To my husband, Matt. Hes the love of my life, has changed my world forever, and has shown me what a blessing it is to have the support of those you love. He is an inspiration to me in more ways than words can describe.
Dani
To Karen, my best friend and loving wife of 15 years, who has given me unending support with my profession, and to my beautiful son, Sean, who reminds me every day that I made the right choice. God bless them both!
Jim
Acknowledgments
To my co-author and dear friend, Jim; for his love of the profession and for believing in the integrity of our careers. And to his wife Karen for putting up with our project while we worked late and undoubtedly sacrificed family time.
To Bob Diforio, the most fantastic agent a person can ask for! He kept me in line, believed in us and gave us his best effort and expertise. I hope to meet you one day!
To Arlene, for her undying friendship, for love through good times and bad, and for always giving it to me straight.
To Alex for being one of my best friends, for keeping me motivated, for making me think beyond the obvious, for sharing a passion for life that not many do, and for getting it. Thanks for making me laugh, even when its at my expense!
Last but not least, to my family, who above all else always made me feel as though anything in the world was possible with enough hard work. Although I didnt become an astronaut, a judge, or any of my other childhood passions, their points made it across loud and clear.
Especially, to my grandfather, who is a never-ending supply of support and true loving inspiration.
Dani
To my co-author, Dani Babb, a great partner and valued friend. I was proud to be your mentor but I am prouder to be your colleague. Thanks for this great ride.
To Mike Bennett, my all-time favorite teacher, who made me want to be like him.You will never know how many lives you have touched and continue to touch as a teacher.
To Dick Murphy, a close friend and confidant, whose humorous approach to life is refreshing. Thanks for being a great sounding board.
To Julius Demps, my newest friend and mentee, whose attitude about education should be contagious.You are such an inspiration.
To Maria Puzziferro, a dear colleague, who gave us valuable material for our book from the administrators perspective and helped make our book a tool for faculty and deans alike.
And to Cindy and Shane Stewart, our closest friends and my sons godparents, who are always there for us without fail. God bless you both.
Jim
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Online Teaching
No trend has changed the face of higher education more than the shift away from a corps of full-time, tenure-track faculty to a contingent instructional workforce. That workforce includes part-time/adjunct faculty, full-time/non-tenure-track faculty, and graduate employees. Together these employees now make up an amazing 70 percent of the 1.3 million employee instructional workforce in higher education.
U.S. Department of Education
Over 80 percent of learners today have taken at least one class online; this number is increasing and is expected to be nearly 100 percent in the next few years. To keep up with this heavy demand, most universities are turning to part-time faculty, in some cases for 100 percent of their faculty. This book takes you on a journey through understanding how and why online schools have been started, deciphering the good schools from the bad, obtaining jobs as online faculty, training for the faculty positions, retaining contracts, and managing courses. It will show you how to begin earning a living teaching online and then expand your work into full-time pay if you wish!
Our Experiences
Both of us are experienced part-time faculty, making a living at teaching online as what are often classified as full-time part-timers. We are well paid and very satisfied with our chosen profession. Every piece of advice we give you in this book is derived from personal knowledge, interviews with college deans, and/or research. We dont just talk or write about it; we both do it. Before we begin, we will introduce ourselves and share our experiences teaching online.
A Message from Dani
While working for a university for seven years as an information technology (IT) director and going to school during the day to earn a bachelors degree, I decided to also pursue a master of business administration (MBA) in the evenings. Managing these three obligations was very challenging, but I decided the payoff would be worth it, and I was able to make it all work. Along the way, one of the department chairpersons for another school at the same university asked me to teach night classes on information technology for her program. I was intimidated and had limited public speaking experience, but I said yes and made a go of it. After that, the Blackboard online system was introduced to me as a tool by which I could teach an occasional class. I would be required to teach live (although Blackboard also supports otherwise), but online instead of in a classroom. I was immediately taken with the idea; it would help ease the stress of going into a classroom one or two nights per week in addition to my own courses, and I had moved quite far away from the school months earlier. Plus, my job was requiring more travel. By the time I finished my MBA about two years later, I was teaching a full load of courses while still serving as an IT director. I moved on to another IT job in a nearby city, but still taught night classes and online classes for the university for some time thereafter. I pushed more and more to hold my classes online because the commute to the university was easily two hours; after a long day of work, it was overwhelming.
After taking a hiatus from teaching for two years and focusing on my IT career, I decided to pursue a PhDthis time, entirely online. By this point I was tired of the endless downsizing, the shortsightedness of some Fortune 500 chief information officers (CIOs), and the frustration that went along with corporate Americas lack of loyalty. The online degree I decided to pursue was through Capella Universityit was extremely flexible, was fully accredited, and had an excellent reputation in the online world. It was one of very few online programs with doctorates.
I took classes for about 18 months at an extremely accelerated pace, since the average time to complete class work for a PhD is about seven years. I didnt have to sit in a classroom; I was able to stay at my office late (I was still working as an IT director for a Fortune 500 home builder at the time) and work well into the night reading, turning in assignments, and posting messages on discussion boards that I could read at midnight, at noon, on the road, in the United States, or out of the country.The flexibility I experienced as an online learner, as millions of others know, was incredible.
By the time I got to the dissertation process, I had heard from my entire committee, all faculty in my program, about how they were sipping cocktails by their pools in Florida while they were taking my calls and working, yet still providing incredible service, guidance, and advice. I finished my doctorate and within a couple of months had several teaching jobs online that were paying the same amount of money as my six-figure day job. I was able to handle both careers for a few months, but ultimately decided Id give online teaching 100 percent of my effort and time, thus beginning my literal small business of one, me, an online teacher. I often work from exotic locations while traveling endlessly (and tirelessly) and have the life I always wanted. There are of course downsides to everything, but we will get to them later; they are minimal when compared to the incredible opportunities facing us.
