In order to engage and support distance learners, the distance and online advising teams overseeing them must address certain critical areas, according to a group of speakers representing the Canadian Virtual University.

Leena Niemela, Manager, Admissions and Advising, Thompson Rivers University, Open Learning (TRU-OL), accepted an invitation from the Canadian Virtual University (CVU) to co-present at the 57th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for University Continuing Education (CAUCE) which was held in Fredericton, New Brunswick this June. At the conference, Niemela co-presented with CVU partners Lori Wallace, Dean, Extended Education, University of Manitoba and Karen Wong, Director, Learner Support Services, Athabasca University, on the topic of “Fine-Tuning Distance and Online Advising.”

The panel presented discussions relating three critical areas which must be addressed if distance and online advising units are to successfully engage and support distance learners. Wong provided a demonstration of student tracking software that has enabled advising staff at Athabasca University to maintain consistency in communications with individual students, regardless of when and how the student contacts Athabasca’s advising team. Wallace provided an overview of the University of Manitoba’s business processes and strategies that address the challenges inherent to advising students from all over the world, with a special focus on students serving in the military.

Niemela discussed the importance of putting together an advising team that is both highly specialized in academic disciplines, but that also addresses the general information needs of all program students. She reviewed the recent successes which TRU-OL’s advisors achieved through a rigorous cross-training exercise that increased the ability of the enrolment service advising and program advising units to work together, and most importantly provide a streamlined, well-informed and personalized experience for Open Learning program students.

"Technology and business processes designed to engage, track and communicate with distance learners are critical tools to a successful distance advising unit; but the people who use those tools, how they work together as a team, are the most important piece in this puzzle," Niemela summarized.

The presentation and subsequent discussion was well-received at the conference as many Canadian universities are now dealing with distance and online education as a mainstream reality; CVU’s nine Canadian university partners now tally over 100,000 students taking distance or online courses.

For more information about CAUCE please visit http://cauce-aepuc.ca/default.aspx and for visit www.cvu-uvc.ca for more information about CVU.

Here comes the drab and dire truth, it is fall.No longer can we look forward to warm,sunny mornings and lazy afternoons lolling on the beach, greatly increasing our Vitamin D stores. However, the fall isn’t just about endings; enter a new year of post-secondary studies. Currently, the world of education is itself, entering into new beginnings.

The reality is the face of education is changing. Classrooms from kindergarten onwards are becoming “wired,” with computers operating in conjunction with chalkboards. More and more, technology is becoming a staple in the classroom at all levels and more and more, technology is becoming second nature to students connected to a near limitless world of learning and information.

In the post-secondary sector, online learning, spurred by the ever expanding world of technology, offers a real and revered alternative to in-class studies. The question this raises, as suggested in a Globe and Mail column written by Gwyn Morgan, is what does this mean for the future of the formal lecture, the status quo of the post-secondary classroom experience and the professors who guide it?

In his column published in the Globe and Mail on October 3, Morgan suggests that the emergence of online learning gives students many alternatives to attending professor performed in-class lectures. He suggests that there is no reason why all written course material can’t be delivered by the Internet. While textbooks are still an option for many OL courses, Morgan’s suggestion truly encompasses the open learning model. So, while it is possible to eliminate formal lectures altogether, as he proposes, is this the ideal situation for all students?

As Morgan suggests in his column, which is largely a rant about the efficacy of the role of the campus-based professor at post-secondary institutions, online learning does offer a high-end formal teaching product but it doesn’t deliver teacher-student interaction. For some students who perhaps are not as personally driven and self-motivated as others, contact with their teacher and the merit of being seen in class, as well as the social aspect of in-class attendance, is what keeps them moving along in their post-secondary studies. The reality is online and distance education is a great alternative which offers a quality teaching product that transcends time and space, but this model is not for everyone. Perhaps, as Morgan suggests, the online and distance alternative will spur a competitive response from the traditional model that “will make university life better for both faculty and students.” Or perhaps, it is the marriage of the two modes of learning that will encourage the rise of the engaged learner. The student who both embraces technology and is inspired by the quest for knowledge it evokes, and also poses questions and discussions with the professor who helps them navigate the new information and reason through it.

Now, more than ever, the role of professor and OL Faculty Member is integral to the student experience as they are coming to us full of passion and knowledge.

One thing that is certain is that we at Thompson Rivers University are perfectly positioned to tackle the evolution of education head on as we offer both formal on-campus studies and a growing online and distance education offering through Open Learning.