Study Visit to USA and Canada, September 2002
e-Learning Theme Report Background The objectives for this theme were to investigate current approaches and attitudes to e-learning in the US and Canada and to give an overview of e-learning development in the UK to the institutions visited. Particular areas of enquiry included: !" e-learning technologies and pedagogies !" the use of VLEs and MLEs !" ‘blended’ or mixed mode learning !" e-learning in conventional and distance learning institutions !" the effect on student learning of electronic modes of delivery !" the management and economics of e-learning !" e-learning futures Methods included: !" structured interviews with key academics, educational technologists, administrators and students !" seminars for interested groups with presentations on the UK and North American scenes !" individual desk research in libraries and on the web This report is an attempt to summarise the main themes from a very large amount of data collected during the course of the visit. Inevitably it does not do justice to the full range of provision we encountered but the bibliography and web links below should facilitate further enquiry. The institutions and organisations visited were diverse and comprised those identified by colleagues in North America and some identified by members of the visit team either prior to or during the visit. They represented a range from prestigious ‘premier (although not Ivy) league’ state and private universities to small local colleges and from specialist providers to national bodies. It is important to emphasise that none was selected specifically because of its reputation as a centre of excellence in e-learning. This is not to say that no exemplary practice was observed but rather that the institutions serve as representative of the general state of e-learning practice in North America. In this respect we did not feel that we were encountering anything technologically or pedagogically superior to e-learning systems and practices we have encountered in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. There was a strong feeling among all four theme groups that higher education in the USA and Canada is becoming increasingly IT driven, with changing modes of delivery and different cost structures. One of the key forces in the marketplace is that ‘for profit’ institutions are changing their focus from teaching to learning, using part-time teachers, convenience, with strong marketing and content based on students’ needs. There is also a slow down in the US economy with reductions in state funding for postsecondary education. In Canada there is a drive to expand participation in HE, as in the UK, and this is also bringing new and potentially more cost-
effective delivery methods into focus. As far as the use of ICT in face-to-face teaching is concerned it can confidently be asserted that, as in the UK, all HE institutions are making extensive use this to add value to their programmes, with a consequently heavy investment in infrastructure and support.
National Strategies The USA is a highly devolved and de-regulated country. It publishes no official league tables and there is no national quality assurance body (although are several accrediting bodies and a wellestablished and understood pecking order of institutions. Strategy is essentially developed at institutional or even departmental level and we found little evidence of federal or state-level policies for the development of e-learning in higher education, although some federal funding is available to individual institutions for educational innovation. In Canada the situation is somewhat different in that a National Advisory Committee for Online Learning was created in 2000 and has recently made recommendations for the development of a Pan-Canadian Online Learning Service (The Levy Report) The Report is ambitious in scope. It recommends the creation of a Pan-Canadian Online Learning Service as a one-stop shop for learner and faculty support and for marketing online Canadian programmes developed by other institutions, not itself. The creation, acquisition and adaptation of knowledge is seen as the currency of the time and as critical to the employability of adults and the health of the country’s democracy and culture. Quality of provision is assessed at provincial government level. In Ontario this is the responsibility of the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board
The Growth of Distance Learning Inevitably, the economic downturn has renewed interest in distance learning as adults seek new ways to enhance their employability. A majority of students are studying at Masters or professional level with criminology and security overtaking IT as the most popular subjects – perhaps a reflection of the turbulent times. There is also a substantial adult distance learning market for the High School Diploma, especially among immigrants. The growth of distance learning is in spite of an environment that is in some ways inimical to it: federal and state loans and grants for students on distance-taught courses are hard or impossible to obtain and most conventional institutions operate a credit transfer policy that does not give parity of treatment to distance teaching institutions even where quality is not in doubt. 57% of Canada’s 134 colleges and Universities offer online (i.e. distance learning) programmes. In the USA the overall figure in 1997-8 was 44 percent of HE institutions (a 72 percent increase since 1994) but it is as high as 78 percent in public institutions and 87 per cent of those with more than 10,000 students offer distance programmes. With one exception (The Canadian School of Management) we were unable to visit any purely distance learning institutions although information about the major US and Canadian players in this arena was obtained through personal contacts and research on the web. The most frequently cited institutions were the University of Phoenix, University of Maryland University College, Penn State Worldcampus, Jones International University, Unext, Athabasca University and the Canadian Virtual University. The most successful distance learning institutions emphasise convenience and customer service; they don’t necessarily have the most sophisticated e-learning systems and might in fact use quite low-level platforms. Print-based material is still key – adults want to touch books. There have been several high profile business failures in US distance education in recent years. The winding-up of the US Open University and the Wharton online MBA, California Virtual and NYU Online were cited as examples of a failure to properly evaluate the market and offer fit-forpurpose products. All those we met were well aware of the costs and risks associated with entry into the distance learning market and all had, as a consequence, adopted a cautious approach to its introduction, focussing on niche programmes where market demand coincided with
institutional strengths, for example occupational health and safety at Ryerson and travel and tourism at George Washington.
e-learning technologies The institutions investigated use a range of e-learning platforms; some developed in-house, such as WebTycho at UMUC and Prometheus at GWU (now sold off to Blackboard); some using open source technologies and others proprietary MLEs/VLEs such as WebCT and Blackboard. Most of those interviewed felt that as far as commercial products were concerned there were diminishing differences between the rival products and original purchasing decisions had been based either on cost or on perceived ease of use. Many commented that they were now locked into a spiralling cost commitment that was hard to escape from because of the investment already made in a particular proprietary system. All the institutions with a VLE were using it in face-to-face, distance learning and mixed mode programmes although in the latter two there was much more exploitation of interactive functions such as synchronous and asynchronous conferencing (including instant messaging). The degree of integration with administrative systems varied considerably but was often constrained by cost. Investment in classroom-based educational technologies has been heavy in some of the visited institutions. Many use sophisticated video-conferencing techniques to deliver teaching to remote classrooms and one piece of equipment not yet widely encountered in the UK caught our attention; the Elmo, which is an advanced form of OHP capable of capturing text, images and 3D objects and transmitting images via an ISDN or TCP/IP link. Wireless technologies are beginning to get a foothold on the campus, especially in ‘high traffic’ areas such as libraries. The University of Toronto’s Task Force on Technology-Assisted Education envisages, as well as a web page for every course, a personalised web-page for every student that would serve as a collaborative learning venue, and an incremental CV but would also become a unique alumni lifelong learning web page, offering exclusive access to distance education courses, webcast talks etc.
Production and development methodologies All the institutions visited employed specialist advisers on educational technology or instructional design together with multimedia developers. Typically these were based in or deployed from a central unit rather than appointed to individual faculties or departments. At the University of Toronto the Resource Centre for Academic Technology (based in the Library) has a Student Technology Assistance Programme. This employs IT-literate students to support faculty staff in their own subjects with the development of e-learning material. This approach has proved particularly valuable in the implementation of UofT’s ‘web site for every course’ policy.
Staff development Only a few of the visited institutions had adopted a systematic approach to staff development where e-learning pedagogies and technologies were concerned. The strategy at the University of Toronto is particularly interesting in that the University Library has responsibility for evangelising about e-learning and supporting its development across the University. Most of the institutions visited offered some kind of face-to-face and online provision of resources to support e-learning development and there have been some inter-institutional initiatives. In Canada we were particularly struck by two initiatives. FOSS (Faculty Online Support Services) is co-ordinated by the Office for Partnerships for Advanced Skills for all post-secondary institutions in Ontario and provides a comprehensive range of web-based services, tools and resources that would be of considerable interest to anyone involved in the development of online learning materials. MAPLE (Managing and Planning Learning Environments) is based at the University of British Columbia and offers consultancy throughout Canada on developing e-learning
environments and supporting students. At the University of Maryland University College an extensive and award-winning Virtual Resource Site for Teaching with Technology has been constructed.
Remuneration and intellectual property Many institutions recognised that traditional research and publication-based criteria for promotion and salary incrementation offered little incentive for faculty staff to engage in innovation in learning technology. Some had therefore introduced new criteria that explicitly recognised contributions in this area, or they offered special prizes and citations for innovation in teaching. Such awards also presented the opportunity to showcase developments to an institution-wide audience and even to the media. Another means of rewarding staff at George Washington University is to pay them a royalty in respect of the exploitation of e-learning materials they have developed. The implications for intellectual property rights of a move to electronic media are a concern in many institutions. There is a tension between the wish to share expertise and scholarship as widely as possible though the internet and the need to protect individual and institutional products from plagiarism and outright theft. The uncontrolled importing and dissemination of third party digital material is also a concern where this might be done without adequate regard either for quality or copyright.
Conclusion In both countries, the overwhelming importance of education for life and education as a socialising force to improve employability and the future health of the economy was tangible. Darwinian forces in higher education mirror the UK experience but no university has yet gone to the wall. Unsurprisingly for such vast countries, the British island-mentality level of centralisation is not apparent in higher education. On the global e-learning scene, the UK Open University is still seen as being in the premier league, in spite of the failure of USOU, and The University for Industry/LearnDirect concept has attracted a lot of interest. But for traditional universities in North America and the UK online learning is a process of evolution rather than revolution. There is both optimism about its potential and a sizeable residue of scepticism about its real educational (as opposed to economic) advantages.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank most warmly all those listed below for their generosity with time and information, and the many others who went to great lengths to ensure that our visit was enjoyable and productive, especially Janie Barnett and Lisa Rosenberg at AACRAO, Jerry Neuner at Canisius, Janice Anderson at SUNY, Joanna Martin at Ryerson and Caroline Cannon at The University of Toronto. Grateful acknowledgment is also made of generous financial support from the Chemistry Department at University College, London, the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at the Open University and the General Purposes Fund at the Open University. Julie Davies, University College London (j.a.davies@ucl.ac.uk) Nigel Pigott, The Open University (n.m.pigott@open.ac.uk) November 2002
Institutions and Organisations visited Washington DC The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) www.aacrao.org Jerry Sullivan, Executive Director George Washington University www.gwu.edu and GW Solutions www.gw-solutions.com Gerry Kauvar, Vice President for Academic Affairs Bill Lynch, Assistant Vice President, Product Development and Delivery Peter Combes, Head of Multimedia Ginger Smith, Associate Dean, College of Professional Studies Distance Education and Training Council (Accreditation of private distance education) www.detc.org Mike Lambert, Director Buffalo Canisius College www.canisius.edu Daniel Drew, Director of the Media Center Estelle Siener, Computer Support Specialist Mark Castner, Director of Academic Computing and User Services Linda Volonino, Chair of Management and Computer Information Services Greg Wood, Chair of Management and Marketing David Farrugia, Chair of Counselling and Human Services State University of New York at Buffalo http://www.buffalo.edu/ and Millard Fillmore College www.mfc.buffalo.edu George Lopos, Associate Vice President and many colleagues from SUNY Toronto University of Toronto www.utoronto.ca Sheldon Levy, Vice President, Government and Institutional Relations Jutta Treviranus, Director, Resource Centre for Academic Technology Jay Mooney, Academic Technology Co-ordinator, Resource Centre for Academic Technology Mary Cone Barrie, Director, School of Continuing Studies Ryerson Polytechnic University www.ryerson.ca Marilynn Booth, Dean, Continuing Education Keith Hampson, Director, Open College Judy Roberts, President, Judy Roberts & Associates Office for Partnerships for Advanced Skills (OPAS) www.opasonline.org Norm Shulman (Director) Canadian School of Management www.c-s-m.org Eric Sandelands, Dean
Investigated on the Web University of Phoenix Online www.phoenix.edu University of Maryland University College www.umuc.edu Jones International University www.jonesinternational.edu Penn State Worldcampus http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu Athabasca University www.athabascacau.ca Unext www.unnext.com MIT http://ocw.mit.edu
References: Publications The Institute for Higher Education Policy, Quality On the Line:Benchmarks for Success in Internet-based Distance Education, 2000 www.ihep.com/publications.php?parm=pubs/Abstract?30 The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, Distance learning in Higher Education: CHEA Update no3 www.chea.org/Research/distance-learning/distance-learning-3.cfm The Advisory Committee for Online Learning (Levy et al) The e-Learning e-volution in Colleges and Universities: a Pan-Canadian Challenge, Ottawa, 2002 (also available at http://www.schoolnet.ca/mlg/sites/acol-ccael) University of Toronto Task Force on Technology-Assisted Education, Final Report (unpublished paper 2001) www.utoronto.ca/provost/tftae/report.htm Ryerson Polytechnic University, Open College Strategic Directions Document (unpublished paper 2001)
Websites http://foss.opasonline.org Faculty Online Support Services, Office for Partnerships for Advanced Skills, Ontario, Canada www.maple.ubc.ca Management and Planning of Learning Environments, University of British Columbia www.umuc.edu/virtualteaching University of Maryland University College Virtual Resource Site for Teaching with Technology http://peqab.edu.gov.on.ca Ontario Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board The following sites were also found to be of interest. A more comprehensive set of e-learning links is available in the background paper at http://auavisit.open.ac.uk/themes www.educause.edu EDUCAUSE: Transforming Education through Learning Technology www.ed-x.com Ed-X – a directory of worldwide distance learning courses www.geteducated.com/bdlgs_bm.htm Best distance learning graduate schools www.aln.org The Association of learning Networks www.elearningmag.com e-Learning magazine and a selection of e-learning ‘solutions’ companies: www.click2learn.com www.astd.org www.advanstar.com www.blackboard.com www.learn.com www.geolearning.com www.connectedlearning.net An electronic (PDF) version of this report, together with a background report on e-learning in the UK can be found at http://auavisit.open.ac.uk/themes