Tonight I watched the QM session entitled “CHLOE 7: Tracking Online Learning from Mainstream Acceptance to Universal Adoption. CHLOE stands for The Changing Landscape of Online Education. Richard Garnett, Eduventures Chief Research Officer at Encoura, was the first speaker. Dr. Bethany Simunich, Director of Research and Innovation at Quality Matters was the co-presenter. Over the past three years, I have enjoyed learning about QM and online education/teaching. CHLOE 7 is a survey with 311 US institutions represented. Garnett mentioned the response rate was down about 100 responses from CHLOE 6 in 2020 likely because CHLOE 7 was done in early 2022 during the peak of the omicron COVID-19 variant. Student interest in online education appears to have increased through the first 18 months of the pandemic according to chief online officers (COOs). Interestingly, Garnett shared the response to this question: what will delivery mode look like in 2025? : “COOs see a more online near-future than today for traditional undergraduates but a more hybrid future for adults/graduate students.” Simunich spoke about the results of the survey in terms of faculty support. Simunich noted big increases in faculty support for student mental health. COOs prioritized faculty support and professional development for online courses. Garnett shared data suggesting institutions now have more centralized online student services. Also, with scale, integration of online student support services seem to increase. Compared to CHLOE 4, all online student support services have become more integrated. Fee-for-service for online services and outsourcing has become more common too. Specialized online learning staff are now more common but still small numbers. The typical institution had few educational technologists, instructional designers and other staff (advisors) specialized in online education. Simunich shared data that most institutions surveyed had adopted standards and had mechanisms for evaluating courses using standards. The survey results were useful to keep in mind as we complete more QM training and think about submitting new courses.
