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I found the survey results in this article interesting for many reasons, not the least of which was faculty's perception of whether the quality of online instruction equals, exceeds, or falls short of face-to-face instruction. The section "How Professors Build and Teach Their Online Courses" also found that many respondents did not work with IDs to design their courses, which is distressing, but I was encouraged by the findings in the "Outside Vendors" section: "Majorities of faculty members and of digital learning leaders oppose the use of external companies to provide a range of functions, including instructional design, offering student support, developing educational content or training the faculty."
- Christine

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"Embrace" is probably too strong. "Acquiescence" suggests too much passivity. Whatever word you choose, though, the data indicate that American faculty members -- whether grudgingly or enthusiastically -- are increasingly participating in and, to a lesser extent, accepting the validity of online education.

Inside Higher Ed's 2019 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, conducted with Gallup and published today, shows a continuing uptick in the proportion of faculty members who have taught an online course, to 46 percent from 44 percent last year. That figure stood at 30 percent in 2013, meaning that the number has increased by half in six years.

Lest anyone think that that trend means professors have fully embraced the value and benefits of online education, though, think again. While three-quarters of instructors who have taught online believe it made them better teachers in several key ways, professors remain deeply divided about whether online learning can produce student learning outcomes equivalent to face-to-face instruction.

The survey, which can be downloaded here, explored the views of 1,967 faculty members and 178 administrators who oversee their campuses' digital learning efforts about a wide range of technology and other issues.

Among the new survey's other findings:

Nearly four in 10 instructors (39 percent) say they fully support the increased use of educational technologies, up from 32 percent in 2018 and 29 percent in 2017.

Neither faculty members nor digital learning administrators believe online learning is less expensive to offer than its on-ground alternative -- unless colleges reduce spending on instruction or student support.

Majorities of professors and digital learning leaders alike generally oppose colleges' use of external vendors to deliver online academic programs, except for marketing to students.

Professors believe textbooks are too expensive and support use of open educational resources as an alternative -- but they are reluctant to put price ahead of quality or to give up control over selection of instructional materials.

Six in 10 faculty members believe academic fraud is more common in online courses than in face-to-face courses, while the rest believe fraud occurs equally in both settings.

Practice vs. Philosophy
The quest to understand the faculty relationship with the use of technology to deliver instruction starts with a look at behavior.

Since Inside Higher Ed began surveying faculty attitudes on technology in 2012, first with the Babson Survey Research Group and then with Gallup, the proportion of instructors who say they have taught at least one online course has risen significantly.

As seen in the chart below, which begins with Gallup's first iteration of the survey in 2013, that percentage has grown from three in 10 and seems on an inexorable march toward half and beyond.

The growing proportion of instructors who have taught online is a logical outgrowth of the fact that more colleges are embracing online learning to reach students they couldn't otherwise enroll and to respond to demands from students for more flexibility in when and how academic programs are offered.

While faculty participation in online learning continues to edge up over all (38 percent of instructors say they have taught a hybrid course, compared to xx percent), it is extremely uneven -- by institution type, discipline and mind-set. As seen in the table below, public college instructors are far likelier than their private college peers to have taught an online course; midcareer professors are more likely to teach online than are their younger or older peers; and social science and professional school faculty members are likelier to teach online than their science and humanities counterparts.

A plurality (41 percent) of instructors who have taught an online course have done so for fewer than five years, while a third (34 percent) have taught for between five and 10 years, and a quarter (25 percent) have taught for more than 10 years.

Those who have taught online overwhelmingly believe it has made them better at their jobs.

More than three-quarters (77 percent) of those who have taught online courses say the experience has helped them develop pedagogical skills and practices that have improved their teaching.

When those instructors were asked how their online experience has most improved their teaching skills, 75 percent said they think more critically about ways to engage students with content. Other common answers were making better use of multimedia content (65 percent), being more likely to experiment and make changes to try to improve the learning experience (63 percent), making better use of their institution's learning management system (61 percent), and aligning content and assessments more closely with course learning objectives (58 percent).

And more than two-thirds of instructors who had converted a face-to-face course to an online or hybrid (blended) class said that their time spent lecturing declined (65 percent) and that they incorporated more active learning techniques into the new course (69 percent).

"Improving course design and teaching in all modalities is a common outcome for those who undergo training for online course development and teaching," said Shannon Riggs, executive director of course development and learning innovation at Oregon State University's eCampus.
Lingering Doubts
Even as more faculty members teach online, they continue to question whether online education produces student outcomes equivalent to in-person courses -- although their impressions improve the closer they get to what they know firsthand.

As seen in the chart below, slightly more faculty respondents disagree (36 percent) than agree (32 percent) that "online courses can achieve student learning outcomes at least equivalent to in-person courses at any institution" -- presumably representing their overall view of online education. (The other 32 percent of respondents chose a middle ground.) Those figures have remained largely steady in the last three years of the Inside Higher Ed survey.

The situation looks a little different as the aperture narrows to what they know more personally. Thirty-eight percent agree (and 33 percent disagree) that online courses can achieve student outcomes equivalent to those of in-person courses at their institution, with 29 percent unsure.

And when asked about the efficacy of online learning in the courses the instructors teach themselves, 38 percent agree -- and 44 percent disagree, with just 18 percent taking a middle ground.

The ratios change significantly by subgroup of faculty members. Community college instructors, for instance, are more likely to agree than disagree that online learning can achieve equivalent outcomes in the classes they teach by a 53 to 31 percent margin, while the ratio for private college baccalaureate professors is 15 percent agree to 72 percent disagree.

Forty-six percent of female professors agree and 36 percent disagree with that statement, while the ratio for men is 31 percent agree vs. 49 percent disagree.

And the biggest divide of all, not surprisingly, comes among those who have taught online vs. not, as seen in the chart below: 61 percent of those who have taught online agree that outcomes can be at least equivalent, compared to 14 percent of those who have not taught online.

The belief in the efficacy of online learning stands in stark contrast to the views of the digital learning leaders included in the survey, 89 percent of whom agree that online courses can achieve the same educational outcomes as face-to-face courses.
Why So Much Skepticism?
The survey provides some evidence for why such a gap remains, and why many faculty members remain skeptical about online learning.

Respondents were asked whether they'd describe themselves as an "early adopter" of technology, as someone who typically adopts technologies after seeing peers use it effectively or as disinclined to use educational technologies.

Nearly three-quarters of digital learning leaders (72 percent) put themselves in the first category, and the rest in the second.

About a third (35 percent) of faculty respondents characterized themselves as early adopters, with a majority (54 percent) in the follower category. One in 10 described themselves as opposed to technology.

Similarly, when asked to indicate their "level of comfort" with the increased use of educational technology, 86 percent of digital learning leaders said they "fully support" such use, as did about four in 10 faculty members (39 percent). The faculty number represents a marked increase in recent years, up from 32 percent last year and 29 percent in 2017.

Roughly the same proportion (41 percent) of instructors this year said they "somewhat" support technology in the classroom; the rest were either neutral or opposed.

The faculty members who support educational technologies cite helping students as the reasons why. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) say they support the use of technology because "some students simply cannot attend a face-to-face class due to work or family obligations," and 57 percent "believe students learn better when I engage them with effective technology tools."

The instructors who oppose the use of academic technology do so, meanwhile, for a mix of student-facing and philosophical reasons. Two-thirds (65 percent) express confidence that "instruction delivered without using technology most effectively serves my students," but the next most-cited reasons are that "there is too much corporate influence" (47 percent), that "I don't believe the benefits to students justify the costs associated with adoption" (41 percent) and that "faculty lose too much control over the course when they use technology" (35 percent).

It's also clear that faculty members continue to feel they get inadequate support from their institutions to use technology effectively -- even as they see that support generally improving.

Professors were asked to rate their institutions on their policies and overall environment for supporting the use of technology, especially online learning.

Colleges scored well on some counts: having a climate that encourages experimentation with new approaches to teaching (56 percent of professors agree their institution has such a climate) and providing adequate technical support for creating and teaching online courses (52 percent agree for both), for instance.

But none of the other eight categories received agreement from a majority of respondents, and some -- "acknowledges time demands for online courses for workload" (25 percent), appropriately rewards contributions to digital pedagogy (22 percent), rewards teaching with technology in tenure and promotion decisions (22 percent), and compensates fairly for development of an online course (22 percent) all received consent from under a quarter of instructors.

The latter categories include areas that colleges are going to have to do a better job of if they want to build long-term faculty buy-in for the use of technology.

Faculty members are smart: they pay attention to what the institution truly seems to value and what will help them in their careers. So if colleges and universities don't reward behaviors such as teaching with technology or digital pedagogy in promotion and tenure decisions -- and digital learning leaders largely agree with professors that their institutions don't value those things -- they probably can't expect instructors to do what they're not rewarded for.

"The disconnect [between instructors' views and those of digital learning leaders] this far along in the game is pretty big," said Vincent J. Del Casino Jr., provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at San Jose State University. "My sense is that at institutions that invest in thinking about online education as a new pedagogical way to reach students, you're going to see satisfaction go up, compared to places where there's a more mass-production, canned sort of courses.

"There seem to be a lot of institutions where faculty are told to teach online, and there's not as much of an intersection with support," he added. "When that's the case, the professors probably feel like they can't really transfer what they do into online -- all they can do is swim as fast as they can. We have to do better than that if we want faculty to believe they can be effective."
How Professors Build and Teach Their Online Courses
Last year's survey asked an expanded set of questions about how faculty members work with instructional designers -- and the answers were distressing to those staff members whose job is to help professors make their online courses great. Only a quarter of respondents said they had worked with a designer on an online or blended course, and fewer than half of those who had taught online said they had worked an instructional designer -- even though 87 percent said they were involved in designing their online courses.

This year's survey expanded the questions yet again, to try to get a better sense of the resources instructors were using in building and teaching their online and blended courses.

Exactly half of faculty members who have taught an online course for credit said they had built all their online courses from scratch themselves, and another 19 percent said they had built most of their online courses by themselves.

Seventeen percent said they had built all or most of their online courses with the help of an instructional designer, and 14 percent said they had inherited the courses from another faculty or staff member.

Seeking to get more insight into the sources instructors tap in to for advice, the survey asked respondents which resources were most helpful (they could choose up to three) as they designed or delivered online or blended courses.

Advice or insights from fellow faculty members at their institutions led both lists (for course design and delivery, at 56 and 53 percent, respectively). On designing courses, professors also listed instructional designers and IT support staff at their institutions (32 percent each), students (at 29 percent), and their institution's teaching and learning center (25 percent).

On teaching and delivering courses, faculty colleagues were followed by insights or advice from students (44 percent), IT support staff (30 percent) and instructional designers (25 percent).

"Faculty who are engaged with online course design and teaching often have much to share with colleagues," said Riggs of Oregon State. "We encourage faculty-faculty sharing at Oregon State eCampus with our annual Faculty Forum event, an on-site conference where faculty share with other faculty their innovations, best practices and experience with online teaching. We also host smaller faculty luncheons quarterly to keep the sharing going throughout the year."
Too Much for Textbooks
Student concerns about the price of curricular materials continue to mount -- and the faculty is right there with them (up to a point).

Professors overwhelmingly agree (82 percent) that textbooks and course materials cost too much and that colleges should embrace open educational resources as an alternative (69 percent).

But fewer than a third of instructors (32 percent) agree that professors and institutions "should be open to changing textbooks or other materials to save students money, even if the lower-cost options are of lesser quality," and about a fifth (21 percent) agree that "the need to help students save money on textbooks justifies some loss of faculty member control over selection of materials for the courses they teach."

On those latter questions, there is significant daylight between the views of professors and other campus administrators queried in recent Inside Higher Ed surveys, as seen in the table below.

Instructors seem optimistic -- if still uncertain -- about the possible value of the traditional textbook publishers' approach to lowering student spending on textbooks: "inclusive access" subscription programs, which make digital course content available to students on the first day of class at a discounted rate that is often included as part of tuition.

About four in 10 professors said they believed the programs were achieving twin goals of reducing the cost of course materials and improving education outcomes, about a third said inclusive access was lowering costs but not improving access, and 20 percent said the programs did neither.

Nearly three in five instructors (59 percent) said it was too soon to say whether inclusive access was good for students, and about two-thirds (67 percent) said the adoption of such platforms by their institutions might limit faculty choice of course materials.
The Faculty Assessment of Assessment
Professors continue not to think very highly of efforts to assess how much students learn at their institutions -- but their opposition seems to be waning.

Don't get us wrong: they're not fans. Nearly half of instructors (49 percent) say their college's use of assessment is "more about keeping accreditors and politicians happy than it is about teaching and learning." And barely a third of professors agree that "these assessment efforts have improved the quality of teaching and learning at my institution" (33 percent) and that they "have received data derived from these efforts to improve my teaching" (34 percent).

But in 2018, 59 percent agreed with a (slightly different) statement that "assessment efforts seem primarily focused on satisfying outside groups such as accreditors or politicians." And just 25 percent agreed that assessment has improved the quality of teaching and learning at their institutions.
Cost and Price
Faculty members are evenly divided on whether "it is less expensive to offer an online course than an in-person course" -- 37 percent agree and 40 percent disagree. More than half of digital learning leaders, by contrast, disagree (55 percent, 33 percent strongly).

Both groups are more likely to disagree than to agree that online courses should be priced lower than in-person courses, and they are more likely to agree than to disagree that "online courses cost less than in-person courses only if institutions reduce their spending on faculty, student support or other important factors." Fifty-four percent of instructors agree with the latter statement, compared to 46 percent of digital learning leaders.

Instructors are more pessimistic about the ultimate promise of online education than their administrator peers, though. Forty-five percent of professors agree (31 percent disagree) that "there is an inevitable trade-off between price and quality in college courses," while digital learning leaders are more likely to disagree (61 percent) than to agree (23 percent)
Outside Vendors
One of the most significant areas of agreement between faculty members and administrators who oversee online education is a surprising one: their general distaste for using outside firms to build and manage their online academic programs. The companies are widely used by colleges, but their use is coming under increasing scrutiny from politicians and some college leaders.

Majorities of faculty members and of digital learning leaders oppose the use of external companies to provide a range of functions, including instructional design, offering student support, developing educational content or training the faculty.

The only area in which a majority of online education administrators (61 percent) and a near majority of faculty members (44 percent) favor the use of outside companies is in marketing to prospective students.
Learning Management Systems
Most colleges have technology platforms to deliver their online courses and manage some aspects of their in-person courses. But getting instructors to use the systems -- and for more than taking attendance -- has remained a struggle.

The chart below shows how faculty members say they are using their institution's LMS now -- and how that compares to previous years of the survey.

Among other findings:

Slightly more than two-thirds of instructors say their institution offers training on how to make course materials compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act. And the number of professors who say their courses include services that make them accessible to students with disabilities, including screen-reader capability, alternative text to visual elements and video captions, and audio transcription, are all up from 2018.

Three in five professors say they believe academic fraud occurs more often in online courses than in face-to-face courses. The rest say cheating occurs in both settings about equally. Digital learning leaders disagree: 86 percent say fraud happens in both settings equally.

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Faculty support for online learning builds slowly, steadily -- but not enthusiastically

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"Embrace" is probably too strong. "Acquiescence" suggests too much passivity. Whatever word you choose, though, the data indicate that American faculty members -- whether grudgingly or enthusiastically -- are increasingly participating in and, to a lesser extent, accepting the validity of online education.

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I like how many times I see the words "student" and "learner" on this board. It helps to remember who we are ultimately working for. -Julie

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I like how many times I see the words "student" and "learner" on this board. It helps to remember who we are ultimately working for. -Julie

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Here is a link to the simplified version of the quality checklist that we used in the peer review process for iSchool courses.  This gives you some idea of where we were going with this, although the previous draft we were working on included more elements and an actual rubric taking shape. (Posted by Judith - hope this link will work for all.)

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Brian, what a great article! It says what I've about our work--that empathy and compassion are at least as important as the mechanics of the newest technologies. 

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Brian, what a great article! It says what I've about our work--that empathy and compassion are at least as important as the mechanics of the newest technologies. 

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#1 Speak truth to power—an advocate for the learner’s experience

#2 Design work that leads to ‘purposeful contributions’—a guardian against ‘busy work'

#3 Course content strategist—the instructor’s equivalent to a politician’s speechwriter

#4 Designer—creative consultant focused on maximizing human engagement factors

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to be the advocate for all students

to apply evidence-based best practices to the design, delivery, and assessment of learning

to create instruction that produces measurable learning gains for students

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When people ask me what I do, I explain that my job is to work with faculty or other content experts to help them create engaging and effective online learning experiences. I totally recognize that I am still very new at this and that I don’t always know the answers, but that it’s my job to find the right tools and techniques to achieve that stated goal.

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To create transformational learning experience in collaboration with content experts.

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Faculty members and instructional designers work closely for many months converting an in-person class to an online one or developing an online course from scratch. While their work relationship is often amiable, tension and conflicts do arise.

Instructors, especially those who have taught a specific course for a long time, sometimes have difficulty involving a designer because they aren't comfortable with the changes and restructuring necessary to convert a face-to-face class to a viable online one. Meanwhile, designers, who typically have degrees or certifications in instructional design, say that they know how to build a robust, effective online course, and that instructors may not understand how much time, critical thinking and collaboration is involved.

Inside Digital Learning reached out to experts on both sides of the instructor-designer partnership to ask them for their ideas about how to work together collaboratively and manage any tension or conflict that may emerge. Their responses are below. Please leave your own ideas in the comments section at the bottom of this story.

***
When you are paired with a faculty member or instructional designer to develop an online course, how do you set expectations and define each person's role?
Robin Bartoletti, instructional designer, University of North Texas Health Science Center

The key word is empathy. Just as we need to build empathy with students in courses, we as IDs need to build empathy with faculty or subject matter experts. Empathy is a skill -- an instructional designer superpower, really -- that can be practiced and is essential for building the relationship that is needed to successfully work with faculty.

I cannot begin to understand how to partner with them until I understand where they are coming from. The process I use to empathize and connect before defining roles or expectations is to listen carefully and to understand. Were they sent to me? Do they want to be there? What is their own sense of their "busy-ness"? Do they know what they want?

Once I understand their emotional state, I can begin to interview for expectations and define roles. When I do not take time to empathize, it is not as successful.

Lorna Richey Kearns, director, Next Generation Learning Initiatives, University of Pittsburgh

I find it helpful to begin a new relationship by asking a lot of questions: What are the things that work well in your course? What are the things you struggle with? What are your worries in putting this course online? That last question can help to uncover misconceptions the instructor may have about online teaching and learning.

I like to be prepared to show the instructor a few different online courses, mostly to stimulate further conversation. It's the right time to clarify roles, to describe what I and my team will do and to articulate what we expect from the instructor. But every situation is unique and the primary focus of that first meeting should be about building the relationship.

William Diehl, assistant professor of education, coordinator of online graduate programs, Penn State University

Having a clearly defined and agreed upon timeline with detailed milestones for all parties is important. Whether or not the roles have been clearly defined by the academic organization, it is important to discuss roles in an initial kickoff meeting with all course-design and development team members present. This meeting can remind each individual that they each depend upon one another to achieve a successful outcome.

After an initial meeting with all team members, it's appropriate and valuable for the faculty member and instructional designer to meet to get to know one another and to discuss the finer details of their roles before the process begins. Having a discussion about individual workloads, past design experiences, organizational pressures, philosophies, strengths, weaknesses and passions can create a positive foundation moving forward.

Suzan Harkness, associate professor of political science, University of the District of Columbia

I think success in these pairings is to respect the roles each individual plays.The faculty member is the content-subject matter expert, and the instructional designer is the expert in "operationalizing" the delivery of content and the subject-matter material in a way that is easy to navigate and aligned appropriately.

Building relationships outside of the on-task roles facilitates smoother interactions. Therefore, engaging in coffee/tea or short meetings to present new tools and successes builds relationships that sustain respectful partnerships when course development gets underway.

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What methods are particularly effective for avoiding conflict or tension with the instructor or designer?
Wanda Tucker, faculty chair of psychology, philosophy and religious studies, Rio Salado College

"Effective communication is key. [My instructional designer] provides bi-weekly updates on the progress of each product. He is comfortable with bringing to my attention any pending issues or potential areas of conflict. In addition, he works closely with my instructional coordinator to correct issues and close any loops. I establish clear expectations and constantly update [the designer] on changing dynamics.

Amy Grincewicz, senior instructional designer, Kent State University

Having a shared vision ensures everyone has a common destination and a common picture. They then collaborate as a team, supporting and encouraging each other. There is no competition between people, therefore there is no need to pass blame or hide your challenges and ideas. When we have a shared vision, we recognize that an entire organization consists of many parts that need to work together to create high-quality learning environments.

For these environments to be successful, they must be innovative to attract students and create a competitive advantage. ID leaders can improve collaboration and innovation by creating a friendly working environment where all ideas are welcome. This environments encourages respect, value, harnesses the richness of all ideas, backgrounds and perspectives. Enthusiasm also helps create a friendly environment.

Steven Crawford, associate director of academic innovation, College of Nursing and Health Innovation, Arizona State University

It is important for us to get to know each other and establish a working relationship, and this cannot be done in a couple of email exchanges or episodic meetings. By having regular and open conversations, we are able to become more of a team or partnership.

Bartoletti: Sometimes you have a faculty member who has strong opinions about how the instructional designer/faculty relationship should be -- and that is OK. I am willing to do some things that I normally do not do, that a faculty member should probably do themselves (like building assessments in the [learning management system], which is tedious at times), to establish a positive relationship. After that it is easier to suggest faculty try the thing themselves and then reset the expectations that I am a consultant and partner. I also offer recommendations based on evidence from academic literature if I must (gently) push back on faculty for anything. Knowing your learning research is another instructional-design superpower.

Kearns: Being respectful of the instructor's time is extremely important. Acknowledging the myriad responsibilities of a typical instructor in higher education sends the message that the instructional designer understands the realities of academic life. Once the exchange of information begins, I make every effort to make sure instructors know that their input is being acted on. If a video is shot, let's get a sample to show the instructor as soon as possible. If the instructor has turned in the majority of the material that I've requested for one of the online learning modules, let's build that module on the learning management platform and show the instructor what it looks like.

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How do you effectively respond when conflict or tension arises during the online course development process?
Diehl: My philosophy is to recognize it and to address it directly, especially if it is going to jeopardize the course quality and development process. Thinking of your relationship with the instructional designer as a long-term relationship is important. Hopefully the instructional designer and faculty member or subject-matter expert can agree that the student learning experience is paramount so that can be the common ground that both can return to if process or philosophical differences arise.

Crawford: I try to understand the position of the instructional designer. If an instructional designer is trying to persuade me to do something that I am uncomfortable with, then I want them to provide me with an evidence-based rationale as to why their idea should be followed. If we are building a new course, I may be willing to try their idea in the next iteration of the course as it may not be a technology or assessment approach with which I am comfortable. Hopefully the source of the conflict or tension is over how to achieve our goal as opposed to what our goal should be. Most often we are trying to achieve the same goal, but using a different method.

Tucker: We have established a mutual respect and understanding that involves a recognition of the expertise of each other and our roles and responsibilities. It is acknowledged that I ultimately own the product. However, my designer is comfortable with bringing to my attention any challenges that impede the development process or potential improvements. For example, it is not uncommon for me to have lofty goals and add to our bucket list, additional projects. My designer contacted me and expressed that my desired outcomes were weighing heavily on all parties. This allowed me to revise the timeline of the deliverables.

Sandra Johnson, instructional consultant, New Mexico State University

Our university uses a quality metric that all online courses are expected to meet. Since the metric is set by the university and not from me, I have very little conflict. Both sides know what we have to do -- meet the metric for an online course. This removes any conflict between the two of us. If we do have a conflict, I practice my active listening skills to understand what it is that they really want to do. We can usually come to an agreement of doing what they want in a way that works for an online course.

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Roundup of instructional designers and faculty ideas for working together

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Faculty members and instructional designers work closely for many months converting an in-person class to an online one or developing an online course from scratch. While their work relationship is often amiable, tension and conflicts do arise.

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To facilitate the creation of *meaningful* learning experiences.

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Writing, not teaching. This is what Peter Horrocks, had to say about the faculty's work at England's Open University... where he is Vice Chancellor. Writing, not teaching. The VC offered a deluge of disparaging comments about the work of OU faculty, in particular an accusation that these faculty are not teachers at all. "It's ridiculous that they're spoken about as teaching when they are writing, that's not teaching. And they used to teach in residential [universities] and this university has allowed central academics to get away with not being teachers for decades."

The absurdity of these comments is manifold. On the one hand, Horrocks is deeply undermining the work of his own institution-an institution with an international reputation for innovation and quality in online learning. On another hand, the VC is betraying his own naivete about what teaching is in a digital world. Upon a landscape where Facebook data can be used to wrongfully elect an American president, and where hand-held devices now create the filter through which we meet one another, date one another, and form lasting, meaningful, productive collegial relationships, it's frankly absurd to think that teaching and learning would remain untouched by the changes wrought upon our social and professional lives by digital technology. To make any assumption of what teaching is today is hubris at best. (The VC has since apologized for his remarks.)

We cannot call one thing teaching any more. We cannot call it teaching if we stand in front of a classroom situated down the hall of an ivied old building, and then call nothing else teaching. Lecturing isn't teaching. Assigning group work isn't teaching. Writing a lesson plan isn't teaching. Creating a discussion prompt isn't teaching. Figuring out how to join a video conference with your class. Meeting with a student, responding to an email, getting creative about grading. Not teaching. Not unless all of these things are.

Where Peter Horrocks was speaking about the faculty at Open University, his remarks reflect also the prevalent opinion about instructional designers across higher education. The instructional designer - a title used as commonly in corporate settings as in educational ones - is a generally misunderstood figure in academia, and one that struggles to find its place in the hierarchies of expertise and reputation that form the infrastructure of academic life. And so, catapulting from a critique and rumination on the Vice Chancellor's remarks, I want to turn a careful, compassionate eye on instructional designers.

Instructional designers are teachers. Three-fold. On Monday, they are teachers of teachers, assisting with the framing of an instructor's ideas for their class into the shape of the LMS or other digital platform. They know, or should know, what is possible, what isn't possible, what stretches the boundaries of tradition, and what bends toward new and imaginative applications. But to define instructional designers as only this, as experts in content delivery, is reductive and incorrect. Because instructional designers are not IT staff. They are not technologists. At the root of what they do is a maddening desire to create meaningful learning experiences in digital space.

Instructional designers, then, understand digital space. They understand learning. They understand teaching. And they understand technology.

But their week doesn't end on Monday. By Wednesday, they have moved from teaching teachers to teaching students. It's a mistake to think that an instructional designer ever disappears from an online course. Their fingerprints are upon the pages, the discussions, the quizzes, the assignments. An instructional designer may have touched every piece of a course before it's offered, may have helped with the logical arrangement of ideas, of digital components, with the flow of the course, the scaffolding, the movement from beginning to end of the narrative and story the course tells. As creative as a teacher wishes to be in the presentation of the course - from the use of traditional online techniques like discussions and video lectures, to deeply particular decisions about interactivity, open educational resources, and more - the instructional designer has to be that much more creative. It's their job to watch out for the student, to make sure that they will be able not only to follow the course, and locate relevant information like due dates and assignment descriptions, but also that they'll enjoy the course, get something from the course, and remember the course as a true college experience.

Instructional designers, then, must have empathy, a natural sense for how a student will feel about the LMS, about the presentation of course materials. And they must have nothing short of brilliant ideas about how to help students engage in the community of the online classroom from all their remote locations.

On Friday, instructional designers become teachers of institutions. They wade patiently into meeting after meeting and memo after memo about the importance of "student success" (read: retention and graduation rates), analytics and reporting, and the trials and tribulations of serving a faculty population that not only doesn't know what instructional designers do (they're either overpaid help desk people or magical unicorns), but that also resists going digital at all. Instructional designers are at the center of the battle over the place of digital learning in the scope and hopes and dreams of their institutions. They make cases for the need for more and better resources, and they maintain an encyclopedic knowledge of the digital tools available to meet institutional goals.

And yet, instructional designers are often operating under less-than-minimum circumstances. There are teams separated by departments (some in IT, some in Digital Learning offices); there are teams whose ideological goals are subsumed by the chop-shop grind of uploading videos, fixing quizzes, helping teachers log in (again) to their courses. They are usually much smaller groups than they should be, and underfunded.

Instructional designers shouldn't have to face a scarcity of resources, especially when a university pins its hopes on raising enrollment through online course offerings. The work that offices of Digital Learning do is rarely given the support required. And the support that digital learning needs isn't just financial. Instructional design needs an investment of trust - from the administration, from digitally timid staff and faculty - and an investment of the same ideologies that support the rest of learning as it happens at the institution.

The last thing digital learning or instructional design needs is reinforcement that online teaching isn't teaching... or that instructional design isn't teaching also.

I have painted the instructional designer as something of a hero. Many of them are. I have met some who are so committed to students and to learning online that they will not be satisfied until college is successfully translated for students who cannot come to campus. They wield compassion and empathy before they turn to digital tools, and they show up to work hopeful and determined. These are the instructional designers who are dissatisfied with the progress the field has made. But they use this dissatisfaction to drive an imagination for better things.

But I should also be honest: this is not the majority of instructional designers. Not because they are unwilling to be all that and a bag of chips, but because even most instructional designers do not understand what an instructional designer is.

Skills-based and outcomes-based, positivist-inclined, Bloomsy instructional design training programs, often disguised as advanced degrees or certificate programs in online teaching, have perpetuated the notion that instructional designers are computational, technicist, and mechanistic in their work. Most instructional designers are taught that their work should consist of aligning outcomes to assessments, assessments to assignments, assignments to content. That they should be masters of Screencast-o-Matic and Powerpoint and Voicethread rather than teachers. Courses are not compositions for these instructional designers, but rather blocks fit together and packaged, tied round with a rubric for a bow. Most are satisfied with this.

But I am not. Design has so much more potential. Understanding the full impact of instructional design requires reflection, and not a little humility. Amy Collier, Associate Provost for Digital Learning at Middlebury College, writes:

Design is not a neutral activity. We design through our own lenses, assumptions, politics, goals, beliefs about the world - through our own humanity. Instructional design is no different, whether you are someone with an Instructional Designer title, or someone who does instructional design as part of their work (e.g., a faculty member). Our instructional designs - both digital and analog, implicit and explicit - embody what we believe about students, about education, about the goals of learning. Taking the time to recognize and critically visit our design principles can help us to be aware of how they influence our course designs.

In this time of ballooning online course offerings, attention to design - and recognition of design as teaching - is vital. Words on a page are seats in a room. "For the vast majority of students learning in fully online classes," I've said elsewhere, "the LMS may be their classroom, but you are their campus. You are their connection to what it means to be a student." Design is the secret to creating online a chemistry that parallels the delight and argument, the spontaneity and confusion, the peak moments and revelations of an on-ground class.

The best instructional designers will recognize their role in making learning online meaningful, and not just instructional. But they cannot do that - and we cannot cultivate more "best" instructional designers - unless we recognize the essential, productive, imaginative, pedagogical role they play in digital learning. We must likewise recognize that the field of instructional design is morbidly misconceived by most institutions that employ them and by most programs that train them. The future of digital learning, which is the Tinman to the Dorothy of higher education, depends on taking seriously the work of instructional designers as teachers, both by pushing them to be more and acknowledging when they are far more than we realized.

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Instructional Designers Are Teachers | Hybrid Pedagogy

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Writing, not teaching. This is what Peter Horrocks, had to say about the faculty's work at England's Open University... where he is Vice Chancellor. Writing, not teaching. The VC offered a deluge of disparaging comments about the work of OU faculty, in particular an accusation that these faculty are not teachers at all.

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We are teachers, helping developers and/or instructors create courses that give learners the skills and knowledge they need

Paradoxically, we also function as the developer/instructor’s first students, asking questions like “Should students already know this information or do we need to teach it?”

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To create learning experiences that engage the learner and motivate users to continue learning

Consistently improve learning outcomes and assist students in connecting with content.

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To stay abreast of research-based practices.

To integrate these practices to build beautiful courses in real and virtual spaces to support genuine learning.

To create authentic interaction to foster motivation, engagement, and learning.

To iterate and continually improve skills and abilities.