Incentives offered for distance learning

As part of an effort to continually engage and attract new students to Ohio State, the Office of Academic Affairs is offering financial incentives to academic departments to create or enhance distance learning courses.

"As a land grant university, our mission is to serve citizens of the state of Ohio, wherever they may be," said Steve Acker, acting director of Technology Enhancement Learning and Research, which is working with Academic Affairs in this effort. "In order for the University to meet that mandate, we have to go to students as well as have students come to us."

"It is our responsibility to make the learning environment more accessible to those who cannot come to campus because of jobs, family responsibilities, or other of the myriad demands of modern life."

To serve those needs, a Distance Education Pricing and Policy Task Force was formed. The group consists of academic deans, the Office of Academic Affairs, the Office of Finance, and the chief information officer from the Office of Academic Affairs. Acker also served on the committee, which was chaired by John Cassady, dean of the College of Pharmacy.

The committee released the "Cassady Report," which presents an interim pricing and revenue distribution policy for distance education. The report first lists the existing mechanisms for offering distance education courses; offers a new, interim financial policy to support pilot projects; and considers a framework for evaluating distance learning as an enterprise.

Acker said the interim policy, plus further discussions around the University, will be used to gather more insight into the distance learning initiative as well as gain actual experience which will help create a permanent policy by autumn quarter 2000.

"Because no one knows enough about the financial implications of distance learning as yet, we had to find a way to try to come up with a future-oriented policy," Acker said. "Our plan is to gather data over the next 18 months and build our final policy based on actual experience."

Acker said distance learning provides ways to build new revenue for the University while providing benefits to the on-campus student at the same time.

In an effort to promote distance learning, the Office of Academic Affairs established an innovation fund to be distributed through a coursework development grants program. Individual faculty members apply to create or enhance existing distance education courses.

The program, Technology Enhanced Learning and Research (TELR): Distance Education Courseware Development Grants, makes awards in amounts between $5,000 and $20,000 to support building credit and noncredit Ohio State courses.

These courses must fit into one of eight strategic categories: courses with strong external market potential; University preparatory courses; General Education Curriculum courses; chronically closed courses; courseware for the international market; outreach and engagement courses; professional advancement; and workplace readiness courses.

An additional incentive for departments is in the form of student tuition and subsidy sharing. Departments that offer distance education courses that reach students who are not currently Ohio State students may be eligible to receive 60 percent of the student tuition and subsidy generated by new students the course enrolls.

The other 40 percent goes to Academic Affairs, which may choose to use the funds to replenish the innovation fund if the program proves successful. Eligibility for tuition and subsidy sharing is considered on an individual basis by Academic Affairs and the Office of Business and Finance.

Acker said the innovation fund and the possibility of tuition and subsidy sharing are offered to academic departments as incentive for the hard work they must put in to develop these courses.

Ohio State takes center stage at opera house

Take a renovated historic opera house. Add a group of talented students from the College of the Arts. Throw in The Ohio State University Extension. Mix it with an enthusiastic, small community in Southeastern Ohio. And what do you get?

A night of great theater, student learning and community interaction -- Buckeye style.

The resulting "Ohio State Sampler" featured 65 students from Ohio State's Men's Glee Club, Double Bass Ensemble and theatre and dance departments, who sang, danced and performed original works and acts from "West Side Story" and Shakespeare April 26 at the historic McConnelsville Opera House.

Historic McConnelsville Opera House

The performance was sponsored by the College of the Arts, OSU Extension through OSU CARES and the Ohio Arts Council as part of Ohio State's outreach and engagement efforts.

"The whole concept of outreach and engagement is for the University to engage with the needs and interests of our surrounding communities," said Karen Bruns, assistant professor in OSU Extension and leader for OSU CARES. "It was a wonderful opportunity to take talented students from Ohio State to perform at the McConnelsville Opera House to emphasize what their opera house has to offer and what they are trying to do there."

According to David Butler, associate dean in the College of the Arts, the McConnelsville venue is among eight historical opera houses around the state that have been restored with local effort and civic pride. He said he hopes to work with others in the future, with the help of partners or co-sponsors from off-campus.

The McConnelsville performance was made possible through a grant from the Ohio Arts Council and OSU CARES and the Ohio State President's Council for Outreach and Engagement.

"The College of the Arts contributed people and time, and OAC and OSU CARES contributed financially -- there were partnerships all around," Bruns said.

Butler said faculty from each department in the College of the Arts chose the students and the performances that would be most accessible and enjoyable to a broad audience in McConnelsville.

"Our students had a wonderful attitude," he said. "There is a terrific spirit there in the students that is ready to be tapped."

OSU theater students pose with McConnelsville children.

About 450 people attended the performance, many of whom stayed afterwards to attend a reception in the Ohio State students' honor.

"Three little girls no more than 10 years old stood asking the Ohio State students for autographs," Bruns said with a smile. "There were junior high and high school kids, parents, grandparents and other community members. The one-on-one contact between the student performers and the community was good to see."

Jeff Shaner, OSU Extension agent in McConnelsville, identified the need and interest in the community and helped to organize the performance.

"It gives our small community a chance to view the College of Arts programs in music, dance and theater and to have a performance that we wouldn't typically be able to have," Shaner said.

"The number of people who attended the performance shows me that folks here are interested in the arts and have a desire to have more of a taste of what is going on in bigger communities that can afford to have those kinds of attractions."

Butler said events such as the McConnelsville trip help Ohio State connect with people throughout the state.

"When you get far from the OSU campus and talk with people, they will speak about our great football team," Butler said. "We love the football team, but we also want them to realize that there are also some 50,000 bright, talented students at Ohio State who don't happen to be on the football team.

"This was an opportunity to show other strengths of the University."

Distinguished Lecturer Merritt clears the air on tort reform

Distinguished Lecturer Deborah Jones Merritt isn't about to let a little spilled coffee stain her perceptions of the tort system.

Merritt, the John Deaver Drinko/Baker & Hostetler Professor of Law, presented "Suing over Spilled Coffee: How Hot is the Tort Crisis?" at the seventh Ohio State University Distinguished Lecture May 3.

"A common sentiment is that the whole tort system is out of balance, tilted to support the plaintiffs and their lawyers," Merritt said.

Merritt is the Drinko/Baker & Hostetler Professor of Law.

Merritt's research suggests that the public's perception of the system is actually what's off balance. She has found that in comparison with other types of court cases, relatively few tort cases result in verdicts favoring the plaintiff, and that most settlements are modest.

"There is little evidence that we are a crazily litigious society," she said.

Merritt analyzed Franklin County data from the 12 years prior to the passing of Ohio's major tort reform laws. Her research differs from past studies in that it takes into account all cases, including data collected from law firms and data taken from jury verdict reporters' voluntary submissions.

Merritt focused on motor vehicle, medical malpractice and product liability cases for her study. She found that tort cases accounted for less than 5 percent of all Franklin County cases and that the majority of cases never made it beyond the lawyer's office. Only one-third and one-quarter of motor vehicle and medical cases, respectively, made it into the filing and verdict stages of legal disputes.

For cases that made it into the courtroom, Merritt did not find a bias toward plaintiffs. "There are low win rates for plaintiffs in product liability and medical malpractice suits," she said, noting that motor vehicle cases fared better, with 70 to 80 percent of plaintiffs winning claims.

Settlements in Franklin County were rarely worthy of headlines. There were 11 $1 million verdicts in Franklin County: one product liability, five medical malpractice and five motor vehicle settlements.

"Half of the $1 million verdicts were reduced. One shrank to $50,000," Merritt said. "So the $1 million verdicts you see in the newspapers often do not get paid."

Merritt used the famous McDonald's coffee case from 1992 to illustrate her assertion that tort law is not as out of control as the public may think. The case has taken on the force of an urban legend, with rumors circulating that a multimillion dollar settlement was given to a woman for minor burns from McDonald's coffee.

The facts of the case, as outlined by Merritt, do not reveal a dramatic abuse of the legal system. Seventy-nine-year-old Stella Liebeck spent eight days in the hospital and underwent multiple skin grafts for third-degree burns she received.

Court testimony and evidence revealed that McDonald's kept its coffee at 50 degrees hotter than home coffee pots and that it had a record of 700 previous burn injuries from coffee. Liebeck had sought $20,000 in compensatory damages, but was awarded $160,000 by the jury.

The jury also required McDonald's to pay $2.7 million for punitive damages. The trial judge reduced the settlement, with the parties settling for less than $600,000.

Merritt sees a lot of merit to tort laws. "Tort law is one force pulling us away from a society of survival of the fittest to the notion of reasonable care for others.

"If there is a crisis in the tort system, it's not in trivial claims, huge verdicts or plaintiff biases. Instead, the crisis lies in our perception of the tort system."

The Distinguished Lectureship series began in 1996 to honor Ohio State's finest scholars. Distinguished Lecturers receive a $5,000 award for a program of their choosing. Merritt selected the Center for Law, Policy, and Social Science in the College of Law.

Merritt has taught at Ohio State since 1995, and has expertise in federal-state relations, affirmative action and equality.

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