"Substantial disinvestment" in distance education?

What you make of it

DL is what the student makes of it. The content of learning requirements was no different at Kennedy-Western University than Philadelphia University. I was given text and project study materials. I had mid-term preparatory exams, then the final exams. If I had material content questions, I called my advisor, who then had the professor call me at work, usually when he/she wasn't teaching at a BM school, or at night. Certain K-W classes like Operations Management, required several calls. When it came time for the Final Project, I panicked. Never before had I written a 100 page plus research report, and I was concerned that I'd inadvertently plagiarize, by failing to note/reference a researched item/sentence. K-W submits all projects to an anti-plagiarism service. My Professor, Dr. Byrne, who also instructs at St. Ambrose, was a tremendous help, and guided me thru the entire process. Even reviewing my developing chapters on vacation.

At K-W, had access to virtual lectures, on-line study groups, multi-media lectures, etc.

Is a DL experience the same as Bricks & Mortar School, No…. but, need it be???

 

Your are having reputable school Like Florida Atlantic University trying to make a quick buck, if you look at their Execuitve Master of Taxes that is the impresion I got from their program, They waive the GMAT, they are willing to enroll me conditional, I spoke with the coordinator and wanted to sign me so fast that I have to stop him, told them that I wanted to evaluated first, since they required a deposit of $600 not refundable regardless the situation, before you enroll each classes. The program from what I was able to undesrtand is apart from the main programs, and they say "all student are given the VIP treatment" of course for $25k for the whole program.

But at the end is the student and not the schools.

Vini

 

Why DL is superior for me.

I remember attending a seminar posted by Daveyboy Sh????, the guest speaker in a Teacher Training seminar in Korea. The topic was "Presenting lectures in a classroom. It was 90 minutes of the most excrutiating boredom I have ever endured.

After the lecture, I wanted to ask the speaker how long he had been teaching in Korea. I began, "Excuse me David, I was ..."

He stopped me. With a pinced nose of indignity, he replied, "The name is DOCTOR Sh????." The kid was about 12 years younger than I. He had his PhD I suppose. One of those professional eggheads who had his designation but couldn't convince a seal to take a swim.

I found out he had never taught in a real situation in his life.
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but I digress,

The reason I like DL is that the theories and practices being taught, can be put into immediate testing in my classroom setting and proven or disproven immediately. Further, as I study and taught a specific point, I can and do refute the concepts.

For example, in one course I am taught how to create and assess "good" multiple choice" questions for listening exams. My experience teaches me that such "good tests" are useless, so instead of embracing the material, I argue against it.

Not just for arguments sake, but rather it challenges me to defend my position. The point simply is that DL allows me to experience my higher learning, something on campus never can do.

 

I've been employed in DL for some 36 years - 24 on campus and 12 off-campus. Initially with what was the Technical Correspondence Institute and, since 1990, with The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand.
Research results of student success in national examinations show that the pass rate by TCI/Open Polytech students was/is 10-15% (occasionally 20%) higher than the success level achieved by students taught face-to-face at 'live' polytechnics..

 

Disinvestment?

Entering this discussion late (due to attendance at a Negotiation Seminar in London, sans laptop) I offer a few points.

Online distance learning platforms and distance learning by self-study may be two separate issues, with which David Barnard is confused to the extent that his statement about 'disinvestment' is generalised to mean 'distance learning'. You can have a distance learning model that is print only (EBS: 1991-2001) or online only (some US operations, Liverpool-Kit, etc.,) or a combination of both (EBS 2001 and current).

Both can operate with no, or minimal, contact between students and faculty, or by (expensive) (synchronous or asynchronous) 24/7 or scheduled faculty contact through web boards. Barnard does not distinguish between all these forms and mixtures of them, hence the credibility of impressionistic statements about students' reactions and faculty responses to them is difficult to assess.

'Disinvestment' in DL is to be expected by some institutions that got DL wrong. There is no goldmine for easy pickings. Some online products fail because they are too expensive to ever repay the investment - Unext/Cardean expected 300,000 online students by 2003 and it has fewer than 300 - and this outcome is the penalty for letting IT people run the design overule researched pedagogy. Others let Academics design the programme, who have no researched evidence that on-campus norms must be mirrored in DL formats and they, too, do not attract enough custom to cover their variable or fixed costs.

By diluting their exam regimes (even no secure exams at all!), which are vulnerable to serious fraud in DL formats, they compound both errors. As competition gets tougher, diluted DL exam regimes bring their degrees into disrepute and are vulnerable to public scandals. Those that have got the mix right are scalable and have secure exam regimes, and they have no need to disinvest their DL products. Indeed, EBS continues to grow worldwide as a printed book/online MBA DL programme.

The rural isolation argument (Kristie7) can be generalised. It is not just rural dispersion that creates a need for DL. People living in major urban centres and close to large, prestigious, campus universities can be as isolated from access as someone living hundreds of miles away. Life styles, job styles and career styles are effective barriers to education opportunities, not made easier by finite space constraints, rationed by previous or recent qualifications, or by rigid schedules at campus paced courses and strict ordering of the programmes and the location of exam centres. A local DL programme may not be able to attract enough such people to make their DL programme financially viable, certainly at the quality level and reputation with which students will sacrifice time and energy to stick to. Hence, the need for global scalability, high quality standards and for tough exam regimes to make the large investment in a DL programme worthwhile.

In so far as the on-campus degree programmes suffer from equivalent errors in design, including grade inflation, examination fraud and smaller recruitment segments, we can expect disinvestments in on-campus b & m institutions too.

 

Vini,

This situation is certainly not unique to ditance learning, but is, unfortunately, a common practice in higher education when a new program or degree is instituted at a college. In order for the program to "make", there must be a certain enrollment. Often, enrollment standards are relaxed (sometimes heavily) for the first wave of students. Some years ago, a prestigious university relaxed the standards for entry into a brand new masters program (not DL) to such an extent that it accepted students from non-accredited schools, thus providing a notable religious figure with his only accredited degree (he had three other unaccredited ones).

For good or bad, it has always been easier to "get in on the ground floor" of a new degree program. When enrollment in the program becomes stable, then admission standards return to "normal".

Tony Piña
Faculty, CSU San Bernardino

 

Re: Disinvestment?

The articles was for rural residence, and that was why I targeted that argument, your other points make sense, but I was commenting about DL to rural students. For those who have no University within a few hours drive, DL is critical for success.