Let's now turn our attention to distance education. We have covered this topic in the past and like undergraduate education, our membership wants to revisit the topic again and again. James Sweetland will be our guest editor. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Notre Dame and an MLS from Indiana University. Prior to joining the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), he was a practicing librarian. While the latter, he taught both history and library/information science as an adjunct faculty member.
To date, his distance education experience has been with the traditional form: the faculty member travels a distance to the students. These students have ranged from active members of the U.S. Air Force (via the Community College of the Air Force), to students in the UWM/SLIS master's program.
Please welcome Professor Sweetland and join our discussion.
Obviously, we need to define some terms. While there are a number of ways of conceptualizing "distance education," it would seem to involve "delivery of a formal educational experience in a situation where the instructor is at a distance from the student." Or, perhaps, "where not all students are in the same room" is even more to the point.
Thus, distance education clearly could include traditional correspondence courses, use of educational closed-circuit television, broadcasts via radio, television and telephone systems, and the like. However, it certainly seems that much of the current interest in DE relates to integration of instruction with use of computer networks of some sort, or with interactive television and similar recent forms of technology.
The definition may or may not be important: it is possible that experience with past formats and technology are relevant to the current DE movement, however, it is also possible that many of the problems and solutions used in the past are no longer issues with improved communications technology and increased user experience with it. In any event, the following are based on my own reading (print and electronic sources) and discussions on our own campus.
In essence, this discussion assumes that distance education is going to happen, and is already happening.
Some of the practical issues that have some up in the last couple of years:
What arrangements have people made to get their students' access to such facilities convenient to the students?
How do students react to the arrangements?
How have the various libraries and schools reacted to this "additional" set of users, and possibly different types of use?
How have people addressed the copyright implications?
How do students react?
Does the use of such collections of readings, in combination with lack of access to the "home library" result in changes in teaching or in assignments?
How have people arranged for students to get to "your" computer system?
Have there been problems, e.g., with downloading material at slower baud speeds? What kinds of solutions have been tried?
How does the institution pay for this?
In several cases, the initial costs have been covered by grants. What sorts of plans are people making to continue the programs when the grant funds are gone?
How do students and potential students react to additional fees?
Is this really a problem? (The same issue comes up, for example, in take-home exams, out-of-class research papers, etc., in traditional educational settings)
How have people tried to prevent the problem?
How have these solutions worked?
Again, is this really a problem? (not all traditional students interact outside assigned projects; not all traditional faculty require any kind of group work).
How are people trying to assure socialization?
Or, do we need to provide the socialization in the sense used above?
Similarly, some types of technology require more time than others. For example, I can have a 30-second conversation during a class break and answer a question. Using E-mail takes both me and the student longer (say maybe 2-3 minutes to convey exactly the same information).
What have people found is a realistic rule of thumb for developing a mediated presentation aimed at DE?
What kinds of support have people found for the additional time needed for a DE class?
Has anyone come up with any way of defining workload?
Have there been any problems in such definitions?
Since remote students are not on the "home" campus of their teachers, it is very useful if not obligatory for the students to be users of the nearest university library. The students have then the opportunity to get the required learning material from the library; they can make acquisition proposals or use the interlibrary loan. Often, librarians become active themselves; they invite instructors of different courses and seminars within the zone of influence of the library to send lists of recommended reading which will soon be acquired.
If DE is expected to lead to a degree or certification, final examinations should be organized through an institution like a LIS school or a professional association; the candidates have to be physically present to pass written and oral examinations.
"What arrangements have people made to get their students' access to such facilities convenient to the students?"
We state up front that students must have access to a certain level of library resources (even if it means driving some ways) and of computer resources --this can be at home or office, but they need to plan for intensive technological use with a system that includes CU-SeeMe, CD-ROM, and Web technologies. By making this mandatory, it also allows students to build in computer costs to financial aid packages.
The UIUC Library and Information Science librarian, Pat Stenstrom, has also been extremely helpful. She will mail materials to students, do some photocopying and facilitate access to other resources wherever possible. We are also putting as much information as possible in course packs and on the Web in password protected form, but run into some problems . For example, the University's site license use of the Encyclopedia Britannica involves EB checking itself the domain server from which a person is getting access and all non-uiuc.edu domain servers are excluded. Fortunately this has not been a problem with materials our students use much.
"How do students react to the arrangements?"
The level of technical support needed is fairly high. Students need to be knowledgeable immediately about the use of Internet technologies, and fairly intimate with their home computers, at the start of the program. On-campus students, meanwhile, can take their time to learn to be technology experts.
Student expectations of personal attention are higher than for on-campus students. There's a bit of an, "I paid for it so I deserve lots of attention" attitude. Whether this carries out to grading practices remains to be seen. However, there seems to be more of a sense that "this is a degree I am paying for/purchasing" than for on-campus students. One reason for this actually may not be related to distance ed at all. Almost all our on-campus students hold graduate assistantships that entitle them to a waiver of tuition and fees, so that for them, they are not "paying" in the same way the LEEP students are.
"How have the various libraries and schools reacted to this "additional" set of users, and possibly different types of use?"
"How have people addressed the copyright implications?"
"How do students react?"
"Does the use of such collections of readings, in combination with lack of access to the "home library" result in changes in teaching or in assignments?"
The school is changing its teaching and assignments to become more problem based/case study approach -- it is difficult to locate the source of that change in the LEEP program, although our need to develop new types of instructional materials for LEEP has led us to begin rethinking how we teach across the curriculum.
"How have people arranged for students to get to 'your' computer system?"
"Have there been problems, e.g., with downloading material at slower baud speeds? What kinds of solutions have been tried?"
The speed problem has been most noticeable in our attempts to do synchronous audio sessions. We are looking at new software that sends the audio in packets and improves transmission speed. We also created a CD-ROM for a large chuck of materials related to the case study in one course. Our next mode of attack will be to use a Zip drive that will allow students to download to disk large data files.
The campus has given us three years of start-up funds of about $600,000 total and then is allowing us to keep all the added tuition revenue. All new tuition revenues will be returned to the School -- with a 50 percent out-of-state student body and a small recurring commitment of about $50,000 from the university, we expect to break even by year three.
"How does the institution pay for this?"
"In several cases, the initial costs have been covered by grants. What sorts of plans are people making to continue the programs when the grant funds are gone?
"How do students and potential students react to additional fees?"
We do not have additional fees for the LEEP students -- the on-campus/off-campus tuition rates are the same. After a student referendum about support for a technology fee, in which 70 percent of our students gave their support, GSLIS will have a base tuition $500 higher than most other campus programs (but similar to engineering and art and design). The money will support technology for students in all programs. Even with this tuition differential, University of Illinois tuition and fees tend to be relatively low.
"Is this really a problem? (The same issue comes up, for example, in take-home exams, out-of-class research papers, etc., in traditional educational settings)
"How have people tried to prevent the problem?
"How have these solutions worked?"
"Again, is this really a problem? (not all traditional students interact outside assigned projects; not all traditional faculty require any kind of group work).
"How are people trying to assure socialization?
"Or, do we need to provide the socialization in the sense used above?"
"Similarly, some types of technology require more time than others. For example, I can have a 30-second conversation during a class break and answer a question. Using E-mail takes both me and the student longer (say maybe 2-3 minutes to convey exactly the same information).
"What have people found is a realistic rule of thumb for developing a mediated presentation aimed at DE?
"What kinds of support have people found for the additional time needed for a DE class?"
The next real questions about technology support is what will we support to the home? I now have faculty who need parallel systems at home because the time and space boundaries are so fluid. It is difficult to support this request, but I understand the issues.
"Has anyone come up with any way of defining workload?
"Have there been any problems in such definitions?"
Finally, we have no ready way of measuring success for on-campus instruction, so how are we to compare different measures?
In terms of student knowledge, student happiness and comfort, collegiality within the program/profession, test scores, etc., it certainly seems that both methods work well. We don't have a guess about whether one is more well-suited for some types of students than the other, although I suspect that by offering a variety of formats for instruction we are allowing students to find methods that best suit their learning styles. Two members of the LEEP program are planning to move to campus next semester. Several campus-based students are taking LEEP courses.
The bottom line, probably, is that high quality and motivated students will learn regardless of the medium for learning. And that the quality of the instructor is translatable across media.
I got an interesting reference question recently that I can't answer. Does anyone know if there are graduate/undergraduate courses available that employ the use of audiocassettes in the learning process? (They would either supplement or substitute for actual classroom time.)
Thanks in advance.
Tahirih Mitchell
U.S. Geological Survey
E-mail: TMitchell@ISDMNL.WR.USGS.GOV
The Myth of Distance Education
Tom P. Abeles
President
Sagacity, Inc.
tabeles@tmn.com
Our higher education system, daily, becomes more like that last stretch of country road which lies unfinished between the electronic network of the MTV generation and the information super highway of commerce. One does not deny the rapidity with which universities are adding connections to the emerging electronic arteries. In most cases, these are more like adding tail fins to cars. Meanwhile, the global brain is moving inexorably forward and creating alternative routes to relieve the pressure from the institutional blockage.
Mind Extension University (MEU) is a paradigmatic example of one entrepreneurial alternative route. Similar ventures include Electronic University Network, the Global Network Academy and the more conservative, National Technological University. Rather than trying to reach agreement from the communities along the bottleneck, these ventures have selectively reached agreements with individuals and subdivisions to provide the content to build the needed bypass.
Corporate universities are another venue. Davis and Botkins seminal work, The Monster Under the Bed, was the first to chronicle this growing movement bypassing the intellectual community. Meisters Corporate Quality Universities cogently shows that, even though different from the monastic campuses of higher education, these institutions, often using renegades from academia, can offer secular experiences of equal or higher quality, and often in a more relevant and substantive fashion.
More conventional alternatives can be represented by such institutions as the Open University in England, Open Learning Associations in Hong Kong, British Columbia and Australia, The Union Graduate School, Walden University and The Graduate School of America. Additionally, corporations such as IBM and Microsoft as well as smaller companies, are becoming developers, building real estate from bits and bytes instead of bricks and mortar.
What is even more interesting is the establishment of the Global Alliance for Transnational Education (GATE -- http://www.edugate.org), a consortium of industries and educational organizations around the world created to provide a common certification base. Political entities have lost control of the global monetary movements and now the multinational educational organizations are prepared to transcend the micro management of academic certification.
There has become great concern about the deterioration of community. Part of this is the loss of the brightest of the communitys future heading out of town to the university. Developing countries have been forced to pay, in the international market place, by exporting their most valuable commodities. One of these is the brightest and most essential youths who must travel a great distance, providing an immediate loss, as well as a permanent loss, in both potential and scarce resources. Modern communications, creating the wired communities, has cogently pointed out that such a drain need not occur.
It has been suggested that education will become the new market for the future. It is currently within the top 6 or 7 in U.S. exports based on dollar volume. In the past, the U.S. exported technology to take advantage of the unskilled labor pools, internationally. Today, U.S. firms are having professional work done by U.S. trained engineers in India. So, it is not just the unskilled and semi skilled jobs which are being exported. What happens when world renowned experts decide to reside in the mountains of Tibet and the sands of the Caribbean with their portable computers and cellular modems?
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg
The Council of Western Governors have formally initiated steps for the establishment of a non-campus based university. The estimated capitalization of such a venture is about USD 6 million as opposed to a physical plant based institution which would cost about USD 100 million.
It is becoming very clear that the high cost of constructing and maintaining a physical campus creates a significant overhead burden on the educational experience. This includes more than just physical maintenance, but also the administrative overhead.
The traditional budget concerns for academic departments has, in many ways, been a smokescreen to avoid the infrastructure issues of the administration. One of the strategies of dealing with the sunk capital costs of a physical plant is privatization. Though some institutions have taken tentative steps, none has taken the ice cold plunge of contemplating the sale of the entire physical plant under appropriate lease back and other financial arrangements.
The opportunity to recapitalize higher education seems to be like the ancient Chinese glyph which signifies both danger and opportunity. What could a major university do with several hundreds of millions of capital? And, what would this provide to the local community in the form of a tax base?
Eli Noam, in a recent interview in Educom Review predicts the continuing trend towards the deconstruction of the traditional campus. Noam, like others, sees institutions shifting to a brokering modality. Here, higher educations administrative function is that of a registrar and counseling center using faculty as mentors. Electronic University Network on America On Line operates in this mode and additionally acts as a broker of accredited programs. What is even more interesting is that major universities are starting to develop these areas. The recently announced Lion-Hawk program between the University of Iowa and Pennsylvania State University is one where the campuses are not even in close proximity.
The Commerce of Higher Education
Some individuals prefer to buy their duck in the store while others must go out and retrieve it from the wild. Saving the spotted owl and a distance education on a college or university campus have some of the same elements. The decisions are not clear and reducible to an economic equation.
The argument concerning a community as a vital part of the campus is currently in question and constitutes the need for a serious discussion. Never-the-less, it is this concern of community which is one of the key issues. Given the growing trend towards a variety of new, emerging and strengthening traditional communities in work, at home and at play, both in physical and cyberspace, and given the changing perceptions of consumers of higher education, traditional institutions are going to have to present a serious rationale for the cost in both time and money for their services.
To view this, one might want to look more carefully at the academic side of the institution. In a shrinking budget where the highest quality instructors can be made available to many without either party having to travel there will be changes in the learning experience. But, one can also look at research in the same manner. Shrinking research monies will start to concentrate the highest quality research into centers where the high overhead burden of a physical facility can be more fully amortized. This, in turn will probably lead to a raising in quality of research, and research graduates, but a lowering in number.
This will lead to a concomitant reduction in amount, and increase in quality, in the realm of publish or perish. The academic side and the research efforts will thus lead to the creation of a split in the community of scholars with teams of academics dominated, like pro basketball, by stellar performers with proportional compensation, and supporting team members in the laboratory and classrooms.
Interestingly enough, the traditional concerns about the fine arts and humanities, the traditional academic domains which have not been able to support substantive programs from a cashflow perspective, will diminish or disappear when the ability to operate with lower overhead burdens can be realized. Even small liberal arts institutions will be able to draw on the best resources in faculty and research facilities.
Conclusions -- A Final Word on Community
Traditional academic communities of students and scholars originally were drawn from select social, political and economic communities. The number of individuals and networks was small. Thus, the communities from which people came were the ones in which they would return. Thus, like exchange of courtiers, the social function of institutions of higher learning served a multiple of purposes within a small community. It was such a community that concerned CP Snow when he wrote his book, The Two Cultures.
And it is this emergent scientific paradigms promise of predictability and control, more than its ability to bring the wonders of engineering and medicine, which Snow seemed to ask his intellectual colleagues to address.
David Gelernter has cogently pointed out in his book, 1939 -- The Lost Word of the Fair, that the industrial model succeeded beyond our wildest dreams in terms of delivering technology. Yet, shortly after the end of World War II and the Korean War, we realized that we have, like Midas, received both a blessing and a curse, not only here in the United States, but internationally.
Thus, the outward manifestations of science in the form of technological advances have exposed the fallibility of the scientific model on the prediction and control side with regards both to its own technology and the Technocratic approach to management. And the promises of the high priests of science have had to yield to the their own internal uncertainties; and, by default, the two cultures must indeed sit side by side.
Thus, while, we see a realignment in the structuring of education in its delivery vehicles, we are also confronting a deconstruction of an educational paradigm, which has emphasized the technologies, to allow for a reconstruction with a stronger emphasis on the humanities.
At one time, universities and colleges were separate, yet part of a community. Like the Church, which spawned many of these institutions, the thought that they controlled certain arcane knowledge made them secure in the belief of their invulnerability. They believed that their sacred trust was the talisman. The wired global community now seeking its rebirth, has breached the bastions and the knowledge has been made common again.
References
Abbott, Edwin Abbot, Flatland, Arion Press, San Francisco, CA, 1980
Bernstein, Peter, Against the Gods, John Wiley, New York, 1996
Card, Orson Scott, Enders Game, Tor Books, New York
Cox, Brad, Superdistribution, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co, New York, 1996
Davis, Stan and Jim Botkin, The Monster Under the Bed, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994
Doctrow, Jerry, et. al., Privatizing University Properties, Planning for Higher Education, Vol 24, Summer 1996, pp 18-22
Gelernter, David, 1939 -- The Lost World of the Fair, The Free Press, New York, 1995
Horgan, John, The End of Science, Addison Wesley, New York, 1996
Meister, Jeanne C., Corporate Quality Universities, Irwin, New York, 1994
Noam, Eli, On The Future of the University, Educom Review, July/August 1996, pp 38-41
O'Brien, Conor Cruise, On the Eve of the Millennium, Free Press, New York, 1994
Rheingold, Howard, The Virtual Community, Addison Wesley, New York, 1993
Robertson, George, et. al., eds, Future Natural, Routledge, New York, 1996
Robertson, George, et. al, eds, travellers tales, Routledge, New York, 1994
Rogers, Everett M., Diffusion of Innovation, Free Press, New York, 1995
Rothenberg, David, Hands End, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1993
Rushkoff, Douglass, Playing the Future, HarperCollins, New York, 1996
Schuler, Douglas, The New Community Networks, Addison Wesley, New York, 1996
Turoff, Murray, Cost for the Development of a Virtual University, URL: http://eies.njit.edu/~turoff
y Gassett, Jose Ortega, Mission of the University, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1944
*This article is abridged from a chapter of a book, In Search of The End -- A Millennium Meme.
A meme is a contagious idea that replicates like a virus, passed on from mind to mind...the meme is the basic unit of cultural evolution. (David Bennahum)
Sagacity, in a joint venture with Hamline University, has a conference center, serving public and private sector clients on the internet, The Center@Hamline:
http://elsie.hamline.edu:8000/caucus
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Jossey-Bass Publishers
This raises the question, though, of the lengths to which the school should go to meet the needs of students without E-mail capabilities. One could argue that paying out-of-pocket for commercial Internet access is part of educational costs. But what about remote rural areas that have no Internet access? I know they are getting fewer as time goes by, but they are still out there. Do we tell students that they can't take distance ed classes if they don't have the new technology that they didn't used to need for these same classes? Are we then discriminating in favor of the "haves" over the "have nots" when serving the "have nots" is part of what libraries are about?
It's good to here someone else saying this, too, even though from the viewpoint of socialization rather than practical application of theory for better retention.
In my new position as extended campus services librarian, I work out of one off-campus site and am planning services for two other newer sites. Budgets are limited, staff is limited. I am trying to make decisions about where to put emphasis, how to determine what is most needed, where to start when you are starting from scratch. I would love to have instructors, department heads, college deans, come say "this is what our students will need." I'm not holding my breath. I am making use of a faculty survey and personal contact to ferret out that information.
But on this list we are talking about library and information education. Library education instructors, heads, deans, should know exactly what the students need in library support. How many work in conjunction with university library personnel to coordinate library services? Don't librarians who are also educators have a stake in assisting the support of their curriculum? This is support of our own field, after all.
In some universities, resident library/info science schools are leading the way on use of technology to provide access to information. In others, they are not. Should they be? What better learning forum for the students? Why not tap student and instructor expertise for also finding ways to provide library service to distant students (including the electronically disabled)?
I guess what I'm getting at here is figuring out what the library/information science school's responsibility level is for ensuring library support for students, and how can that be done. I did well as a distance library science student, but I am fairly self-motivated and resourceful. I didn't have the technology I needed, but I found ways to get it (including paying a fee to the local community college for an Internet e-mail account). Students on campus don't need to go to these lengths. How can we ensure that distance education works for everyone?
W.E. Leibi noted the value of electronic mail, a point also emphasized by K. Kanepi, and mentioned as well in most of the other posts. L. Estabrook gave us a detailed response, based on the experience of the University of Illinois LEEP program.
Some points brought up, or which may still need some discussion, and which appear (at least to this reader) as quite important are --
Access to Resources
One solution is to prepare case studies or similar, and have the teacher (individual or school) send the material to each student. Another is to expect the student to come to the home campus. A third is to expect the student to make "heavy" use of local university libraries.
This brings up some interesting points, which some would see as problems:
Another issue which could use some more discussion is the costs -- in time and money. The successful Illinois program assumes some course release time to prepare for a course, plus complete course release time except for the DE course, the first time it is offered. Leigh Estabrook also noted the costs of technology. Illinois appears very generous, in that the students agreed to, in effect, higher tuition to support technology, plus the university not only provided startup funds but also is allowing the LIS school to retain the "extra" tuition.
While this is great, are other institutions prepared for such generosity? At least some of the discussion of DE has been in the context of saving money, and even making money for the university. It looks as if, at best, the university will not have to spend too much more for DE than it now does.
End of the Traditional Academy?
This brings up Tom Abeles' article. In effect, he argues that private business is already on the ground with DE, and suggests that the traditional academy may already be on the way out. He also goes to some lengths to argue that the physical institution is not needed at all. This would, presumably, include laboratories, libraries, dormitories (and, not to be wholly facetious, football stadiums and fraternity/sorority houses).
How do our readers react to this? After all, the original European universities had no formal buildings, libraries, etc. either. But, this model does put a lot of costs onto the student and, for that matter, onto the teacher. Note Estabrook's point about demands for very high quality technology in the faculty members' homes, as well as offices.
How do people react to Abeles' suggestions? Consider that for the present, we have merely added DE to the variety of modes one can obtain an educational experience -- what happens if we start cutting back on traditional support so that what we now call DE becomes the only (or almost the only) form of higher education available? Or, is the kicker in the"almost"--those with time and money will still have the choice of traditional campus-based education, won't they?
Transfer of Burdens
And, to add a question to the existing ones from last week: What about the burden on other institutions? If we send our students to the local library, how does the local library get any support for the additional burden?
This is not an academic question--already many local public libraries find the assumption on the part of even local grade schools that the library has resources to support the curriculum an additional burden, not supported by school funds. And, consider the issue if University "A" sends its students to the library and computer center of University "B", when "B" is close to the students, but gets no tuition money from them, because they are registered with "A". Now, consider the same situation if "A" is in one nation, and "B" another.
Please keep those electronic cards and letters coming in. And, we could use more comments from individuals who have actually taught or "taken" some DE courses.
Will the information technology infrastructure be designed to support both on-campus and distance teaching/learning?
Will there be a re-thinking and re-conceptulization of the assumptions about both on-campus and distance education?
Will there eventually be a consolidation of distance education and regular on-campus academic and support budgets into one budget for instruction and research?
Would time and effort studies be appropriate to determine cost for various instructional and information support strategies?
I hope that Lee will share with us any wisdom gained from Illinois's experience
I can respond based on what Troy State University has been providing, in regards to library services for distance education programs, since for the past two years I have been responsible for library services for their Southeast Region sites.
One last comment, after 12 years in Ann Arbor I was accustomed to plentiful resources and very information "savvy" students, faculty, and business personnel -- you could say I was spoiled. When I moved to Columbus, Georgia, I experienced culture shock. After the shock faded I realized that information was still available I just had to be far more creative in obtaining it. Costs are higher and it takes longer, but you can still get what you need most of the time if you plan.
to get my attention
This would seem to be an important area for distance educators to explore, since there are many working librarians who work far away from library schools or who cannot get time off to attend.
All new master's students in our program:
Tallahassee: 83
Ft. Lauderdale: 34
Miami: 10
Jacksonville: 23
Orlando: 21
were required to enroll in the first course in our newly revised master's curriculum, the six-semester-hour credit "Foundations of Information Studies." The course is "broadcast" from our interactive television (video-conferencing) facility in the school's Louis Shores Building to the four off-campus sites and to students in Tallahassee interacting from another classroom in our building.
The course is being taught by (and attended by) all 14 of the faculty members of the School; it is divided into four units emphasizing information users, intellectual access, physical access, and management. Anyone interested in seeing information about this program may visit our Web page at http:\\www.fsu.edu~lis.
We teach each of the 15 courses now available through interactive delivery from our classroom here in Tallahassee; therefore, each of the courses has on campus students participating. We teach in the first year of the two-year cycle necessary to earn 36 credits and the M.S. degree with a major in either information studies or library studies, six courses, two each term. Three courses are taught each term in the second year. As students must take 12 courses, they do not have a great deal of choice; however, we encourage students to consider selecting graduate courses that may be available from other universities in relevant areas such as management information systems, computer science, public administration, etc. or in the library area from those available from the University of South Florida's, School of Library and Information Science.
About half of the contact hours for each course in taught using videoconferencing and the other half is interactive via our Web-based course work. All students participating off campus were informed that in order to successfully complete the program they had to have convenient access to computing and telecommunications. They were provided with specifics about what we recommended and what we could and would support, but if they had other equipment they could participate but would need to realize they might encounter serious/irritating communications problems. Our computing center provided disks to install to provide access to the campus email network. Must students have successfully found a way to link through a variety of means into this cheaper system but many too use commercial providers.
Distance learning students pay a premium on top of regular tuition for access to the degree; there is not too much "fussing" about this, as they know that it costs more for FSU to deliver this way. Most students are quite thankful for the opportunity to study even at an added cost.
Each of our sites has a site coordinator who is paid to monitor our off campus classes. We send copies of items which we can not get copyright clearance for and therefore mount on the Web site to the coordinator who works with the students to find a way to achieve "convenient" access. We send video tapes for viewing to the site coordinators also.
The State of Florida is awarding a grant of $2,000,000 to the Libraries of the State of Florida (10 University) System to develop a system and provide services for distance learners.
Similar to Illinois, we are the first unit on the Florida State University campus to be funded in a big way for distance learning. (We have access to instructional system designers to aid us in converting our courses, we have technicians to run the videoconferencing equipment, we have teaching assistants, and webmasters -- all paid for from the budget of the Office for Interactive Distance Learning) to try to deliver quality products from this School and from FSU. We are variously referred to as their trailblazers and their guinea pigs.
There is much challenging and much frustrating about distance learning development and delivery. A conference/large scale program on the topic is probably in order now. There are a growing number of players in the field using the new technologies to enhance traditional (in the classroom with the students) delivery. Some of the new technologies work really well on campus too. FSU would benefit from concentrated interaction with others who do and want to do technology mediated distance education.
In particular, we received rather detailed descriptions of the distance education programs at the University of Illinois and Florida State University. We also received comments from librarians who have served distance education students, and from at least one former DE student as well.
Some general consensus items:
DE, in the modern sense, is still very new, although more universities are getting involved in it.
The two schools mentioned above are both, in effect, the guinea pigs for their universities -- the first units to try out DE in a big way.
There are relatively large costs (in both time and money) associated with DE, at least at the present, experimental stages. These include not only extra time for the faculty to prepare courses, but also a need for extra staff support from the parent institution (note one DE program has a person at each site).
There are also extra effort and some money costs for students to participate at all, and even more for them to get a lot out of DE.
Already, we are seeing some merger of DE into "regular" teaching/learning -- much as the night schools of the US's 1940s-1960s tended to merge into the daytime programs.
The big differences between present DE and older forms are clearly the widespread availability of electronic mail and the more sophisticated versions of Internet resources.
At least from the people who responded, there seems to be general favorable attitudes toward DE in principle, so that current problems are seen as soluble. However, a counter thread is the possibility that the "modern" university/library system developed in the European Renaissance may be replaced by commercial services relying on electronic technology. This last thought (thanks to Tom Wilson for his forwarding of the message from Tom Abelese) might be worth a future CRISTAL-ED discussion in itself.
Thanks to all those who sent messages, and thanks to all those who read them and thought about the issues raised.
In particular, we received rather detailed descriptions of the distance education programs at the University of Illinois and Florida State University. We also received comments from librarians who have served distance education students, and from at least one former DE student as well.
Some general consensus items:
DE, in the modern sense, is still very new, although more universities are getting involved in it.
The two schools mentioned above are both, in effect, the guinea pigs for their universities -- the first units to try out DE in a big way.
There are relatively large costs (in both time and money) associated with DE, at least at the present, experimental stages. These include not only extra time for the faculty to prepare courses, but also a need for extra staff support from the parent institution (note one DE program has a person at each site).
There are also extra effort and some money costs for students to participate at all, and even more for them to get a lot out of DE.
Already, we are seeing some merger of DE into "regular" teaching/learning -- much as the night schools of the U.S.'s 1940s-1960s tended to merge into the daytime programs.
The big differences between present DE and older forms are clearly the widespread availability of electronic mail and the more sophisticated versions of Internet resources.
At least from the people who responded, there seems to be general favorable attitudes toward DE in principle, so that current problems are seen as soluble. However, a counter thread is the possibility that the "modern" university/library system developed in the European Renaissance may be replaced by commercial services relying on electronic technology. This last thought (thanks to Tom Wilson for his forwarding of the message from Tom Abelese) might be worth a future CRISTAL-ED discussion in itself.
Thanks to all those who sent messages, and thanks to all those who read them and thought about the issues raised.
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