Distance Education Policy Issues: Towards 2010

By

Peter J. Dirr, Ph.D.

 
 

(Written for Moore, Michael. Handbook of Distance Education. 2003)

Contents

Introduction

Singular Citations of Policy Issues 

    Quality Issues

    Equity and Access

    Collaboration and Commercialization

    Inter-institutional Alliances

    University-Business Alliances

    University-Government Alliances

    Commercial Universities

    Other Alliances

    Globalization

    Ownership and Intellectual Property Rights

    The Role(s) of Technology in Distance Education

    Faculty Issues

    Student Issues

    Research and Evaluation

Conclusion 

References 

Introduction

 

·How needed is distance education in the US?

·Who are the clients for distance education?What are their needs?

·Who should pay for distance education, and how much?

·Can newer technologies help distance education overcome some of the barriers to traditional education opportunities?

·Where will our next generation of distance educators come from?What types of training will they need?

·What are the research needs of distance education as we approach the year 2000?
 

Some of those questions are as valid today as they were in 1990, especially given the growing number of persons participating in distance education in the US.One study (Council for Higher Education Accreditation, n.d.) estimates that in 1997-98, 1.34 million persons took distance education courses at the tertiary level, in spite of the extensive systems of education that reach into almost every community in the country.Furthermore, as the complexity of our society increases, every adult will require continued learning throughout life and they will seek educational opportunities that allow them to learn at the time and place of their choosing (“anytime/anyplace learning”).
 

In an article in Syllabus, “A Look at the Future of Higher Education,” Von Holzen (November 2000) reports on a survey of state governors that showed that 97% said it is important to encourage lifelong learning, 83% felt that students should be allowed to learn anytime/anyplace, and 77% believed that collaboration with business and industry should be encouraged in order to develop relevant curriculua.
 

One indication of the growth of research in distance education is the increase in the number of papers being presented annually at professional conferences. In spite of the volume of research on distance education that has been conducted over the past decade, the impact of that research on distance education policies has been limited, in part because many of the studies have been local and not coordinated with other studies.It is the hope of the author in writing this chapter that researchers will be encouraged to map out policy interests that can be parlayed with the work of others so that the cumulative effect of their research will have greater impact on distance education policies than the impact of the individual studies.
 

In writing his 1990 chapter, the author relied entirely on issues from his own experiences in reviewing hundreds of proposals for funding and then in overseeing several of the leading distance education projects of the time.In preparing the current chapter, he has relied on a review of articles on distance education that have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The American Journal of Distance Education, and various other sources of distance education literature.The variety of articles almost defy classification, but certain issues emerge from their midst as being more central than others.Some issues were identified in composite lists developed by national or regional organizations such as accrediting bodies or governing boards.Others emerged as single issues but were cited by many sources.

Composite Lists Of Issues

Some groups, especially national and regional planning organizations, have compiled composite lists of issues facing distance education.For example, the American Council on Education (ACE) issued a publication in March 2000, Developing a Distance Education Policy for 21^st Century Learning.In it, ACE identifies seven areas in which policies must be reviewed or developed.They include:
 

·Intellectual property policies

·Ownership of distance education courses

·Faculty issues (e.g., teaching load, preparation time, class size)

·Student issues (e.g., increased access, privacy issues, disabled students)

·Limiting liability

·Commercialization (e.g., direct agreements, consortia, royalties/licenses)

·Teaching beyond state and international borders
 

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) has contracted with the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) to conduct a series of literature reviews and original research called Distance Learning in Higher Education (Institute for Higher Education Policy February 1999; Council for Higher Education Accreditation June 1999, n.d.).Those reports document the expanding universe of distance learning and the growth of statewide virtual universities.Among the issues identified are:
 

·Equity gap

·Digital divide

·Lack of teacher training

·Battle over encryption

·Works made for hire

·Contractual transfers (as faculty members transfer institutions)

·Security and privacy
 

 

·Learner-centered, following the student through his/her academic program

·Available without regard to the mode of instructional delivery

·Awarded only to students in accredited programs of study

·Tied to standards of academic progress and not arbitrary measures of time.
 

They also suggest that regulations should allow flexibility on the part of institutions and that aid amounts and limits should focus on lifetime standards rather than annual or institutional maximums.
 

Working for a consortium of the six regional accrediting associations, the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (September 2000) prepared Guidelines for the Evaluation of Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs (Draft). Those guidelines focus on the following areas, indicating policy issues for institutions of higher education to consider in developing distance education programs:
 

·Institutional context and commitment

·Curriculum and instruction

·Faculty support

·Student support

·Evaluation and assessment
 

Reviewing contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education, Phipps and Merisotis (April 1999) cite the following gaps in research:
 

·     Student outcomes for programs rather than courses

·Differences among students

·Investigation of reasons for drop-out rates

·Differences in learning styles related to particular technologies

·The interaction of multiple technologies

·The effectiveness of digital “libraries”

·A theoretical or conceptual framework
 

The review identifies three broad implications of the current research (a) the notion that distance education provides “access” – but computer-mediated learning requires special skills and technical support that might not exist; (b) technology cannot replace the human factor; and, (c) technology is not nearly as important as other factors such as learner tasks, learner characteristics, student motivation, and the instructor.
 

That same pair, Phipps and Merisotis, also wrote Quality On the Line: Benchmarks for Success in Internet-Based Education (April 2000), in which they identified 24 benchmarks considered essential to ensuring excellence in Internet-based distance education.The benchmarks fall into seven categories:
 

·Institutional support (3)

·Course development (3)

·Teaching/learning (3)

·Course structure (4)

·Student support (4)

·Faculty support (4)

·Evaluation and assessment (3)
 

This author, in a review of the status of distance and virtual education in the US in 1999 (Dirr, 1999), identified the following as important trends in the profession:
 

·The pervasiveness of change

·Growing commercial interests in education

·The importance of partnerships and alliances

·The unbundling of the educational process
 

An Internet search for policies on distance education reveals a robust body of literature on the policies of individual institutions. In one instance, a group of researchers (King et al., 2000) studied written distance education policies of all the tertiary institutions in the state of Nebraska.They found that most existing policies dealt with:
 

·academic areas (62 policies)

·faculty issues (49)

·students (39)

·technical issues (29)
 

Academic issues emphasized course integrity, especially ensuring the “equivalency” of distance education programs with regular on-campus instruction.Measures of equivalency included class time, course content, student services, prerequisite skills, and instructor qualifications.The University of Nebraska system had the most policies (103), followed by community colleges (48), state colleges (32), and independent colleges (32).The researchers found that legal and cultural issues were not addressed in any sector.They also found that written policies were more structured where collaborative efforts exist.They attributed this to the need to develop and communicate “rules of participation” for the collaborative efforts.They conclude that “multi-institutional arrangements might be an excellent opening to cultivate and generate fundamental policy actions.”

Looking across these composite lists of policy issues facing distance education, one sees that faculty and student issues appear on almost all the lists, as well as academic and curriculum issues.Beyond those categories, the lists present a quite disparate grouping of additional issues. 

Singular Citations Of Policy Issues

In addition to composite lists of policy issues, more than 100 articles over the past two years in The Chronicle of Higher Education alone have dealt with policy issues that affect distance education in the US.The articles might not have been labeled as policy issues, but they certainly have policy implications for the future of distance education and, in some cases, of higher education in general.In most cases, the issues addressed in those articles are also found in the composite lists of policy issues cited above.
 

For convenience, the singular citations have been classified by the author in the following categories: quality issues, equity and access, collaboration and commercialization, globalization, intellectual property rights, the role(s) of technology in distance education, faculty issues, student issues, and research and evaluation.Because many of the citations in this section are drawn from The Chronicle of Higher Education, reporters Blumenstyk, Carnavale, Carr, and Young will be referenced often.

Quality Issues

Several articles have addressed the issue of how to maintain quality in distance education courses and programs.At a September 2000 meeting of education officials from 30 nations, participants recognized distance education as a means for learners to become “exchange students” without passports or costly plane tickets.They sought to identify ways to foster coordination among institutions.High on their list was the development of ways to measure the quality of distance education courses and programs.(Young, September 29, 2000)
 

Sometimes, the issue of quality is dealt with subtly.In an editorial in The American Journal of Distance Education, Michael Moore (2000) notes that two articles in that issue on the surface addressed the question of whether distance teaching requires more or less work of the faculty than traditional teaching.Just below the surface of that question, however, lie the issues of “quality” of instruction and the amount of interaction between the instructor and student.
 

Following up on an announcement of the development of new guidelines for distance education developed by the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions for the six regional accrediting agencies, Office.com interviewed Charles M. Cook, of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, who observed that while the guidelines sought to assure quality distance education experiences, they also anticipated a new pedagogy, one that shifts toward the learner and away from the teacher. (Shorr, October 17, 2000)This carries an important message for researchers who, in the future, will be studying the quality of distance education courses.Cook points out that because the assumptions of what happens in a traditional classroom cannot be made about an online course, “distance education will be held to a more explicit and possibly more detailed set of criteria than would be applied in a traditional classroom.”If explicit criteria are developed for distance education courses, might those same criteria be used to challenge the assumptions that underlie traditional classroom experiences?Is it not possible that holding distance education to higher standards might have a ripple effect, raising the standards for all of higher education?
 

There is also an emerging body of evidence that distance education might be having qualitative impact on HOW students learn.For example, Lang (2000) asks skeptically whether an asynchronous environment can foster substantive critical thinking, given the lack of gestures and subtle non-verbal clues that students have in face-to-face instruction.In the end, he argues that online discussions can develop high-level thinking skills, citing the experiences of faculty and students involved in online Writing-Across-the-Curriculum courses.Because words do not disappear and can be read, re-read and revised, all online participants have an equal opportunity to organize their thoughts clearly.Furthermore, since the conversation is not confined to an artificial time limit, all participants have an equal opportunity to speak.
 

The Pew Charitable Trusts have been influential in encouraging new ways to evaluate the quality of learning experiences.With $3.3 million in funding, the Trusts have supported the development of the National Survey of Student Engagement. (Reisberg,November 17, 2000) The Survey measures the extent to which colleges encourage actual learning by scoring students’ responses to 40 questions.More than 63,000 undergraduates filled out a questionnaire in Spring 2000.The questionnaire addresses five benchmarks: the level of academic challenge, the amount of active collaborative learning, student interaction with faculty members, access to enriching educational experiences (e.g., internships and study abroad programs), and, the level of campus support (e.g., social life and help in coping with non-academic responsibilities).
 

Not all of the efforts to improve the quality of distance education have come from within the traditional higher education sector. Blumenstyk and McMertrie (October 27, 2000) reported on the tension being caused in higher education circles by a fairly new accrediting agency, GATE International.Created by Glenn Jones, founder of JonesInternationalUniversity, the first fully online university accredited in the US, GATE is an international accrediting agency for technology-based education programs and institutions.Originally run by a non-profit group, GATE has now become one of Jones’ several for-profit businesses related to distance education.Critics charged that as a for-profit company, tied to Jones’ other businesses, GATE is too riddled with conflicts of interest that marry the corporate and academic worlds.In a letter to the Editor, responding to critics, Jones (December 1, 2000) notes that for-profit corporations are increasingly playing a leading role in distributed education and that “traditional nonprofit institutions are no longer the sole gatekeepers of quality education.”
 

Other solutions of the quality issue might also emerge from the private sector.Recognizing the “vacuum in Cyberspace” when it comes to reliable information with which to evaluate online courses, some Web sites such as NewPromise.com, eCollege.com, and HungryMinds have begun to allow students who have taken online courses to post evaluations of those courses, much along the lines that Amazon.com posts evaluations of the books it sells or eBay allows buyers to rate sellers of auctioned items.(Carnavale, February 18, 2000)

EquityAnd Access

At the turn of the Century, professional and general public press was full of references to the “digital divide” – the gulf between the affluent and the poor in terms of their access to telecommunications services and computer technologies.There was general concern that the digital divide would have a major impact on access to distance education opportunities.Phipps and Merisotis (April 1999) point out that even though most studies of distance education courses conclude that they compare favorably with classroom-based instruction and that students in distance education courses enjoy higher satisfaction than students in traditional classes, nevertheless, the notion that distance education provides “access” to higher education opportunities might be misplaced.Many distance education courses require computer-mediated technologies and skills and technical support that certain students might not have.
 

Increasingly, colleges and universities are attending to the need to make online courses accessible for all students, including the handicapped.In “Colleges Strive to Give Disabled Students Access to On-Line Courses,”Carnavale (October 29, 1999) reports that colleges are finding that they must include the virtual equivalents of wheelchair ramps when building online courses.To understand the requirements, colleges are urged to consider the guidelines developed by the California Community Colleges System.

CollaborationAnd Commercialization

An overriding theme of much of today’s literature is the extent to which alliances among colleges and between colleges and commercial interests are playing leading roles in the development and delivery of distance education at the higher education level.More has been written on this topic than any other.However, since this theme is covered in depth elsewhere in this Handbook (see Hanna), this theme is only noted briefly here.
 

Many collaborations are driven by the need of the partners to provide their offerings to more students each year, thereby increasing their revenues each year.This is equally true for colleges and universities as it is for the commercial firms with whom they partner.For, while enrollments in US colleges and universities are growing steadily, and tuition costs along with them, the increased enrollments by themselves cannot provide sufficient fuel for expansion.
 

The scope of the collaborations and the factors that motivate them are quite varied.Some are region-wide alliances such as KentuckyVirtualUniversity (Young, November 24, 2000), WesternGovernorsUniversity, and the Southern Regional Educational Board’s Electronic Campus (Carnavale, May19, 2000).Others bring together groups of institutions that share interests, such as Jesuit-NET, a collaborative effort of 24 of the 28 Jesuit universities in the US (McMurtie, May 12, 2000), and Universitas 21, a network of 17 or 18 prestigious universities in ten countries (Malsen, June 2, 2000; Schecter, November 23, 2000; Chronicle of Higher Education, December 15, 2000).The collaborators often struggle to devise relationships that draw on the strengths of each to create and deliver new products to meet the perceived needs of vast populations of adult learners.
 

Sometimes, the collaborations involve a commercial partner (most notably a publisher) along with institutions of higher education.Other times, institutions of higher education have established their own commercial distance education programs to extend their academic programs to new groups of learners.CornellUniversity, for example, formed a for-profit distance education entity named e-Cornell (Manjoo, 2000).TempleUniversity created VirtualTemple (Carr, December 17, 1999).The University of Maryland formed UMUC OnLine.com, a for-profit arm to market its online courses to new groups of students (Carnavale, December 17, 1999).
 

One rather recent distance education collaborator is the US federal government, especially the military.Educational opportunities are seen as a key incentive for attracting and retaining recruits to voluntary service.In the final days of 2000, the US Army funded a six-year $453 million project to deliver distance education courses to soldiers all over the world.The project, Army University Access Online, involves a commercial company (PricewaterhouseCoopers), ten companies, and 29 colleges.By the middle of 2001, it had already enrolled more than 4000 persons in distance education courses.The US Navy initiated a similar program around the same time.

Globalization

Interwoven in many of the collaborations is the theme of globalization.The very technologies used for distance education today make it possible for an institution to think beyond its traditional borders.The technologies also make it possible for a potential student to seek education opportunities from tertiary institutions throughout the world.This trend holds the potential of having a major impact on traditional institutions.
 

Because this theme is dealt with in depth elsewhere in this Handbook (see Mason, Foley, and Visser), only a few examples will be mentioned here as evidence of the importance of this theme of institutions already providing distance education.Many US universities have already begun to extend their distance education programs into other countries as a way to expand their student populations.Currently enrolling about 75,000 students in the US, the University of Phoenix plans to add another 75,000 students in such diverse countries as China,India, Mexico, and Brazil (Blumenstyk, August 11, 2000). Carnegie Mellon University plans to offer online programming courses to 15,000 students in India (Overland, October 27, 2000).The University of Bar-Ilan in Israel is developing Virtual Jewish University to deliver Jewish studies courses to learners throughout the world (Watzman, April 28, 2000).And, on a more global level, the World Bank is setting up Distance Learning Centers in countries that lack good telecommunications infrastructures so that learners in those countries might have access to educational opportunities offered in other parts of the world (Carnavale, December 8, 2000).
 

One challenge that will face all institutions offering distance education over the next decade will be to develop new guidelines and policies that allow the expansion of educational opportunities through distance education while at the same time providing learners with appropriate courses of instruction and student support services.

Ownership and Intellectual Property Rights

The issue of ownership and intellectual property rights is one of importance in all sectors of education today.However, since this theme is dealt with in detail in another chapter of this Handbook (see Lipinski), only a few observations will be made here.
 

This issue shows up on many of the composite lists of issues facing distance education.The American Council on Education’s Developing a Distance Education Policy for 21^st Century Learning (Op. cit.) lists intellectual property rights first on its list of issues that must be reviewed and addressed.The Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s Distance Learning in Higher Education (Op. cit.) cites “works made for hire” and “joint works” as two of the policies that must be addressed.Written policies of many tertiary institutions that offer distance education programs address the issue of the intellectual property rights of the institution and of individual faculty member.
 

Policy at San DiegoStateUniversity requires that faculty and the university must agree on who owns an online course before the course begins.(Carnavale,May 12, 2000)A faculty committee at the University of Illinois has recommended that professors retain ownership and control of online courses (Young, January 14, 2000).
 

Aside from the issue of ownership of online courses, the issue of copyright raises many questions for which there is no clear answer.In fact, the Congressional Web-Based Commission (Carr, January 5, 2001) referred to the copyright law as a “horse and buggy on the Information Superhighway.”The “Napster” case in the US and the “iCrave.com” case in Canada have provided vivid examples of how the law and policies lag behind practices supported by new technologies.It is safe to say that at the end of 2000, it is not clear just how the copyright laws will apply to digitized content.

The Role(s) Of Technology In Distance Education

 

A broader annual study of technology use by tertiary institutions, the Campus Computing Project, by Kenneth C. Green, showed that in spite of increased expenditures on information technology, institutions of higher education still have a long way to go.(Carlson, October 27, 2000) The 2000 study found that 60% of all college courses use electronic mail as a tool for instruction and 30% of all courses have Web sites.In spite of that high level of use of the technology by faculty members, administrators remain skeptical about its value.Only 14% of administrators agree with the statement, “Technology has improved instruction on my campus.”Green believes that in the absence of empirical evidence of impact, the increase in technology use might begin to slow.He notes that “Some technology trends in society at large have yet to catch on in academe,” citing the absence of any meaningful use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) by colleges.He further notes that “Academe is far behind the private sector when it comes to e-commerce.”Only 19% of colleges have e-commerce services such as tuition payment.
 

Perhaps educators have reason to be at least slightly timid about jumping on the technology bandwagon.Noguchi (December 4, 2000) notes that many businesses are suffering because they bet on Web-based growth rates that are well beyond what could be delivered.That has led to the downfall of several “dot-com” companies.Rather than banking completely on the Internet, Noguchi encourages businesses to think of the Internet as enhancing what they already do, an extension of the business rather than a revamping of it.That is not bad advice for colleges and universities with distance education programs.
 

Distance education has existed through correspondence courses for more than a Century.Access to distance education was accelerated in the 1970s with the introduction of television-based lessons that were broadcast throughout the US on public television stations.The advanced capabilities of Internet-based courses have greatly expanded the reach of distance education courses, opening learners new opportunities for continuing their education.But the sad fact is that we know little about the impact that these technologies have on access or the quality of education being provided.
 

One question that has been raised regularly for at least three decades is, “How effective is the use of technology in education?”This question has been raised specifically about distance education.Some studies in recent years have addressed the issue of the roles and effectiveness of technology in distance education.Unfortunately, many of those studies have been uni-dimensional, i.e., they have focused on a single technology, in isolation from the many other variables that impact the effectiveness of teaching and learning.Many of the studies also suffered from the “horserace” syndrome, i.e., they attempted to compare a technology-based course with a traditional course to see which came out ahead in terms of student learning.This approach suffers from two flaws: first, it holds up the traditional course as the standard to be emulated rather than asking whether things might be done differently (and maybe better) by using the power of the technologies; second, it overlooks the “sample bias” that is inherent in the research methodology when potential students cannot be randomly assigned to the traditional or distance education courses.

Faculty Issues

Many faculty issues emerge from the literature.Faculty concerns and needs are referenced in most of the composite lists of issues cited at the top of this chapter.
 

A study of 402 college faculty members drawn from the 85,000 members of the National Education Association found that faculty members who have taken part in developing and/or offering distance education courses are generally enthusiastic about the experience and benefits of teaching distance education courses.(Carr, July 7, 2000)They might feel that they put in more work on distance education courses than on traditional courses, but they also believe the benefits outweighed the extra work involved.
 

Some faculty members have used students as a shield to question the appropriateness of distance education courses.When Fairleigh Dickenson University decided to require that ALL its undergraduates take at least one distance education course annually, in part to help students become “global scholars” who are able to use the Internet for a variety of purposes, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) questioned whether that was an appropriate requirement for students who do not do well in distance education courses.
 

Nevertheless, some faculty members express fears about distance education.Some fear that they might be replaced by the very distance education courses they help develop.(Carnavale and Young, December 17, 1999)Others fear that distance education might take jobs away from Ph.D.s and put them in the hands of business executives and poorly paid part-timers.(Carr, December 17, 1999)Still others resist distance education because they fear it will increase competition from foreign institutions.(Young, September 29, 2000)
 

One thing that seems to increase faculty opposition to distance education is when administrators commit to distance education programs without adequate consultation with the faculty.This became a major issue when CornellUniversity established e-Cornell to deliver distance education courses(Manjoo, 2000)and TempleUniversity established VirtualTemple. (Carr, December 17, 1999)
 

The San DiegoStateUniversity policy on distance education (Carnavale, May 12, 2000), developed by the Faculty Senate, contains several requirements that reflect the concerns of faculty:
 

·professors must oversee online courses in their fields

·students must have “substantial, personal, and timely” interaction with faculty members and other students

·faculty and the university must agree on who owns the course before it begins

·students must be assured of access to appropriate resources and services

·full time professors must not be replaced by part time instructors
 

Another concern of faculty members is that distance education might be leading to a new learning paradigm and changed roles for the faculty.That concern seems to be supported by some of the literature.The draft guidelines from the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions to help colleges and universities review the quality of electronically-offered online degree and certificate programs anticipate a new pedagogy, one that shifts toward the learner and away from the teacher.(Shorr,October 17, 2000)Some see the emergence of multi-university portals and state-wide virtual universities as evidence of a new learning paradigm in which the faculty role changes from teacher to designer of interactive materials and guide for students.(Von Holzen, November 2000)
 

Perhaps the most interesting trend to follow in terms of its potential impact on the roles of the faculty member in distance education is the “unbundling” of the parts of the educational process.This phenomenon was identified by this author in 1999 as one of the leading trends in distance and virtual learning in the US.(Dirr, 1999)Since then, the theme has appeared several times.In September 2000, Johnstone noted that the tasks of teaching and supporting students’ learning are becoming “unbundled.” One way of breaking out the components is: curriculum development, content development, information delivery, mediation and tutoring, student support services, administration, and assessment.As these functions, most of which have traditionally been done by individual faculty members, are unbundled, it becomes possible to ask who might best perform each function and which of the functions might be contracted out.Distance education has provided a fertile testing ground for exploring such arrangements.A growing number of statewide institutions and consortia provide administrative services for online students.Follet, Amazon.com, and others offer electronic bookstore and library services.Others offer testing services.The most recent addition to the field is smarthinking.com, an online tutoring service with coverage 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
 

The theme of contracting out unbundled services appeared again in December 2000.A new digital-library company announced plans to offer students online access to searchable books and journals.(Blumenstyk, December 1, 2000)For a fee of about $20 to $30 per month, students would have access to 50,000 scholarly books and journals (150,000 by 2003).The resources would be searchable by keywords, leading some faculty to fear a “cut-and-paste” approach to research and report-writing, a practice that could lower the effort that students put into their studies.About the same time, the faculty union at New York University was expressing its concerns that new roles for faculty hired by the University’s online subsidiary would begin to break down the teaching function into a series of discrete tasks performed by different people, which could lead to the “disassembling and de-skilling of the profession.”(Carr, December 15, 2000)

A counterbalance to such faculty fears can be found in a monograph issued by the League for Innovation.(Young, January 14, 2000) The “Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web,” by Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking, is intended to encourage faculty members to break a course down into component functions and explore how they can fulfill each component of a course without meeting in a physical classroom.

Student Issues

 

Young (March 3, 2000) interviewed seven adult students who were taking online courses.For several, the courses provided a chance to be back in college, an opportunity they would not have had absent distance education.Many reported a “nagging guilt – that they should be logging on to their courses’ Web pages more often.”Those who were most successful had developed a regular schedule for working on their courses.
 

The oft-reported isolation of the distance learner was supported to some extent by these interviews.Students reported that they missed instant feedback from their professors.They also find taking exams a logistical challenge, especially if they have to travel to the campus to take the exams.Although generally satisfied with their distance education experiences, these students recognize that distance education is probably not appropriate for everyone.

 
Hara and Kling (1999) also studied a small group of students (six) enrolled in a Web-based distance education course.They identified several “frustrations” that inhibited student performance in the course.Frustrations included a felt-need to compete among each other on the volume of e-mail messages submitted; a perceived lack of feedback because of the lack of physical presence of the instructor and other students; technical problems and the absence of personnel to provide technical support; ambiguous instructions from the instructor.The students dealt with those frustrations by venting them with each other over the Internet.The authors do not end up condemning distance education but rather caution institutions against advertising only the virtues of computer-mediated distance education when promoting courses.
 

These studies possibly reflect the way that many distance education courses have been developed.They have evolved out of campus-based courses, and faculty members focus almost all their attention on getting the “content” of the course transferred to a new medium, the Internet.However, a new emphasis began to emerge in the late 1990s, spurred in part by a funding program of the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE).The Fund encouraged institutions, in submitting proposals for funding, to think about the entire student experience when designing distance education courses.As much emphasis was placed on making quality student support services accessible at a distance as was devoted to quality presentation of course content.
 

One of the recipients of a FIPSE grant was the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), an organization that has played a leading role in looking at how support services are provided to students studying at a distance.The goal of the WCET-FIPSE project was to identify colleges and universities that had developed quality “suites” of student support services that were delivered to students at a distance.From a survey of 1028 institutions, the project learned that most institutions that offered distance education courses had concentrated on “delivery” of existing courses without developing new support services for students studying electronically.Most held firm to traditional structures and policies for student support services.(Dirr,1999a)
 

The findings of that study led WCET to create its Guide to Developing Online Student Services.(Krauth and Carbajal, 1999)The Guide offers a series of “good practices” for delivering student services via the Internet.It ends with a section called “Outstanding Web-Based Student Services Systems,” that highlights some institutions that have shifted from a “provider” perspective to a “customer-centered” orientation for providing student support services.The most advanced institutions have created decision support systems that offer students a variety of opportunities for self-help and customized services.The Guide notes that within the past couple of years a number of software companies have begun to develop products that assist institutions in making this transition.
 

For-profit and not-for-profit companies are also developing resources that help students sort through the thousands of online courses that are available and to choose a course that best fits each student’s needs and interests.Rose (2000) evaluated 21 online course databases designed to help students locate the right course or program.Criteria for evaluating the databases included: user-friendliness, search capabilities, reliability, course offerings, course information, and connectivity. Usability ratings for each service are posted on the Web at http://teleeducation.nb.ca/media/reports.shtml.
 

Another student issue that continues to lurk in the background of distance education is the number of dropouts from distance education courses.It is generally recognized that enrollments in distance education courses are increasing, but so is the number of dropouts.(Carr, February 11, 2000)National figures do not exist, but anecdotal information suggests to some that dropout rates are higher in distance education courses than in traditional courses.Direct comparisons across institutions are difficult because institutions do not report completion and drop out rates in any consistent way.Some speculate that distance education drop out rates are higher because distance education students are older than traditional students and have busier schedules.Others argue that the nature of distance education courses is at fault in that they cannot supply the personal interaction that some students crave.This is certainly an area that deserves further research.
 

Some colleges have entered the world of distance education without fully considering implications for disabled students. They were surprised, for example, that they must include the virtual equivalents of wheelchair ramps on their Web sites when building online courses.(Carnavale, October 29, 1999)This can raise the cost of developing online courses.Provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Vocational Rehabilitation Act are generally interpreted to apply to online education programs even though the US Office of Civil Rights has not yet issued rules for online courses.In the meantime, colleges are being urged to use guidelines developed by the California Community Colleges Systems.
 

The report of the Congressional Web-Based Education Commission has already been referenced above.(Carnavale,January 5, 2001)That report recognized that students in distance education courses and programs are penalized by existing laws and regulations.One regulation that is specifically targeted is a requirement that to be eligible for full student aid a student must take at least 12 hours of classes each semester.The whole question of student aid for students enrolled in distance education courses was studied in by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP).(May 1998)In its report, Student Aid for Distance Learners: Charting A New Course, IHEP suggests several principles for future policies regarding student aid for distance education: 

 

·student aid should be available without regard to mode of instructional delivery; 

·delivery of student aid should be learner-centered, with aid following the student through the academic program;

·aid should be awarded only to those in accredited programs of study;

·awarding of aid should be tied to standards of academic progress and not arbitrary measures of time;

·regulations should allow flexibility on the part of institutions;

·aid amounts and limits should focus on lifetime standards rather than annual or institutional maximums

Research And Evaluation

The need for research and evaluation in distance education is generally recognized.However, that need is rarely given shape.Consequently, although many studies can be found, there is little organization among them and, cumulatively, they do not add up to a significant body of research on topics that are critical for guiding the future of distance education.As in 1990, this author will encourage the research community to focus efforts on a limited number of questions so that the sum total of their research efforts might have far more impact on the future of distance education than their studies might have without the focus.
 

Certainly some quality research and evaluation is being done in distance education.Phipps and Merisotis (April 1999), of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, with backing from the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, analyzed what current research tells us and does not tell us about the effectiveness of distance education.They found that many of the questions educators have about distance education are unanswered by existing research.In their opinion, while there is a “not insignificant body of original research,” little of it is dedicated to explaining or predicting distance education phenomena.From their perspective, three broad measures of effectiveness dominate the research: student outcomes, student attitudes, and overall student satisfaction.
 

According to Phipps and Merisotis, most of the studies of distance education conclude that distance education compares favorably with classroom-based instruction and that students enjoy higher satisfaction with distance education courses than with classroom-based courses.However, their review of research suggests that many of the research studies are of questionable value, rendering the findings inconclusive in the opinion of the reviewers.The current research suffers from key shortcomings: it does not control for extraneous variables and cannot show cause and effect; it does not use random selection of subjects; and, the validity and reliability of the instruments are often questionable.
 

In looking at gaps in current research, Phipps and Merisotis identify the following needs:
 

·studies of student outcomes for complete programs of study rather than single courses

·careful attention to the differences among students

·investigation of reasons for drop-out rates

·how differences in learning style relate to different technologies

·the interaction of multiple technologies

·the effectiveness of digital “libraries”

·a theoretical or conceptual framework
 

Using a modified Delphi technique, Rockwell, Furgason, and Marx (2000) surveyed educators in Nebraska to identify needs for distance education research and evaluation.They identified four areas of need:
 

·cooperation and collaboration among institutions, including postsecondary and secondary schools

·designing the educational experience, focusing on the unique needs of distance learners

·teacher preparation, especially in competencies that are unique to distance education

·educational outcomes, especially participation and completion rates
 

Smith and Dillon (1999) tackled the difficult problem of how to conduct comparative studies that will withstand critical review. They note that most comparative studies have suffered from “confounding factors” in their methodologies, making the findings suspect.They propose a schema to address the confound factor, the Media Attribute Theory, a framework based on identifying the defining categories of attributes that are embedded within each delivery system and media used in a distance education course.The categories of attributes they suggest include: realism/ bandwidth, feedback/interactivity, and branching/interface.
 

Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dan Carnavale reports on a study, “Criteria for an Excellent Online Course,” by Lee Alley, Chief Executive Officer of World Class Strategies, Inc.Alley reports that some aspects of distance education that were considered novelties a few years ago are now considered “essentials” for quality distance education.He cites specifically: regular interaction between student and faculty and student and other students; a student-centered approach; built-in opportunities for students to learn on their own.He concludes that distance education is changing the theoretical underpinnings of tertiary education by forcing an understanding that, “You don’t transmit knowledge; knowledge is constructed.”This will inevitably lead to a change from faculty-centric to student-centered instruction.
 

On-going tracking of developments and issues in distance education has been a characteristic of the work of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP).Since at least 1998, these two organizations have worked together to issue an annual report, Distance Learning In Higher Education.The report looks at the status of distance education at the tertiary level in the US, tracking growth, identifying trends, and raising issues.They have also undertaken focused studies of distance education, such as IHEP’s What’s the Difference: A Review of Contemporary Research on the Effectiveness of Distance Learning in Higher Education (Phipps and Merisotis April 1999) and Quality On the Line: Benchmarks for Success in Internet-Based Education (Phipps and Merisotis April 2000).
 

One issue that has gotten sporadic attention from researchers is the question of the cost of distance education. Brian M. Morgan, a professor at MarshallUniversity, has developed an interactive spreadsheet that will help an institution compute the likely costs it will incur in offering distance education courses.(Chronicle of Higher Education, July 28, 2000)The worksheet is available online at http://webpages.marshall.edu/~morgan16/onlinecosts.Morgan (2000) has also written an extensive background paper, “Is Distance Learning Worth It?Helping to Determine the Costs of Online Courses,” in which he identifies the research he did (several original surveys) to obtain the data on which he based the algorithms used in the interactive worksheet.The paper contains many helpful references and insights.
 

Businesses might be even more concerned about the cost of providing learning opportunities than some colleges and universities. Writing in The Washington Post, Evans (May 15, 2000) notes that Internet-based lessons are rapidly over- shadowing traditional manuals and face-to-face classes in many corporations.According to International Data Corporation, which follows more than 200 e-learning companies, the e-learning market will grow from $550 million in 1998 to $11.4 billion in 2003, especially in view of the need of companies to deliver up-to-the minute training to workers all over the globe without having them leave their places of work.Not all e-learning is online because not every place on Earth has the bandwidth needed to accommodate interactive learning over the Internet.
 

Whalen and Wright (1999) used a case study approach to analyze the cost-benefit of Web-based telelearning at the Bell Online Institute.They examined the relative importance of several design elements and presented a detailed cost-benefit analysis model of courses that Bell uses to train employees and customers.Three courses (each equivalent to a two-day classroom course) were developed and offered on four learning platforms (WebCT, Mentys, Pebblesoft, and Symposium).Fixed and variable costs were computed for each, including the cost of the delivery platforms and transmission costs, salaries, hardware, license fees, etc.The authors concluded that “Web-based training has higher fixed costs than classroom-based training but those costs are offset by lower variable costs in course delivery,” given a large enough number of students over time.

Conclusion

There are many policy issues concerning distance education that must be addressed over the next decade.There is little evidence in the literature to indicate that they will be addressed in any systematic way.That, along with the fact that distance education holds the potential to have a greater impact on higher education than any other single phenomenon for several decades, leads this author to suggest that the education community consider adopting a framework, focus and funding that will permit systematic development of policies that can advance quality distance education.A systematic approach will also facilitate the documentation and validation of the impact distance education has on the lives of learners.
 

As a starting point, the author suggests that the policy issue areas identified above serve as the “framework” for policy development.The “focus” might be created by carefully crafting a few questions in each policy area.One schema might be:

 

Quality Issues:
 

1.How can the quality of distance education be measured reliably and validly?What criteria are appropriate for assessing the quality of distance education?Are those same criteria appropriate for assessing the quality of classroom-based education?

2.Do tertiary institutions have clear policies about distance education course and program quality?Are procedures for monitoring quality in place?Is responsibility for monitoring quality clearly identified?

3.Do distance education courses provide adequate opportunity for interaction between student and instructor and student and other students?

4.Can distance education take advantage of some of the new approaches to evaluating the long-term impact of classroom-based education programs?

5.Is the evaluation of the quality of distance education having an impact on the quality of classroom-based education?

6.What support do tertiary institutions provide faculty to help them make most effective use of available technologies to create quality courses and programs?

7.What impacts are for-profit companies having on the quality of distance education programs at traditional tertiary institutions?

8.How are student evaluations of online courses and programs impacting the quality of those courses and programs?

9.What adaptations have accrediting organizations and licensing agencies made to their criteria to assess the quality of distance education programs and courses?

Equity and Access Issues

2.What are tertiary institutions doing to assure that distance learners have access to the technologies needed to take their distance education courses?

3.What are tertiary institutions doing to provide distance learners with technical support and training they might need to use their distance education courses?

Collaboration and Commercialization Issues

2.How are tertiary institutions coping with the “competition” from for-profit companies that provide distance education courses and programs?Who are the new players in the field?

3.How does the quality of distance education programs and courses developed by alliances differ from the quality of programs and courses developed by a single institution?

4.How does the quality of distance education programs and courses developed by for-profit companies compare to the quality of programs and courses developed by traditional tertiary institutions?

5.Has collaboration with for-profit partners been a boon or a bust for distance education programs at US tertiary institutions?

6.What has happened to some of the distance education partnership arrangements that were heralded as groundbreaking in 1997 or 1998?

7.How have accrediting organizations and licensing agencies dealt with new programs and organizations created through collaborative agreements?

8.How has the “unbundling” of the components of the traditional educational program affected the roles and responsibilities of persons and organizations involved in distance education programs?

9.What new institutions are evolving to develop and offer distance education programs and courses and services as a result of (a) collaborative arrangements, and, (b) globalization?

10.What impacts are collaborative arrangements having on pedagogical practices?

11.What are the long-term political, pedagogical, and institutional implications on program that teach across state and national borders?

12.What impact are collaborative agreements and/or commercialization having on workforce preparation?

13.What impact does a tertiary institution experience when it sets up a for-profit subsidiary for distance education?

14.What impact has the government had as a new player in developing and offering distance education programs?

Globalization Issues

2.Howhave government agencies tagged with the responsibility for tertiary education dealt with increased globalization?

3.What impact have distance education practices, policies, and/or programs in other countries had on distance education programs of US tertiary institutions?

4.Have foreign markets meant greater opportunities for US tertiary institutions or greater competition?In other words, are US institutions finding that they can attract large numbers of students from foreign countries to their distance education courses or are they losing students to foreign institutions through the Web?

Ownership and Intellectual Property Rights

2.How well are institutions dealing with the very complex questions of ownership and intellectual property rights of the university and the faculty members?

3.How is the federal government responding to the issues raised by the Congressional Web-Based Commission, especially its recommendations for changes in the “fair use” provisions of the copyright law and in federal 12-hour and 50 percent rules?

4.How have developments outside the education sector, such as the Napster and iCrave.com cases affected institutional policies on ownership and intellectual property rights?

The Role(s) of Technology in Distance Education

2.How well is tertiary education doing in keeping up with technology trends in society?Are universities making effective use of available technologies to support distance education?

Faculty Issues

2.What is being done at tertiary institutions to prepare faculty to use the technologies needed for distance education?Are they provided with creative and technical support when developing and offering distance education courses?

3.What empirical evidence exists about the impact of distance education on the roles and responsibilities of faculty members?On the impact that distance education has had on the number and rank of faculty employed?Is there any evidence that the unbundling of education components is resulting in new classes of faculty and staff?

Student Issues

2.What training and assistance is available for students who must use technology in their distance education courses?

3.What support or services exist to help students choose appropriate distance education programs and courses?

4.Do students believe that their distance education courses are equivalent to or better than on-campus courses they have taken?

5.If students have experience with distance education courses from tertiary institutions and from for-profit companies, what do they have to say about each?

6.What is being done to lower the number of students who drop out of distance education courses?

7.How are students with disabilities being accommodated in distance education courses?

8.How have federal regulations changed to make distance education an attractive alternative for students?

9.What changes have taken place in student aid policies that put distance education at least on an equal footing with on-campus education?

Research and Evaluation

2.How can the research community be encouraged to develop new research models, alternatives to the “horserace” model?

3.What can be done to encourage the research community to examine the effectiveness of complete programs of study rather than single courses?

4.How can differences in student learning style be factored in to studies of distance education programs?

5.What conceptual framework might help the cumulative works of the research community be more effective than their individual efforts?

6.How can the emerging breed of online professional journals speed the dissemination and impact of research on distance education?

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