had the effect of increasing the cost of higher education overall by forcing states and higher education institutions to create and maintain agreements between individual states and any and all institutions of higher education that each state’s citizens want access to. The idea was to try to shut out a small segment of for-profit institutions who have high student dropout rates. That idea has merit, but the way they tried to handle it wasn’t the best approach, and it was done without enough input from either the states or higher education institutions that it would have affected.

It remains to be seen, long term, what the federal impact will be. Since it is federal tax money that is paying so much of the financial aid funding that is out there, I’m confident that the fed will be involved in decisions related to higher education.

12.What challenges do educators face in an online learning environment and what is being done to overcome those challenges?

Not much has changed in the way higher education is conducted in the last few hundred years, until very recently. Courses have been taught in classrooms, lecture-style, for a long time. That is the way today’s teachers were taught, and that’s what they understand about how to teach the next generation. Today’s teachers need to embrace new technologies and modes of teaching. Technology has helped to bring about a lot of changes, given that we can interconnect people in much more innovative ways than having everyone drive to the same room at the same time and lecturing. Younger faculty coming in grew up with some of this technology, and they automatically embrace it. More seasoned faculty who want to be innovative work with the new technologies and learn to change their approaches.

Years ago, the instructor was the person who had the “information” that students needed, and a lot of the work was transferring the information and converting it to knowledge. Today, students have access to an incredible amount of information at their fingertips. They don’t need the instructor to provide information, they need the instructor to help them make sense of the information, show them how to use it, put it in context and make it reality. The role of faculty is changing dramatically.

Universities have started to learn that every time we want to add an academic program it doesn’t mean we need to build new buildings and new classrooms and hire faculty who move to our city. We can interconnect people and activities and knowledge in ways we couldn’t before. Innovative institutions will embrace these ideas, while maintaining the very best of what makes “the academy” a wonderful place. We will always need classrooms, and faculty and student centers and dormitories. But we don’t need them for every program, every class, every student. Thinking outside the box, using technology and interconnecting institutions to share resources can help us build something bigger than any of us could build on our own. Our President is trying to make that happen right now in Virginia.

13.How are traditional universities incorporating online education into their curriculum?

Most of them are doing it a little bit at a time, starting with the most eager faculty, in the most high demand programs. Reduced state funding is driving most institutions to look for ways to broad their market and reach new students. They realize that distance education is the way to do this. It’s hard to ask faculty who are already teaching huge numbers of students, doing research and university service work to add new online programs without new resources. It’s tough. But innovative institutions, like ODU, are finding ways to fund new programs, partially out of new tuition revenue from the online expansion.

The traditional universities are the ones with the greatest body of faculty, but they are also the ones that find it hardest to switch gears and start moving programs online. It takes a real desire to reach the new audiences, and it takes a funding model that helps them do that. ODU is a little bit ahead of the curve in getting that part in place, but other universities are moving forward as well. It’s great for higher education overall, as we all learn a lot from each other, and the competition is very healthy.

14.What do you see as the most notable online learning developments in the past 5 years?

Undoubtedly in my mind web 2.0 and social media are biggest developments in the last five years. Social media helps educators tie people from around the world, who may or may not happen to be in the course with them, as input into the conversation. Two years ago we hosted a live event that featured David Gergen speaking on “social entrepreneurship”. We had people in the audience tweeting, and people all around the world commenting back. Those comments were then tied into the conversation and Gergen was able to respond to them. It was very powerful to have a global conversation like that. Now it’s easy to do that. A tweet and a hashtag can start a worldwide conversation that informs the discussion in the class. These social media tools are used by students to generate feedback on ideas, to collaborate and to engage others. The tools are becoming more powerful, easier to use, and more ubiquitous every day. Now Facebook is incorporating video conferencing into its environment. Soon most of these tools will easily link video and audio to your smart phone or other device. We can link classrooms with other classrooms, and mix in individuals wherever they are. Last week we had a classroom video linked to someone sitting in their backyard in Montana and someone else walking their baby in a stroller in Virginia Beach. The flexibility and power of these tools in unbelievable, and it’s growing every day.