Futurists tell us that the two constants in our work world today are change and ambiguity, or so the story goes. Of course, these same people predicted universities were going away due to technological modernity and that technology would be the defining characteristic of all successful millennium organizations. Universities are still here, and though these other predictions hold some truth the most perplexing phenomenon about distance education is not how much has changed in the past ten years, but rather what has remained virtually the same. Imagine that Scotty and the Enterprise could beam us back to 1994 to revisit the issues facing distance education during this period. What would we find?
First, colleges and universities were preoccupied with how distance education was going to save or make money. We talked access and, at the same time, we held out hope that the economic “silver bullet” had truly arrived at the academy’s gates. Today, we still are confounded by the financially perplexing issues surrounding institutional technological investment despite having implemented technological solutions that are financially efficient.
And, though we have successfully implemented cost-effective administrative, financial, and student information systems, we have been less successful financially in the instructional arena, where the rubber meets the virtual highway for distance education. Aligning imaginary paper costs with real costs has shown us that distance education costs money and time, both expensive commodities in the university, where hidden costs often remain hidden. How we make distance education financially solvent as an instructional enterprise remains a challenging issue for most institutions.
Second, much of the literature of the early ‘90s (my first publication addressed these issues in 1991) focused on the need to develop academic incentives for distance teaching faculty. I recently attended an interinstitutional meeting to discuss distance learning issues, and faculty incentives once more emerged as a major challenge. I was sure that Scotty had beamed me back to the same meeting in 1992, only to wake up in 2003.
University faculties remain skeptical about distance teaching. Paradoxically, we have implemented new policies designed to integrate distance teaching into promotion and tenure review, granted release time for faculty course development, and even have added financial incentives. The truth is that many faculties still question the pedagogical effectiveness of distance teaching comparably with face-to-face instruction regardless of whether or not the research has demonstrated commensurate academic achievement between distance and campus instruction.
Third, the change game still remains an elusive enigma for most universities. The politics of academic culture are still grounded primarily in preserving past institutional policies and traditions. The status quo remains dominant, and change is defined primarily by deliberation, consensus, and incrementalism. The result is that change continues to be slow and universities are less responsive and adaptive to changing market, competitor, and societal trends.
Accountability issues surrounding distance education were just emerging in the early ‘90s, and are still with us today in a different context. The good news is that accrediting agencies have been responsive by examining their policies for maintaining academic quality and taking into consideration the differentiation factors of distance teaching. Legislatures have increasingly demanded cost, quality, and assessment data for students to justify technology appropriations to colleges and universities.
Distance education continues to face these four eternal challenges: implementing and maintaining financially effective programs, faculty incentives and participation, facilitating change and integrating distance education into the mainstream academic mission, and responding to increasing calls for accountability. These are interconnected, despite our predilection to view these as isolated challenges.
Change requires changing the culture in which innovation must emanate. Altering the status quo culture is a slow process, and yet it is a prerequisite for creating new models of change that are efficient and responsive. Faculty participation is directly tied to institutional mission where technology can serve as one—and only one—tool to meet that mission. By integrating distance teaching into the mainstream academic mission, faculty incentives and budget redistribution have a better chance for implementation and adoption as accepted norms. Together, these bring legitimacy and credibility to distance teaching, in which pedagogical effectiveness remains the ultimate success factor. Collectively, these will carry more weight with demands for accountability.
And, all these may create the needed changes to support all teaching that utilizes technology, or perhaps not. Some things are just meant to stay the same, even amidst the winds of change. So Scotty, beam me to 2014 and let’s see if any universities dared go where no universities had gone before.
Do you have a particular viewpoint about distance education or would like to comment on this column? Send your comments or views to Don Olcott at: olcottd@wou.edu
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