- In retrospect, let's review the pitch (in my best used-car-salesman voice):
- You have all of these great courses...why not convert them to online courses so that your students may study with you from anywhere in the world
- You can add hundreds (thousands, even) of new students without having to build new classroom space
- Traditional classroom overhead/maintenance will be zero - no HVAC, no floors to clean, less of all the things that are needed to keep a bricks and motor place functioning.
- You already have professors. You won't need more. You might even be able to get by with fewer... as soon as your lower level courses are online.
- Once a course is online, your university can market the course to other schools and draw a commission on its use for every student who takes it.
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Now... let's look at the target of that pitch (and feel free to correct me), this is admittedly an unsupported thesis:
- White male senior administrators
- Age range 45-70
- Institutions seeking increases in enrollment
- Institutions looking to control costs of higher education
- Average technology skill level of administrator: Email, Word Processing, Spreadsheet (maybe), PowerPoint (perhaps), Beginner web surfer, voice mail
From that description, the date on the majority of the diplomas of this group is pre-1975. So, what experience did that generation have with distance education/distance learning? Correspondence courses were available (for the newer generation reading this, that meant using a typewriter and the USPS to exchange hard copies of your work/responses). Audio recordings on 8 track cassettes were still popular...Phillip's cassettes were gaining ground, a vcr could be purchased for a mere $900. Color TV was becoming more affordable. A quick look at the recording history timeline gives us a view as to what this generation used or introduced.
The point: it is unlikely that the majority of that generation ever developed a comfort level with technologies applicable to today's distance education enviroment. The gap in technology for this (and many genrations to follow) probably began as soon as diploma was in hand and the door to the real world opened.
So, "they" bought into the idea. A study and perfection of CYA (Cover Your A**) was rampant just a few years ago as this (aging) generation of administrators tried to explain weak/zero/negative returns on distance education investments to their respective boards. To make things even worse, some schools who 'committeed' the concept, ended up adopting technologies that were outdated by the time the approval process hit implementation...(This technology Dragon is WICKED!)
And yes, there are still issues:
Here's the challenge: Are generational gaps in technology predictable? What criteria should be used to explore generational gaps? Where is the convergence point where technologies and distance education reach a practical/comfortable/affordable level such that they may be implemented as easily as one uses a dry erase board in a classroom currently? Is there a business model that works for brick and mortar institutions, contributes positively to the students' experience, and does not hyper-extend the resources of faculty and staff?
Lot's of questions...these and more bounce off the walls in administrative offices on a regular basis...after all, higher ed was burned once, and no one wants to looks stupid (again). That is the nature of Chasing the Dragon. Ultimately, the answers will be the Tale.