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the academically decentralized/administratively centralized model

Changes in the institutional landscape may magnify competition among educational providers and allow new models and leaders to emerge.

Knowledge proliferation may increase content-breadth demands on higher education, spreading distance education resources ever thinner and complicating development decisions.

An NEA survey reported that faculty members’ top concern about distance education was that they will do more work for the same amount of pay, apparently a merited concern.

As long as distance education contributions are not considered in tenure and promotion decisions, and as long as professors have their own, traditional ways of delivering their courses, many faculty members will be reluctant to participate in online courses (Oravec, 2003). Concerning this reluctance, Dunn has predicted that many faculty members will revolt against technological course delivery and the emerging expectations their institutions will have of faculty members. Dunn forecast that some of the resistance will even be manifest through unionization and strikes (Dunn, 2000). Some have suggested the labor-intensive and time-consuming demands required to develop online modules as reasons for faculty resistance (Brogden, 2002).

The results of de Alva’s 2000 survey support this trend: governors rated “maintaining traditional faculty roles and tenure” as the least desirable characteristic of a twenty-first century university (p. 34).

Faculty members tend initially to try to use their conventional classroom methods to teach at a distance and then become frustrated when attempts are unsuccessful (Dasher-Alston & Patton, p. 14). In Green’s (2002) survey of the role

Distance education teams include administrators, instructional designers, technologists, and instructors/facilitators (Miller, 2001; Williams, 2003). The functions of instructors and facilitators then include being a “facilitator, teacher, organizer, grader, mentor, role model, counselor, coach, supervisor, problem solver, and liaison” (Riffee, 2003, p. 1; see also Roberson, 2002; Scagnoli, 2001). The role of faculty members in distance education requires “some specialized skills and strategies. Distance education instructors must plan ahead, be highly organized, and communicate with learners in new ways. They need to be accessible to students [and] work in teams when appropriate” (PSU, 1998, p. 4). Distance faculty members must be experts in maintaining communication, because there is increased demand for student interaction in distance learning (NEA, 2000). Finally, they may have to assume more administrative responsibilities than is true in a residential model (PSU, 1998).

“Rather than incorporating the responsibility for all technology- and competency-based functions into a single concept of ‘faculty member,’ universities are disaggregating faculty instructional activities and [assigning] them to distinct professionals” (Paulson, 2002, p. 124). Doing this involves a “deliberate division of labor among the faculty, creating new kinds of instructional staff, or deploying nontenure-track instructional staff (such as adjunct faculty, graduate teaching assistants, or undergraduate assistants) in new ways” (Paulson, 2002, p. 126

Online students are becoming an entirely new subpopulation of higher-education learners. They are “generally older, have completed more college credit hours and more degree programs, and have a higher all-college GPA than their traditional counterparts” (Diaz, 2002, pp. 1-2). For example, Diaz has noted that online students received twice as many A’s as traditional students and half as many D’s and F’s.

One result of the highly competitive e-learning market will be institutions that specialize in meeting particular niches in the market (Gallagher, 2003). Morrison and Barone (2003, p. 4) observed, “We can see the beginnings of the trend toward the unbundling of courses, credits, services, and fee structures.” Dunn foresaw a similar trend, predicting that “courseware producers will sell courses and award credits directly to the end user and thus, through intermediation, bypass the institutional middleman” (Dunn, 2000, p. 37). The transition may also blur the distinction between two- and four-year colleges and universities (Carr, 1999). In this context of greater “portability,” more educational “brokers” (e.g., Western Governor’s University, Excelsior College, Charter Oak State College, etc.) will exist (Pond, 2003). Further, as de Alva has asserted, “Institutional success for any higher education enterprise will depend more on successful marketing, solid quality-assurance and control systems, and effective use of the new media than on production and communication of knowledge” (de Alva, 2000, p. 40).

one of the foundational concepts in social media has become that you cannot completely control your message through social media but rather you can simply begin to participate in the "conversation" expecting that you can achieve a significant influence in that conversation.[7]

Several colleges have even introduced classes on best social media practices, preparing students for potential careers as digital strategists.[

Out of this anarchy, it suddenly became clear that what was governing the infinite monkeys now inputting away on the Internet was the law of digital Darwinism, the survival of the loudest and most opinionated. Under these rules, the only way to intellectually prevail is by infinite filibustering."[34]

social media in the form of public diplomacy creates a patina of inclusiveness that covers traditional economic interests that are structured to ensure that wealth is pumped up to the top of the economic pyramid, perpetuating the digital divide and post Marxian class conflict.

He also speculates on the emergence of "anti-social media" used as "instruments of pure control".[36]

Social networking now accounts for 22% of all time spent online in the US.[15] A total of 234 million people age 13 and older in the U.S. used mobile devices in December 2009.[16] Twitter processed more than one billion tweets in December 2009 and averages almost 40 million tweets per day.[16] Over 25% of U.S. internet page views occurred at one of the top social networking sites in December 2009, up from 13.8% a year before.[16] Australia has some of the highest social media usage in the world. In usage of Facebook, Australia ranks highest, with over 9 million users spending almost 9 hours per month on the site.[17][18] The number of social media users age 65 and older grew 100 percent throughout 2010, so that one in four people in that age group are now part of a social networking site.[19] As of June 2011[update] Facebook has 750 Million users.[20] Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.[21] Social Media has overtaken pornography as the No. 1 activity on the web.[21] iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months, and Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months.[21] If Facebook were a country it would be the world's 3rd largest in terms of population, that's above the US. U.S. Department of Education study revealed that online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction.[21] YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.[21] In four minutes and 26 seconds 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube.[21] 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.[21] 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum.[21]