A College of One

Drill Sgt. Mark Young marches a line of privates into a Fort Benning classroom for training. While keeping an eye on the privates, Young pops open his laptop and works on homework for a course he's taking for his associate's degree from Troy State University at Fort Benning. After the privates quiet down in the barracks at night, Young hooks into the Internet to send his assignment off to his professor.

The Army wants soldiers who are sharp, technologically savvy and capable of independently making decisions-the same kind of people who do well in online education courses. Honea and Young are two of thousands of soldiers participating in a unique e-learning program, an Army-sponsored, soup-to-nuts higher education portal that has stirred a buzz throughout distance-learning circles. The portal's success or failure will provide lessons for agencies aiming to provide employees more than just on-the-job training.

Selling Soldiering
To attract sharp, tech-savvy kids, Army recruiters have to convince high school graduates to put off college for four years. Lately, that has been a tough sell. So in August 1999, then-Army Secretary Louis Caldera asked his deputies to come up with ways to convince more young people to choose the Army over college.

"We decided to see if we couldn't change the image of the Army to help moms and dads understand that when they send their children off to serve, they don't have to choose between serving in the Army and going to school," says Army education chief Dian Stoskopf, who was one of Caldera's deputies.

The idea took shape as a free distance-learning program via the Internet through which soldiers could get college and university degrees while on active duty. The Army could offer free courses, free books, free laptops and free Internet access. Then eArmyU.com was born.

The Army has a strong tradition of training and education. Army soldiers and civilian employees enroll in 214,000 academic programs a year; about 18,000 through distance-learning programs. The Army works with 120 schools. Education counselors at each Army installation help soldiers choose programs. Under the Montgomery GI Bill, the Veterans Affairs Department also provides military members billions of dollars in tuition assistance after they leave the service-447,850 veterans and their beneficiaries received $1.5 billion in fiscal 2000.

While soldiers serve, the Army will pay 75 percent of tuition for traditional academic programs. But many soldiers don't participate. Cost is a major reason. Coming up with the remaining 25 percent of tuition, plus the cost of books, isn't easy on a soldier's pay, especially in the lower ranks. Until now, soldiers who wanted to take distance-learning classes also had to invest in laptops and Internet access. Further, frequent deployments and moves can make it impossible for soldiers to complete classroom courses.

To pursue their plan for an all- expenses-paid online university program, Army officials held an industry day last summer at which they asked educators, technology firms and systems integrators for advice on how to turn the idea into reality. Susan Johnson, the eArmyU.com project leader, recalls that 1,100 vendors attended and provided 120 white papers suggesting how to set up the program. "One of the first lessons we learned was not to try to do something like this in-house," Johnson says. "Get the experts out there to give you their help."

Advice in hand, Army officials sought a team of contractors to build an online portal through which 80,000 soldiers could take college courses within five years. The team would be responsible for providing each soldier-scholar with a technology package including a laptop, a printer and free Internet access from anywhere in the world, as well as online registration and support. Participating colleges would have to offer full degree programs through the portal. On Dec. 14, 2000, a team led by PricewaterhouseCoopers won the contract, which is valued at $453 million over five years. Ten percent of the fees due contractor team members are contingent upon meeting quality standards, such as up-time for the portal, ease of navigation, breadth of degree options, completion rates and program retention.

Going Live
PricewaterhouseCoopers had until January to get eArmyU.com (also called Army University Access Online) going. Jill Kidwell, PricewaterhouseCoopers' eArmyU.com coordinator, kicked into high gear. "We had to go live in a month, taking out Christmas, New Year's and Martin Luther King Day," Kidwell says. PricewaterhouseCoopers' subcontractors got to work, too.

Saba, a Redwood Shores, Calif., software company, provided a course management system. Washington-based online training firm Blackboard set up the virtual classroom environment. Intel, the Santa Clara, Calif., hardware giant, hosted the online applications. Houston-based hardware maker Compaq put together the technology packages for soldiers. Web connections came via Blue Bell, Pa., Internet service provider FiberLink. PeopleSoft, a human resources software company in Pleasanton, Calif., began developing the online student administration system. Several other companies provided skills assessment, tutoring, a call center and a help desk. Twenty-five colleges and universities signed up to offer associate, bachelor's and master's degrees and certificate programs. Because of the tight schedule, the team immediately set up the part of the portal soldiers see, while spending a few extra months getting the back-office functions operating. In the meantime, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers handled registration and other functions manually.

The Army and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers are phasing in the rollout of eArmyU. In January, they opened the portal to soldiers at Fort Benning; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Campbell, Ky. They will increase enrollment steadily until the program is offered throughout the Army.

At the first three installations, soldiers lined up-some staking out spots before dawn-to be the first eArmyU students. Originally designed as a recruitment tool, eArmyU has become a retention tool; soldiers are required to remain in the service at least three years beyond their initial enrollment in the program. About 14 percent of the 5,100 soldiers who signed up for eArmyU by June had to re-enlist to participate. "Every soldier we keep is one that we don't have to bring back in," Army education chief Stoskopf says. "That saves the Army significant dollars." Once eArmyU is available to all soldiers, the Army will begin using the program to entice recruits. Nearly 70 percent of eArmyU participants have never before gone to school through an Army program. Army education counselors screen applicants to make sure they're likely to succeed in an online, academic environment. So they know who's in school, commanders must approve soldiers' participation in eArmyU. Soldiers must agree to complete 12 semester hours within two years. Failure to do so means soldiers must reimburse the Army for the classes they took.

Administrators still are working on how to handle tests. Soldiers now take proctored exams at their bases, but that might be difficult to continue once eArmyU expands to facilities around the globe. Program administrators also hope to expand the number of colleges and degree programs available.

Generating Lessons
Recognizing eArmyU.com's potential for generating lessons about online education, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropic organization that funds studies of new education techniques, provided a grant to set up a panel of education experts to monitor the program. "eArmyU is very much in the fishbowl," says Janet Poley, a University of Nebraska distance-learning expert on the panel. "Everybody is watching this program." Poley notes that almost every major university in the United States has put some portion of its academic program online, and there are several consortia of universities that offer online programs to students. "The Army is unique because it has a very targeted population group with some very specific needs being served in a rather large way," she says.

PricewaterhouseCoopers analysts see eArmyU as a potential watershed in education. "This is an industry that hasn't changed for 1,000 years," says analyst Jeffrey Schwartz. With the introduction of online middlemen like PricewaterhouseCoopers, "the virtualization of higher education will come faster than colleges and universities expected," Schwartz says.

For many soldiers, the sooner the better. Fort Benning education center leader Elaine Livingston says she easily could sign up 2,000 to 3,000 more students in eArmyU if she had laptops to give them. The soldiers enrolled in eArmyU are becoming the program's most important evangelists. Fort Benning Staff Sgt. Carl Wheat began a degree program at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, N.J., through eArmyU earlier this year after completing about 50 credit hours in traditional classroom courses. Online, "there's more one-on-one than in a classroom of 30 students," Wheat says. "I can communicate more with the professor. I e-mail him and he e-mails me right back."

Pfc. Lawrence Adams doesn't miss sitting in a classroom from 5:45 p.m. until 10 p.m. every Tuesday. Now he spreads out his class work, logging on to eArmyU for 30 to 45 minutes each night from the barracks to check for announcements and do assignments. "It's just a lot easier," Adams says.