A good textbook is crucial to an online course. Because so much of an online instructor’s interaction is based largely on e-mail, chat, or online discussion boards and groups, the textbook must provide structure and deliver the course content.

If there’s a silver lining to the bad economy … and couldn’t we all use some good economic news about now … consider the results of an annual survey on online education. Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008 reports that higher education institutions believe that the economic changes will have a positive impact on overall college enrollments, with online courses and programs for working adults seeing the greatest interest.

Well, it’s a new year, and with it comes new hopes, new dreams, new possibilities…and, for online teachers, new courses and/or continuation of existing courses. While we can certainly do course adjustments any time during the year, the beginning of a new year is always a great time to do this, if only because it’s a psychological kickoff to doing things different and better.

More and more, university faculty and students are going online… There. That’s the last time I will consciously write that phrase. And when Brad Mehlenbacher reads it, he will likely say, “thank heavens.”

Has the rapid expansion of online education put your institution on a collision course with faculty incentive policies? Although more and more faculty are teaching online, few colleges and universities are proactively addressing faculty workload, promotion, and tenure policies to more accurately reflect the differences between teaching online and teaching face-to-face, said Philip DiSalvio, assistant provost and director of SetonWorldWide at Seton Hall University.

I recently conducted a survey of more than 300 online students to learn of their most vexing issues with online courses. One item—of the 40+ mentioned—was cited by 68 percent of the students: poor feedback from their instructors.

If your institution offers online courses, you know that finding quality adjuncts is only half of the staffing battle. Keeping them is sometimes even more difficult. Defections are common as adjuncts report feeling disconnected from the campus community they serve, and there’s always competition from other schools who may offer a better pay rate.

Has email overtaken your life? Teresa Marie Kelly offers hope. As a distance education faculty member at Kaplan University, Kelly knows first hand how easy it is to fall into the email trap and offers the following four tips for to help online faculty create a better work-life balance.

In the early years, web-based distance education was looked at as a magic bullet. A relatively quick and easy way to increase revenue without a lot of additional work or expense. Like so many things in life, however, turning a profit in online distance education is easier said than done.