Show me the money? Rewards and incentives for e-learning. (Chalk Dust from the Virtual Classroom).

In his classic work on the diffusion of innovations, Everett Rogers offers this definition: "Innovativeness is the degree to which an individual... is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than the other members of a system" (1995, p. 22). Rogers goes on to classify adopters into several categories: innovators, who are ahead of the curve; early adopters, who follow innovators and are often seen as opinion leaders within the organization; the early majority, who typically make up about one-third of the members of the system; the late majority, who tend to be skeptical about innovations; and, the laggards, who make decisions based on "the way we've always done it" (1995, p. 261-265).

Readers of this column probably fall into the categories of innovators and early adopters. You embrace e-learning enthusiastically and lead your organization in creatively applying cutting edge technology in the teaching/learning process. Can you keep going it alone or in small numbers? The answer is probably not. Unless members of the early and late majorities (about two-thirds of the organization) begin to participate in e-learning, your efforts may be marginalized. E-learning will not be seen as part of your organization's mission or vision, nor will its value be recognized or rewarded. Since the participation of the early and late majorities is critical to the success of any innovation, we're going to examine characteristics of these groups.

We'll also examine some possible rewards and motivators for higher education using Rogers' diffusion of innovations categories as the framework for the discussion. Those of you in corporate e-learning environments where tenure and its security are traded for other rewards can translate the following arguments to those that are meaningful to your organization.

MOTIVATION

Incentives and rewards are closely related to motivation. Motivation theory supports the notion that incentives don't come in a "one size fits all" model. Intrinsic motivation, when an individual's desire to learn something or do something becomes rewarding in and of itself, is certainly a critical component of adoption of an innovation like e-learning. It plays an important role in the risk-taking behavior exemplified by innovators and early adopters. These groups embrace e-learning because it offers new and different ways to address teaching and learning issues and it promises to improve the efficiency and/or the effectiveness of instruction. Extrinsic motivation has its source external to the individual. Money in its various forms (cash, promotion, time off) is probably the most powerful and common extrinsic motivator. However, some people are motivated by praise or recognition from their peers or supervisors. In a school setting, grades are the most common extrinsic motivators for students. While members of the early and late majorities may come to feel the same intrinsic motivation to participate in e-learning as time goes on, some kind(s) of extrinsic or external rewards or incentives might need to be used to get the process started (Bower, 2001).

EARLY AND LATE MAJORITY ADOPTERS

A large body of research in areas ranging from prescribing new drugs through the spread of educational technologies supports our earlier statement that most members (60-70%) of any group can be classified as early or late majority adopters (Rogers, 1995). The early majority adopters don't want to be the first to try something, nor do they want to be left behind. This group relies on the judgment of people that they consider to be opinion leaders. After observing the behavior of the opinion leaders, the early majority will usually go ahead and give the innovation a try. A little extra support and/or encouragement may be needed for the early majority to move beyond trial to adoption of an innovation. Late majority adopters are more skeptical. They may wait until there is little other choice but to adopt an innovation. Peer pressure may have to be considerable to initiate action (Rogers, 1995). One interesting consideration is that resistance to change is an important part of the natural cycle of the diffusion p rocess. "Even those who approve of an innovation are likely to find some aspect of their cultural or social identity challenged, and some professional or psychological comfort zone intruded upon" (Ellsworth, 2000, p. 166). To be receptive to the value of e-learning, early and late majority adopters must first resist it. Whether or not they get past this resistance phase may depend on the rewards and incentives available. The first area that must be addressed is very basic: Do facility think that e-learning is relevant to the mission of their organization?

CENTRALITY TO MISSION

The rapid growth of e-learning has taken many institutions by surprise. Higher education has its fair share of laggards in leadership positions, so it isn't surprising that few institutions specifically mention e-learning, distance learning or distributed learning in their mission statements. Yet it is crucial for members of the early and late majorities to see the link between e-learning and the institution's mission. In a survey of Management faculty, Rahman found that the most important reason given against online teaching was that faculty believed that it was not part of the university's mission (2001). The same study found that e-learning adopters did believe that e-learning was part of the university's mission! Centrality to mission is important in building intrinsic motivation for e-learning. If the mission statement doesn't clearly discuss e-learning, Rahman suggests that less direct phrases like "student centered university" and "access" be highlighted as supportive aspects of the mission. Georgetown University's Research, Curriculum, and Development Group page (http://www.georgetown.edu/uis/rcd/index.html) provides an example of a direct link between a university's teaching/learning mission and faculty technology use. No matter how the link is made between the mission and faculty practice, the connect/disconnect becomes overt when faculty try to figure out how the primary reward system (promotion and tenure) accommodates e-learning and faculty development.

THE HIGHER EDUCATION REWARD SYSTEM: PROMOTION AND TENURE

While many educational institutions actively seek to hire junior faculty with both the skills and the desire to engage in e-learning, these new roles and responsibilities are not reflected in promotion and tenure policies or guidelines (Wilson, 2001; Young, 2002). One important consideration is the weight given to course development and delivery in promotion and tenure criteria (Prestera & Moller, 2001). Some call this movement "the scholarship of teaching" and suggest that examination of relationships between teaching activities and student performance should be part of the higher education reward system (Bass, 1999; Cambridge, 1999). We don't want to stifle the creativity and energy of faculty who are excited about high-tech possibilities for learning, nor do we want to set them up to fail under the existing system.

Many faculty who are enthusiastic users of instructional technologies stilt value traditional definitions of research and service. At the same time, the diffusion of e-learning offers many possibilities for faculty and administrators to take part in a dialog about promotion and tenure. Early and late majority adopters may need to have these issues out on the table before they are even willing to try e-learning. If these groups are already hesitant about new technologies, their reluctance will only be reinforced if they feel that the reward system might actually punish them (i.e., denial of promotion and/or tenure).

Many e-learning innovators see themselves as educational entrepreneurs. As noted in the ACE/Educause report Distributed Education and Its Challenges: An Overview, "Some faculty may be willing to trade security (i.e., tenure) for greater economic opportunities and payoffs" (2001, p. 13). The entrepreneurial faculty member may not even want to work for an institution where the primary reward system (i.e., promotion and tenure) is based on the face-to-face classroom model of teaching and traditional definitions of research and service. This problem is compounded when many potential early and late majority adopters are untenured and thus at the greatest risk for personal failure in terms of this reward system.

EXTRINSIC/EXTERNAL MOTIVATORS

Promotion and tenure is the most visible extrinsic reward system in higher education. Faculty members who don't earn promotion from assistant to associate professor and tenure in the required 5- or 6-year cycle find themselves looking for their next job. But promotion and tenure aren't the only external motivators around. Three categories of external motivators have been widely used to promote change in higher education: monetary incentives, workload incentives, and training and support.

When 1,500 faculty members in Kentucky were surveyed about incentives for distance learning, financial incentives were ranked lowest (Wilson, 2001). Rahman's (2001) study demonstrated the same surprising finding, although in his study junior and adjunct faculty members ranked financial considerations higher than senior faculty. What does this mean to administrators trying to promote e-learning? It means that, unlike the movies, faculty aren't sitting in their offices screaming "Show me the money!" into the telephone. We're sure that most faculty wouldn't turn down money if it is offered, but it does seem that faculty actually consider other factors to be at least as important as money.

Workload considerations do seem to be more important to faculty members, primarily because of the amount of time required to design and deliver instruction using new tools and instructional strategies. Conference presenters demonstrating distance learning modules or courses almost always mention how long the development process took--and if they don't mention it someone in the audience will ask. Casual hallway conversations about online courses focus on the amount of time it takes to respond to the flood of student e-mails and threaded group discussions. Common workload incentives include summer grants and release time for course development (Rahman, 2001). Release time may be as little as one course for one semester, which supposedly is adequate to get a course ready for web-based delivery. This release time vanishes once the course is on the web. Given the emphasis placed on publication in refereed journals that is the cornerstone of many promotion and tenure systems, it isn't surprising the early and late majority adopters are reluctant to invest large amounts of time mastering new technologies and reconfiguring courses and student learning activities.

The same faculty surveys report that training and support for e-learning are critical (Rahman, 2001; Wilson, 2001). Bower notes that "fear of appearing incompetent may cause faculty to resist involvement in any activity for which they have not had the proper training" (2001, p. 2). There are many models for faculty support. Some institutions employ teams of instructional designers who will consult with faculty and basically do all of the technical work associated with changing to an online format. Other institutions offer group training sessions and individual consultations for faculty members, but the faculty member has the primary responsibility for doing the work. Using students to provide this support is an increasingly popular option.

The University of Central Florida (http://reach.ucf.edu/~coursdev/) offers all of these services through the UCF Course Development and Web Resources Virtual Development Team. This kind of centralized model might not fit the style of all institutions but it does save faculty members from trying to figure out who to call to answer a certain kind of question. Many institutions have adopted approaches recommended by the Teaching, Learning and Technology Group (http://www.tltgroup.org/) to support faculty use of educational technology. Making these kinds of resources available and appealing to early and late majority adopters is critical. Innovators and early adopters need to share their expertise and insight through institutional support systems--even if attendance at workshops, chats, etc. is not always high.

CONCLUSION

As the ACE/Educause report notes, "In an era when many students have never known life without the Internet, when time is constrained for adult learners seeking additional education, and when worldwide demand for education is at an at all-time high, the classroom no longer bounds the learning environment" (2001, p. 2). Many faculty have heard this directive and have acted on it. Now it's time to get other faculty on board, focusing on the early and late majority adopters. Innovators need to fight the tendency to say "nobody paid me any extra money or gave me any help when I taught my first online class" and recognize that external motivators may be needed to move the process along.

REFERENCES

American Council on Education (ACE) & Educause. (2001). Distributed education: Challenges, choices and a new environment. Washington, DC: ACE. Retrieved April 15, 2002, from http://www.acenet.edu/bookstore.

Bass, R. (1999). The scholarship of teaching: What's the problem. Inventio, 1(1). Retrieved April 15, 2002, from http:/lwww.doiiit.gmu.edu/Archives/feb98/randybass.htm.

Bower, B.L. (2001). Distance education: Facing the faculty challenge. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, IV (II). Retrieved April 15, 2002, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer42/bower42.html.

Cambridge, B. (1999, December). The scholarship of teaching and learning: Questions and answers from the field. AAHE Bulletin. Retrieved April 15, 2002, from http://www.aahe.org/Bulletin/dec99f2.htm.

Ellsworth, J.B. (2000). Surviving change: A survey of educational change models. Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology.

Prestera, G.E., & Moller, L.A. (2001). Organizational alignment supporting distance education in post-secondary institutions. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, IV (IV). Retrieved April 15, 2002, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter44/prestera44.html.

Rahman, M. (2001). Faculty recruitment strategies for online programs. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, IV (IV). Retrieved April 15, 2002, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter44/rahman44.html.

Rogers, E.M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. (4th ed). New York: The Free Press.

Wilson, C. (2001). Faculty attitudes about distance, learning. Educause Quarterly 2, 70-71.

Young, J.R. (2002). Ever so slowly, colleges start to count work with technology in tenure decisions [Electronic Version]. Chronicle of Higher Education, 48 (24). Retrieved April 15, 2002, from http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i24/24a02501.htm.

RANDAL D. CARLSON AND JUDI REPMAN BOTH TEACH GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE COURSES IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM AT GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY.

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