Release time (24)
Twenty-four of the colleges included in this study contractually specify faculty release time for the preparation and/or initial teaching of distance education courses. In its Sample Distance Education Policy & Contract Language (undated b), the AAUP recommends that faculty be provided with release time when they teach a distance education class for the first time and encourage the possibility of additional release time in the first offering of a course. If release time is considered compensation, it would be a mandatory bargaining term in every statute covered in this study. If not, it would be a permissive term for bargaining.
Examples
Observations. When colleges formally specify release time in negotiated agreements, they recognize the concerns of faculty surrounding the time needed to prepare for and teach a distance education course for the first time. If faculty members are reluctant to teach in the distance modality, release time gives them the time needed to get required training, learn new pedagogy, observe the courses of peers and to become comfortable with the course management software used by the college. As the AAUP notes in the example above, release time is useful not just in the term prior to teaching the course, but in the first term of distance instruction as well.