Worries that online education can adversely affect faculty workload and quality prompted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create an electronic database of course materials freely accessible to anyone, says Steven Lerman, director of MIT's Center for Educational Computing Initiatives.

Speaking before an international conference on online education in Montreal in November, Lerman said MIT considered developing its own online program but instead opted to use new technologies to "enhance the core educational experience, rather than to extend our reach into new markets."

The conference, sponsored by CAUT, the Canadian Federation of Students, the American Association of University Professors, the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université and the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, brought together almost 200 delegates from across North America to consider the impact of online education on faculty and students.

Many universities and colleges in Canada and around the world have been rushing to develop online courses often with the intent of reaping new revenues, but conference delegates heard that MIT has decided not to join the ranks of "virtual" universities.

Lerman explained that MIT's initiative "Open Courseware" will not offer online instruction, but just provide the materials that faculty members use.

"We've always drawn a distinction between the materials we teach and the actual teaching. The materials really aren't that important," Lerman said. "If you fail to make that distinction, you might as well send students a package of textbooks, telling them to read them for a year, and then asking them to give the university $30,000 for the experience."

He also said MIT's decision was partly motivated by concerns that online education would impose added costs on the university. "There just isn't any money to be made from online education. Either you have to provide junk — low-quality education materials —which no good university wants to do, or the costs of delivering good online education actually wind up being higher than traditional face-to-face teaching."

MIT faculty members also expressed concern that online education would increase their workload and create a "two-tiered" faculty, with one group focussed on distance education and teaching and the other centred on campus and focussed on research.

"Faculty time is a limited resource. The evidence is pretty clear that online teaching increases the workload and takes time away from research — something the faculty at MIT who value both research and teaching would be extremely uncomfortable doing," Lerman said.

The Open Courseware project will see MIT endeavour to put all course content into a web-based format. Participation by faculty members will be voluntary. The entire courseware web site, including the programming code, will be open and available to the public.

"Open Courseware is not a distance education initiative," Lerman stressed. "It is an effort to enhance on-campus education and to support the activities of our faculty."

CAUT executive director Jim Turk praised the Open Courseware project, saying his biggest worry is that many Canadian institutions are still blindly embracing online education as a way to make money. That, he added, is diverting resources away from other needs.

"What we're concerned about is the notion that many universities looking at online education are only looking at dollar signs," Turk said. "From the beginning we thought that would undercut the quality of education. MIT has now shown those dollars just aren't there."

Turk added the conference demonstrated there is concern among faculty and students that online education could change the nature of academic work and replace the face-to-face interaction that is a critical part of the learning process.

"Online technologies can be useful, but they aren't a substitute," he said.