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Myth 2 Teaching online costs less than traditional face-to-face teaching. The truth of this argument depends on how the costs are determined. Often, only direct costs such as faculty salaries and hardware are considered when determining the cost of an online program. There are also indirect costs to the institution that are not considered in the bottom line. Those include faculty release time and stipends for developing online courses, advertising, and faculty development. Faculty development costs include the salaries of designers and trainers, and training equipment and software. Some institutions are hiring adjunct faculty members to teach some sections of their online courses. Adjuncts are often paid less in actual salary, and they do not receive the same benefits as full time tenure-track faculty. Adjunct faculty teaching online courses can work from home, which is attractive to many. They can also teach for more than one institution and never, or rarely drive to a campus. There may be many adjunct faculty who find teaching online much more satisfying than teaching face to face because the need for driving to campus is minimized. An institution's goal of saving or making money should always be less important than providing a quality educational experience to students. A more important consideration than cost savings is ensuring that students enrolled in online courses receive the same quality education as those enrolled in traditional on-campus face-to-face courses.
Resources Seven
Myths of Educational Technology or If You Want to Know How to
Use Technology in Teaching, Ask a Teacher! by
Bill Scroggins, March 1998, Implementing Change Involving WWW-Based Course Support Across the Faculty by B. A. Collis
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