E-Learning and the Future of Distance Education

XII Congreso Internacional de Tecnología y Educación a Distancia

5 Noviembre 2004San Jose, Costa Rica

Mark BullenUniversity of British Columbia, Canada

Distance Education Under Attack

• DE threatened by new movement: e-learning• Ironically, focus on efficiency, effectiveness and

quality has made DE vulnerable– Our focus on these issues has blinded us to the

emergence of this new movement– More significantly, it is the prevailing organizational

and management model of DE that is making it vulnerable to this new movement

• Threat is to DE in conventional higher education but has implications for all of DE

Distance Education Under Attack

• What is the threat?• What is e-learning?• How are quality, management, sustainability and

organizational issues related to this threat?• What can we do about it?

Qualifications

• Argument based on:– observations and experiences with DE in Canada &

US– In conventional universities

• Relevance to Latin American DE?• Relevance to single mode DE?

What is e-learning?

The Meaning of E-learning

• E-learning means different things to different people

• Massy & Zemsky suggest three categories of e-learning:– E- learning as distance education– E-learning as facilitated transaction software– E-learning as electronically-mediated learning

The Meaning of E-learning

The Meaning of E-Learning

• E-learning has been appropriated by people whose main interest is in e-learning as technology-enhanced teaching, not distance education (ELTET)

• This new movement has little interest in the distance learner or the historical mandate of DE to provide access

The Meaning of E-Learning

• Main priority is providing technologically-enhanced teaching to on-campus learners

What is the threat?

The Threat to Distance Education

• E-learning is emerging as a movement in conventional universities

• Competing for same resources• Gaining attention of university administrators

and academics • New movement is much closer to the core

mission of traditional universities• Threatening to displace DE• Distance educators need to pay attention to this

new force or else gains may be lost

Social Mandate of Distance Education

• DE has had a mandate to provide access to underserved populations, particularly in developing countries

• DE has been extremely successful at providing quality education to disadvantaged groups

• Existed on the “margins” of conventional universities for many years

Social Mandate of Distance Education

• Acceptance of DE grew as more and more conventional universities began using it

• Most North American universities now have DE programs

The Threat to Distance Education

• Status and respectability of DE due in part to the acceptance it has achieved in conventional universities

• Single mode institutions like UNED, UOC, UKOU have contributed greatly to the legitimacy of DE

• But the legitimacy has been enhanced by growth in DE in conventional universities

The Threat to Distance Education

• Why is e-learning a threat?• E-learning has a different philosophical

orientation• No social mandate• If resources are diverted from distance

education to e-learning, the social goals of DE may be longer be addressed by higher education

The Threat to Distance Education

• Growth of e-learning will cause DE to lose its newly-gained status and recede to the margins of conventional universities

• This will have an impact on the DE professional community and ultimately the status of DE

• The future of distance education as a socially-progressive movement is in danger

How are quality, sustainability and management of DE related to this threat?

Organizational Issues

• Modern DE has been obsessed with quality, efficiency and effectiveness

• Organized very differently from traditional higher education

• Creates an inherent conflict in traditional universities

Organizational Issues

• Two types of e-learning tend to be organized differently:

• E-learning as distance education:– organized and funded centrally – managed approach with professional staff– courses developed by teams– attention to quality and sustainability

The Project Development Process

Organizational Issues

• E-Learning as technology-enhanced teaching (ELTET):– Faculty/department-based– Driven by individual professor– Funded on a grant or project basis– Quality is variable– Sustainability not usually a consideration

Sustainability, Quality & Management• Organizational culture is a key issue• Berquist (1992) - institutional cultures:

– Managerial– Collegial– Developmental– Negotiated

• Clash between two distinctly different organizational cultures: collegial & managerial

• Sustainable, high quality distance e-learning requires a managed approach

Sustainability, Quality & Management

• Requires course development that is organized using a project management approach

• Teams of experts: professor, instructional designer, web designer, multimedia developer

• The distance e-learning course is a collective effort

Sustainability, Quality & Management

• Quality is ensured through the use of professionals, by building in external academic review and by building in formative and summative evaluation

• Sustainability is ensured by paying attention to quality and cost which is intimately linked to managed approach that is used

Sustainability, Quality & Management

• Most faculty are more comfortable with the “collegial culture”

• Course development is seen as in individual endeavor

• The course “belongs” to the professor

• Online course development tends to be experimental

Sustainability, Quality & Management

• Costs are not monitored

• Quality is difficult to control because of approach used

• No built in academic review or evaluation

Organizational Issues

• E-Learning as technology-enhanced teaching much closer to the core mission of the university

• Given higher priority than distance education which serves “other” learners who are often not considered “real” university students

• Organizational model more consistent with traditional university

Organizational Issues

• DE in conventional universities has borrowed its organizational model from single mode DE institutions

• Garrison & Anderson (1999) distinguish between “big” and “little” distance education

Big Distance Education

• Industrialized form of higher education• Teachers are all-powerful• Students are passive receivers of information, in

a "dominated and alienated" position within the distance teaching and learning.

• Uses mass technologies like broadcast television, the large-scale production of correspondence materials, and computer assisted instruction

Big Distance Education

• Capital (technology of curriculum production) is substituted for labor (classroom teacher)

• Flexibility for the student is provided at the cost of severely reducing interaction and increasing learner isolation

Little Distance Education

• Maximizes interaction• collaborative learning, pacing, learning communities

• Focuses on meaningful learning outcomes• challenges the student to dig deeply into the subject content and

explore the implications of this knowledge with regard to personal and societal constructs

• Maximizes active learning• extensive use of active learning activities, including simulations,

explorations and explanatory assessment

• Flexible in design• course materials are created in hyper-linked, hypermedia format

and stored such that they can be easily modified, augmented, annotated, or printed by both instructor and learners as needed

Little Distance Education

• Supports a systems view• effective little DE systems provide for learner support

services, registration flexibility, credit transfer, accreditation, provision of learning and research resources through electronic delivery and virtual libraries

• Compatible with research practice• creates learning environments focused on problem solving,

collaborative projects, and exploration of complex environments

• Cost-effective• substantially increases access as courses become available

at any time of the day or night and anywhere that Internet access is available.

Big vs. Little Distance Education

• Most DE in conventional universities is not “big” but perceived as such

• Seen as alien to the prevailing organizational culture

Competition for Resources

• Resources are being diverted from distance education to support e-learning as technology-enhanced teaching

• Organizational restructuring around the needs of ELTET

• One of the side effects of decisions made without a full understanding of DE and how it differs from ELTET

UBC Example

• Successful DE department with nearly 60 years of experience is being “decentralized”

• Rationale: only way that university can increase its use of e-learning and integrate with ELTET

UBC Example

• Reorganization fails to recognize that DE learners have distinct needs

• Supported more effectively and efficiently by centrally-organized department that specializes in DE than by having each Faculty deal with DE separately

Concluding Remarks

• Distance educators have been so focused on quality, cost, and sustainability that they have not recognized the significance of e-learning

• ELTET represents a new movement in higher education

• Poses a threat to social mandate of distance education

Concluding Remarks

• ELTET has stronger connections to the core mandate of conventional universities

• Distance educators need to cultivate support, build connections, seek allies

• Need support at senior levels• Need to “appropriate” e-learning• Can no longer rely on “marginal

champions”

Canadian Association for Distance EducationMay 7-11, 2005 - Vancouver, Canada

For Further Information

• Mark Bullen– mark.bullen@ubc.ca– http://www2.cstudies.ubc.ca/~bullen/

• UBC Distance Education & Technology– http://det.ubc.ca

• UBC Centre for Managing & Planning E-Learning (MAPLE)– http://maple.ubc.ca