Research Paper

IDT 846
Kate Prudchenko

Over the last two decades, advances in computer and online technologies resulted in the
creation of numerous telecommuting employment opportunities. One particularly fast growing
field with a lot of demand is distance education. Online courses are becoming increasingly more
popular in traditional colleges and universities and institutions are meeting this growing demand
by hiring more part time online instructors. These faculty members rarely, if ever, come to
campus and often teach at many institutions simultaneously. Their pay is significantly less than
that of full time faculty members and they do not receive any benefits such as health insurance
and sick days. As a result, many online adjuncts are prone to feelings of isolation and
disconnection that have an adverse effect on the quality of instruction that they provide their
students. Furthermore, with more traditional universities and community colleges offering online
courses, students are no longer limited to the higher education institutions that are located in
close proximity to their homes. They now have the choice to complete their degrees at similar
schools that provide them with higher quality education. Institutions that want to both save
money by hiring online adjuncts and remain competitive by providing students with motivated
and engaged instructors must make an effort to make their part time distance faculty members
feel valued. In particular, they should try to diminish their employees’ feelings of disconnection
by providing online training sessions that address instructional strategies and technology support
and open channels of communication.
Enrollments in online courses continue to grow at higher rates than the total higher
education student population (Allen & Seaman, 2010). Community colleges, for example,
reported a 22% increase in distance education enrollments from fall 2007 to fall 2008
(Instructional Technology Council, 2010). Naturally, these enrollment figures are driving the
demand for more faculty members and causing a significant increase in adjunct faculty (Tipple,
2010). In 2009, 67% of all community college faculty members were part time instructors
(Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2009). Institutions are hiring more
adjuncts because they are significantly cheaper than full time faculty members and they are
assigning them more online courses. For example, at four year universities, 32.4% of adjuncts
and 22.2% of full time professors teach online courses, respectively (Seaman, 2009). Since part
time work does not provide employees with benefits such as health insurance and vacation, many
online adjuncts, not surprisingly, indicate that they are unhappy with their compensation (Dolan,
2011). Gulf Coast Community College (2011), for example, pays $572 per credit hour or $1716
per three credit semester course. Instructors are rarely able to get assigned more than one or two
classes per institution and must therefore seek additional courses elsewhere.
Traditional adjunct instructors are often dissatisfied with their part time positions and this
dissatisfaction is known to impact the quality of their work (Gordon, 2003). Their teaching skills
are considered inferior to those of full time faculty and they are often blamed for decreasing the
quality of education offered by the institution as a whole (Gordon, 2003). Online adjunct
instructors face even more challenges. Their absence from campus can make them feel isolated
and disconnected from the institution that employs them. This disconnection is a major problem
since it has been suggested that employee motivation comes from a sense of affiliation with their
place of work and from the feeling of being valued (Fukuyama, 1995). Furthermore, employees
who do not feel positively connected to their colleagues and supported by the administration,
have negligible or nonexistent commitment to the department and the institution as a whole
(Roberts, Thomas, McFadden, and Jacobs, 2006). These individuals are less motivated to work
hard, less focused on their teaching, and less committed to their students (Fouche, 2005). And
while enrollment in online courses is on the rise, student retention remains a problem. Instructors
have to be able to create an engaged online classroom and their ability and motivation to do so is
largely dependent on their own connection to the institution. Therefore, institutions that would
like to improve the quality of instruction, decrease turnover rates and minimize the costs
associated with hiring new instructors but make online adjuncts feel valued. If they cannot do so
by increasing their compensation, then they must do so by addressing and helping their
employees’ overcome their feelings of disconnection.
One of the major reasons for online adjunct faculty’s feelings of isolation is the lack of
community in their work environment. Distance education adjuncts work from home and often
teach courses at numerous colleges simultaneously. Their natural feelings of isolation are
promoted when they do not have a reasonable amount of interaction with their colleagues and
administrators (Dolan, 2011). Furthermore, while technology may facilitate dialogue and
knowledge exchange it does not by itself create a community (Helms & Raiszadeh, 2002).
Therefore it is up to the institution and the administrators to open channels of communication in
order to facilitate trust and loyalty in their employees.
Once an institution is committed to creating a sense of community for its employees, it
must begin by addressing the needs of those employees. In particular, various research indicates
that online instruction is different from traditional instruction in that online instructors have to
fulfill different roles and competencies (Berge, 1995; Goodyear, Salmon, Spector, Steeples, &
Tickner, 2001; Ragan, 2009; Smith, 2005; Varvel, 2007). For example, one of the factors that
make experienced online instructors more effective than new online instructors is their ability to
play various roles. Experienced online instructors are able to enact social, managerial, and
pedagogical roles in order to engage learners but novice instructors generally only enact social
and pedagogical roles (Morris & Finnegan, 2008-2009). Thus the ability to gain certain insights
into the online teaching process would greatly ensure novice online instructors’ success in
delivering effective instruction.
One of the ways that institutions can both promote a sense of community in their
remotely located part time employees and address their inexperience in teaching online is
through appropriate training seminars. Unfortunately, few of them do. 19% of institutions do not
offer novice online adjuncts any training (Shattuck, Dubins, & Zilberman, 2011). Of the 81% of
institutions that do, 65% offer optional training in the form of internal on-campus sessions or
informal on-campus mentoring sessions (Allen & Seaman, 2010). While periodic face to face
meetings help build emotional ties between telecommuting employees and the institution, this
approach is not realistic for online adjuncts (Dolan, 2011). They are online part time employees
who are located hundreds or thousands of miles from campus. Instead of making training
optional or reimbursing travel expenses, institutions should instead deliver training online.
Many new online instructors have no previous experience with online classes, either as
teachers or students, and many are concerned with the lack of professional development that
their positions offer them (Blodgett, 2008). Furthermore, many online adjuncts also indicate the
need for training in the use of online formats (Dolan, 2011). Thus by providing them with formal
but flexible online training seminars, institutions will create a space for online instructors to
connect with their colleagues and the administration, learn about technology and online teaching
strategies, and experience online instruction from the student’s point of view.
 Furthermore, institutions can also use these online training sessions to address other
issues that telecommuting faculty members face. Faculty members who work not only part time
but also remotely do not feel the same sense of loyalty to their employer as traditional on-campus
faculty members. They are often employed by more than one institution and are likely to work
harder and be more engaged with students at the institution where they feel more valued. Thus
institutions that take the time to make their online adjuncts feel like they are an important part of
the school’s community will likely increase their quality of the classes, decrease faculty turnover
and increase student retention.
One way that online training sessions can facilitate a sense of community is by
encouraging communication. Administrators should take advantage of telecommuting
technologies to facilitate social bonds with and among their telecommuting employees (Brignall
III & Van Valey, 2005). In particular, they should use online training sessions to introduce
everyone to each other and encourage them to contact one another throughout the semester.
Research indicates a correlation between frequency of communication and commitment to the
institution, a sense of affiliation with the school, and degree of interpersonal trust (Marshall,
Michaels, & Mulki, 2007). In particular, online adjuncts indicate that they want to be more
informed about various campus issues like news and events that may apply to their students
(Dolan, 2011). They also want to be more informed about changes and developments in the
technology that they use for the course in order to stay current and take advantage of the new
features. These communications however do not always have to be specifically work related.
Institutions should not underestimate the importance of creating opportunities for casual
interactions (Dolan, 2011). Social networking sites, for example, are great tools to get to know
colleagues on a more personal level without specific and particular direct contact. These types of
casual exchanges create a level of comfort for people communicating at a distance and facilitate
a sense of belonging. Furthermore, they encourage stronger connections to the school’s
community and promote not only student but also faculty retention.
Opening up channels of communication is essential to encouraging interaction. Various
research on motivational, pedagogical, and economic costs and benefits of interaction indicates
that interaction is essential to the success of a distance education course (Garrison, 2000;
Holmberg, 1991; Moore & Kearsley, 1996; Anderson & Garrison, 1995; Henri & Rigault, 1996;
Saba & Shearer, 1994; Soo & Bonk, 1998). Limited interaction results in poorer student
motivation, retention and learning. The same thing can be said about interaction among online
adjuncts, their colleagues, and the administrators. Limited interaction opportunities are
detrimental to employee morale and result in lower quality of instruction for students (Dolan,
2011). Thus online training sessions should emphasize interaction in order to demonstrate good
online teaching practices to online adjuncts.
Besides engaging in communication and interaction, administrators should also provide
online adjuncts with feedback. Feedback is essential in any work environment because it reduces
feelings of isolation and insecurity (Connor, 2003). While online training seminars are an
inappropriate forum for this private input, they do set the stage by introducing the adjuncts to the
individuals providing them with feedback. Employees are more receptive to input when it comes
from people they know and trust. Thus establishing familiarity in the training session will make
instructors more comfortable to receive feedback and more likely to follow through with any
suggested changes to their behavior.
Administrators should also avoid contacting instructors exclusively to address problems.
Online adjuncts indicate that the only contact that get from administrators during the semester is
feedback regarding poor performance (Dolan, 2011). This type of continuous negative feedback
promotes feelings of isolation if it is not accompanied by additional situation appropriate praise.
If additional positive feedback throughout the semester is not possible, administrators should
provide employees with performance evaluations that address both their strengths and
weaknesses, on a semi-annual or regular basis.
Conclusions

Part time distance education faculty members rarely, if ever, come to campus and often
teach at many institutions at once. Thus they place a particular emphasis on constant and clear
communication with their administrators. The solitary nature of their jobs encourages feelings of
disconnection and isolation from the school’s community and as a result they require even more
input and feedback from the administration than other employees. Many online adjuncts also
have little or no prior online teaching experience. Online teaching requires different instructional
strategies and requires faculty members to fulfill additional social and managerial roles. Being
effective classroom teachers is not necessarily enough to make experienced educators effective
online instructors. Thus new online faculty members require a degree of support from the
administration in order to ensure their effectiveness in the distance learning classroom.
The primary concern for remotely located faculty members is communication. In
particular, they indicate a need for clear and frequent communication from administrators so that
they can provide the same thing to their students. The physical distance between online
instructors and their classroom requires a stable technology in order to effectively communicate
with their students. As a result, online instructors rely on a reliable and easy to use learning
management system. The learning management system and its appropriate technology support
are just some of the aspects of the course that are organized by the administrators that require
constant communication in form of updates to ensure the success of the online instructor’s
effectiveness.
A great way for higher education administrators to facilitate communication and to
promote stronger connections within the institution is to conduct online training sessions.
Training sessions conducted using videoconferencing technology such as Polycom or Adobe
Connect will provide remotely located employees with face to face contact with each other and
their administrators. They will allow instructors to become familiar with the technology and/or
learning management system and to learn effective online instruction strategies. Besides
requiring no travel time or expenses, online training sessions are also more appropriate for online
instructors than traditional on-campus training courses because they give them the opportunity to
experience online instruction from their student’s point of view.
Institutions that are looking for ways to save money and optimize the quality of their
education should invest in online training for their growing numbers of online part time
instructors. These inexpensive alternatives to on-campus training strengthen social bonds by
allowing remotely located instructors build connections and feel a sense of community with their
colleagues and the school. Training sessions should encourage attendees to contact and
communicate with one another using email and social networking sites. These tools assist in
decreasing feelings of isolation and disconnection and increase feelings of loyalty and
cooperation. Since social connections to peers is a strong predictor of job satisfaction (Putnam,
2000), institutions should go out of way to create and foster these inexpensive ways of providing
their underpaid part time employees with a sense of value. Employees who experience increased
feelings of familiarity and belonging and a stronger sense of trust with their institutions become
more reliable, motivated and dedicated instructors. As a result, institutions benefit by increasing
student satisfaction and student and online adjunct retention.

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