Rio Salado College provides learning opportunities online, anytime

Tempe, Ariz., may be known as the home of the Arizona State University Sun Devils. But in a single building — not even big enough to be called a college campus — a different approach to higher education is taking root.

Rio Salado College is known as “the college without walls.” From its administrative headquarters in this town southeast of Phoenix, it serves 42,000 students. This public community college is part of the larger Maricopa Community Colleges system. Many students take classes through partnerships developed with area corporations and government agencies. But more than half — 23,365 — take classes online through the college’s online distance-learning program. About 4,000 of the online students are in the military’s eArmyU program and are taking courses while they serve our country throughout the world.

Online students take math, English, nursing, dental hygiene and more. Some students take one course; others can earn one of 12 associate’s degrees or 26 certificate programs. The offerings and services are packaged to meet the needs of non-traditional students.

At Rio Salado, students:
- Enroll every other week — 26 times a year.
- Pay $51 to $135 per credit hour.
- Receive support 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Instructional Help Desk, Technology Help Desk and tutors on cell phones.

At Traditional U., students:
- Enroll twice a year, plus summer sessions.
- Pay a range of $130 to $400 per credit hour.
- Receive support 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Some 300 courses are available so that students can fit school into their schedule. They receive their assignments online, and they submit their completed work to their professor online. They can accelerate their pace through the course so they finish early. If they need extra assistance, they have access to a Technology Help Desk for computer issues and an Instructional Help Desk for coursework questions. If they need tutoring assistance, they can reach a tutor by cell phone.

In addition, students can e-mail their professor and he or she will answer their query within 12 hours. Generally, assignments are graded within three days.

“The university model is not our model,” says Carol Scarafiotti, executive consultant, Online Learning, Dean Emeritus. “There are very few times that the faculty members require everyone to be online at the same time. We focus on asynchronous learning, and we have heavy interaction between students and faculty members. Courses generally last 14 weeks, and materials and services are available online seven days a week.”

Most courses require students to go to Rio Salado or another partner testing site to take proctored midterm and final exams. Students must have proper identification, and the testing site sends the results directly to Rio Salado College.

“Students come to us because of the access – many of them probably would not be in college if Rio Salado was not available to provide the learning opportunities,” Scarafiotti says.

Goal-oriented older adults make up online student population

The majority of Rio Salado’s online students do not fit the mold of a typical student entering college immediately after high school. Seventy-one percent of online students are 21 to 39 years old, with the average age 31. Most are women working full time, married with children, and they are pursuing a goal — to take one course, become proficient in a specific topic or complete prerequisites for a particular area of study such as nursing. Baby Boomers make up the second-largest category of online students with 24 percent. Students pay $51 per credit hour if they live in Arizona and $135 per credit hour if they live out of state.

“Half our students come to Rio Salado for one course,” Scarafiotti says. And 80 percent of the students who stay through the first week of a course complete the course.

The college’s 29 full-time faculty members develop the online courses around a template. Then the faculty members work with the 480 adjunct faculty members who actually teach the online courses. Each teacher is assigned four starts of a course, so that he or she has new students every two weeks for eight weeks.

“It’s easier for faculty members to manage if they have assignments coming in at different times,” says Scarafiotti. Each class has about 25 to 35 students. For subjects such as math, the course is designed to test the student’s base knowledge and begin work from that base.

“We have developed a highly interactive CD that assesses where the student is and how much the student knows, and then it develops a learning path for each student,” Scarafiotti says.

Microsoft helps college develop modular system

Rio Salado College, which also has another 300 adjunct faculty members who teach in classroom settings, has been offering distance-learning opportunities since 1978. It launched its online program in 1996, and in the last two years has undertaken a project to greatly enhance the program so that it can handle 100,000 users. Lumina Foundation for Education funded the college’s initial feasibility study and planning activities as it began the expansion project.

Microsoft Corp. has helped the college develop a modular system, called RioLearn, to fit the college’s needs.

“Having Microsoft come in helped us to understand the level of structure we needed and made us more efficient,” says Ed Kelty, director of Information Technology at Rio Salado College.

One of the features of RioLearn includes a grade book that allows students to see their assignments, faculty comments and the rubric by which the assignment was graded. Another feature automatically sends a series of “alert” or “confirmation” messages when students send in assignments or faculty members post graded assignments. Students and faculty also can communicate through an Instant Messenger capability, allowing for real-time collaboration. The system also is designed to provide reports on students’ activities (or lack of action), students’ learning outcomes, faculty performance and demographic and market trend data.

All components are modular so each one can be individually updated, changed or enhanced.

“RioLearn takes a lot of the manual work out of the hands of the faculty to give faculty members more time to work with students,” Kelty says.

RioLearn is in the second phase of its pilot, with 3,000 online students participating in the program. Scarafiotti says the goal is to have all online students and courses in the RioLearn system by July.

In the last five years the number of students enrolled in Rio Salado’s online program grew by 20 percent — far faster than the college’s overall growth rate of about 8 percent during the same time period.

Rio Salado allows any student who meets the regular college entrance requirements to enroll in its online learning environment.

“We believe that if we provide the appropriate environment and services that most students can succeed as asynchronous learners,” Scarafiotti says. “Our course completion rate of 80 percent tells us that we are correct in that assumption.”

Look for more stories on Rio Salado in the coming months. If you have any questions about this story, contact us.

Expectations

Rio Salado College regularly conducts focus groups with its online students and has used feedback to develop tools, such as the Instructional Help Desk, to support these students. Since 1996, the college also has compiled information about its students participating in online opportunities. Here are some of the things Rio Salado has learned:

- More than 60 percent of online students use high-speed Internet.

- Students with an educational goal tend to be the most committed.

- People enroll in online courses and programs because they need the access and convenience.

- Online students also expect the college to provide tutoring, bookstore, advising and counseling services in the same convenient format as the courses.

- Students say they work harder in online courses than in more traditional “in-person” courses.

- Students who enroll later in the traditional semester tend to experience a higher dropout rate.

- Online students expect faculty members to be very responsive. Rio Salado instituted its Instructional Help Desk staffed Monday through Saturday with adjunct faculty members to help answer students’ questions when their professor is unavailable.

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