Technology Compensation (7)
Seven of the institutions in the study reimburse faculty for distance education related technology costs including a monthly allowance for internet access and the provision of laptop computers. This is a permissive topic for bargaining.
Examples
Observations. Only seven of the 130 contracts reviewed for this study included compensation for technology used in teaching distance education courses. Most institutions adopt the belief that working from home is a choice that faculty make. Also, if institution provided technology is available on campus, there is no need to subsidize it in faculty homes. The high costs traditionally associated with the acquisition of computing technology and the high speed internet access needed to teach online effectively may have once been a deterrent to faculty reluctant to teach in the distance format. Thus, the appearance of this term in a contract may reflect a campus trying to motivate more faculty members to teach distance education courses. However, as we approach the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, computing technology and high speed internet access are things that most faculty already have at home, regardless of whether they teach in the distance format or not. Still, an institution’s efforts to defray those costs would be welcomed by most faculty members.