E-Learning and the Future
of Distance Education
XII Congreso Internacional de
Tecnología y Educación a Distancia
5 Noviembre 2004
San Jose, Costa Rica
Mark Bullen
University 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 technologicallyenhanced 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 elearning
• 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 Education
May 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 ELearning (MAPLE)
– http://maple.ubc.ca