Final Results of COCAL Survey: Working Conditions of OnLine Instructors
Lots gets written about online classes, but it's either about the learning experience, from the point of view of the student, or the teaching experience, exploring the rapidly developing technologies that make teaching on line more and more feasible. So far, very little if anything has been written about the conditions under which online teachers work. Yet, as online classes spread throughout higher education, the adjunct faculty person teaching on line, probably for multiple institutions, is clearly the workforce of the future. What do such workers get paid? How many hours a day do they spend on a class, typically? Do they pay for their own computers, internet access, software, and technology? Do they own the classes they write? Do they get any kinds of benefits? Do they have unions? This survey, authorized by COCAL (the Coalition on Contingent Academic Labor) at its Mexico City conference in August 2012, asked these questions in a rolling internet-based survey and received responses from 133 faculty from nearly as many different institutions, including community colleges, state colleges and universities, private non-profits and for-profits. This final version of the report of the survey findings provides a basis for a discussion of the place of this workforce in the digital education environment.
Click here to read the final report of the survey
Political Declaration of COCAL X
Join the participants from the tenth annual Coalition on Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL X) who have signed a political declaration that brings attention to the pernicious effects of neoliberal policies on education. It calls for "the expansion of social and democratic rights in education and in welfare for all humans, within and beyond our national borders.".
Click here to read the declaration
Click here to sign the declaration
COCAL X
(Photo by David Milroy)
COCAL X Conference reports and photo galleries on the Events page
The tenth annual COCAL Conference was held in Mexico City, on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico from August 9 through August 12, 2012.
The hosts for the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL X) were the Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-STUNAM) and the Autonomous Association of Academic Personnel of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Asociacion Autónoma del Personal Académico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-AAPAUNAM).
Welcome to COCAL International
COCAL X
(Photo by David Milroy)
COCAL is a coalition of higher education activists from the North American continent. We are united in working to improve working conditions at colleges and universities for contingent faculty, including adjunct, part-time, and non-tenure track instructors, and graduate teaching assistants.
COCAL holds biennial conferences with presentations on organizing faculty, gaining equitable working conditions, legislative solutions, and the effects of globalization on higher education. The most recent conference, COCAL X, was held August 10-13, 2012 in Mexico City