Administrator perceptions on the monitoring of teaching and teaching misbehavior in online higher education courses

Abstract

The evaluation of teaching quality is a concern for leaders in higher education. Faculty supervisors must make recommendations for hiring, promoting, and rendering tenure decisions for faculty members. In addition, they must deal with problem faculty and decide how to address faculty misbehavior. Oversight and management of faculty teaching typically falls to that of the academic department head. This position is most commonly filled by academics with little management experience or training. Online teaching adds an additional technical element that further complicates the activity. Administrators in the position to monitor faculty teaching may have online teaching experience, but the monitoring of faculty is met with sizeable challenges including the professors' right to academic freedom and the protections of tenure. This qualitative case study explores administrator perceptions of the strengths and challenges of current systems of monitoring online faculty teaching and teaching misbehaviors in an American public university where the majority of courses are delivered traditionally or in-person. The study surveyed nine university staff, including faculty supervisors and online support administrators, about their perceptions of the differences and similarities for monitoring teaching and teaching misbehaviors in online and in-person courses. The results showed there was no real difference in practice or policy for the monitoring of online teaching. The author argues that there is a special need for monitoring in online higher education teaching specifically because the 'public nature' component of college teaching is removed in online classes. A theoretical framework is presented that describes this 'public nature' and the lack of third party perspective in online classes that previously served as a deterrent for misbehavior and facilitated detection from peer students, faculty, staff, and administrators.