An Analysis of Career Building Tools for Online Adjunct Faculty: The Sustainable Affects of Adjunct Publishing

Transcription

1 An Analysis of Career Building Tools for Online Adjunct Faculty: The Sustainable Affects of Adjunct Publishing Dustin Bessette Doctoral Student National Graduate School of Quality Systems Management Kim Brown- Jackson Doctoral Student National Graduate School of Quality Systems Management Sharon L. Burton Doctoral Student National Graduate School of Quality Systems Management Abstract: The value of adjunct online professors has gradually increased at many institutions. This increase of faculty also helps the reputation of the institution by adding professionals whose backgrounds create a diverse interest for department chairs and add collective data from several fields. Tenured faculty are known for their valuable publishing in top tier journals and their intellectual knowledge of various subjects. Published works assist online adjunct faculty in gaining and receiving various incentives that help them pursue advances within their departments. The main problem lies within certain incentives and how online adjunct faculty are able to advance based upon receiving these benefits. Online adjunct faculty currently does not receive the same incentives and benefits as that of tenured traditional faculty. This incentives and benefits problem causes variations that create negative bias against online adjunct faculty within academic departments. To assist professionals in terms of advancement and institutional reputation, publishing and receiving recognition is one of the most valued items that any one professional can receive. The main focus of this paper is to assist the audience s perception of the value of publishing in the academic arena through the lens of online adjunct faculty. The researchers will locate operational focal points requiring business process improvements that institutions can embrace to enhance incentives and performance of online adjunct faculty. Some of the focused items will be the following; conference reimbursement, quality of information collected, types of published work, reputation of journals, quality of published work, and how institutions can best use adjunct faculty members published works. Keywords: Online Adjunct Faculty, Publishing, Associate Faculty, Sustainable Affects

2 Statement of the Problem The knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies demonstrated by online adjunct faculty is not widely recognized in academe. This lack of recognition leads to adjuncts not receiving the same incentives and benefits as that of tenured traditional faculty. This recognition comes through the channels of publishing. Increased numbers of students returning to college to enhance their skills as well as the rapid need for online adjunct faculty produced a perfect storm. This storm- a trained online adjunct faculty team, tenured faculty, and inequitable benefits are forcing a change in the manner in which educational institutions provide incentives and reward the performance of their online adjunct faculty. Face- to- face education is no longer the commonly recognized manner of education. Online education evolved and transmuted into blended learning, a combination of face- to- face and distance education, along with distance education and learning without the face- to- face element. Today s online adjunct faculty face issues such as: (1) incentives and compensation, (2) types of journals works are published, and (3) how institutions can best use online adjunct faculty members published works. Purpose of the Paper The principal goal of this paper is to determine best practices for supporting online adjunct faculty s efforts in teaching arena. This goal will be met by investigating, collecting and then analyzing information in relation to inequality amidst adjuncts and their tenure tracked colleagues. The issues: (1) incentives and compensation, (2) types of journals works are published, and (3) how institutions of higher education can use the online adjuncts published works to advance the cause of the institutions. These five issues will be studied and analyzed regarding their effects on online adjunct faculty. Because these concerns correlate to one another, they will be scrutinized independently, and later merged

3 together to formulate a current adjunct faculty development and publishing plan best practices model. The main focus of this paper is to assist the audience s perceptions of the value of publishing in the academic arena. Frameworks Over the previous ten years online education enrollment at colleges and universities prolongs to increase faster than face- to- face enrollment (Allen et al., 2013). Investigations and reviews on online education, as documented by The Chronicles of Higher Education, Pew Surveys, and Sloan surveys, and others show the reasons for such growth is founded in the economic downturn, survey results, technological advancement, an increasing adult population, and flexibility and accessibility (Miller, 2010; Young, 2011; Parker, Lenhart & Moore, 2011; Allen et al., 2013). To assist academes and practitioners research and become involved in multifaceted online adjunct faculty concerns, expansive intertwined frameworks connecting several theories and models need to be developed. This work provides a framework of distance education incorporating multiple elements from Knowles adult learning model. Distance education has numerous definitions and names. As said by Yacci (2000), distance education is the practical subset of education that deals with instruction in which distance and time are the criterial [sic] attributes; that is, student and teacher (and other students) are separated by distance and/or time (p.1). The multiple elements from Knowles learning model are the basic learning theories (behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism), publishing, experiential learning, and business process improvement research. The frameworks contain discipline- specific theories and fields, review their interactions, and connects these discipline- specific theories and fields to a rounded concept of publishing and equitable benefits for online adjunct faculty. The research focus will be directed on analyzing data on online adjunct faculty working conditions that can be used to adapt, amend, and enhance the knowledge of distance education officers and administrators. Higher education leadership

4 and others involved in the inequities for online adjuncts utilize this type of information for determining key data points to review when working towards a more equitable solution. The results of this study will be used to inform future studies on best practices in supporting and retaining online adjunct faculty. These concepts will be concluded with additional research directed to this topic by assisting in outcomes for inequitable working conditions for online adjunct faculty. Incentives and Compensation Online instructors Faculty should experience a sense of accomplishment when teaching online, as well as receive comparable incentives and compensation. In today s models online faculty s inherent online teaching rewards overshadows incentives and compensation. Nonetheless, online instructors must function in a custom that should hold in esteem their time, and work. The amount of chief academic officers stating that online education is significant to their continuing strategy increased in 2010 and 2011 (Allen et al., 2011, p. 4). While the chief academic officers statements reflect data from the latest survey; incentive and compensation practice is in opposition. Incentives and compensation structures and policy requires re- evaluation distance education continues to shift toward the conventional. Moving distance education forward requires administrators and particularly senior administrators to reconsider incentives and compensation to include tenure. Additionally, course loads for distance education faculty is another concern. Many institutions of higher education in the United States, calculate faculty load in the number of semester credit hours taught. On the other hand the amount of time it takes to prepare for online sessions remains a concern. This perception of taking more time to teach online as opposed to face- to- face is noted in surveys and qualitative interview studies (Haber & Mills, 2008; Seaman, 2009; Bolliger & Waslik, 2009; Van De Dord & Korolyn, 2012; Allen et al., 2013).

5 Quality Publishing Quality publishing is academically researching and analyzing sets of data that correlate to specific problems that are being address. What makes the articles quality is the fact that problems are thoroughly researched for all possible solutions. With this, the research may or might include benchmarking, lean six sigma, comparative analysis, and other performance measurement tools. The process that these papers undergo is longer and more thorough than other peer- reviewed work. The notion of value creation by scholarly publishers has been a hotly debated issue over the past decade (Fund, 2013). Quality publishing is needed by many institutions such that the intriguing force by academic scholarship is continuously growing. With this growing need of academic scholarship comes an increase of online adjunct faculty in the higher education departments. Institutions have answered the call in the educational barrier that exists in academia today. The need to hire online adjunct faculty today has never been more of a promising field in academia. Online adjunct faculty have both the professional and academic experience and backgrounds to work in academia at various levels. This is what makes online adjunct faculty prominent in the success of institutions and their development for career and human resource networking. These professionals can contribute information based off of their backgrounds and experiences in real life situations of how research is used. These items below are shortened based on the dimensions of this paper: Conference Proceedings.

6 A conference proceeding Is a collection of documents, paper or electronic which corresponds to the technical presentations given at the conference along with additional information, such as title and copyright information, that identifies the collection as a set or connected group (IEEE, 2013). These papers are usually gathered by publishing venues organized by an associate editor and colleagues. Apart from this, these papers are organized and reviewed for collaborative matter that proceeds education. Research papers that are contributed to a body of knowledge for study are published here. Journals. Many different venues publish journals as an addition to conference proceedings. Academic journals come in a wide variety of platforms (digital and book) as they can be sold and accessed by many persons. Students and faculty contribute most research and are also the main authors to these based on their current academic standing. Quality research is peer- reviewed for academic flaws and errors from many editors and reviewers. Based on the number of reviewers, this is what makes journal publishing high quality and high in merit. Even open access journals are becoming widely used in higher education departments, mainly in online programs and classes. Open access journals are being used and adapted by many classrooms based that information is easily to access for all viewers. Open Access (OA) is a model for publishing scholarly peer reviewed journals, made possible by the Internet (Laasko, 2011). Online adjunct faculty can create sustainable results for advancement in employment from this type of work. Work that can be broken down and analyzed into formidable documents can be submitted and published in these areas. Book Chapters. In academia, value of writing a personal or co- authored book is among the highest. A large amount of merit is based off of this type of academic work based that it is one of the hardest to achieve

7 and accomplish. Even non- academic books are still widely used in academia today. Based on the literacy vale that these books have, they can be attributed into both traditional and non- traditional classrooms. It s not impossible for online adjunct faculty to establish this type of work ethic for themselves, nor is it uncommon. Newsletters Newsletters can be addressed to cover specific needs of academic and current higher educational affairs that are of topic for departments. Traditional tools measuring traffic performance as the number of visitors to a website and page views are no longer sufficient specifically for brand websites (Flores, 2004). Newsletters are current ways that authors can write about research and statistics that re current and relevant to the studies being done. Using the professional side of work as well as the academic, online adjunct faculty can successfully deliver results to peers and colleagues based off of this type of work. Authors must know and understand main facts that are relevant to the current study for specific disciplines. With careful research, correct data collecting, and diligent writing, online adjunct faculty can use publishing as a means of creating replicable studies in real life settings. Using professional methods and skills acquired, these professionals have the ability to navigate and use research to show the real results of hypothesis and how they are used. Online adjunct faculty also has the ability to use technology at their disposal for educational and professional purposes. Within the educational arena is the goal to ensure faculty can perform to the best of their abilities by providing them with education on the latest tools, tips, and educational technologies (Burton, et al, 2013). With the help of each of these tools, online adjunct faculty can development secure ways and tactics for career advancements. Only faculty who utilize these topics and methods will gain the

8 rewards that they provide. This is mainly why it is important that new online adjunct faculty develop time- related skills that assist in career development. Conclusions The main focus of this paper is to assist the audience s perceptions of the value of publishing in the academic arena through the lens of online adjunct faculty. Operational focal points requiring business process improvements were brought fourth that institutions can embrace to enhance incentives, compensation, and performance of online adjunct faculty. Many methods can be altered and used as they are also vital components in the real world settings that online adjunct faculty work in. Enhancing the quality of business processes improvement (BPI) and preserving satisfactory levels of performance quality are key aspects in the goals and objectives of institutions. BPI is an orderly method to assist businesses in improving their underlying processes to realize more efficient outcomes (Pyzdek, 2003). Process is one or more tasks changing a group of inputs into a definite group of outputs (goods and services) for an added individual (customer) or method through an union of people procedures and tools (Wesner, Hiatt, & Trimble, 1994; Tenner & DeToro, 2000). This orderly method of assisting businesses are the details institutions must employ to strike a balance and an equitable for online faculty member s incentives and compensation in the distance education arena. Within this improvement must be guidelines for success which includes development. The body of literature exploring distance education instruction brings to light the obstacles present in numerous institutions of higher education. Researchers (Zhen, Garthwait & Pratt, 2008) examined factors effecting 400 instructors decisions to use various types of distance education management technologies (i.e., Blackboard, WebCT). This team found that personal philosophies and self- efficacy drove the likelihood of adopting distance education course management technologies. A

9 void of a clearly articulated teaching methodology for distance education lent itself to additional trials to distance education instructors. Many faculty development programs remain void of adult learning academic context (Parra, 2010). Voids in processes stem out of poor practices or no practices. What needs to comprehended with this point is the practices used for BPI will depend upon the work that needs to be completed to accomplish the project. In this case online faculty needs a fair and equitable advancement program that contains key points such as publishing quality and quotas. Within the development arena and a focus of this paper is quality publishing, appropriate venues for publishing, and the benefits of the online faculty members publications to institutions of higher learning. Solid business process improvement methodology leads to good quality results. When quality publishing is reevaluated and used to assist online adjunct faculty, it can be noted that research is published based on its merit. Quality of each paper is valued and weighed accordingly to show how effective and efficient researchers are using frameworks and methods to collect significant data. Online adjunct faculty has a perfect workload and mind- set of this based that they can delegate their professional standards and work appropriately. All of the areas mentioned above show diligent ways that online adjunct faculty can perform and outperform others when it comes to sustainable results in quality publishing.

10 References Allen, I., Seaman, J., Sloan, C., Babson Survey Research, G., & Pearson, F. (2013). Changing course: Ten years of tracking online education in the United States. Sloan Consortium.Retrieved from Allen, I., Seaman, J., & Sloan, C. (2011). Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, Sloan Consortium. Retrieved from Bollinger, D. & Waslik, O. (2009). Factors influencing faculty satisfaction with online teaching and learning in higher education. Distance Education, 30, Burton, S., Bessette, D., & Brown- Jackson, K. (2013). Breaking down the knowledge barrier o cost- benefit factors in todays technological era,. EDULEARN13 Proceedings, Flore`s, L. (2004)10 Facts about the value of brand websites, Admap, February Haber, J. & Mills, M. (2008). Perceptions of barriers concerning effective online teaching and policies: Florida Community College faculty. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 3, IEEE (2013) Conference proceedings defined, retrieved from;

11 Laakso M, Welling P, Bukvova H, Nyman L, Björk B- C, et al. (2011) The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to PLoS ONE 6(6): e doi: /journal.pone Miller, M. H. (2010). Distance education s rate of growth doubles at community college. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from educations- rate- of- growth- doubles- at- community- college/22540 Parker, K., Lenhart, A., & Moore, K. (2011). The digital revolution and higher education College presidents, public differ on value of online learning. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Seaman, J., (2009). Online learning as a strategic asset. Volume II: The paradox of faculty voices: Views and experiences with online learning. Washington, D.C.: Association of Public and Land- grant Universities. Retrieved from Van De Vord, R., & Korolyn, P. (2012). Teaching Time Investment: Does Online Really Take More Time than Face- to- Face? The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(3), Yacci, M. (2000). Interactivity demystified: A structural definition for distance education and intelligent CBT. Education Technology, (40)4, Young, J. R. (2011). College presidents are bullish on online education but face a skeptical public. The Chronicles of Higher Education. Retrieved from

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