Recommendations
- Promote benefits and strategies for engaging in online teaching through mentoring and the creation of sustainable learning communities. Academic departments need to consider changes to their tenure requisites to reward faculty who choose to engage in course development and online instruction. Faculty report strong preferences for face-to-face learning environments, but with increasing offerings and enrollments in online classes, institutions need to provide professional development to faculty who have the interest and skills to teach online.
- Communicate to faculty and students the benefits of advising technologies. Gain buy-in by understanding faculty needs and advising processes, and integrate these technologies into existing software platforms. Increasing awareness among faculty is necessary to implement online student success tools. But it's equally critical for institutions to implement a "bottom up" approach for putting advising technologies into effect. Without buy-in from faculty and absent a perception that these tools are a value-ad, the technologies will likely not be used often and will be seen as offering few tangible benefits to student success. Students already appreciate these tools, particularly students in underrepresented groups. Institutions need to capitalize on students' use of these tools and ensure that faculty have the appropriate tools seamlessly integrated into their advising activities.
- Increase awareness among IT support services staff that quality services for faculty contribute to faculty's overall ratings of their technology experiences. IT support staff are first responders to faculty technology issues and can make a real difference in faculty experiences. Ensuring faculty satisfaction in using remote-access software is an area where IT support services can improve faculty technology experiences. In addition, engagement with help desk services is associated with faculty's overall satisfaction with technology experiences at their institution.
- Facilitate faculty professional development on integrating technology into teaching. Promote professional development for faculty on effectively incorporating mobile technologies into their classrooms. Bans on all technology devices in the classroom will likely decrease student engagement. These bans disproportionately affect minority students and students with disabilities needing accommodations. Quash the "devices in the classroom" debate by leveraging mobile technologies in students' hands to increase engagement and learning.
- Increase faculty awareness of student needs and accessibility support services, particularly among non-AA institutions. Disability disclosure rates remain low among students, limiting faculty awareness and ability to address accessibility needs in the classroom. When faculty use accessibility support services, however, they report high levels of satisfaction with those services.