Summary Finding One

The Internet-supported Learning (IsL) self-audit process showed very good promise of helping an online initiative benchmark itself accurately, identify strengths and weaknesses, and prioritize future actions.

• In the data collected thus far there appears to be a reasonable approximate relationship between IsL scores and enrollments
• The study questions and factors worked well for initiatives from the full range of institutions including community colleges, public and private baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral institutions
• Identifying profile characteristics for three broad stages of progress were developed for each of six success factors, enabling an expedient way for preliminary assessment

Summary Finding Two

Focus on full programs continues to expand with increasing emphasis on both fully online programs and hybrid/blended programs.

• 43% of the initiatives were focused on fully online programs
• 38% of the initiatives were focused on a combination of fully online and hybrid/blended programs
• 6% of the initiatives were focused on hybrid/blended programs
• 13% were focused on individual courses

Summary Finding Three

Whereas the original IsL study identified achieving faculty buy-in and support as the most significant challenge, in this wider field the areas of measurement and leadership emerged as being at least as challenging or more challenging success factors.

• Measurement-related items scored the weakest and exhibited a large variance
• Leadership-related items were weak and showed large variance
• Faculty support and buy-in scored higher than measurement or leadership, but still exhibited fairly large variance

Summary Finding Four

This study phase reinforced the earlier findings that online initiatives are feeling strong motivations, typically in service to non-traditional students, and highly program focused.

• Approximately two-thirds of the students served by these initiatives were non-traditional
• Motivation scores were highest of all success factors across all institution types with the smallest variance
• Student support scores were second highest
• Programmatic approach scores were third highest with an overwhelming 87% focused on program-level initiatives

Summary Finding Five

The data so far seems to indicate that the private institution initiatives have made the most progress, followed by the community colleges, and lastly the public comprehensives.

• The private institution initiatives scored highest in all success factors except faculty support (an area in which community colleges excelled)
• The public comprehensive initiatives scored lowest in all success factors
• While there was statistical overlap in most success factors, the areas of leadership and programmatic approach came out as the two factors in which the privates are most differentiated from the publics

Summary Finding Six

In the near-term future the IsL leaders are focused on improving course quality, providing enhanced student services, and getting better at measuring student outcomes.

• Despite reasonable scores in student support across the field, improving student services came out as the clear priority in the near term
• Several elements of course quality, including adding more interactivity and rich media to courses made a strong showing among near-term priorities
• Evolving from student satisfaction to student outcomes as the key measure of success emerged as a key characteristic of leadership

Summary Finding Seven

Increasing student demand for IsL and a new breed of faculty more comfortable with IsL technology are seen as the most important influencing factors on initiatives in the next three years.

• Increasing corporate partnerships and increasing online competition came out as important factors, particularly among the private institution initiatives
• Social factors such as increasing accountability and needing to work more with secondary institutions were not perceived as major factors in the upcoming three-year period
• While open source software or content are not perceived as major factors, digital course-paks, search engines, and consumer electronics are considered to have a significant impact in the next three years

Summary Finding Eight

The findings of this report regarding vendor satisfaction have been updated in subsequent update reports.