VOLUME 10, NUMBER 1, 1996
Editorial
Tips for the Manager Setting Up a Distance Education
Program
Michael G. Moore
Articles (for abstracts,
click here)
Participant Perceptions of a Collaborative Satellite-based Mathematics
Course
Matthew R. Larson and Roger Bruning
Toward an Understanding of Academic Self-concept in
Distance Education
Chère Campbell Gibson
Quality Provision for Students: The Implications of
Social Choice Theory
Gordon Burt
The Roles of Television Production Specialists in
Distance Education Programming
Ricky Telg
El Programa de Educación a Distancia de la
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
José Manuel Alvarez Manilla
La Calidad en la Educación Abierta y a Distancia
en México
Rodolfo Herrero Ricaño and Héctor Barrón Soto
Interview
Speaking Personally with Ovid C. Lewis
Cynthia Davis
Book Review
Economics of Distance Education: Recent Experience
edited by G. Dhanarajan, P. K. Ip, K. S. Yuen, and C. Swales
Peter J. Dirr
Media Review
FirstSearch
Martha Burkhart, Tim Greer, Gary Klimple, and Jerry Mauldin
Publications Received
EDITORIAL
Tips for the Manager Setting Up a Distance Education Program
Michael G. Moore
In a recent meeting I was asked to give "some tips and tricks, and point out some traps" for people in an organization that is thinking about setting up a distance education program, in this case within the training division of a very large multi-national corporation. Such requests make me nervous, because I don't want people to underestimate what is involved in developing a good distance education program, and the word "trick" suggests what is involved may be rather trivial. Trainers and teachers may learn techniques (the "tricks"), but they also need to learn principles, and they must then be organized in ways that allow them to apply those principles in addressing the learning needs of their organizations. In this second point lies my concern. I fear that if we talk too much about techniques and technologies, we may reinforce the tendency of managers to avoid the more important issues involved in reorganizing their human and capital resources, a result extremely damaging to the interests of the organization.
However, in this particular meeting I was able to use that very point as a "tip," and then to make other generalizations that I realized I make very frequently and that I have decided to share here. I suppose these points could be described as "tips and tricks," although I think I can dignify at least a few of them as "principles"! Perhaps the main value of thinking about "tips" is that, by definition, they are short, without deep elaboration or explanation. (In listing the tips below I will use the term "trainer" and "trainees" to reflect the audience I was addressing, but these terms are interchangeable with "teacher" or "instructor" and "student.")
Tip One: Get the Support of Top Management.
The survival and success of your organization in the Information Age will
depend on on-the-job continuing education and training, and distance education
can provide the key to this training. This fact should be impressed upon
your top management because you must have its support as you go about
setting up your distance education program. The support of top management
does not guarantee a successful distance education program, but the lack
of full, on-going, and open support of management is a guarantee you will
not be completely successful. Before proceeding you will have to assess
how much support you have, and then plan the type and extent of your distance
education program accordingly. You must not try to establish a full-scale
system (see the Editorial in AJDE 7:1) unless you are sure you
have the unwavering support of top management.
Tip Two: Be Conservative. Focus on Specific Projects.
Your challenge is to change the way people think about training, learning,
and teaching. If top management decrees it, you may be able to set up
a total distance education system; however, it is more likely that you
will have to restructure the existing system. Do not try to do this all
at once! Identify one content or subject area, one for which you can expect
support from the trainers involved, and concentrate on developing a distance
education approach in that one area. Success there will demonstrate the
effectiveness of the distance education method and will demonstrate the
non-threatening nature of the changes involved. The best advocates of
the new approach will be the trainers and trainees involved, who will
speak from experience. If the program is done well, other trainers will
ask to be involved. Everything hinges on good quality, which is another
argument for progressing conservatively. It is better to take more time
and do less-but do it superbly-than to try to do too much too quickly.
You are not likely to have a second chance. There are too many doubters
ready to say, "I told you it wouldn't work here."
Tip Three: Take Time to Design.
Since distance education uses technology and technicians (people who work
with technology), the ratio of resources for design and course preparation
compared to course implementation is higher than in conventional training
(see the Editorial in AJDE 6:2). Probably the most common cause of failure
is impatience on the part of management as well as instructors to get
into the implementation phase of the program-to see the students and trainees
at work-before a proper foundation of course materials and strategies
has been laid. While there can be no "cookbook" prescription
of the time needed in design, I sometimes help managers appreciate the
scale of what is desirable by pointing out that there are organizations
that devote fifty hours of design for every hour of implementation. Such
time spent in designing and producing high-quality materials, planning
teaching strategies, and training trainers will increase the chances of
success. There is a direct relationship between the instructional effectiveness
of a program and the time and money spent in its design.
Tip Four: Chose Communications Media Carefully.
It is surprising how many organizations install a training tool-in other
words a technology-and then try to design their training programs around
that particular tool. At different times the fashionable tool has been
programmed text, videotapes, video by satellite, audiographics, CD-ROM,
and, today, the World Wide Web. These and other technologies are all valuable
under some conditions, and virtual junk under others. Careful selection
of tools to meet specific needs is critically important. Since learning
depends on both receiving new information and processing it, there has
to be both presentation of information and interaction with it. Some media
are better suited for the presentation role, others for interaction (see
the Editorial in AJDE 3:2). Therefore, media must be "mixed and matched"
to meet the needs for communicating particular content to particular learners
in particular locations using various teaching processes. There is no
"magic" medium, and a mixture of media will always be better
than any single medium. You should always consider mixing at least one
asynchronous medium to provide presentation of information and one synchronous
medium to provide interaction.
Always look for the most simple medium for a given content, teaching process, and clientele. There is no relationship between the cost of a medium and its instructional effectiveness. For example, a text (asynchronous) supported by an audioconference (synchronous), when both are well designed, may be a perfectly effective mix of media for a relatively small number of well-motivated, well-read students who are able to meet occasionally in real time. Be especially cautious about selecting video media; my rule is to ask, "For this content and these learners do we need pictures? If so, do we need moving pictures? If so, do we need moving pictures in real time?" This simple test results in saving money by using photographs instead of videotapes, or videotapes instead of a full-motion, satellite-delivered program. More important than saving money, it means that the right medium was used for the educational purpose and that the program was better as a result of this choice.
Tip Five: Learner Support is as Important as Good
Design.
A good distance education system is one that provides a humane environment
for learning. One goal of the media selection process is to identify those
educational functions that can be delivered better by technology than
by people and thus release people to do those things that people do better
than technology. This trade-off usually means providing support to individual
learners and groups of learners as they interact with subject matter delivered
by technology. This role, that of the learning facilitator (see, for example,
the Editorial in AJDE 9:1), is vitally important, and the organization
should be systematic in setting up its learner support network and in
training personnel for this function, monitoring them, and rewarding them.
In many corporations, branch managers who have responsibility for training
their staff sense that training may be a low priority for their senior
management. These branch managers are neither trained for nor rewarded
for the training role. If this situation exists and is not changed, there
may be no point in spending money on communications technologies or even
on course design. Setting in place a well-trained learner support network
is essential for a successful distance education system. There is a direct
relationship between the instructional effectiveness of a program and
the time and money spent on learner support.
In summary, here are my five tips for managers who are thinking about distance education:
- Do all you can to obtain support from your top management.
- Focus on specific projects and do them superbly.
- Take time and resources to plan thoroughly and design well.
- Select media tools according to the needs of the program.
- Select, train, monitor, and reward learner-support personnel.
My last word is about getting help. Setting up a distance education program is more complex than it appears. You should probably seek expert help, and I suggest you might use the above five tips as a checklist to evaluate the experience of potential consultants. Do not be distracted by consultants' knowledge about a particular communications technology. Knowing how to set up and run a video, computer, or audiographic system is fairly simple. There are more important questions to ask about the consultants: Do they have experience with setting up and training a learner-support network? Do they have experience with putting together integrated media packages, or do they seem wedded to a particular technology? Can they demonstrate knowledge of the techniques necessary to design a distance learning program? Have they, for example, written a successful study guide or worked in a course team? These are the areas that you will need most help in.
Participant Perceptions of a Collaborative
Satellite-based Mathematics Course
Matthew R. Larson and Roger Bruning
Mathematics students in rural and suburban high schools
and their classroom teachers were the subject of this qualitative research
study to explore the perceptions of the students and teachers participating
in an interactive collaborative satellite-based mathematics course. The
difficulty rural schools have in attracting qualified mathematics teachers
is the reason mathematics is one discipline often used in satellite-broadcast
distance learning courses to provide a high-quality educational experience.
These educational programs are developed to enhance classroom curriculum
and not to replace the classroom teacher.
The course taught was Practical Pre-College Mathematics (PPCM), a senior-level
course for college bound students who are not necessarily planning traditional
calculus sequences there. Participants were 154 students and 21 classroom
teachers at 21 sites, during the 1993-94 school year. Classes size ranged
was from one to twenty-two.
Results indicated: that a collaborative satellite
distance learning is effective for mathematics instruction when it furnishes
classroom teachers with resources otherwise unavailable to them, and when
it is used with underachieving students. Results indicated, also, that
this medium can be a useful way to put into practice nationally recommended
curriculum and instruction standards for mathematics.
Toward an Understanding of Academic Self-Concept in Distance Education
Chère Campbell Gibson
Academic self concept is concerned with students'
perceptions of themselves as learners and can be dynamic and ever-evolving
during their academic studies. It has been shown to affect learner success
in distance education. Gibson's study was to examine the nature of academic
self-concept in distance education so as to be able to identify both its
enhancers and detractors. Sixteen external-degree students were interviewed
seven times during their first year of distance education study. Characteristics
of these students are: baccalaureate degree students, mostly women (87.5%),
age range between 30 -42 years, employed outside the home at least 50%
of the time. The open-ended interviews were conducted by phone, each month
for the first three months after the student began the program, then every
six to seven weeks during the following eight months. Questions concerning
studying at a distance were the focus of the interviews and in particular
"perceived confidence, perceived competence, commitment, barriers
to and enhancers of educational progress, and breadth of resources used
in pursuing their studies" were examined. The interviews were transcribed
verbatim. Then the data were studied for statements related to academic
self-concept; enhancers and detractors to academic self-concept were noted.
The results of this study indicated that "this construct is dynamic
and multi-faceted: the process of both learning as an adult and learning
at a distance, as well as the content studied, influences academic self-concept."
Gibson notes as a conclusion from this and past studies: a student's academic
self-concept holds an important place in persistence in distance learning,
and that "general self-concept is a dynamic and situational attribute"
of the distance student and, importantly is open to intervention.
Quality Provision for Students: The Implications
for Social Choice Theory
Gordon Burt
Feedback from students often is seen as an "expression of the ' the students' collective voice that can be used as the basis for decisions about course offerings." An issue arises when student voices differ. Burt notes that social choice theory "alerts us to alternative rationales on which educational decision makers could base choices in situations where students disagree." These issues need to be discussed before feedback mechanisms are designed. Only the single dimension of student workload is considered in this paper.
Quality has been noted to be an important objective in the distance education movement, as evidenced in the choice of "Quality" for the 1995 ICDE's (International Council for Distance Education) theme. What is less clear is how to proceed; business and the world of industry offer a variety of quality systems, yet the value of this concept has been questioned. The point being for business and distance education: "a fundamental obstacle to creating customer satisfaction is that a single product cannot be ideal for all customers if customers have different conceptions of ideal products!" When this thought is applied to distance education, a basic deciding factor of learner satisfaction is the way in which preferences "relate to the structure of educational offerings."
Since distance education institutions are interested
in quality education, Burt suggests a way to evaluate student satisfaction.
This can be accomplished by using "student feedback systems"
enabling the institution to make the needed changes. "Different social
choice functions can give rise to different social choices about educational
provisions".
The Roles of Television Production Specialist
in Distance Education Programming
Ricky W. Telg
Examining the roles of television production specialists
who work in live, interactive, video-based courses was the purpose of
this study. Qualitative research was conducted here to depict the learning
process of television production specialists and to outline the skill
and knowledge these professionals must possess. Characteristics of the
twelve full-time participants: employed at a four-year U S university
for at least one year to produce "live, interactive, video-based
educational programs," and without prior professional or educational
training in distance education before employment at their university positions.
The following three methods of data collection were used: semi-structured
interviews, observation, and document analysis in the form of concept
maps. After each interview, "participants were asked to draw a concept
map of their "mindset evolution" from their early experiences
producing television programs to their experiences after becoming involved
in distance education." A finding was that the television production
specialists saw themselves in a much more expansive role than one solely
of technology expert; they viewed themselves as "do-it-all"
people. As a result their responsibilities far exceeded their past experience
and television production training as they took on these various roles.
Some recommendations resulting from this study are: a training curriculum
should be devised for television production specialists, university administrators
should decide who assumes what roles in their distance education programming,
and, it should be determined whether in other positions which are part
of "producing programs delivered via other media the participants
share the perception of television production specialists that they must
fill roles other than that of technical expert". Further research
is suggested involving instructional designers to see if there is a different
perception of these two groups as to who assumes which roles in the creation
of live, interactive, video-based programs.
El Programa de Education a Distancia de
la Universidad Nacional Auntonoma de Mexico (UNAM) (Article in Spanish)
José Manuel Alvarez Manilla
According to the abstract this paper describes some
of the movement taking place at UNAM in their efforts to create distance
education programs for lifelong learning. Manella observes that some reasons
for instituting distance education programs at this four hundred year
old University involve the necessity of supplying answers for diverse
needs: "lifelong learning, higher education as a second chance, education
for adults unable to attend regular courses to finish their studies, service
to remote populations, and continuing education for faculty in the remote
campuses." Anticipated barriers to this program are traditional structures,
ever evolving technological change, and pedagogy as it may be involved
in the use of media for instruction. Also included here are some of the
following issues that need to be addressed in order to provide education
on a large scale: "research, infrastructure, development, training
delivery procedures, and organizational changes.
La Calidad en la Educacion Abierta y a Distancia
en Mexico (Article in Spanish)
Rodolfo Herrero Ricano and Hector Barron Soto
Distance education has played a vital part in providing
education for non-traditional students. The article emphasized the need
to improve the quality of distance education as measured by "our
own standards." Toward this end a national meeting was held to begin
a "self-diagnosis" in which the issues of quality and access
were the primary areas under consideration. This national meeting was
an interactive synchronous meeting held in four regions that included
five hundred and twenty experts from fifty-one institutions. The meeting
resulted in "thirty-five criteria, and 230 parameters of quality
were established". The next step is for this group to further explore
the criteria and parameters that came to light in the meeting.
