When online classes began being developed and made available in higher education approximately 20 years ago, the vast majority of the online classes and programs were asynchronous, meaning that instructors did not meet with students in real-time or synchronously. There were few synchronous courses, and this was due to the high expense of video teleconferencing systems and the inability of many computers to handle the high bandwidth and memory required to participate in such synchronous sessions. Now, there has been a significant revolution in video teleconferencing systems and in the computers used to access them. Systems are now affordable and most learning management systems (LMS) even have them embedded. While mobile computers, including handheld devices such as iPhones, Androids, and tablets, can access the synchronous sessions from anywhere they can access the Internet. It is time to reassess the value and effectiveness of having synchronous sessions in online classes that are primarily asynchronous.
TopIntroduction
It was not that long ago—perhaps somewhere around 2000, give or take a few years—that higher education began to undergo a revolution in how it structured and delivered classes. With the reliability and increasing availability of the Internet and the smaller, more capable computers that were mobile and could be used almost anywhere, professors could teach classes from anywhere, and students could take classes from anywhere. Conversion from onsite classes to online classes was not very difficult in that, in most cases, course designers and developers, who often were the professors teaching the class, simply took the lesson plans they used onsite and copied them into online learning management systems (LMS). Working adults made up the initial market for online classes. These working adults were waiting for something like online education with the flexibility to take classes almost anytime from almost any place. Often, these adults needed college degrees to advance in the workplace or who had always wanted to go to college but could not afford to quit their jobs to do so. Since technology at the time did not provide an inexpensive video teleconferencing system for live synchronous classes, and most mobile computers were not capable of handling the large bandwidth that video conferencing demanded, most online classes were asynchronous. For those colleges and universities already structured to support adult learners, adding an online system for teaching classes was relatively inexpensive with the only major expense being buying/obtaining an LMS to which they could move their existing classes. Obtaining additional instructors to teach the classes was relatively simple since they did not have to move and could teach in the evening, allowing them to keep their full-time jobs.
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
A search of Online Education History reveals no definite date for the beginning of online education because there were so many variations of online education systems and tools that a beginning date can only be established if one specifies what systems/tools are included in the definition. A case can be made, however, that online education became the system as we know it today around 2000, when the first LMS’s were developed and began full operation. Blackboard, perhaps the largest LMS today, was founded in 1997, and eCollege, a competitor, was developed in 1999 (History of LMS, 2020). National University (NU), where the author is a faculty member, has used both Blackboard and eCollege LMS’s for its programs and courses and therefore, these are the two LMS’s with which the author has the most experience and knowledge (16 years). In this paper, the author will use Blackboard and eCollege along with research findings at other colleges and universities that have online programs as examples of online classes and programs. Another factor to be taken into consideration regarding the online programs at NU is that NU is an “open enrollment” university, which means anyone can apply if they meet the basic University requirements. While the rise of online distance education has expanded learning opportunities for all students, it is often most attractive to nontraditional students, who are more likely to have employment and family obligations that make attending traditional face-to-face classes difficult (Xu, 2013). Perhaps as a consequence, online learning enrollments have increased particularly quickly at two-year colleges where a large proportion of the population are nontraditional students. The National Center for Education Statistics (2002) defines a nontraditional student as one who has any of the following seven characteristics: (1) part-time attendance, (2) full-time employment, (3) delayed postsecondary enrollment, (4) financial independence, (5) having dependents, (6) being a single parent, and (7) not possessing a high school diploma.