New Models for Online Learning - Carol A. Twigg, Educause Review Sept/Oct 2003

5. On-demand help. An expanded support system enables students to receive assistance from a variety of different people. Helping students feel that they are a part of a learning community is critical to persistence, learning, and satisfaction. Many projects replace lecture time with individual and small-group activities that take place either in computer labs—staffed by faculty, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and/or peer tutors—or online, enabling students to have more one-on-one assistance.
6. Alternative staffing. By constructing support systems consisting of various kinds of instructional personnel, the projects apply the right level of human intervention to particular student problems. Not all tasks associated with a course require highly trained, expert faculty. By replacing expensive labor (faculty and graduate students) with relatively inexpensive labor (undergraduate peer mentors and course
assistants) where appropriate, the projects increase the person-hours devoted to the course and free faculty to concentrate on academic rather than logistical tasks.