IMS Global: Are their particular disciplines or programs that are more suitable than others for teaching in a distance learning environment?
GP: That's interesting because we get that question a lot from faculty and from university administrators. History demonstrates that the programs that have grown the most rapidly initially were the ones in business-the MBA is a program that has proven very successful online, but that market is fairly saturated now-although we've also found a lot of success in health education programs. That's another area that has experienced high growth and there are many clinical requirements that must be met. Part of what we look for when we're doing an assessment is how a program can be structured in a way that it can be successful online and have high retention rates. A distributed faculty base works well in these kinds of offerings. In the case of health education programs that have clinical requirements such as the clinical laboratory science bachelor's degree program successfully offered by the University of Cincinnati to over 500 students, the clinical requirements are distributed and the students do them in their local communities, in their local labs, and they do them with supervision by a local clinical preceptor approved by the university. The students find a clinician who is a clinical lab scientist, often a lab manager, who will help to supervise their experience. They then work out a clinical contract between the university and that agency and there is a contract directly with that preceptor. The student's clinical experiences are then supervised by that preceptor.
IMS Global: What are some of the biggest challenges colleges and universities face in trying to take their programs online?
GP: One of the challenges is truly making a decision that they've selected a program that can be successful. I think they often will just try to take something online that has been a successful program on campus or a special interest of the faculty, but they've not considered whether or not the marketplace will support it or whether they have the readiness factors internally to serve students completely at a distance. One of the problems that we frequently see is they haven't taken the time to do a thorough institutional infrastructure readiness assessment to minimize their risk. Another handicap is in trying to make the program financially viable. And if you haven't done an adequate assessment first, then there is a greater likelihood of running into financial difficulties.
