Technology and efficiencies help Rio Salado College offer more with less

(Download audio from a discussion session at the 2005 College Costs summit, "Productivity and the E-learning Model," moderated by Gerald L. Bepko, chancellor emeritus, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; member, Board of Directors, Lumina Foundation and featuring Carol Scarafiotti, dean emeritus, Rio Salado College.)

At Rio Salado College just outside Phoenix it costs nearly 40 percent less to educate a full-time student than it does at any of the other nine sister colleges in Arizona’s Maricopa County Community College District.

Nearly half of Rio Salado students access courses online, and 80 percent of these online students complete the courses they start. To compute its completion rates Rio Salado counts the number of students enrolled online in the second week of the course and compares the figure to the number of students who complete the course early or on time.

The online courses apparently are effective in preparing students to qualify for their professional credentials. Ninety-three percent of Rio Salado’s RN nursing students pass the state’s National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) and 100 percent of the college’s teacher preparatory students pass the state’s Educator Proficiency Assessment.

How does Rio Salado contribute to its students' success? By using a team approach to develop courses, employing part-time adjunct faculty to teach, and using technology to the fullest extent to keep costs low.

“We save a significant amount of money by using our full-time faculty to develop courses and our adjunct faculty to teach courses. We pay people for what we want them to do,” says Carol Scarafiotti, Rio Salado’s vice president emeritus and executive consultant for online learning.

Rio Salado serves more than 42,000 students and employs only 31 full-time faculty members. About 900 adjunct faculty members work at the college, and about half of them teach courses online. Full-time faculty earn about $70,000 to $80,000 annually, and adjunct faculty receive an average of $2,100 per course, depending on the number of students.

More than 24,000 of Rio Salado’s students access courses online, including about 4,000 students in the military’s eArmyU program. These students take courses from military bases worldwide. Tuition is the same throughout the Maricopa district: $60 per credit hour for in-state students and $147 per credit hour for out-of-state students.

Online students can sign up for any of Rio Salado’s 400+ courses every two weeks. They receive their assignments online, and they send their completed work to their teachers online. They can do research online by using more than 100 different databases in Rio’s online library. They also can call a reference librarian 24 hours a day. They can access a Technology Help Desk for computer issues and an Instructional Help Desk for coursework questions. They can send an e-mail to their professor and receive a response within eight hours. Generally, assignments are graded and returned within three days.

Team of experts adds sophistication to course development

Although the college started its online learning program 10 years ago, it has modified its approach to course development in the last two years. “Our students were becoming more sophisticated computer users, so we determined that our courses had to become more sophisticated,” Scarafiotti says.

The school brought in instructional designers to work with faculty members to develop and revamp courses. The designers work with faculty members to make the coursework engaging and interactive.

Every course must have an outline and list of competencies approved by the Maricopa district. The instructional designers work with the full-time faculty and the adjunct faculty members to incorporate changes based on their experience from teaching the class and student feedback. The team reviews student assessments to determine if there are content areas that need enhancements.

“The nursing department chair recently worked with us to revise content so students would do more critical thinking,” says Michael Cottam, instructional designer. “We added more case studies and had students solving problems as they went through the course,” he says. Instructional design also examined every item students needed to know for the licensing exam to ensure all topics were covered.

“The initial conversation with the faculty member is very important to the direction of the course. We spend a lot of time focusing on giving students opportunities for practice and interaction,” he says.

When the faculty member and instructional designers are finished with the course, the course goes to an editor and then on to the course production department. There three teams – assessment, content and data definitions – review the course to ensure that the technology works properly and that content is coded correctly for the specific course.

“For instance, we can put specific information into a course so that the department chairman will receive an electronic alert if an adjunct faculty member does not respond to a student’s query or assignment within the prescribed timeframe,” says Dana Reid, associate dean of course production and support.

From start to finish, course development can take six to seven months and cost $6,500 to $9,000 per course depending on the number of people involved in the process.

Each week the instructional designers, course production staff and the people who work the Instructional and Technology help desks meet to review issues ranging from navigation questions to content concerns that need attention. “We’re focused on continuous improvement,” Cottam says.

Training key for adjunct professors

Rio Salado has only one version of every course taught at the college, and many different adjunct professors teach the same course. Training is key for these faculty members and includes the following:

General information about how the college works.
Systems training so faculty members understand how to post assignments and interact with students.
Specific departmental training, such as strategies for teaching the specific course.
Policies for late assignments, methods for checking students’ understanding.
Periodic department workshops to cover new course offerings or changes in procedures or processes.

Twice a year the college gathers all faculty members – full time and adjunct – for a meeting, which features a speaker and departmental sessions. “It’s helpful to have our adjunct faculty meet one another during these sessions because many of them work from home or school,” says Jennifer Freed, an instructional designer and faculty member.

“Our adjunct faculty members play a very important role,” says Scarafiotti. “They have the personal touch – they are very responsive to the students,” she says noting that the college experiences only about 4 to 6 percent turnover in its adjunct faculty ranks each year.

Students reap benefits from the Rio way

Rio Salado officials firmly believe the Rio approach to education benefits students in a variety of ways. Courses start every two weeks, which provides many students flexible scheduling and convenient access to higher education. “Many students tell us if Rio Salado didn’t exist, they would not be getting an education,” Scarafiotti says.

In addition, the online learning environment gives students certain advantages over a more traditional education. “They can do the practice sessions and work over and over again. They can review easily,” Freed says. In a traditional university setting, “if you miss a lecture or a lab, you’ve missed it.”

The online learning environment also helps students manage their education. “Students can see what happened in the first week of the course and in week 10. They can print out assignments,” Freed says. Students get immediate feedback on assignments, so they know what areas they need to focus on to improve. Every course has specific guidelines about how quickly professors must respond to student queries and return graded assignments.

Cottam compares Rio’s teaching methods to having a personal tutor. “Our students and adjunct faculty have a relationship that’s really closer to a personal tutoring relationship. Students are talking with the expert on a one-to-one basis.”

Scarafiotti says Rio Salado focuses on helping students succeed. “This is central to our mission – we’re an online college and we’re structured around delivering a quality online education to our students.” By having only one version of every course, the school can easily collect and analyze data about how well students are learning.

“We spend a lot of time looking at outcomes at Rio Salado, and it helps us to do a really good job,” Scarafiotti says. “That’s invaluable data, and it helps us with revising courses. It tells us what’s working well and not working as well.”

Also invaluable to all students in the 10-college Maricopa district – Rio Salado’s efficient approach results in the college contributing 65 percent of the financial growth of the entire district. “That,” Scarafiotti says, “helps to keep college costs low for all Maricopa students.”

Lumina Foundation has supported the Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation. Learn more, and read our April 2005 story on Rio Salado.

Flexible scheduling, convenient access

Rio Salado officials firmly believe the Rio approach to education benefits students in a variety of ways. Courses start every two weeks, which provides many students flexible scheduling and convenient access to higher education. “Many students tell us if Rio Salado didn’t exist, they would not be getting an education,” Scarafiotti says.

In addition the online learning environment gives students certain advantages over a more traditional education. “They can do the practice sessions and work over and over again. They can review easily,” Freed says. In a traditional university setting, “if you miss a lecture or a lab, you’ve missed it.”

The online learning environment also helps students manage their education. “Students can see what happened in the first week of the course and in week 10. They can print out assignments,” Freed says. Students get immediate feedback on assignments, so they know what areas they need to focus on to improve. Every course has specific guidelines about how quickly professors must respond to student queries and return graded assignments.

Cottam compares Rio’s teaching methods to having a personal tutor. “Our students and adjunct faculty have a relationship that’s really closer to a personal tutoring relationship. Students are talking with the expert on a one-to-one basis.”

Scarafiotti says Rio Salado focuses on helping students succeed. “This is central to our mission – we’re an online college and we’re structured around delivering a quality online education to our students.” By having only one version of every course the school can easily collect and analyze data about how well students are learning.

“We spend a lot of time looking at outcomes at Rio Salado and it helps us to do a really good job,” Scarafiotti says. “That’s invaluable data, and it helps us with revising courses. It tells us what’s working well and not working as well.”

Also invaluable to all students in the 10-college Maricopa district – Rio Salado’s efficient approach results in the college contributing 65 percent of the financial growth of the entire district. “That,” Scarafiotti says, “helps to keep college costs low for all Maricopa students.”

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