PW: Ubell Builds Web Program at Stevens

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Ubell Builds Web Program at Stevens
Calvin Reid -- 2/28/00

Even while publishers, online vendors and universities grapple over the copyright issues around converting textbooks and class lectures into online content, Web-based distance-learning programs are growing as an attractive and profitable alternative to on-site teaching.

This is particularly true for graduate programs, according to Robert Ubell, former executive vice-president of new media at Marcel Dekker, who has now set up shop as the director of Web-based distance learning at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Over the last six months, Ubell has worked to launch WebCampus Stevens, a fully accredited Web-based graduate program in telecommunications and science education at the Hoboken, N.J., engineering institution. Distance-learning programs offer lectures and class discussions (often multimedia or video), online texts, file sharing, message boards and e-mail discussions via the Web. Ubell told PW that there are currently about "1.5 million students in distance learning" at a variety of U.S. educational institutions. Although much of that number is made up of interactive-video students, many observers note that the demand for video courses is leveling off while Web learning is growing.

DL programs can be "set up quickly and are based on existing curricula," Ubell said. Most important, students, in particular older graduate students, "prefer the Web to in-your-face teaching." Ubell explained that DL course material is presented on a weekly basis and students can log on at any time within the weekly time frame. "Working students prefer asynchronous online classes," said Ubell. "You can plug in at two in the morning, the textbook is available in print and online, and the class discussions are threaded and always available." Stevens has approximately 2,250 students in its grad programs, with 275 students enrolled in either interactive-video or Web-based distance-learning courses.

Ubell told PW that there are about six companies that offer the technical infrastructure that can support DL programs. WebCampus Stevens decided on WebCt after studying the key players, among them such vendors as Blackboard and E-College and such firms as Convene, Top Class and V-learn. According to Ubell, WebCT controls about 30% of the current market. Developed about three years ago by a group of university professors, it is the oldest platform available.

Ubell also noted that graduation rates for online classes and on-site classes "are exactly the same." Professors, said Ubell, generate DL content from their class lectures. However, the Stevens program has beta agreements with a number of textbook publishers (whom Ubell declined to identify), which allow Stevens to create online content from textbooks without permissions payment. "Kids are buying the print text but want online access," explained Ubell. WebCampus also offers an online bookstore, a database of online textbook stores and password-protected access to an extensive online library.

The program has announced an alliance with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the world's largest technical society, to offer its distance-learning program to IEEE's 300,000 members. So far, Stevens has attracted about 20% of its DL students from outside the U.S.; 30% are from New Jersey and the rest from elsewhere in the U.S. "We wanted to extend the Stevens brand outside of New Jersey," said Ubell, "and those are just the numbers we wanted to achieve."
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