`Cyberprofs' Work More for Less Pay, Often Surrender Intellectual Property Rights, UC Irvine Study Shows.Business Editors and Education Writers IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 7, 2000 As colleges and universities around the globe move rapidly to embrace web education, a UC Irvine Graduate School of Management professor is reporting research findings that show that the nation's "cyberprofs" are typically spending twice as much time both developing and teaching web-based courses for the same or less pay. In addition, many cyberprofs are reporting strong negative reactions from their colleagues ranging from skepticism and jealousy Jealousy See also Envy. Jesters (See CLOWNS.) adder’s tongue flower symbolizes jealousy. to distrust and anger. Meanwhile, institutions rather than instructors are capturing the lion's share of intellectual property rights associated with developing online courses. The problem appears to be the naivete na·ive·té or na·ïve·té n. 1. The state or quality of being inexperienced or unsophisticated, especially in being artless, credulous, or uncritical. 2. An artless, credulous, or uncritical statement or act. on the part of instructors in protecting their property rights. These findings are reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives in an article by Peter Navarro Peter Navarro is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. , a professor of economics and public policy at UCI UCI University of California, Irvine UCI Union Cycliste Internationale (International Cycling Union) UCI Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos UCI United Cinemas International (UK) (available at http://www.powerofeconomics.com/L2_Research_Studies.htm). Navarro also reports that because it is expensive to develop fully interactive cyberlearning content, most cyber (1) From "cybernetics," it is a prefix attached to everyday words to add a computer, electronic or online connotation. The term is similar to "virtual," but the latter is used more frequently. See virtual. courses in economics today merely offer a "digitized text" model of instruction that relies primarily on the posting of simple text to web sites. This would seem to confirm the worst fears of the "digital diploma mill diploma mill n. Informal An unaccredited institution of higher education that grants degrees without ensuring that students are properly qualified. " critics. Nonetheless, Navarro also predicts a brighter future for cyber education in which textbook publishers are now racing to develop more fully interactive multimedia materials to fill the cyber content gap. In previous research studies, Navarro has found that a fully interactive, multimedia cyber course provides a viable competitive challenge to the traditional classroom. In three separate experiments, Navarro's cyber students have performed as well or better than a control group in the traditional lecture hall lecture hall n → sala de conferencias; (UNIV) → aula lecture hall lecture n → amphithéâtre m . As for the problem that cyberprofs are spending much more time developing and teaching courses for the same or less pay, Navarro argues that unless compensation is adjusted upwards to reflect the increased workload, the quality of instruction in the cyber classroom may well eventually suffer. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion