10. Growth in E-Learning: The Early Years Statewide

A page from a Washington State Board survey of Distance Learning activity
(Based on data collected and submitted by individual community and technical colleges)
CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR AN EXPANDED VIEW

Consider reading this narrative in the order in which it was composed, starting with Post #1.

Ron Baker, Director of Distance Education for the Oregon Community Colleges, led the project to compile data on distance learning in both Oregon and Washington during the mid-1990s (e.g., 1994/1995, 1995/1996, 1996/1997).  This compilation was based on surveys completed by the distance learning operations at each community college.  By the time that I began as distance learning coordinator in Fall 1997, there was direct coding into the Washington State computer system that supplanted this survey approach.  These pre-coding surveys allowed us to capture what was happening early on, even though some of the final data we retroactively collected didn't always perfectly match up with the survey reports.  We owe Dr. Baker a great deal of gratitude for the "heavy lifting" that he and his co-workers provided as they foresaw that distance learning was not a passing phenomenon!

The voluminous survey results, consisting of hundreds of pages and charts, are archived at the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges.  My notes and a few sample pages (click on them for an enlarged view) indicate that Distance Learning was undergoing a significant modality shift across many Washington State community and technical colleges (CTCs) in the late 1990s at the same time as at North Seattle College.  The charts above and below were created from data submitted by each college's staff over three academic years: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring Quarters of 1994/1995 through 1996/1997.  I believe submissions of college survey forms were discontinued after the 1996/1997 academic year or perhaps the following year because they became unnecessary.  At North Seattle College (and probably all other CTCs), we coded our various categories of distance learning classes directly into the State system rather than submitting survey forms at the end of each year.  

What do these early state data show?  As can be seen in the charts above and below, correspondence courses and telecourses were the popular distance learning modalities of the mid-1990s, in terms of both the number of classes taught and the number of students enrolled.  Use of the internet (categorized as "Online/Computer Conferencing") grew dramatically over these three years but still represented a minor component of the distance learning suite of modalities.  "Two-way videoconferencing" (later called "Interactive Television (ITV)"), with one college sharing a live class with other colleges with students able to join together via the "K-20 Network", was also gaining popularity during these years.  This "experiment" in live distance learning did not continue for much longer because of logistical co-scheduling challenges among colleges (even among the Seattle District colleges themselves).  In a sense, ITV revived much later in 2020 when live classes were offered across the internet via "Zoom" and similar synchronous conferencing technologies.

There are other features in these charts which are interesting but won't be discussed here.  Funding sources (state-, contract-, and self-support) are distinguished for financial purposes.  And early distance learning efforts included a range of now-expired categories such as "audiographic" (interconnection of graphic display devices at multiple sites) and "audioconferencing" (usually accomplished through standard telephone lines).  

Twenty-seven community and technical colleges participated in some form of distance learning during the 1996/1997 academic year.  Regarding student enrollment, distance learning accounted for about 2% of all system-generated FTEs ("full-time-equivalent "enrollments, a way of compiling all credits received by full-time and part-time students).  During these three survey years, the number of distance learning classes increased by 45% and the number of distance learning enrollments increased by 12%. 

Specific to North Seattle College, comparisons of distance learning enrollments for 1996/1997 show that NSC was eighth in the state in telecourse classes taught (38), with Spokane Falls (146), Skagit (97), Pierce (82), Spokane Community (72), Seattle Central (64), Bellevue (62) and Edmonds (39) colleges leading the way.  In "Online/Computer Conferencing", NSC was third in the state, with Skagit (38) and Edmonds (17) offering more such courses.  With respect to total distance learning activity, NSC was positioned eighth in the state in number of courses offered during the 1996/1997 academic year. 

My previous post showed how, at North Seattle College at least, the online learning modality grew dramatically in 1997/1998 and 1998/1999, and then far-surpassed telecourses by the 1999/2000 academic year in number of courses taught and number of students (seat counts) enrolled.  No doubt the same was happening at many of the other community and technical colleges in Washington State.  However, I do not have notes specific to this information.   

At the conclusion of the commentary accompanying the survey report, we find the following prescient statement, one that Ron Baker penned nearly 30 years ago and that has strongly guided our own philosophy and developmental approach for North Seattle College's distance learning operation throughout all these decades:

" Distance education as a 'separate initiative' of the Washington community and technical college system is evaporating.  Distance education technologies and methodologies are increasingly becoming fused with all forms of educational practice.  It may be more important and beneficial to the Washington Community and Technical College System in the future to focus on the continuum of distributed multimodal educational practices, rather than distance education as a singular adjunct activity." 

9. Growth in e-Learning: The Early Years at NSC

 
Members of North Seattle College's Enrollment/Registration/Admissions Team
Colleagues who collaborated with our e-Learning team (circa early 2000s)

Consider reading this narrative in the order in which it was composed, starting with Post #1.

What constitutes a "distance learning / e-learning class"?  "Distance learning" and "e-learning" are somewhat distinct terms, the former including more than just "online" classes, and the latter potentially including "non-distance" classes such as the "web-enhanced" campus ones.  As demonstrated through the charts presented earlier, the growing number of fully and partially online courses in the first decade of the 2000s dominated the data and eventually replaced most of the earliest categories in "distance learning."  The "e-learning" term became the more popular (and accurate) descriptor for courses utilizing web-based technologies that did not necessarily involve physical distance from campus.

However, prior to 2000, North Seattle College (NSC) offered a variety of non-traditional classes that opened up learning possibilities for students beyond the usual in-the-classroom format.  These early "distance learning" options primarily included:  Telecourses (based on weekly televised programs), videocassette-based courses (involving the rental of videocassettes with recorded programs and lessons), and multiple-location live courses using interactive television ("ITV classes").  Another popular early "distance learning" modality was the correspondence course (based on reading a textbook with emailed assignments and communication).  NSC did not widely adopt this latter "distance" format, known for its generally very low completion rate, although it was a strong component of Seattle Central College's program.  NSC also offered a few courses with distinct "distance learning" categories such as "flex-time/CD ROM" Elementary Russian and "computer tutorial" Microeconomics. 

The first "distance learning" class offered by North Seattle College was a telecourse in Spring Quarter 1994 entitled "History 210 -- The Pacific Century".  Seventeen students enrolled in this first (and only) distance course during that "lead off" term.  In the following term (Fall Quarter 1994), five telecourses were offered, increasing to eleven classes a couple quarters later (Spring Quarter 1995).  Over the span of just a year, "distance learning" enrollments grew from those 17 student "seat counts" in the 1993/1994 academic year to 590 enrollments in the 22 total telecourses scheduled in total during the 1994/1995 year.   Clearly, many students were finding that such "distance learning" fit their life situations or/and their learning preferences.  In Spring Quarter 1997, the first online course was offered ("HEA 150 Health & Human Sexuality", taught by Trish Root, with enrollment of 14 students), and "distance learning" really took off from there! 

The following series of charts shows how "distance learning" took shape during its "formative" years at North Seattle College from Spring Quarter 1993 through Spring Quarter 2000.  Clicking on a chart will lead to a "pop-up" expanded view.   This "unofficial" data, tracked by our distance learning operation, may not fully match up with other records because of the reasons explained in the last post, but the divergences are secondary and do not alter the observations and interpretations here.       

"Distance learning" curriculum grew from one telecourse in Spring Quarter 1993 to over 100 various "distance learning" courses taught during the 1999/2000 academic year.  As shown above, 20 to 30 courses were eventually offered each standard quarter during these early years, and somewhat fewer during the Summer Quarter.

As charted above, total "distance learning" enrollments ("seat counts") reached a plateau just below 1000, primarily in telecourses and videocassette-based courses (more on these modalities in later posts) during the mid-1990s, and then enrollments climbed dramatically with the introduction and appeal of the online learning modality, especially beginning in Spring Quarter 1998.  

The chart above shows that enrollments in online classes at North Seattle College grew from those 14 students in that one course in Spring Quarter 1997 to nearly 1250 enrollments in 70 online classes during the 1999/2000 academic year.  Some of the online courses also included rental of videocassettes or broadcast of Annenberg media through the Seattle Colleges television channel.  The strictly "videocassette" courses (without online instruction but with videocassette rental or television viewing and a limited number of in-person campus meetings) peaked at 38 across the 1995/1996 academic year and then began to drop, with 12 such courses taught in 1999/2000 (and the same or fewer after that).  This modality now represented only about 15% of "distance learning" curriculum.  "Distance learning" was about to be renamed to "e-learning", a better way to describe how instruction was occurring.   

Regardless of the growth and method of "distance learning", individual class sizes remained relatively constant over the years.  Despite the vision of state administrators that such a teaching mode meant that hundreds of students could be taught in one class by a single instructor, the reality was that one instructor could handle fewer -- not more -- students in "distance learning" classes.  Individual attention to each students was generally more intense and time-consuming in order to achieve the same level of learning success (data on this later).   For good reason, class "caps" for online courses, for example, were set at 25 students, below the usual class caps of 30 or more.  Accounting for natural attrition after the first couple weeks of a term, average enrollment in a "distance learning" class remained around 20, as shown by the summary chart above.  The growth in "distance learning" was not a reflection of an increase in student-to-faculty ratio, but a result of increased numbers of "distance learning" offerings. 

Of course, this expansion of "distance learning" from telecourses and videocassette-based classes with limited in-person campus meetings (and, at other colleges, from long-established snail-mail correspondence classes too) to internet- and media-based learning options was a phenomenon occurring across the state.  While we were tracking our own enrollments (the first page of an early data table shown below), official state data were capturing this phenomenon at all the community colleges around Washington State.  The next posting will provide a look at these data.