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Tipping Point continued from cover

The University of Illinois/Springfield (UIS) is one of three institutions of the University of Illinois system. It is an upper division campus that serves primarily non-residential students in their junior or senior year of a bachelor’s degree or at the master’s level. The current headcount is 4,300. Many of its students are involved in the state government or related careers. UIS offered the first online degree—MS in Management Information Systems—in 1998. Since then, UIS added a new degree almost every year for a current total of eight online degrees. While onsite enrollments have been decreasing, annual online enrollment data show a continuing increase:

UIS, Online Enrollments USA 2000-2004 *, and % of total credit hours
	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
enrollments	1,373	2,066	3,017	3,988	5,105
% of total credit hrs	-	-	11.5%	13.8%	19%
* calendar year data

By Fall 04 these enrollments represented about 20% of the total. UIS has 165 full-time faculty, of whom about one third have taught online [3]. Since online enrollments are growing (in contrast to onsite enrollments), the online environment represents an institutional investment in its future productivity [4].

UIS and UMUC represent two institutions on the tipping point trajectory. At UIS, online enrollments are approaching a critical mass; the continued upward growth is poised to increase with the forthcoming introduction of eight new online degrees. At UMUC the proportion of online learning has reached a tipping point. At 48% online enrollments, UMUC’s institutional environment has shifted towards online learning. Research in the legal field (1960s and 1970s) showed that 40% of a minority group could ‘tip’ the racial composition of a neighborhood [5]. Thus it may be possible to identify the enrollment point at which online education will become a dominant mode of learning.

A third indicator is infrastructure. At UIS and UMUC, a full spectrum of support services are designed for the online population, many of them also available to the on-ground population.

This combination of indicators—national and institutional enrollment growth and transformed infrastructure—and the point at which they intersect, might be termed the educational tipping point. Hopefully "once the beliefs and energies of a critical mass of people are engaged, conversion to a new idea [online learning] will spread like an epidemic, bringing about fundamental change" [6].

[1] Tyrell, M. Shape your own psychology. Uncommon Knowledge Newsletter (book review of M. Gladwell, The Tipping Point, retrieved September 3, 2004.
[2] Allen, I.E. and J. Seaman. Entering the mainstream: The quality and extent of online education in the United States 2003 and 2004. Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium, 2004.
[3] Schroeder, R. e-mail message to author October 16, 2004; interview with author October 18, 2004 (UIS has received a Sloan Foundation matching grant that will result in 8 additional online degrees 2004-2007.)
[4] University of Illinois at Springfield Online Info. http://online.uis.edu/info/
[5] Hellerstein, W. The benign quota, equal protection and ‘the rule in Shelly’s case.' Rutgers Law Review 17: 531-543, 1963.
[6] Kim, W. C. and R. Mauborgne. Tipping point leadership. Harvard Business Review: 60-69, April 2003.

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