A solid majority of faculty members (58 percent) described themselves as filled more with fear than with excitement ... . Meanwhile, academic technology administrators —defined as “individuals with responsibility for some aspect of academic technology at their institutions”—were overwhelmingly enthused; 80 percent said the online boom excited more than frightened them.

A new study—quite timely in light of the University of Virginia presidency situation and its relationship to online learning—shows faculty more fearful of online learning than tech administrators. Here’s an Inside Higher Ed article about it and here’s the PDF of the study. Inside Higher Ed is having a free webcast about this report on July 10.

Faculty and tech administrators also disagree on assessment of online instruction:

Meanwhile, online courses tend to generate more data from which instructors and their overseers can glean quantitative insights on student engagement and the degree to which a professor has succeeded in meeting specific learning objectives.

Administrators seemed more confident that their institutions were indeed supplying their online instructors with good quality-assessment tools; more than 50 percent of administrators believed their institutions had such tools in place, compared to 25 percent of faculty members.