The wash-rinse-repeat model of refreshing courses each term might be a financially beneficial model for the institution, yet is it serving students the best educational experience? If all that is monitored in the pre-flight check is for broken hyperlinks and refreshed dates, who is ensuring the quality delivery? Many institutions proudly boast…

Today's undergraduate students often must balance coursework with other personal and professional commitments. While much attention has been placed on effective strategies for helping students manage workload, curriculum optimization has been largely overlooked. In an analysis of a university lower-level online STEM course, a course redesign…

The purpose of this study is twofold. We first test if there is a significant difference in the means of final course completion grades between two instructional modalities, face-to-face and online, in a required Introductory Economics course at a large, public, southeastern university. We then examine various determinants as potential predictors…

Curriculum mapping can be used to visualize, align, and assess the ability of online degree program graduates to meet stated learning outcomes (Rawle et al., 2017). Though consensus has yet to be established on standardized outcomes for curriculum in some disciplines (e.g., criminal justice), educators remain in charge of preparing current and…

Universities increasingly integrate online education into their pedagogical practices, utilizing digital tools like video conferencing and discussion boards to enhance learning and foster global collaboration. Research shows that technology influences social interactions and collaborative problem-solving, positively impacting student engagement,…

This research study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, course delivery modality, and student engagement on student performance in data collected from business statistics courses at a medium-sized southeastern public university. Our data analysis suggests student engagement and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are the…

Online learning in higher education continues to grow due to the flexibility it offers learners. Adult learners choose online learning at a rate much higher than residential learning. Adult learners in the online environment tend to be retained at a lower rate. To counteract lower retention rates, understanding student needs through targeted…

Online doctoral education is expanding; however, there is a paucity of research on the predictors of student success in these programs. Institutional leaders struggle to provide the academic environment and interventions to help online doctoral students make continual progress and complete their doctoral research, especially in open enrollment…

While competency-based education is growing, standardized tools for evaluating the unique characteristics of course design in this domain are still under development. This preliminary research study evaluated the effectiveness of a rubric developed for assessing course design of competency-based courses in an undergraduate Information Technology…

This paper reports two related studies on the role of student work, university connectedness, and taking online courses on college student academic success. In study 1, it was found that differences in GPA between students taking varying numbers of courses online is predicted by the number of hours students are working and not course format. It…

Online programs are often viewed as a cost-efficient strategy for increasing revenue for shrinking university budgets but this may not be an accurate assessment. Responsibility Centered Management (RCM) is a budgeting model that is purported to increase efficient delivery of academic programs. As RCM budgeting models have been embraced, many…

A continued need exists for community college administrators to develop and implement strategies to ensure sufficient staffing to meet demand for online courses and promote student success. The problem this study addressed was threefold. First, online instructors in the local setting are overextended and are consequently unable to implement best…

To facilitate student learning and ensure financial stability, leaders in higher education institutions offering online degrees and programs are adopting flexible course schedules with shorter terms. The literature does not include many evaluations demonstrating how shorter duration terms and courses might affect student achievement. In this…

Classroom discussion boards are a vital part of the online educational experience, providing a venue for peer to peer and student to faculty interactions. However, institutional feedback from students at a large open enrollment university has shown that excess focus on online discussions may lead to fatigue, resulting in lower student…

Online education programs continue to rely on a significant contingent of adjunct faculty to meet the instructional needs of the students. Discourse relating to this situation primarily focuses on the extent to which adjuncts are able to ensure the rigor and quality of instruction as well as the ability of the organization to attract, retain, and…