NCCCFA VIRTUAL LEARNING COMMUNITY DEVELOPER COMPENSATION REPORT

In July 2004, the North Carolina Community College Faculty Association began studying the issue of developer compensation for the North Carolina Community College System Virtual Learning Community. The NCCCFA formed an ad hoc committee composed of community college instructors who voluntarily expressed interest and had experience in teaching and developing courses themselves.

Along with emails and a review of the relevant literature, this committee collected responses from current and former course developers through an online survey it developed to address the particulars of this report.   On August 4, 2004, the survey was sent via email to 403 VLC developers.   As of August 19, 2004, a total of 72 developers had completed the survey, representing all five years of VLC development and 26 community colleges.

Based on our research, the NCCCFA makes the following recommendations regarding compensation for VLC developers:

• Increase minimum compensation to $1500 for each developer working in teams of 2 or more.  

• Increase the minimum compensation to $3,000 for each developer working alone on a course.

• Because of the substantial increase in workload, whenever possible, continue to offer faculty developers one or more course reductions across one or two semesters, as needed, in addition to the increased compensation described above.
• Provide extra compensation for experienced and/or certified online instructors.   Also, when developers drop out before completing their obligations, provide extra compensation for the remaining team developer(s) who complete the project .

• Develop safeguards to assure the quality of VLC courses.

• Provide professional development and certification opportunities in online course development for existing and future VLC participants.

A discussion of each recommendation follows.   Please note that the discussion for the first two related recommendations has been combined.

Recommendation 1:   Increase minimum compensation to $1,500 for each developer working in teams of 2 or more.

Recommendation 2:   Increase the minimum compensation to $3,000 for developers working alone on a course.

Some factors justifying the increase for developers are:  

• The VLC trend towards accepting or assigning fewer developers per new course;
• Total number of hours needed to develop a high-quality course;
• The existing discrepancies among community colleges regarding monetary and work release options offered; and
• The submission by developers to the VLC of all future copyright and intellectual property rights in offering professional services to develop a VLC course that will be accessed, used, and modified for use by many users in the NCCCS for many years to come.

CHART 1: NUMBER OF VLC DEVELOPERS 1999-2004

In the four-year span of VLC course development, the number of developers per course has ranged from 7 to 1, representing great inequities in individual developer workload and total cost per course.   Of course, the number of developers per course does not necessarily affect a course’s instructional value.   As former VLC editors and others will attest, the quality of VLC courses varies greatly.   The value of a course resides in the quality and usability of the finished product, which we believe is contingent on the developer’s expertise in course content and online instructional design.  

Recruiting and retaining qualified developers will continue to be difficult if compensation remains so low.   In fact, 51 percent of our VLC Developer Survey respondents stated that they would not consider developing another course for the VLC. Many cited the poor compensation as the deciding factor in that decision.  

Here are some sample responses:

• “The amount paid and release time would have to change for me to be interested in development in the future. If I am interested in just increasing my skills, I might as well develop and teach my own class (which is what I do, as the VLC classes for my subject area are out of date).”  
  
• “The $500 compensation option offered at the time was in no way adequate. For people looking to supplement their salaries through VLC work, the extra pay for course development is paltry. It's a lot of work for very little money.”  
  
• “$500 is not enough compensation considering the amount of time necessary to develop any VLC course. At the time of my involvement, some people [were] given release time (one course load reduction), instead of $500. With the amount of time I devoted towards production of course materials for this VLC that means I work at a rate of $3.33/hr!”

VLC developers are not fairly compensated for time spent developing VLC courses.    Developers responding to our survey indicated that they spent, on average, 127 hours developing the VLC course, with estimates ranging from 22 to 625 total hours.   When asked if they felt that they had received adequate compensation for their work, 75% of the respondents indicated that they had not.

The time required to develop a VLC course varies widely depending on a number of variables, including:

• The developer’s familiarity with course content,
• The developer’s skill in organizing course material for online instruction,
• The developer’s online experience with the course being developed,
• The developer’s online experience in any course,
• The developer’s Blackboard experience,
• The developer’s VLC experience,  
• The number of developers working on a single course,
• The skill levels of fellow developers in the various categories mentioned above, and  
• The degree of help received from VLC Center Coordinators, VLC editors, and other resources.

While it is difficult to calculate the hours needed per course considering all of the variables, we have settled on an estimate of 250 hours per course based on our survey results, data that seems consistent with other research.   The process for determining that figure is explained below.

Survey results from 72 respondents indicate that it took each developer, working on 2- to 5-person teams, an average 128 hours to develop one course.   Although ea rlier VLC teams were composed of up to 7 members, the current trend seems to be to use 1- and 2-member development teams. Assuming that last year’s average 2 team members per course remains constant, the total number of hours needed to complete a course would be at least 256 hours (128 hours X 2 developers = 256 hours).  

A case study conducted over an 8-month period (Visser, 2000) seems to confirm this number, citing that it took an instructor 234.5 hours to develop course content for an online course, compared to 127 hours on a traditional course.

These numbers are also within VLC development workload estimates. Dr. Darryl McGraw in his request for developers and editors indicated that “Developers should expect about 1-3 hours of work per week in the early months of the project, increasing to 5-10 hours in final stages of development.”    With those VLC figures as an estimate, the total hours per developer could range from 96 to 208 hours over two semesters.

Consider the value of the work if each developer were paid on a $20 to $25 per hour basis:

• The pay for 127 hours would range from $2,540 to $3,175.  
  
• If the median number of 96 hours is used, the pay would range from $1,920 to $2,400.

All of these figures are consistent with national pay ranges the committee has researched, and they are certainly within reason, falling well below the requested $1,500 minimum payment for team developers and $3,000 for developers working solo.  

Currently, at $500, our VLC developers are being paid less than $4 per hour, based on the 128-hour-per-developer average.

It is probable that this low rate of compensation along with the hefty time commitment needed to develop a high-quality course will have a negative impact on the ability of the VLC to recruit qualified developers.         While several respondents indicated that the experience was valuable, many cited that they would not do it again.

Here are some of the responses to the survey item, “I would likely develop another course for the VLC, given the same experience I've had”:

• “Never!! Bad experience.”
  
• “Under those conditions, I would never develop another course. My husband threatened to divorce me if I even considered such a thing. It was a nightmare.”
    
• “The amount of pay for work involved with no release time is unprofessional and unrealistic.”
  
• “I am not sure that I could afford . . . in terms of time or financially to invest in this process again unless allowances are made for the time and energies it takes to develop a course in this format.”  

Developer compensation from the community colleges has not been consistent.   The current “VLC Cooperative Policy,” signed by the presidents, requires colleges to support each selected developer with either a one-course load reduction in one semester or a minimum of $500.   Obviously, these options are not equal in value.  

Typically, a course reduction in monetary terms equals what it would take to pay an adjunct to teach a course for the semester, costing the college between $1,100 and $1,600 or more.  

As shown in the chart below, 54% of the time, the colleges represented in our survey selected the $500 option which, while not as beneficial to developers, saves the colleges as much as $1,000 per developer.   Our recommended increase in the monetary compensation would come close to equalizing the two options.

CHART 2: VLC DEVELOPER’S COMPENSATION METHODS PER COURSE

The current payment of $500 may seem like a bargain, but long-term it may damage the VLC effort and reputation.   The low pay is discouraging to developers, especially to those who are fully aware of the time demands of online course development. Developers may be less likely to complete a project that offers such minimal compensation. These and other factors may erode the quality of the course, which in turn, may lessen the likelihood that the course will be used by other college instructors, ultimately defeating the purpose of VLC course development in the first place.  

Another discouraging finding coming out of the survey is that, despite the fact that “VLC Cooperative Policy” was signed by all college presidents, 18 percent of the time, those who developed a course for the VLC stated that they received no compensation at all—neither money nor course release.   Several others received reduced compensation ranging from $150-$300.

One of the respondents receiving no compensation described his reaction to the task: “I hate to be so negative, and I am SURE the situation is different now. I was in the earliest VLC development group. I felt overworked and overwhelmed.”

On a more positive note, several colleges awarded VLC developers significantly more than the minimum recommended options.   One developer received both $500 and a course reduction.   Seven developers received from $600-$1,200 per course.   Another developer received 6 hours release time for 2 semesters, a total of 12 contact hours.

Developers relinquish intellectual property rights when they agree to develop an online course.    The more than 400 NCCCS instructors who have developed courses for the VLC over the last 4 years have shown enormous generosity in their willingness to share their course materials with their colleagues around the state.   For many, this course material represents decades of work.

The extent of this contribution cannot be measured adequately, except to say that the continued existence of the VLC program is dependent on it.   Given the widespread availability of the VLC courses’ content and considering the nature of marketing an instructor’s lifelong learning and professional accomplishments via the VLC, the critical role of a faculty developer’s intellectual property can be acknowledged, in part, through fair compensation for their work.

Recommendation 3:   Because of the substantial increase in workload, whenever possible, continue to offer faculty developers one or more course reductions across one or two semesters, as needed, in addition to the increased compensation described above.

Time demands of course development concern VLC developers as indicated in the survey responses.   More than 80 percent of VLC developers felt that the release time that they were provided was inadequate to create a high-quality course.   This is a significant finding, indicating that something must be done to provide the time needed for development.

Some of the responses related to time demands are cited below:

• “I am generally concerned about the quality of the courses. The VLC seems concerned about getting products done cheaply. The developers may or may not be the best qualified to do the job. The compensation and release time is inadequate to do the job right. The editing process is usually done by one person who is also not adequately compensated.”    
  
• “The school gave me 3 hours release time for one semester as required but this didn't even come close to the hours required. The result was lots of work being completed in the middle of the night and lack of sleep.”
  
• “The lack of time was a real problem when I tried to do [Course Title] last time. I couldn't do it.”
   
• “Our teaching load is 18-20 contact hours per week, a course load reduction is only 3 contact hours. It is not near enough time "off" during the day to put together an excellent VLC course. We were alsoexpected to be in our offices during the reduction time, so really all work was still done at home with fewer distraction[s] especially late in the night.”

Recommendation 4:   Provide extra compensation for experienced and/or certified online instructors.   Also, when developers drop out before completing their obligations, provide extra compensation for the remaining developer(s) who complete the project.

Additional compensation should be offered to experienced VLC online instructors. Employing those who have already proven themselves as developers will save time and money, and course quality will be maintained. Experienced instructors who have developed courses for the VLC should be more adept at developing new courses and editing those courses.  

Rather than seek new editors for previously developed courses, former developers should be encouraged to remain with their courses, editing and teaching materials they are already familiar with—thus decreasing the need for extra funding for editors unfamiliar with the course’s content, its construction, or evolution.   Developers should be encouraged to do trial runs of VLC courses they have developed.   In some cases, developers may be able to teach the course during the summer following development and make necessary revisions before the course is released in the fall.   At least one 2003-2004 developer was able to test and revise a new VLC course in this way.   

Recommendation 4 is supported by the Pachnowski and Jurczyk study (2003), which showed that preparation time needed by experienced developers to create one course tended to go down over multiple semesters and faculty “spent less additional time on training and preparation” if they were working within the same course.   Experienced online instructors, therefore, will be more productive than inexperienced ones.  

When no experienced developers can be found for a proposed course, experienced developers from different content areas could be employed to guide and supervise the content experts.

Also, developers who complete tasks originally assigned to other developers should receiveadditional compensation.   At least one respondent indicated that he received additional funds to develop a course when a co-developer dropped out of the project.

Recommendation 5:   Develop safeguards to assure the quality of VLC courses.  

While an increase in compensation should provide a more appealing incentive for developers to complete a course, additional safeguards should be in place to ensure that all developers have completed their assignments in a satisfactory manner.   Some survey respondents specifically mentioned concern over the workload inequities among course team members and the quality of the finished products resulting from poor participation from some team members. One stated that when she became an editor for a course she had developed, she discovered that some sections assigned to co-developers on her team had been left incomplete.   The “incomplete” course had been released to our colleges, and all team members had received the same compensation.  

Recommendation 6:   Provide professional development and certification opportunities in online course development for VLC participants.

Finally, while the VLC recognizes content expertise as its major prerequisite for developers, we maintain that the ability to design effective online instruction is equally crucial. Training and certification opportunities should be made available for VLC participants before they begin developing courses for the VLC. Several surveyrespondents specifically named the importance of such training.   Here’s an example:   “Training an individual to use Bb. . .   just prior to or during the development of a VLC is inefficient in course development.”

Conclusion

As we reviewed the survey responses and the dozens of email messages from concerned instructors around the state, it became clear that many are worried about the future of the VLC.   Some have expressed concern about the quality of VLC products, many of them adding that compensation packages do not now offer sufficient incentives to ensure quality.   Summarily, anecdotal evidence reveals that instructors are more reluctant to commit to developing courses than they once were, and this seems to indicate a trend that could have far-reaching negative outcomes for the VLC's future and future development projects. Significant policy and procedure changes may need to occur to address these matters before other faculty will participate.  

We hope that the decisions made in the coming weeks will begin the reversal of trends, practices, policies, and procedures that produce negative outcomes for the VLC and its faculty developers.     To effect more positive outcomes, we remain ready to assist with any further information we can provide.

VLC COMPENSATION COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Schifter, C. (2002). Compensation models in distance education: national survey questionnaire revisited.   Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration. 7 (1), Spring 2004. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/spring71/schifter71.html.   (A total of 216 individuals responded to the survey questionnaire from 152 identified institutions and from 43 states.)

Information for the chart was taken from the NCCCS Developers’ Listing at http://www.ncccs.cc.nc.us/Distance_Learning/vlc_developer_list.htm and http://www.ncccs.cc.nc.us/Distance Learning/upcoming _vlc_projects.htm.   Please note that these numbers may include those who had agreed to serve at the beginning of the cycle, but later dropped out.   Also, in several cases, one group of 6 developers was assigned to develop 2 related courses such as EDU 261 and EDU 262 during the 2002-2003 cycle.

Outliers received in two separate survey responses were not included in our final calculations.   A high response of 2,000 hours and a low response of 0 hours were deleted.

Visser, J. A. (2000). Faculty work in developing and teaching web-based distance courses.   American Journal of Distance Education.   14(3), 21-32.

The chart is based on course development information from 72 respondents in the VLC Developer Survey. Responses listing the same or different amounts for separate courses during different development years were counted separately to provide more accurate figures for payment per course.

The course title has been omitted to retain respondent anonymity.