is a virtual charter school management company that provides distance learning opportunities for a growing number of students around the country.2 Aventa Learning is a leading provider of 6-12 education technology offering online middle school, high school courses, curriculum, exam review, Advanced Placement courses, classroom resources, credit recovery and educational technology for schools.
3 The California Virtual Academies has 11,000+ high school students across California, and a reported recent annual growth of 30%. This school is fully accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Schools (ACS) of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) for grades K-12.
4 North Carolina Virtual Public School. North Carolina is taking off with online education at all levels. See http://www.ncvps.org/.
Post-secondary schools and programs
Don’t fall for the myth that online post-secondary schools are ‘diploma mills.’ While there definitely are diploma mills on the internet, and you should be wary of these, there are thousands of completely legitimate, accredited, degree-granting online post-secondary institutions and programs in the U.S and Canada.
Online post-secondary schools in the U.S. are approved by one of the six regional accrediting agencies - the same agencies that are responsible for approving brick-and-mortar schools. In Canada all post-secondary schools are approved by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (A.U.C.C.).
Look for the accreditation agency on the campus home page. In the U.S. these agencies are:
1 Middle States
2 New England
3 North Central
4 Northwest
5 Southern
6 Western
Some online post-secondary schools are accredited by the Distance Education Training Council (DETC) and this is national accreditation rather than regional. This council is also recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, but there are still some regionally accredited schools that do not accept course credits from DETC accredited schools.
Read on to find out about the all-important job boards, and see the Resources section for more links to U.S. and Canadian online universities and colleges, as well as sites that rank them.
Discover the online job boards
Have you ever explored online job boards? There are large, aggregated ones (like monster.com), school-specific ones (with a .edu address), and some devoted mostly to online teaching (like AdjunctNation.com). You can find online teaching jobs on all of them. Often the job boards compile from other job boards, including InsideHigherEd.com, HigherEdJobs.com, HotJobs.com, careerbuilders.com, jobfox.com, and monster.com. One board leads to many more sources!
Many schools have their own applicant tracking and job application systems. Check for their adjunct postings on the Careers, Employment, or Faculty links.
You will encounter job application systems when applying to jobs, and some schools actually share the same system, which saves you time in applying. The schools typically want a complete academic and job history record, all your contact information, references and unofficial transcripts. They may provide an email to which you send unofficial transcripts (your scanned copies).
Two favorite job boards of mine for online teaching are Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com. There is a lot of great information on them, and they send me regular job alerts. OnlineAdjunctJobs.blogspot.com is another great board with useful links to education sites.
I often get new information about which schools are expanding, new ideas about what I can teach at what schools, and I certainly see how many jobs are opening up in each field.
I especially note in job postings if a school or organization is in a phase of expansion. This is usually the case when there are many job postings at the same time, or one job posting that shows up frequently and lists all the disciplines in which the school is hiring adjuncts. This is a great time to get on board, even though things may be a little chaotic until the hiring levels out.
OnlineFacultyPositions home page
Job alerts
I love automated job alerts about job openings! You can create a specific job alert on most job boards and specify how often to receive them by email.
The job alert postings will take me directly to the job application system used by the school.
What’s on a typical job alert? On a recent job alert sent to me by Indeed.com, there were 20 postings on the email, out of a total of 1,078 new alerts. I can choose to see only those since yesterday, or for the last 7 days as well, or all of them. I can also edit the alert for a different search or delivery period. I can specify a particular organization for which I want to see all postings.
In this alert, I saw listings for Brown Mackie College, Azusa Pacific Online University, DeVry, University of Alaska, Houston Community College, Ashford University, Elgin Community College, Kaplan, Stevenson U., University of Maryland, Carlow University, Texas Women’s University, Harrisburg Area Community College, Saint Leo U., U. of Montana, Berkshire Community College, Monroe Community College, and many more.
Not all listings were strictly for online positions, as some organizations will advertise all types of adjunct positions in one listing, so you have to look closely at the listing.
The geographic locations of the corporate offices are all over the country. I work for two universities based in another state. This does not matter if the position is online, as long as you stay cognizant of the time zone difference. (You can be on the beach in Florida teaching for the University of Alaska and not feel cold at all!)
What are the qualifications?
Do you have a Bachelor’s degree? You can teach online in some cases with a Bachelor’s degree, for example, in A.A. programs, certificate programs, and at online high schools.
Many online teachers have a background in traditional classrooms and a master’s degree in some discipline. For post-secondary, you will see many job postings that specify you need at least 18 graduate credits in the discipline.
However, I’ve noticed that you don’t always need 18 graduate credits, especially if a subject is short of teachers. In recent years, there has been a lack of teachers qualified to teach Medical Billing and Coding, so it has been easier to get a position in that subject for teachers with fewer credentials. Furthermore, you can make use of CLEP, TECEP or DANTES challenge exams to qualify for expertise that you have. (For more information, see DegreeInfo.com.)
You are paid more for your higher degrees (and yes, some schools require a Ph.D. or DBA, or want you to work towards one). But there are still many opportunities without one of these ‘terminal’ degrees.
What is your job and life experience beyond your teaching experience? Scholar-practitioners are appreciated and valued in online education - both
