The 2017 national survey of online learning in Canadian post-secondary education: methodology and results

Abstract

Canada has a long history of online and distance education, but until 2017 there had been no comprehensive national data on online enrolments in both the university and college sectors. However, in 2017 a team of independent Canadian researchers, working in collaboration with the Babson Survey Research Group and WCET in the USA, raised the funding and conducted a national survey of online learning in all public post-secondary institutions in Canada. The results from the survey are presented and discussed, as well as plans for further studies in the future.

A posthumanist critique of flexible online learning and its “anytime anyplace” claims

“…Online learning is frequently promoted as a flexible approach to education, with flexibility being touted as an aspect of educational provision that is democratizing and desirable (eg, Blayone, Barber, DiGiuseppe, & Childs, ; Serhan, ). As enrolment in online courses grows (eg, Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, ) and universities expand their online learning offerings (eg, Bates, ), as online learning essentially becomes increasingly “ordinary,” it becomes ever more urgent to understand the normative discourses that give shape to how we understand flexibility in this context. In particular, under‐examined is the oft‐repeated claim that online learning happens “anywhere at anytime,” a discourse which suggests that online learning has the potential to be more accommodating, more accessible and more equitable than face‐to‐face or blended alternatives.…”

Examining Online Health Sciences Graduate Programs in Canada

“…Indeed, e-learning has become a critical cornerstone in higher education advancement. The number of Canadian adults between the ages of 25 to 64 holding university degrees continues to rise (Statistics Canada, 2013) and post-secondary institutions have reported steady growth in online enrolments since 2015 (Martel, 2015;Bates et al, 2017;Donovan et al, 2018). In 2016-2017, 17% of all Canadian post-secondary students were taking at least one online course for credit, and 65% of those same post-secondary institutions anticipated modest (1-10%) to fast growth (over 10%) of their online enrolments over the next year (Donovan et al, 2018).…”

L’efficacité de la formation à distance au niveau postsecondaire : une méga-analyse

“…De même en est-il de l'accès de l'ensemble de la population du Canada à l'enseignement supérieur. Grâce notamment à la formation à distance (FAD) et à l'apprentissage en ligne, qui en constitue l'une des modalités dominantes (Bates, 2018), les universités et collèges canadiens comptent dans leurs rangs de plus en plus d'étudiants internationaux (Bozkurt, Yazıc et Aydın, 2018;Cui et al, 2017) et canadiens, dont les taux d'inscription en FAD ont connu une augmentation annuelle respective de 10 % et 15 % au cours des cinq dernières années (Bates, 2018).…”

“…En effet, les technologies utilisées actuellement dans l'enseignement postsecondaire canadien sont de plus en plus variées. Si la correspondance postale est encore déployée comme moyen de diffusion, l'Internet est actuellement le principal procédé de transmission du matériel pédagogique (Bates, 2018). De plus, selon Bates, le quart des institutions postsecondaires utilisent des technologies favorisant une communication synchrone.…”

“…Certains auteurs font état de leur apport positif (Lee, 2017), tandis que d'autres insistent sur les déceptions au regard des technologies récentes (Johnson, 2014;Merrill et Ellen, 2014). Plus spécifiquement, au Canada, la résistance à l'utilisation des nouvelles technologies est évoquée dans près des deux tiers des institutions postsecondaires, et ce, malgré les priorités déclarées dans les plans quinquennaux de ces mêmes institutions (Bates, 2018). Devant ces positions discordantes, de nombreux chercheurs conviennent que les études pertinentes n'en seraient encore qu'à leurs débuts (Günes et Bosna, 2018;Kesim, 2018;Martin, Ahlgrim-Delzell et Budhrani, 2017).…”