New Faculty Roles in Online Education: The Professor As Writer, Director, Actor and Producer?

Abstract

Advances in online education requires higher education institutions to develop and institutionalize new faculty role systems to stay competitive and ensure educational quality. The use of video and other online tools has introduced new faculty tasks demanding specialized skills and qualifications. As it becomes difficult for any individual faculty member to combine and fulfill all the requirements for developing an online course, a clear system of roles is required to coordinate the work. In this paper we provide a taxonomy of core online education roles by developing an analogy to film production. We analyse the core roles in film production of the writer, director, actor and producer in order to develop the online education faculty roles of course developer, designer, instructor and manager. Finally, we discuss implications of unbundling roles related to faculty skills, qualifications and resources.

Keywords: online education, distance learning, MOOC, SPOC, role-based coordination, project management, university management, film production

JEL Classification: A22, A23, M11, M12