Build a Strategic Framework Through Strategic Planning

The success of an organization largely depends upon the vision of the leadership. More importantly the vision should be supported by a strategic framework, which would guide individuals and teams to achieve both tactical and strategic goals set by the management. While building a strategic framework, you must focus on every bit of strategy and execute a dry-run on the outcomes. Moving straight from the strategy document to operation is not an easy job because implementation of strategy needs a real-life environment where ideas will be translated into actions. In that process, some pieces of strategy though initially may sound high, during implementation stage would experience certain snags. So, what exactly you need is a full-proof strategic framework through which you can articulate your vision, mission, and values, strategies, and how would you leverage those ideals eventually. You can also deliberate upon tactical steps to materialize a strategic goal, including the methods, processes, tools, and calibration of success. Everything should be well-documented. In case you deviate from the defined path or a specified process, the rationality of deference should also be articulated. Let's first understand what's a strategic framework and what does it capture.

Strategic Framework

A strategic framework is a master plan that defines the structure, aspirations, limitations, design and delivery of a product or service that an organization desires to deliver. On a broader perspective, a strategic framework is a top-level guideline defined by the management as how to achieve the vision of the organization. Every organization starts with a vision. The vision is achieved through mission, values, and strategies. Although you can define your vision, mission, and values very idealistically; without right strategy, you won't be able to achieve those ideals. So, you need strategic planning in which you can set your priorities, quantify your existing resources, and leverage organizational processes, technology, and skills of employees to achieve those common goals. Here is how strategic planning helps achieve your business objectives.

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a process of defining organization strategy through which you can analyze the current position and determine the future course of action and how you would do it and for whom you would do it, with due diligence. Strategic planning is fundamentally a deliberations of decisions and actions those could be implemented down the line. An effective strategic planning not only talks about a specific action plan, but also it defines the parameters as how to achieve it successfully. Thus, strategic planning ensures a strategic framework work in a flawless manner. The core components of strategic planning encompasses an understanding of the vision, mission, values, and strategies of an organization.

Defining Vision Statement

A vision relates to the future of the organization – it covers the long-term aspirations. This articulates the dreams and hopes of the promoters and employees as well. A vision statement provides continuous inspiration to all the stakeholders of an organization. While crafting the vision statement for your organization, you must think futuristic and expand your imagination to articulate where do you want to reach or what do you want to achieve in the lifetime of your organization. Let's examine some vision statements of top global companies:

Walmart: To become the worldwide leader in retailing.

Chevron: To be the global energy company most admired for its people, partnership and performance.

GE: We bring good things to life.

Ford Motor: To become the world's leading consumer company for automotive products and services.

City: To be the most competent, profitable, and innovative financial organization in the world.

Well, what do you observe here? All these statements talk about the long-term aspirations of the organization. These statements don't explain how the organization will achieve that vision. And to enable vision work for your organization, you must define your mission statement.

Defining Mission Statements

A mission statement focuses on the purpose of an organization. It explains why the organization exists and how it would achieve the vision. For instance, the mission statement of Walmart states: “To help people save money so they can live better.” Let's now decipher how this statement is supporting the vision of Walmart, which states, “To become the worldwide leader in retailing.” While the vision of Walmart is an inspiration for the organization, the mission clearly putting the purpose of its existence.

Defining Values

Values are the core belief system of the organization that drive its employees to live by those high ideals to deliver results unfailingly. Values explain the collective behavior of the organization. They describe the organizational culture, business ethics, and relationships amongst different stakeholders of the organisation. Let's look at some value propositions that organizations alike believe in. For example, competency, integrity, respect, diversity, teamwork, quality, efficiency, and collaboration. Sample these values of Coca-Cola, which emphasizes on seven parameters:

Leadership: The courage to shape a better future

Collaboration: Leverage collective genius

Integrity: Be real

Accountability: If it is to be, it's up to me

Passion: Committed in heart and mind

Diversity: As inclusive as our brands

Quality: What we do, we do well

You can also check the Philosophy of Incrego, which focuses on seven values:

Innovation – Explore groundbreaking technology solutions to address client’s problem
Nurturing – Encourage a culture of professional excellence and continuous innovation to always exceed our client’s expectations
Commitment – Ensure our “clients first” ideology tops our priority
Reliable – Emphasize on the robustness of our services and solutions to ensure peace of mind for our clients
Effective – Assure our clients get the desired results of our services every-time
Growth – Dedicate our efforts for sustained growth of our clients’ businesses
Open-minded – Listen to our customers, employees, and partners without any bias

Defining Strategy

Strategies are the methods or approaches through which an organization accomplishes its mission and eventually lives up to the vision of the organization. Each piece of strategy defines a particular goal and the corresponding action plan to achieve that goal. For example, the strategy to achieve a sales target of $100 million in the first quarter can be achieved by strengthening the sales pitch and converting every lead into a sale. Similarly, for HR function, the strategy to bring in transparency in the organization can be achieved by ensuring a continuous top-down communication and developing channels through which employees can post their honest feedback about the organizational decisions. Organizations use various tools and processes for strategic planning. For example, SWOT analysis helps you analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the current situation of the organization and define corresponding strategy to improvise the conditions. Similarly, Balanced Scorecard is a performance management tool that helps managers to track the staff performance.

How to retain your best employees

Regardless of constricting job market, the top talents of an organization are always on high demand. For them, switching a job even during intense job market slowdown is like performing a gimmick. However, most organizations ignore this fact and think everything is hunky-dory.

Before getting down to brass tacks, let's quantify the contribution of these top talents for an organization. Various polls and surveys on employee performance and contribution reveal that the top 20% of best performers create 80% value for the organization. Thus, it's quite unthinkable for HR and top management of an organization that they can afford to ignore it and let the top talents part away.

As an HR head or a senior executive of a company, your contribution towards talent management doesn't restrict you to go an extra mile and delve deeper into the issues that your best employees often try to speak out in different forums. For instance, a growing conviction has been established across the board that employees never leave an organization, rather they leave their managers. However incredible the fact may sound, the employees are always on a loggerhead with their managers on different issues, be it personal or professional. Here, you shouldn't blame a particular band of managers because a manager is also a subordinate to her of his superior up in the hierarchy. So, if you look microscopically, you may discover the root of the problem lies somewhere else. This is just one dot of the problem line, there are many such examples.

Well, before zeroing in on the solutions as how to retain your top employees, let's first understand the reasons why employees leave an organization. Some pressing reasons of top talents being dissatisfied with the organization include lack of professional growth, lack of recognition and rewards, missing long term strategy of the organization, and poor work-life balance. Now, you can address these issues and ensure your best employees stay with you so long as they outperform. Here are the ways!

Ensure Growth

In general, employees aspire for continuous growth in their career and the best employees need it more often. Top talents achieve their target faster than an average employee. For them, professional growth is the top priority. If they notice growth opportunity is stymied in the current organization, they will search it elsewhere. Thus, it's imperative for you to chalk out a sustainable growth plan for the best employees and promote them to the position they deserve, so that they can add more values to the organization.

Recognize and Reward their Contribution

Who doesn't need a pat on the back after a good job? The best performers have more appetite for rewards and recognitions. The key aspect of a sustained employee satisfaction program lies in recognizing and rewarding the best talents and setting it as an example for others. This not only elates the spirit of your employees, but also builds up an ecosystem of fair competition amongst the real talents of your organization.

Articulate the Long-term Strategy

The best talents mature faster than the organization does, and they need more opportunities and challenges to prove their mettle. Show them the big picture. If the management of the organization lags behind the thought leadership of the best talents and fails to craft a long-term strategy for the organization, the top talents will be impatient and eventually leave the organization. So, before they take a hard decision, just articulate your vision of the organization and walk the talk. If possible, involve these top talents to shape up your strategy.

Maintain Work-life Balance

Here just one exciting thought of William Henry Davies sounds appropriate:

“What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.”

After all, the best talents are human beings, not robots. If an organization fails to provide a proper work-life balance for the employees, they will look for some better organizations where they can experience it. The best solution is develop a flexi-hour culture and map rewards and recognitions with actual contribution, not with the amount of time clocked by an employee in the office premise. With the advancement of technology, the concept of workplace is changing faster. Be a change agent of this trend and provide employees the power of flexibility without neglecting the organizational goals.

Perils of Cloud-based ERP

While majority of ERP systems are implemented on premise, the rising cost of IT infrastructure, upfront investment on software licenses, and the complexity of implementation have compelled CIOs and CTOs to adopt innovative ways to optimize IT operational excellence with minimized cost. As a major tectonic shift in IT operations, the innovations in cloud computing have contributed significantly to the acceptance of cloud-based software systems in general, and cloud-based ERP systems in particular. Although the early adopters, mostly small and medium enterprises, are leveraging the benefits of affordability, accessibility, and manageability of cloud-based ERP systems, the large enterprises are still skeptical about the long-term benefits because, for them, ERP system is not just another piece of fringe software which would meet their short-term objectives, nevertheless it's a key driver of their long-term strategic goals.

This white paper attempts to touch upon various aspects of cloud-based ERP systems and deciphers the myths around realized benefits that are usually advocated by the software vendors and product evangelists. With changing business landscape, emerging customer needs, and evolving best practices in securing customer data and privacy, the large enterprises are focusing majorly on the right kind of deployment of ERP systems that would not only accelerate business productivity, but also it would ensure their business future ready and full-proof during any disaster. This paper unfolds the fact behind increasing concerns over cloud-based ERP systems and why the large enterprises are still not ready to move into cloud computing in a decisive manner.

Overview of ERP

The genesis of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions emerges from the requirement of management in accessing information regarding the performance of all departments and business processes in any organization. In an enterprise structure, as different business functions, such as finance, human resources, sales and marketing, customer service, manufacturing, quality assurance, and IT, are integrated to translate the organizational goals into top lines and bottom lines of the enterprise, similarly an ERP system supports the data flow of all functions in a seamless manner and provides a holistic view of enterprise-wide information in terms of reports and charts. Since its early adoption in industry in the late eighties and early nineties, the ERP systems have evolved along the ever changing business requirements of organizations.

The latest breed ERP system framework comprises modules like HRM (human resources management), SCM (supply chain management), CRM (customer relationship management), FAM (finance and account management), MRP (manufacturing resource planning), project management, and BPM (business process management), which are loosely coupled with the core ERP system database. A client can opt for an all-inclusive system or even can demand a lean system with fewer modules depending upon the business requirement. Furthermore, the ERP system vendors are smartly designing industry-specific ERP solutions, such as for manufacturing and service industries.

While integrating various functional processes, the ERP systems ensure businesses eventually increase productivity, reduce turnaround time, improve customer satisfaction, increase transparency and accountability, speed up decision making process, and save money and time.

When it comes the deployment, the real fight begins amongst the decision makers of the organization. While cost becomes an alpha factor for deployment type, the management team often deliberates upon various sensitive issues including privacy, control, data security, dependency, performance, and integration. Depending upon client requirements and organizational conviction, the ERP vendors provide flexible options like on premise, hosted, and SaaS-based deployment.

Understanding Cloud-based ERP

Cloud computing has opened new avenues for delivering an array of IT services over the Internet. With the advent of service oriented architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0 technologies, software vendors have started offering various cloud-based services such as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a Service), easing the upfront investment required by any client. Multi-tenancy, hardware virtualization, and flexible software architecture contribute to the drastic cost reduction in cloud-based offerings. And that's the vantage point which prompts many leading technology behemoths like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple to provide cloud-based services to enterprises across the geographies.

With changing business dynamics, market competitions and sheer economic reasons are becoming more palpable to the management. This endorses a paradigm shift in the managing of IT and software services in any organization. Most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are now shifting towards the cloud-based services for the singular reason that initial investment becomes a pain area while acquiring enterprise-grade software; however, with a fraction of that cost they can even realize immense benefits, if they adopt cloud-delivered services. In fact, a typical ERP solution, which is a huge capital-intensive product, for a small company with 100 users, would cost around $500,000 plus the investment on IT infrastructure for on-premise deployment; whereas, the same system on cloud-based delivery would almost cost half of that price, and that too without infrastructure burden.

Apart from initial investment point of view, cloud-based ERP systems have a number of tangible advantages that appeal to SMEs. Some core advantages include:

• Decreased infrastructure cost
• Reduced maintenance staff
• Quick implementation
• Lower implementation cost
• Faster customization
• Easy integration with other systems
• High scalability

However, large enterprises where user base accounts more than 10,000, the implementation of ERP on cloud gets extremely cumbersome. Adding further, data security, control, and customization are other critical areas that turn stumbling blocks for the decision makers to promptly switch over from on-premise mode to on-demand implementation over cloud.

Challenges of Cloud-based ERP

While cloud-based software services are defining new dimensions in IT offerings, large enterprises are still not fully convinced about the future trajectory of these offerings. Although many SMEs are taking the lead in adopting cloud-based ERP solutions, big organizations are treading with a caution. The major point of concern is data security. When the entire business-critical data are stored on cloud, the management is doubly skeptical about the control and portability of data. Irrespective of big assurances of cloud service providers regarding the security and privacy of information, the large enterprises are yet on evaluation mode. Here are some challenges that restrict large enterprises to adopt cloud-based ERP solution.

Data Security & Privacy

The biggest fear about cloud-based services is the breach of data security and privacy. Despite continuous assurances from cloud-based service providers, the large enterprises are still doubtful about the measures taken by data centers. And to exacerbate their doubts, the growing incidents of cyber attacks across the world only add more distrusts. According to a report published in Security Week, last September noticed a number of cyber attacks on top US financial institutes including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. The fact that people generally believe that client machines are more vulnerable to attacks; however, in this case the denial of service was originated from the servers in data centers. According to Internet Security Threat Report Volume 17, Symantec, April 2012, 93% of data theft identified in 2011 were from the companies in the computer software, IT, and healthcare sectors.

Since enterprise-grade ERP systems capture the business critical data from all functions of the organization, exposing them to a third party service provider would not only sometimes breach the SLA between the company and its clients, but also it jeopardizes business secret when they become vulnerable to large scale cyber attack. For big enterprises, the security of customer information, business strategy, and business-sensitive data weigh more than the growing trend of cost optimization. Although cloud service providers come out with innovative methods such as data encryption techniques, multiple authentication process like dual password system and sequential log-in, and multilayer fire-walling, today's hackers are smart enough to intrude into data centers quite easily. Certainly, there is no 100% guarantee from the cloud service providers that their data centers would never be vulnerable to such attacks.

Data Control

When cloud service providers take control of enterprise data, it becomes imperative for the enterprises to agree upon various service level agreements (SLAs) to accommodate service requests. However, once the data are moved into data center servers, enterprise control gets diminished. Any request for accessing a specific type of reporting or maintenance of data becomes binding to the SLAs. As large enterprises place thousands of requests from various functions, these requests turn out to be additional cost overrun. Moreover, when an enterprise wants to change the cloud service provider, the real trouble arises because data migration from one data center to another data center is the toughest task they have to handle.

Integration

For large enterprises, cloud-based ERP system is not the only program that they entirely bank upon; there are scores of other critical software programs that run on the premises are also equally important. Synchronization of data lying at the local servers with the data available on cloud sometimes becomes difficult. When integration of data sources becomes essential, the inability to do so or inordinate delay in execution impacts the business.

Portability

All cloud service providers are not in a democratic structure, which would enable transitioning of data from one data center to another smooth and painless. When a large organization invests hugely on cloud-based ERP solutions, it doesn't essentially corroborate to the fact that the business relationship would last for eternity. Sometimes, the services provided by the cloud service provider won't suffice to the relevant needs of the business. In this case, a shift in vendor becomes indispensable. However, simply shifting the vendor won't resolve the issue because the huge corporate data lying with the previous vendor might not be migrated to the new vendor's data center as it is. Then the real crisis begins.

Dependability

In comparison to on premise deployment, cloud-based ERP has a major bottleneck, which essentially represents the dependability on the vendor for all and sundry. Even a small report, which might have some urgency for now, can't be retrieved at the moment because everything needs a proper process and it takes time to execute. Too much dependability on the vendor for everything sometimes hampers the decision making process of the client as well.

Conclusion

The evolution of of cloud computing combined with the power of Internet technologies and the service oriented architecture (SOA) has opened a floodgate of opportunities for cloud service providers and software vendors to expand their services. From multiple deployment opportunities to flexible services to easy customization, the cloud-based software services have already made their marks in the SME segment delivery. However, the large enterprises are not fully convinced about the benefits articulated by cloud service providers. Especially, in case of cloud-based ERP solution, the short-term benefits may seem quite exiting, but for many good reasons such as data security, privacy, super control, integration, and data migration, the big companies have a valid point to differ with the service provider's views. Vulnerability of business-critical data, customer information, and strategic corporate information is not a mere narrative, but the stark realities of today's cyber attacks. While hackers are stealing millions of customer data from the data centers, then it dismantles the real vulnerability of cloud service providers, as how helpless they are. And all these ground realities only substantiate the skepticism of large enterprises on the promises made by cloud service providers. There is a long way to go for the cloud-based ERP solutions for large-scale deployment because the unquestionable risks attached to data security and privacy shouldn't be undermined.   

Real Fight Begins Now

After hobnobbing with anti-corruption movement for over a year and half, Team Anna is poised to float a new political outfit or some kind of alternate political force to translate Jan Lokpal Bill a reality. And that too only after 22 eminent citizens like former army chief VK Singh pleaded them to end their fast and think of a political alternative to give a new dimension to their fight. The fun part is that till evening of August 1, Team Anna was decisively against joining politics, and specifically the mascot of Team Anna, Arvind Kejriwal, rubbished the speculation of their political intention as reported by some news channels. And what's more shocking that on July 27/28 Anna in an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN and NDTV on two different occasions had already revealed the political intention of his movement. On replying to a specific question that whether his team members would like to take electoral route, he improptu said if good people like Arvind and Kiran would like to contest elections, he would support them whole-heartedly; nevertheless, he underlined the fact that he will never fight any election. What's going wrong with Team Anna is a fitting anecdote of rolling stone that gathers no moss.

When the anti-corruption movement was started last year by Anna Hazare, the whole nation supported him because the issue of corruption was quite hot and live in public domain. Reports on huge scams like CWG, 2G, and Adarsh were heading the front page and consuming significant amount of prime time and the entire country was fed up with the connotation of corruption. That was a coincidental moment Team Anna leveraged for a life time. Once newspapers and news channels shifted their focus to other territory, the public memory disappeared instantly. Moreover, internal conflict among Team Anna members and digression from the core issue of Jan Lokpal Bill impregnated a sense of distrust among the same citizens who supported Anna last time. And that rationally generated a low turnover of supporters this time. The government was equally smart to ignore this agitation and preferred not to initiate any dialogue with Team Anna and that became a breaking point for them. With deteriorating health of Arvind and other two members after nine days of fast, Team Anna was completely flummoxed to understand as what's the logical conclusion of this movement when government turned stone wall. When they were thinking of an exit route to save their face, the pleading of few eminent citizens to end “fast culture” and begin an alternative political force to deal will corruption was just a transitory point of victory for them. Maybe Team Anna had always a hidden agenda to eventually launch a new political outfit, but it was looking for the right time to unfold it in public domain.

Now the larger question here is whether Team Anna can ever be successful in electoral fray where money and muscle play a much bigger role in winning elections? Forget about money and muscle power, does Team Anna have even the minimum resources and network to run a national political party? What's the certainty that Team Anna won't fail in politics as they shamefully did in social activism, which was their forte? Moreover, politics is not sloganeering or fasting unto death. It's about managing diverse aspirations of people. A single issue like corruption, however pressing maybe in the present context, can't touch the imagination of 1.2 billion citizens of this nation. There are far more important issues that hurt a common man everyday than corruption does. Championing anti-corruption movement is another thing and running the largest democracy of this world is altogether a different ball game. Can Team Anna first come out with a vision paper as how they want to see this country 20-30 years down the line? Then only the citizens of this country would be able to read their true intention.  

Virtual Classes: Changing Face of Education

When Saumya Tandon (name changed), a software developer, was eagerly waiting for her annual appraisal in July this year, her manager called her into his cubicle and silently passed the appraisal letter and urged her to go through and express her concerns, she anxiously sneaked into the bottom line, and the immediate expressions on her face were laced with sadness. The thoughts that she carried out with her before entering into the cubicle vanished into the thin air and she was crest fallen. The reason: the appraisal was far below her expectations. The manager soon broke the ice and tried to keep her enthused by citing few other appraisals as how they have fared equally badly. When she mustered courage to question why this has happened to her and her peers as well, the manager in his sangfroid mood got down to brass tacks – the company has steered a policy to encourage continuous learning and earn necessary diplomas and certifications which would help improve their performance, and that was the reason why she and others were deprived of a certain percentage of benefits in their annual appraisal. This is not just the story of Saumya and her colleagues who fared badly in their annual appraisals, rather it's a ground reality that has affected many employees who forgot to brace up them with the latest degrees or diplomas required to excel in their professional journey.

Being employed and getting diplomas and degrees are not hard nuts to crack these days. The virtual education system of late has transformed the landscape of learning methods. Virtual education is now an integral part of both corporates and educational institutes those are vying for democratising education, training, and professional skills across the board. The emerging trends in the evolution of Internet have brought about significant changes in the way people think about the concepts of education, campus, curriculum, courses, learning processes, credentials, and diplomas.

With a growing number of people opting out for both continuation of education and simultaneous employment, it has become imperative for institutes and universities to tread the path of innovation and fulfill the needs of virtual students. Online education has certainly changed the way people think about education today. What's more encouraging for students that the flexibility of virtual classes has attracted people from all walks of life. Whether they are housewives, working professionals or students engaged in part-time employment, the 24x7 accessibility to the virtual class rooms allows all to complete their study with a greater flexibility. As technology enables virtual students to access pre-recorded lectures, assignments, online forums, whiteboards, and online tests, the learning process has become hugely interactive and engaging for students.

What's more rational for people to opt for online education largely depends upon the low cost of program along with myriads of opportunities to participate in virtual classes. With powerful pedagogy backed by virtual community learning, virtual classrooms have eventually harnessed technology for nurturing social simulations, helping students to interact with fellow learners and exchange views, and finally engaging them in an environment that they can feel the presence of real classrooms. The technology that once thought to be a prerogative of elitists has finally broken down that myth and the universalisation of education through virtual classrooms is a pointer that signifies the importance of thinking beyond the obvious.

Linux Cloud Hosting: The New Shift

In an extremely competitive environment where enterprises are forced to achieve more from less, the adoption of cloud computing has become the new paradigm shift. To leverage flexibility, speed and cost advantages, the enterprises are not only moving towards cloud computing, but also increasingly they are depending upon the ubiquitous technology called Linux. Undoubtedly, the lethal combination of cloud computing and Linux has become the unusual steroid for business transformation. The advent of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) has brought along a whole new set of considerations. Apart from flexibility, speed, accessibility, higher availability, and lower cost, the most critical consideration is an open-source technology that supports the all other parameters. In true sense, Linux has taken over many proprietary technologies used in cloud hosting because it offers economy with scale in a more calibrated manner. Perhaps, that's the reason why the top-tier cloud computing solutions such as Amazon EC2, ElasticHosts, Mozy, Google Apps, Blue Cloud, and vCloud are powered by Linux.

Why Linux?

Linux has become the de facto technology for cloud computing. It's not just the cost advantage that attracts the global players to run cloud infrastructure on Linux, but there are a number of other important factors that support this trend.

Architecture

While a technology offers flexibility for customization, it adaptability becomes universal. And that's the core strength of Linux kernel. The configurability, compotentization, customization, and high availability are few parameters that drive the whole business of cloud computing. With Linux at core, the architecture of cloud computing becomes robust and flexible for disparate customer requirements.

Compatibility and Standards

In a cloud computing ecosystem, the customers prefer open-source service architecture because they benefit hugely while extending their local data center to cloud. With thousands of open source applications available in the market, the customers bank on Linux for hosting and administration. Thus it becomes imperative for cloud service providers to bang on a common standard for better usage.

Manageability

Adopting to a technology becomes faster when its manageability becomes easier and cost effective. As Linux becomes a core common skill for infrastructure administrators, the cloud computing solutions providers trade cautiously. And here comes the rationale for the cloud players to leverage the demand for Linux.

Cost

Apart from licensing cost of proprietary platform, the running cost guzzles out huge money on power consumption. Where as Linux-based platform can be run on scale-down hardware which require lower power consumption in comparison to other high-end hardware. So, from managing a data center to administering client units, Linux offers a credible cost-saving option for customers.

Conclusion

With growing adoption of cloud computing in next generation businesses, the leading solutions providers are considering critical parameters including but not limited to cost optimization and technology delimitation. The flexibility of usage, scalability, affordability, and faster replication have added more reasons for solutions providers to engage Linux with cloud computing. Perhaps, the technology leaders like Amazon and Google have internalized this truth.

Engaging Audiences for Optimum Learning Output

Great online trainings not only cater to reaching out to maximum audiences across geographies at any given point of time, but also they offer superior learning experiences, which even can be rated higher than the conventional learning model in terms of quality and effectiveness. With increasing competition in this space, the challenges for the training solutions providers have been manifold, partly because the faster innovation in learning technologies infuses unlimited expectations in learners' mind. That in turn pitches a war path for training solutions providers to seriously optimize the crafting of online training in a manner that could even engage the audiences more effectively than that of a physical training environment. Here are are some important pointers for an engaging online training model.

Online Icebreaker

In an online training environment, audiences don't expect a boring, high-sounding introduction speech. What they want is a compelling, warmed-up starter, which would drive their curiosity and engage them for a longer duration. So what do you do then? Start with a great anecdote? Bang with a survey poll? Or surprise them with some amazing facts, not available to public easily? The call is yours. Different audience groups have different tastes, but the single fact that bind them all is pure emotion. Charge them with a hot starter that would transform their enthusiasm into a riveting life-time experience.

Peer Partnership and Team Activities

Online environment offers a wide range of possibilities for collaborative learning. Engaging students in collaborative learning can significantly increase their learning standard. According to a research, students remember only 10% what they read by themselves; however, they can remember 70% what they discuss with others, and even remember 95% what they teach to others. Thus a collaborative learning with with peers and team-based activities can help improve the learning standards of students. With a range of new technologies available, you can adopt some pertinent ones like micro-blogging, discussion forums, instant messaging, interactive white boards, and audio and video conferencing to enrich their learning experience.

Reflective Activity

Online learning environment can be transformed into a pure reflective medium in which students can express their thoughts through various tools such as blog, wiki, and email. As a reflective activity takes some time to cogitate and deliver the task, the solution provider can assign them with complex questions, which would require a fair amount of brainstorm and reading from various sources before expressing their thoughts on a collaborative space. Moreover, you can ask online participants to create a movie by themselves and post it on YouTube and send the link for trainer review. This way students can group them and pitch in for a better creative output.

Authentic Activity

Activities are an essential part of any learning model. In online model, during any coursework or session or post fact, you can engage students with random instant questionnaires from a master question bank. With various types of ratings and ranking systems, you can ensure students are both learning and also getting incentive. This will certainly optimize the learning process of students.

Games and Simulation

Games and simulations are a great incentive for online learning. Learning with fun is the new truth. While designing an online learning coursework, you can embed videos, games, and simulated stories to enrich the learning process. With advanced software on gaming and simulation hitting market every other day, the learning solution provider can offer a comprehensive teaching model by adopting to various tricks, and they work as well.

Learner-led Activity

When learners take the lead in designing and delivering various activities, they feel empowered and responsible for their actions. This model provides online learners an element of authority that in turn helps the learners contribute to the learning community in a great measure. However, there is a significant amount of responsibility from the solution provider. While engaging audiences through learner-led activity, you should ensure that the objectives of the activity are clearly articulated, scope of creativity is highly encouraged, and gradings are explicitly explained.

Conclusion

Learning is a continuous process and certainly it doesn't happen in vacuum. For an engaging online learning environment, innovation always drives the lead. A combination of creativity and technology can even do wonders. In fact, there are many ways making this possible.

Future Perfect

The perception towards teaching is rapidly changing. The pure, conventional, dreary face-to-face teaching is now a thing of past. With educational institutes and private companies increasingly promoting and preferring the learners to take online education, the online teaching has today emerged as a new drift, a newfangled vocation for smart teachers who in all probability could be super task masters. The online education as an industry has also shown tremendous growth both in enrollment and turnover. According to forecasts of Marketdata Enterprises, Inc., the market size in the US can grow at 7.7 percent per year from 2012 to 2015 touching $78 billion. The same report further suggests that the enrollment status for online education is proportionately promising. From a current estimate of 6.4 million enrollment in 2012, the figure can even reach 7.4 million in 2015.

The proliferation of innovative learning technologies blended with evolutionary social web engagements are fast transforming the landscape of online teaching to the super green venture of future. Of late the semantics of online teaching strikes the right chord with the changing mindset of new-age learners. Who does like a boring face-to-face classroom teaching? The advent of highly collaborative and exciting online learning environment powered by a barrel of modern technologies has metamorphosed the exposition of learning. The journey of online teaching is just poised to take a big leap. Ready to grab the opportunity? 

The Paradigm Shift

Teaching today is not a sheer linear, one-directional method in which one preaches and others faithfully listen. With evolution of technology and ever growing new demands of learners, teaching has been a more complex subject. Earlier teachers used to believe in a limited aspects of teaching process; however, today the role is more demanding than it was ever before. The intervention of state in education system, growing public-private partnership, proliferation of technology, customized learning, and multi-level evaluation process collectively define the complexity of new-age learning and equally so the pressing role of an online teacher.

Role of Teacher

The academic version of teaching is expanding rigorously. The functions of teachers are not limited to coursebook completion, rather a number of pertinent parameters are being added. First, the accountability of learning outcome has become a major concern for teachers. And this opens up many avenues for the role of a teacher. For example, diagnosing learners' needs, customization of program based on individual learners, keeping learner-centered environment, innovating instructional strategies, planning lessons, evaluating quality of content, program effectiveness, continuous evaluation process, site-based decision making, allocation of technological resources, monitoring learners' performance, and assessing learning outcomes are some new responsibilities that a teacher should discharge to stay competitive with the changing time. Teaching now evolved into an exciting and challenging profession.

Role of Technology

Technology is a key enabler of modern teaching process. From lesson planning to content creation to distribution to evaluation, each stage has been jazzed up by the touch of technology. Notebooks, pens, and pencils are nearly discarded and being replaced by high-tech gadgets like laptops, tablets, and smart phones. Learning is becoming more exciting with the advent of many interactive tools and social webs. Tech-savvy teachers are increasingly banking on Google Apps, Skype, Wiki, Blogs, and YouTube to grab the attention of students. A modern classroom can be compared with a high-tech laboratory.

From Classroom to Virtual Learning Environment

The landscape of learning is transforming faster than the mindset of learners. In an extremely connected world, where knowledge and information are easily accessible, the learning environment has crossed the border of classrooms. Thanks to technological innovation. In an age of globalization, technological advancement has proved to be catalyst in bringing in novel nomenclature in education, be it “virtual learning”, “online classes” or “virtual classroom.”

Huge investment in education sector to democratize learning process has developed a universal ecosystem for virtual learning. Historically, in the US, University of Phoenix started country's first online degree program in 1989. Today, more than 150,000 students are enrolled online for various programs including Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degrees. Matching with the industry requirement, University of Phoenix produces latest course curricula and delivers quality education over web.

University of Phoenix was the icebreaker. Now over 2500 colleges and universities in the US offer online programs. According to a survey conducted by Babson Survey Research Group, in 2010 alone over 6.1 million students at least opted for one online class, a stark 10.1 percent rise over the previous year. “Nearly thirty percent of all college and university students now take at least one course online,” says study co-author I Elaine Allen, Co-Director of the Babson Survey Research Group and Professor of Statistics & Entrepreneurship at Babson College.

The growing numbers of online enrollment in various global colleges and universities suggest that the time has come for a tradeoff between learners and teachers. The erstwhile monopoly of classroom teachers is gradually collapsing and simultaneously the demand for online teachers is moving northward.

Need of Online Teaching

The growing need of online education among students and working professionals has profound implications on online teaching. With emergence of internet and other collaborative technologies, the teaching landscape has been ever changing. The online environment provides a number of advantages over traditional, face-to-face classes. Along with real course-ware, for instance, the online teachers can integrate many informational resources via a web page, which could be a blog/article, a video, a multimedia presentation, or a threaded discussion forum. Imagine the benefits the virtual learners can achieve. This also expands the scope of responsibilities of online teacher. Now the online learners communities expect their teachers should not only meet their expectations, but also in most cases they should exceed. The fun of learning lies in its engaging characteristics. Apart from the richness of learning, there are other dimensions, discussed in this section, as well that propel the growth story of online learning, and online teaching as a demanding profession.

Breaking the Barrier

As education is an investment-intensive program, many bright students often shed the idea of getting enrolled in a reputed US college. However, the online learning programs offered by various colleges/universities in the US and other countries have allowed students to go for learning even from disadvantaged locations with a fraction of cost that's normally incurred when one opts for regular courses. So, the online education first dislodges the rich-poor divide while spreading quality education in a democratic manner. Primarily, online education is easily accessible anywhere in the world if the learner has a computer and an internet connection at home. Moreover, students find it convenient to get course materials such as homework, exam schedules, test scores, and certificates without struggling.

Accessibility

The popularity of online education lies in its easy accessibility. For face-to-face learning, students normally wait for a specific time when the instructor/teacher is available to take the class; however, through online education, they can find all information regarding a subject by simply browsing the desired website or even can start a live chat with an expert in that field. What's more interesting that students can also consult peers via a web chat. This whole exercise provides a meaningful way to enhance the overall learning experience of students. Furthermore, online teachers can disseminate information to thousands of students in real-time, which is hardly possible in face-to-face teaching.

Quality of Learning

Many online teachers also invite experts such as researchers and authors as guests to their virtual classes. Sometimes, eminent professors and industry professionals also join various web-casts to enrich the learning program of students. Although this happens in physical classrooms, the difference in online environment is that a student/learner can be multitasking while attending to any such program. As technology continues to advance, teachers can invest time to build various scenarios and case studies to enhance the learning process of students. Apart from a SCORM-based curriculum, teachers use various other mediums such as Wiki, Blogs, Forums, Chat, and Videos to deliver quality content.

Higher Student Engagement

The online learning becomes more engaging because it evokes both deeper and boarder discussions when learners willingly participate in the learning process with their peers and teachers more actively. Each student gets exposed to an array of debates and thought-provoking discussions, which in turn permeates a psychological impulse for a non-participating student to break his or her silence and contribute to the learning process.

In an asynchronous learning environment students get sufficient time to go though threaded discussions posted in a forum and post their own after deep analysis. This increases the participation of students in comparison to classroom teaching where the constraints of time is a major dampener.

Anonymity Brings Empowerment

Anonymity plays a major role in online education. It creates more equality among the students in an online class. Normally students feel free to ask any question to an online teacher without any inhibition because there is no direct eye contact with teacher. At the same time, the online teachers also find it quite easy to respond to any query as there is classroom disturbance syndrome, which is quite common in a face-to-face teaching environment. So this is a win-win both for students and teachers.

Communication Matters

The most unique aspect of online teaching is that teachers and students rarely see one another, and this specific feature brings in a major responsibility for online teacher – comprehensive communication. So, online teachers should focus on the communication part of teaching, whether it's related to coursework designing, evaluating students academic progress, responding students' queries through emails/chats/discussion forums, or posting a blog/article on their website. The basic requirement is online teachers should write and communicate well, unfailingly. And they should understand the nuances of words and verbiages so that there is no communication barrier.

Future of Online Teaching

Education sector is experiencing an overwhelming degree of transformation with the emergence of digital age. From social web to high-touch apps to tablets and smart phones, today's education embraces the digital revolution wither greater emphasis on mass collaboration and faster communication. With cutting-edge learning technologies, teaching and learning now become more demanding than ever before. Especially in higher education segment, the adoption of new technologies and innovative methodologies is visibly prominent. This is backed by “2010 Sloan Survey of Online Learning” report that underlines the fact that enrollment in online courses in the US colleges almost increased by one million students from the previous year. And the most revealing fact of this survey is that approximately 30 percent of all college and university students now take at least one online course.

Students are increasingly opting out for online education because of flexibility of timing, customized learning packages, easy accessibility, and a value for money. Also the education service provides such as public and private institutes and universities are heading towards a deep competitive regime. The players in online education space would only sustain the growing competition provided they adopt new technologies, encourage innovation both in pedagogy and delivery, and engage smart teaching staff to deliver the best learning package. While new technologies are popping up every alternate week, their applicability and acceptance largely depends upon the opinion leaders and evangelists and in this case they are the new-age teachers and instructors who can bridge the gap between learners' adaption and the desired outcome of industry expectations. And this evolves more responsibilities and greater accountability of teaching staff. If technology plays a significant role in the transformation of online education, equally so the online teachers, and for them staying afloat during the journey is more relevant than anything else.

Bringing in Enhanced Pedagogy

In online education, the primary element that drives the tempo of popularity is pedagogical strategy. An effective pedagogical strategy for online teaching can ensure richness in learning, student engagement, and desired learning outcomes. Here comes a tribe called subject matter experts who decide the online instructional strategies. According to a survey on higher education in the United States, the respondents who are mostly teaching staff opine that the best instruction strategy is the one which supports and encourages the learner's inquisitiveness, widens the learner's perspectives on the subject matter, infuses critical and creating thinking, and brings about sustained growth in overall experience. Hence the onus lies on the online teachers who are supposed to carry out research and suggest the desired changes in the instructional practices.

Using New Technologies

Technology plays an important role in the success story of online education. In last two decades, an increasing number of universities and colleges in the United States have adopted new technologies while delivering learning. The evolution of Internet has transformed the learning process in higher education. According to an online survey conducted through the members (both teaching staff and administrative personnel) Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) or the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), the respondents opine that several emerging technologies for online education have found their acceptance for course management. Whether it's online test tools, online library, streaming videos, live chats, discussion forums, and wikis, they have all contributed significantly to the learning experience. The adaption is increasing proportionately with dawning of new technologies. Even today many universities have gone beyond the formal teaching methodologies. Gamification, social web, synchronous conferencing, and real-time collaboration have marked an increased adaption.

Meeting Spiraling Demand of Learners

One interesting factor that still holds a precious position in online education arena is that the demand of online education is revving up. And this aspect drives the industry crazy. When demand is rising, it's certain that the online educational players foresee a better future. But that doesn't singularly excite them because in that comes a whole lot of hard works. Online learners are gradually tasting the demand-supply churning. It's quite tricky a scenario. Very similar to customer service market. More the service providers, happier the customers. Because the competition among various educational players at least ensures the services are competitive in quality and cost. And this aspect of competition is a never-ending cycle. So what comes out from this churn is an array of new demands like pedagogical competency, technical competency of teachers, course and content quality, quality of service, worth of certification, industry acceptance, and not the least a competitive pricing structure.

What Do You Need to Be an Online Teacher?

Teaching face-to-face and teaching online are altogether two distinct subjects. It's not necessary to claim that a very good conventional teacher who has received scores of applause from students could be a successful online teacher. The first and foremost challenge faced by an online teacher is understanding the online environment. Many bright teachers who are engaged in face-to-face teaching even feel reluctant to teach online. On the contrary, teachers having sound knowledge of pedagogy and a fair amount of understanding online technologies can deliver better results. Barring technology there are other dimensions as well which play key roles in the making of a successful online teacher.

Understanding the Environment

The chief characteristic of online teaching environment is that it's driven by technology, so it may require an adequate knowledge of contemporary technologies to stay competitive. An online teacher should understand that the flexibility of classroom teaching is limited in online teaching. Hence it requires more planning, organizing, commitment, preparation, creativity, time management, discipline, empathy, and detailing to optimize the learning experience.

Comfortable with Technology

While many teachers believe that a formal understanding of computer and Internet would bail them out in online teaching, the truth is just contrary. It's much beyond the connotation of computer literacy. For online teaching, a high degree of comfort with various tools and applications marks the premium. It finally boils down to how efficiently you use the technologies at your disposal to optimize the entire learning experience of students. Here are some essential technology skills that online teachers should possess:

• Working knowledge of collaborative documentation tools, for example, Google Docs
• Hands-on experience with web conferencing tools, for example, Mikago, Skype, etc
• Email management skills
• Online presentation skills
• Videoconferencing skills
• Social media skills including blogging and handling online forums
• Website building skills
• Knowledge of unified communication tools
• Knowledge of SCROM-compliance tools for designing courseware
• Content management system skills

Teaching Strategy

Although many classroom teachers are well-versed with face-to-face teaching methodologies, when it comes to online, they often mess up. While teaching online, the teachers should practice the following strategies to ensure effective learning environment:

• Define student-centered activities to evaluate learning effectiveness
• Facilitate and moderate online discussions
• Encourage problem-based and collaborative learning
• Provide timely feedback
• Use interactive/simulated tools to enrich learning

Online Teaching Certification

While most of the teachers have teaching certification/diploma, online teaching requires a lot more than that. Given the technological and pedagogical skills required by online teaching, the aspirants in this profession should possess online teaching qualifications. There are many universities and colleges in the US such as Drexel University which offer exclusive online teaching training for teachers. This training offers critical skill development such as pedagogical skills, interfacing with online technologies, mentoring and moderation skills, instructional strategy skills, and social web skills.

Tools and Connectivity

The fundamentals of online teaching are that they happen in a virtual medium where learners may be sitting at any corner of the world. So to interface with learners the online teachers should have the following tools and gadgets.

• A standard desktop loaded with basic applications such as Word Processor, PowerPoint, Spreadsheets, course authoring tools, collaborative white boards, collaborative working tools, designing software.
• Peripherals such as webcam, headset, external storage drive
• Broadband Internet connectivity
• Subscribed to web mails and chat apps

Best Practices

Online teaching is one of the smartest vocations of 21^st century. With growing needs of online education, the scope of online teaching has been widened in the past decade. The new-age online teachers though are bedecked with many skills, here are seven best practices that would certainly value add to the overall skills.

Best Practice 1: Be Regular

Regularity breeds contempt, but here the contrary works wonder. An online teacher who maintains the predefined schedules and keep the learners updated about programs, announcements, discussions, and postings becomes the most popular among online learners.

Best Practice 2: Be Supportive

Online teaching needs a fair amount of continuous support in terms of developing online course community; posting lectures, videos, audios, and blogs; attending to forum questions; developing social we ecosystem; and setting up support groups.

Best Practice 3: Set Expectations

Setting right expectations for students and yourself can make the learning process practicable. Here you can create a sharable document pointing out the rules for communication, instruction for students, feedback response time, and specifically your schedule.

Best Practice 4: Develop Community

Online teaching can be more engaging when it's supported by a variety of teaching communities with broad-based experiences in online teaching. This encourages brainstorming among students.

Best Practice 5: Judicious Use of Synchronous and Asynchronous Tools

Online education originally started with asynchronous way; however, with influx of new technologies, it has become synchronous. As an online teacher you have to decide to draw a line where you need to go for what. Both are important, but in a collaborative world every method has an edge.

Best Practice 6: Continuous Feedback

Faster feedback helps students save their time in correcting themselves. Don't wait for tomorrow. Make it a practice to provide real-time feedback, and this will amplify the degree of learning enthusiasm.

Best Practice 7: Create a To-Do List

Prepare a To-Do list for students by clearly articulating their tasks, activities, and other necessary information that they often require.

Skills Required for an Online Teacher

Online teaching requires more complex skills than conventional teaching. When medium and environment of learning change, it becomes imperative for teachers to concentrate on a number of factors simultaneously. Apart from the common teaching skills, the online teachers need a set of competencies in various domains such as technology, administrative, pedagogy, and communication. Here each skill set is elaborated based on teaching requirements.

Technology Skills

Sound understanding of emerging technologies is an essential requirement for online teachers. As medium of instruction changes in online teaching, technology takes over the manageability of dissemination. Thus it becomes important for online teachers to gain multiple skills which include, but not limited to the following list:

• Understanding operation of computer
• Knowledge of operating system
• Knowledge of basic application pool such as Word Processing, Spreadsheets, and PowerPoint
• Database management skills
• Project management skills
• File management and storing
• Hands-on experience in online collaborative tools
• Social media and blogging skills
• Online research skills
• eLearning management system
• eLearning content authoring system
• Content management system
• Email management system
• Working knowledge of unified communications suite
• Network management skills
• Web designing skills
• HTML authoring skills
• Scripting skills
• Data storage management
• Knowledge of modern computer peripherals such as webcam, digicam, scanner, bluetooth
• Common software installation

Administrative Skills

While conventional teachers have the luxury of using institutional support/administrative support, the online teachers badly need those skills to develop. Here are few skills that you should develop before embarking on the online teaching job.

• Schedule management
• Audio/video conference setup
• Student information management
• Account management
• Payment management
• Mail response

Pedagogy Skills

Online teaching is as much technological as pedagogical. A teacher with good pedagogical skills has a better edge than his/her peers. Here are certain skills that you should learn before jumping in to the fray.

• Learning analysis
• Instructional designing
• Community building
• Reflective teaching
• Creative teaching
• Brainstorming
• Forum management
• Lesson planning
• Activity designing
• Knowledge of Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)
• Test evaluation

Communication Skills

Communication is the key to become a successful teacher. In online teaching, good communications skills saves time and even enhances the quality of learning. A teacher with bad communication skills often creates confusion in learners mind. An online teacher should consider the following aspects of communication.

• Structure of communication
• Cross-culture communication
• Procedural communication
• Technical communication
• Cooperative communication
• Personal communication
• Strategic communication

Challenges You Face for Online Teaching

Although online teaching seems to be a very exciting career, it comes with a fair amount of challenges. However, these can be addressed effectively to ensure smooth sailing. The primary challenge an online teacher faces is to become “jack of all trades”. You need to wear many hats during teaching – teacher, mentor, facilitator, tech geek, and administrator. Sometimes online teachers find it difficult to switch from one train of thought to another due to lack of multi-tasking skills. Secondly, an online teacher needs to innovate constantly and it requires sufficient time to develop this mindset. Constraint of time and loads of responsibility often hard presses an online teacher to repeat the learning methodology. Apart from the intellectual aspect of challenges there are other physical challenges as well. For example, while taking an online class if your Internet connectivity fails, it mars your reputation, in which you don't have any control. A similar problem happens when you use a specific online tool and the server goes down. Here are some top challenges that an online teacher faces.

• Establishing the resonance with online students
• Adapting to the cultural practices of various origins
• Calibrating learning outcomes with efforts
• Transforming learning theories into practice
• Zeroing on appropriate learning models vis-a-vis learners' requirements
• Being hands-on with latest tools/applications to meet growing expectations of learners
• Addressing emerging ethical issues in virtual medium
• Understanding the evolving role of techno-academic profession
• Handling data security issues

On a conclusive note, even you can manage mastering skills and stay competitive, other external challenges can be sometimes irksome, though not difficult to assuage.

Tools Required to Teach Online

While teaching online, teachers require a number of tools for various purposes. Starting from defining a pedagogical strategy to lesson planning to course-ware authoring to delivery of content, online teaching is a complex task and more specifically you can't do it with a single tool or application. To deliver successful online teaching programs, you need to master a number of tools and applications. And the best part is that they are available free or at a very nominal price, which can be easily affordable.

Here is an exhaustive list of tools that can help you excel in your profession. You can visit each website and learn more about the product.

Animoto Assign-A-Day Audacity Blogger Blogmeister Boolify Box.net Calendars.net ClassTools Classroom 2.0 Ning CommonCraft Curriki Delicious Diigo Dropbox Facebook Flashcard Exchange Filamentality Flickr FreshPond.net Gcast Gliffy Glogster Goodreads

Google Google Apps Google Calendar Google Docs Google Earth Google Maps iGoogle Jing Project Kuler Lesson Plans Library Thing Library 2.0 Ning Librivox Meebo MyT4L Netvibes Ning Notesake Open Clip Art Library Picasa Picnik Personal Educational Press Project Based Learning Checklists

QuickTopic Remember the Milk RSS Newsfeed Generator RubiStar Rubric Machine School 2.0 Ning SchoolTube Scribd Skrbl Skype Slideshare Study Stack TeacherTube Trackstar Twiddla Twitter VoiceThread Web 2.0 Tutorial Videos Wikis Wordle xTimeline Yugma Zamzar

Earning Potential of Teaching Online

A common myth that sticks to teaching profession that it's not at all a lucrative profession. However, this is not true. A recent news on the earnings of a kindergarten teacher by selling lesson plan online rightly discards this false notion. According to this news report, Deanna Jump, a kindergarten teacher from Georgia, US, has earned mindbogglingly $700,000 from simply selling lesson plans on Teachers Pay Teachers, a startup ecommerce platform where teachers sell their lesson plans to fellow educators. This is just tip of the iceberg. In the US, a fairly experienced online teacher can earn $50-150 per hour.

The salary of online professor in the US is quite competitive; however, the earnings vary based on various parameters such as location, institution, position, domain, teaching experience, and level of expertise. According to a survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors in 2008–09, salaries for full-time teaching staff averaged $79,439. Further classification by ranks reveals that the average salary of professors was $108,749, for associate professors was $76,147, and for assistant professors was $63,827.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2009 data, the average annual salary for high school teachers, both classroom and online teaching, was $52,200; however, the highest-paid teachers in the 90th percentile earned more than $82,000 annually. The salary also varies based on cities. For example, the highest-paid high school teacher in New York, Illinois, and Alaska earned $68,010, $67,960, and $67,640 respectively. Moreover, the salaries also vary in a particular city based on specific locations. For example, in the metropolitan areas such as

Nassau-Suffolk in New York, Chicago-Naperville-Joliet in Illinois, and Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine area in California, the top salary was $83,560, $74,530, and $73,890 respectively.

At the post-secondary level, the salaries are even visibly more. According to BLS report, the post-secondary teachers even get more than $128,330 at the top level. The highest salaries in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, California , and the District of Columbia were $115,130, $87,820, $87,780, $84,930, and $84,270 respectively. Although there is no striking difference between the salary of classroom and online teachers, the salaries vary according to industry, institute, and subject. For a deserving professional sky is the limit.

Conclusion

The changing educational environment, technological evolution, and market demand have equally contributed to the growth of this industry. The growing need of flexibility, accessibility, quality of learning and meaningful results have supported the journey of online education. As innovation is the cornerstone of technological evolution, the future of online teaching is certainly going to be more engaging and enriched. The aspirants for this profession need to focus on the core aspects of online teaching – the medium, the strategy, the enabler, and the market. The ecosystem for online education is abuzz with ideas and their realization. It's just a matter of conviction as how effectively you transform yourself from a conventional view point to radical approach through which you can explore the world of opportunities in this domain.