Distance Ed and Institutional Performance

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Distance Ed and Institutional Performance

7/20/2006

By William H. Graves

It may meet many student/customer needs, but distance learning can also be your solution to six institutional performance obligations.

DISTANCE LEARNING IS sometimes viewed by nonprofit colleges and universities as either an end in itself or a positioning factor in a rapidly changing market that is increasingly responsive to flexible for-profit postsecondary programs. Yet there’s more to the flex model than student convenience. It’s time to focus on how flex courses, programs, and services can address some of the institutional performance obligations that are reshaping the social compact between nonprofit higher ed and the public and its policy makers.

THE TENNESSEE BOARD OF REGENTS
sought to counter declining Online Degree Program
enrollment. "Flexible" service redesign came to the rescue.

First though, to think differently about distance learning, let’s drop “distance” as the defining characteristic of the flexible course and program access models that deserve strategic attention today. Distance is sometimes a factor, but the defining characteristic, from a student perspective, should instead be convenience.

Extolling convenience, however, often sparks a “studentas- customer” academic dust-up. Students, nevertheless, are customers when they ask about institutional options for how learning services and other services are delivered, and want to know what learning is required and how it is assessed. Based on the answers to such questions, students can decide either not to apply or, if admitted, to decline the offer. On the other hand, students have no more right to determine curriculum and their own grades at an institution than a bank’s customers have to set their own interest rates and loan terms. Convenience of access to courses, programs, and services is about giving students delivery options, and such options a priori need not compromise the faculty’s dominion over curriculum, learning objectives, and grading. So, let’s examine convenience of access from a student perspective.

Whether for reasons of personal preference or to work around scheduling constraints inherent in career and family obligations, students may seek or require instructional delivery models substantially unfettered by the inconvenience of scheduled participation in real-time lectures and discussions—whether such participation is scheduled in a traditional classroom, in a remote classroom linked by interactive audio or video to the instructor’s classroom, or in an online chat room or IM discussion. These students are looking for “flex” course, program, and service delivery models designed primarily to eliminate or significantly reduce regularly scheduled synchronous interactions in favor of 24/7 online self-service (asynchronous web access to instructors, classmates, learning materials and activities, and other academic and administrative resources and services). Flex students also expect and often need one-to-one, real-time help from an instructor, librarian, academic advisor, financial aid assistant, or other service agent. These real-time custom service encounters may take place on campus, in an off-campus service center, on the phone, or online, but it is the institution’s or program’s holistic online self-service website or portal that helps the student identify and, as required, schedule real-time custom services when they are desired or needed. So, we understand what is needed from the institution in order for flex programs to meet the needs of its customers, the students. Yet, the question still remains: How can flex programs address some of the institutional performance obligations, as well? The following three scenarios will illustrate some common institutional performance challenges.