February 2, 2010 News

Provost eyes eConcordia reform

Unease with royalty structure and course approval process

by Clare Raspopow

GRAPHIC VIVIEN LEUNG

Provost David Graham is in the process of reforming the relationship between Concordia and eConcordia. He and the university are negotiating an agreement with eConcordia, aiming to take full academic control of eConcordia’s course development and the assignment of instructors and teaching assistants.

At the November Senate meeting, Graham delivered a presentation to the sitting members about concerns that had arisen around Concordia’s online chapter. Highlighting difficulties ensuring consistent oversight of academic quality control and working conditions, Graham cited eConcordia’s failure to attract non-Concordia students and inability to quell anxiety about the quality of online teaching as reasons for reform.

“The provost would like to see regular updating of eConcordia courses, but he can’t initiate that,” said Matthias Frisch, chair of the Philosophy department.

When eConcordia was created in 2002, it was as a federally incorporated company run at arm’s length from the university but completely owned by the same organization as the school itself, the Concordia University Foundation.

The set-up was supposed to help the university integrate online teaching into the existing course structure, clear up intellectual property problems and simplify start-up funding.
eConcordia would contract directly with “course providers” (read: teachers) and pay them a royalty of $20 per registered student. Control of academic affairs would remain under the purview of the deans of individual faculties.

The concerns Graham listed in the Senate meeting, in addition to interfaculty tension about the money the “course providers” were earning, sparked negotiations in 2006 over academic control. The university reached a temporary two-year agreement with eConcordia in 2008. That same year, eConcordia reincorporated as a not-for-profit corporation.

Graham’s new arrangement between Concordia and eConcordia will see royalties going to faculties instead of individual instructors and a greater degree of university control over eConcordia course material.

“The provost quite correctly and with very good reason thinks that eConcordia courses, like any other course, shouldn’t be taught without any checking, verification and updating from year to year,” said Frisch.

Currently, all major course changes or course introductions, eConcordia or otherwise, require a rigourous approval process that starts at the faculty level and goes through the Academic Planning Committee before being finally vetted by the Senate.

“After a course has been designed it’s usually a two or two-and-a-half year process to get it approved, if you do it formally,” said Alex Oster, Concordia Student Union VP Sustainability and a student representative on the Academic Planning Committee.

Many courses, however, are first tested as pilot or slot courses. A slot course is passed through faculties and the Senate to be given a trial run. Oster explained that a pilot course is given a one-year trial and no more than two slots; these courses are usually identified by the suffix “98” in the course code.

If the course garners enough interest and the professor is willing to put in the work, the course then goes through the full approval process.

Currently, approximately seven per cent of the courses offered by eConcordia are slot courses.
Neither the provost nor anyone in his office could be reached as of press time.