Pioneer HBCUs would write their own course management systems (CMS) from scratch. Given the complexity of these applications, this is a daunting task that would tax the resources of the world's leading computer science departments. The DLL is unaware of any HBCU that has attempted to follow this strategy. Indeed, even though the largest for-profit colleges have substantially larger financial resources at their disposal than HBCUs, the DLL has only identified one that has built its own CMS -- the University of Phoenix, one of the first online, for-profit colleges and currently the largest revenue generator.

On the other hand, the application vendors -- e.g., Angel, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, eCollege, and WebCT -- who made the steep investments required to produce powerful, user-friendly CMS applications have been obliged to amortize these large investments by charging substantial licensing fees to their customers. As can be seen from Table A in Part II of this report, these customers include HBCU's, other renowned non-profit colleges, and some of the most successful for-profit operations.

An open source strategy spreads the financial and manpower burdens of application development across many participants. Applications whose development costs would exceed the resources of any single participant become affordable when these costs are shared by many participants. The subsequent licensing fees can be minimized or eliminated if the application provides sufficient benefits to the original participants. They have no need to extract "profits" from subsequent users, so they can afford to give the application away. The trick, of course, is getting someone to bear the initial costs of coordinating the collective effort -- before its potential benefits are clearly evident.

• The Linux operating system is, perhaps, the most successful open source application in IT history. The charismatic Linus Torvalds is using the Internet to coordinate the development of Linux by hordes of contributors located in scores of countries. The Moodle CMS, highlighted in Part II of this report, has followed a similar path, wherein the efforts of many worldwide contributors are being coordinated by its original developer Martin Dougiamas
  
  
• By contrast, the Sakai open source CMS, also highlighted in Part II, is being developed in a more structured environment. With initial support from the Mellon and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundations, four of the nation's most renowned universities -- Stanford, M.I.T., Indiana University, and the University of Michigan -- banded together to initiate this development, then extended invitations to other universities to join their efforts.
  

Although many members of the IT communities within HBCUs are aware of Moodle and Sakai, the DLL is unaware of any HBCU that has adopted either of these platforms as its CMS for distance learning or even for "blended" or "enhanced" courses. There seem to be two primary concerns: (1) the quality of the open source CMS, and (2) lack of technical support, more specifically, the perception that an open source CMS cannot provide sufficient technical support for the HBCU's faculty, students, and CMS administrators. A free CMS that doesn't work or can't be fixed is hardly a bargain.

The purpose of this report is not to dispute these perceptions, merely to suggest that they should be revisited from time to time.

When Linux first knocked on corporate doors, IT managers had similar concerns. Was it really as good as their vendor's proprietary operating systems? And what would happen when problems arose? So they adopted Linux piecemeal, using it to replace the licensed systems for limited purposes. As they became more confident and as later versions of Linux became more powerful, the managers gave wider scope to Linux and lesser scope to their licensed systems. The emergence of third party vendors, such as Red Hat, who provided the kind of round-the-clock technical support that corporations were accustomed to, made subsequent adoptions of Linux even easier.

In other words, HBCUs should consider adopting an open source CMS for limited purposes, e.g., for their non-credit certificate courses, or for their graduate programs. As time goes by, they may find that they can realize substantial savings by extending its scope to a wider range of course offerings, especially if they can also identify reliable third party vendors who will provide full service technical support for their chosen open source platform.

Many of the larger for-profits have licensed their CMS platforms from the same vendors currently favored by the HBCUs. However, given their profit-orientation, no one should be surprised if/when some of these operations begin to adopt open source platforms. They will do so for the same reasons that corporations have adopted Linux ==> a quality platform that has adequate technical support provides a compelling business opportunity when it's free. Beyond this, it is also conceivable that that one or more of the proprietary CMS vendors might decide to support an open CMS, much as Novell did when it decided to compete against Red Hat (and Microsoft) by supporting Linux. ... :-)

The "classic" strategy followed by most HBCUs is to license a proprietary CMS, and then encourage their faculty to convert existing courses to the online formats required by the chosen CMS.

• As can be seen from Table B in Part II, most CMS vendors will teach faculty how to convert their courses to online formats
  
  
• Most vendors will teach the faculty how to teach in an online environment
  
  
• Most vendors will assist faculty to migrate online courses developed for other CMS platforms to the formats required by their platforms (or consultant/developers can perform this task). This migration is facilitated by the adherence of the source and target platforms to the major international standards, i.e., IMS and SCORM
  
  
• Most vendors will provide extensive technical support for faculty, for students, and for the HBCU's IT support teams that administer the CMS applications.
  
  
• Most vendors will host their customers' courses on the vendors' servers with strong guarantees that these servers will stay up close to 100 percent of the time.
  

Although Table B lists a number of 3rd party consultant/developers who will convert existing courses from offline to online formats, most HBCUs seem to be requiring their faculty to perform these conversions themselves. This policy decision is based on the questionable assumption that most faculty have the combination of aptitude and ambition required to convert their existing course materials into online formats that will provide their students with satisfactory learning experiences. But given the fact that most faculties don't write the textbooks for their traditional face-to-face courses, why should they be expected to generate the online content of their distance learning courses?

Please note that the HBCU entries in Table A are not samples; they represent the DLL's assessment of the distance learning activities of all HBCUs, where "distance learning" only covers courses that are 100 percent online, rather than courses that are "blended" or "enhanced". Interested readers are invited to review the profiles on the DLL's "Gateway to HBCUs" Website for summaries of the distance learning courses and programs offered by HBCUs.

Table A provides what is, perhaps, the most telling evidence of the limits of the "classic" strategy in that it shows that less than one third of the 104 officially designated HBCUs are currently offering distance learning courses of any kind. Furthermore, examination of the distance learning programs described on the pages linked to Table A shows that no HBCU is offering more than 5 percent of its courses online.

Under this strategy, an HBCU's faculty would deliver distance learning by using course components developed by someone else:

• The underlying CMS could be proprietary, as in the "classic" strategy, or it could be open source.
  
  
• Online content could be produced by consultant/developers, such as the ones listed in Table B, who are hired to convert the HBCU's existing course materials into online formats compatible with the underlying CMS or to create entirely new online courses. Alternatively, if the HBCU had sufficient funding, it could hire a team of full-time consultant/developers to perform these course conversion and course creation tasks. Both options are designed to shift online course development from inefficient faculty amateurs to instructional technology professionals.
  
  
• Online course content could also be selected from publishers' catalogs in what is sometimes called "cartridges" as shown in the various "publishers" lists in Table B; alternatively, online content could accessed from shared repositories on the Web.
  
  

Back in the "good old days", instructors merely selected their textbooks and references; they didn't have to be concerned about the mechanics of the print publication process. Perhaps components can bring those "good old days" to distance learning by having faculty specify the desired course content, then letting the IT experts -- the CMS shops, the online publishing houses, the consultant/developers, CMS administrators, etc -- implement the instructional technologies required to convert the specified content into online components, e.g., the file formats required by the underlying CMS, consistent course structures, page layouts, color schemes, use of Flash and other visual enhancements, codecs for audio/video segments, interactive test formats, shared databases for related courses, etc. Once the instructors learned how to use the components for their courses, they could focus their energies on teaching the subject matter contained in these components.

During its monthly reviews of all of the HBCU Websites, the DLL has only spotted a few HBCUs that seem to have adopted a components strategy. In the coming months, the DLL will therefore be especially watchful for component-based programs that it may have overlooked and for new developments in these regards.

This strategy comes in two flavors: consortiums and turnkey.

Consortiums have a long history in academe. Colleges and universities have frequently banded together to share courses and students, to share libraries and other facilities, and to get volume discounts from vendors of goods and services by pooling their acquisitions.

F. Case Studies: Walden University and The University of Phoenix Online

In recent years, the distance learning programs of the nation's leading for-profit colleges and universities have dwarfed the online offerings of its traditional colleges and universities. There are many reasons for the greater success of the for-profit operations in this regard, not the least of which is their narrow range of career-oriented course offerings, their massive marketing efforts, and their unblinking focus on their bottom lines, i.e., they don't sustain courses that fail to meet their enrollment targets. They have also embraced the forces of globalization by aggressively expanding their operations into foreign markets.

However, the following case studies suggest that the for-profits are also employing efficient combinations of the components and outsourcing strategies. In brief, the content of their online courses are specified by their faculty, but this content is converted into online components by course developers and other IT experts; the for-profits use consortia -- a/k/a "partnerships" -- with other colleges to feed their voracious enrollment appetites; they even use indirect versions of turnkey. In other words, their components and outsourcing strategies may be "best practices" that account for a substantial part of their success.

The information in the case studies was gathered from the Websites of the universities, from related Web pages returned by Google searches (including SEC filings), and from a short telephone conversation with one of their representatives (Walden, 12/21/05). The abbreviated descriptions in the case studies are linked to the original Web pages. The reader is strongly advised to review the full descriptions on the linked pages. If the case studies had been a major research project, the DLL would have obtained the active cooperation of the senior management of each corporation and would have obtained definitive "yes" or "no" answers to its questions. By contrast, the answers inferred from the Websites are admittedly round-about and circumstantial. Hopefully the patient reader will find this indirect evidence to be sufficiently persuasive nevertheless ... :-)

1. Walden University

Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association (NCA) -- one of the six regional accrediting associations in the United States. (Note: most HBCUs are accredited by the Middle States and Southern associations). Walden University's parent corporation is Laureate Education, Inc (formerly known as Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc), a multinational operation having 8400 employees and campuses in fifteen countries. All of Walden's courses are offered via distance learning, and it currently enrolls approximately 20,000 students.

• Walden's Website prominently quotes the report recently published by Diverse Issues in Higher Education of that magazine's analysis of some data collected by NCES. The report found that Walden is the 4th ranking U.S. university in the production of African-American doctorates in psychology and the 5th ranking U.S. university in the production of African-American doctorates in business administration.
  
  
• Question:  Does the faculty of Walden University use components?
  Answer:  Yes ... probably.
  
  --Not having access to Walden's organization chart and official position descriptions, the DLL examined the descriptions of the vacant positions Walden is currently trying to fill. Walden's help-wanted page was found at http://www.waldenu.edu/c/About/4596_233.htm. At the bottom of this page, the reader will find the following link ==> View our current career opportunities. When this page is loaded, it provides several search parameters.
  
  --On 12/21/05 the DLL selected Organization = "Walden University", Category = "Faculty", and set the remaining parameters = "ALL". Thirteen job descriptions were returned, but only 4 had any course development responsibilities, and none of these four descriptions required any expertise in instructional technology. (Interestingly, only 2 of the 13 positions had a specified physical location; the other 11 were "virtual", i.e., the instructor could work from home.)
  
  --On the other hand, setting Organization = "Walden University" and Category = "Curricular Design and Instruction" returned no current vacancies. But the fact that such a category exists indicates that Walden does hire professional curriculum designers from time to time.
  
  --Taken together these two pieces of data suggest that the minority of Walden's faculty involved in course design do so as subject matter experts who specify course content. This content is then converted into the online formats required by Walden's CMS by other professionals who have expertise in instructional technology, e.g., the staff whose positions fall into the "Curricular Design and Instruction" category.
  
  --The 13 positions advertised on 12/21/05 obviously did not constitute a random sample of all of Walden's faculty positions. Although it seems implausible that they would be atypical of Walden's normal faculty requirements, implausibility is not equivalent to impossibility. Hence the DLL's conclusion that Walden's faculty use components must be qualified as "probably" ... :-(
  
  
• Question: Does Walden University outsource any of its course requirements?
  Answer: Yes
  
  --Like most colleges Walden gives credit for equivalent courses taken at other accredited institutions.
  
  --Walden University also gives course credits for the workforce certifications listed on its "Transfer Equivalency for Professional Certifications" page.
  

2. University of Phoenix Online

The University of Phoenix is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and is a member of the North Central Association (NCA). It is the online unit of the University of Phoenix whose parent corporation is the Apollo Group. Apollo's various units have 90 campuses and 154 learning centers in 39 states, Puerto Rico, Alberta, British Columbia, Mexico, India, and China. The online unit currently enrolls approximately 143,000 students.

• Question:  Does the faculty of the University of Phoenix use components?
  Answer: Yes
  
  Unlike Walden University, the University of Phoenix Online does not list its job openings on an online "help wanted" page. However, if the reader clicks the "Contact Us" button on the left side of the university's Home Page, then follows the "Faculty Recruitment" links, the reader will be brought to a recruitment notice that is remarkably succinct
  (http://www.uopxonlinetraining.com/ContactInfo.asp?Qtype=facrec):
  

  "Faculty Recruitment. If you're an experienced professional, with a graduate degree, in-depth knowledge of your field, strong communication skills, and a desire to help others succeed, you could be a part-time instructor at University of Phoenix Online. To learn more, contact us by phone or e-mail (below)".

  This brief notice is most relevant to the present discussion for what it doesn't say ==> applicants need not have any expertise in instructional technology. This inference is confirmed by the following quote from the university's FAQs page that proclaims that all of the university's faculty members are part-timers.
  

  "To ensure the value of your education, all of our "8000" faculty members have masters or doctorate degrees. In addition, they hold high-level positions within the fields they teach. When they are not teaching class, our instructors are successful CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, supervisors, managers, business owners, executives, and professionals. They know what it takes to be successful."

  In other words, the faculty of the University of Phoenix is composed of part-timers who are subject matter experts without professional expertise in instructional technology. They are not involved in the design of the courses nor in the conversion of the specified course content into online formats; ergo, they do use course components constructed by someone else.
  
  The DLL did not find any clues on the Phoenix Website as to who that "someone else" might be. However the MSN "Company Report" for the parent company, the Apollo Group, declares that it has 32,500 full-time employees, a workforce that is certainly large enough to include the required teams of in-house course developers and other IT experts.
• Question: Does the University of Phoenix Online outsource any of its course requirements?
  Answer: Yes
  
  -- The University of Phoenix Online accepts transfer credits from regionally and nationally accredited institutions of higher learning, as long as they apply to the student's chosen degree program.
  
  -- The University of Phoenix Online also awards course credits for courses taken through corporate training programs that meet its criteria for "college-level credit worthiness" as determined by its Prior Learning Assessment Center (PLAC).
  
  -- A special instance of this corporate training is especially noteworthy. A Google search for "University of Phoenix" and "partner" turned up a relationship with a vendor of turnkey courses: SkillSoft. The essence of this relationship is defined by the following quote from a SkillSoft Web page
  (http://www.skillsoft.com/about/credit_programs/academic_credit_programs/uop.asp)
  

  "SkillSoft has entered into an agreement with UoP’s Prior Learning Assessment Center (PLAC). Under this program, college-level credit can be earned for previous training, job and work learning experiences, licenses and certificates.
  
  SkillSoft has submitted for evaluation and received pre-determined credit for more than 800 business skills and 1,000 IT titles that can be applied toward general education and elective requirements of a bachelor’s degree. ... A listing of evaluated SkillSoft courses can be found here. Additional SkillSoft courses will be submitted and evaluated for credit each October."

  -- Googling "University of Phoenix", "community college", and "partner" returned relationships between the university and a number of community colleges in which the University of Phoenix agreed to allow graduates of the community college Associates Degree programs into its four year Bachelors programs. Two specific instances of these consortium/partnerships with community colleges are listed below:
  

  • Florida Community College at Jacksonville
  • League of Innovation in the Community Colleges
    

  -- The comprehensive scope of this university's commitment to accepting transfer students from associates degree and higher degree programs is fully articulated on its "ADMISSIONS Transfer Guides" page. Pick a state, pick a college (associate, traditional, for-profit, whatever) ==> the search engine returns a listing of the courses offered by that college in specific years that will be accepted by the University of Phoenix.