Planning and Management in Distance Education

Santosh Panda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135723958
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Online distance education and training is being adopted throughout the world as a cost-effective, flexible answer to widening access for all. This enthusiasm has led to many initiatives and policies from governments to encourage online learning at international, national, regional and institutional levels. Also, changes in distance learning continue to take place as a result of educational discourse and innovations in ICT. Distance learning courses are therefore under pressure to reform, and successful management of external policy planning and internal change management is key to the implementation and maintenance of reforms. World-class leaders, researchers and practitioners share their experiences, research and critical reflection in this book, providing guidance on how to balance quality management with quality learning. Subjects covered include policy and planning, institutional management, management of processes, quality assurance and accreditation, and internationalization. This book will aid anyone involved in running or wanting to implement distance education to effectively manage an online learning programme.

Part 1
Open and distance education models

Chapter 1

Models of open and flexible learning in distance education

Otto Peters

Introduction

Experts in charge of planning, developing and managing open and flexible learning realize very soon that there are inherent similarities and relations between the concepts of distance education and open and flexible learning. Therefore, it might be appropriate to begin with a description and analysis of some of the more typical models of this particular form of learning and teaching.

Before this can be done, let me describe what is meant by using the terms open learning and flexible learning in a pedagogical context in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Open learning

In the literature ‘distance education’ is often linked with concepts of ‘open learning’. The impulse for this came from the establishment of the British Open University. Its phenomenal success prepared the ground for the rapid acceptance of this particular designation, and we can see that these two terms have fused with one another. In spite of this, express reference will be made here to openness as this concept has now assumed new importance: ‘Put simply, educational institutions are being required to ‘open’ their structures and practices to the needs of (…) new students, their employers and governments in ways that are shaking the traditions of these institutions’ (Evans and Nation, 1996:3). How can this openness be achieved?

• Firstly, by extending access to universities to all who are able to study by removing traditional educational barriers.
• Secondly, by designing learning programmes which are open in the sense that they are not completely developed and determined beforehand in an empirical-scientific manner, but are ‘open’ for unforeseen developments in the build-up of individual ability to act (ie open curriculum).
• Finally, this type of learning does not take place in relatively enclosed institutions that are defined (and often paralysed) by bureaucratic organization, but is to be opened up by keeping to the practices of everyday life.

The special term ‘open university’ can also be explained by the motives that policymakers have when they establish these institutions. Governments, for instance, may find and support them as they hope to establish less expensive systems of education, to relieve overcrowded traditional universities, to establish new groups of students in the realm of higher education, to realize and support lifelong learning activities, to enable more people to take part in cultural life and to further the democratization of society (Boom and Schlusmans, 1989:6).

These requirements are not, as might be thought, utopian, because technological progress enables us to fulfil them. The virtual learning environments and the World Wide Web (WWW) also add important new dimensions to the term ‘open learning’.

Flexible learning

Recently, the term flexible learning has often been associated with ‘distance learning’ or with ‘distance and open learning’. It has become almost proverbial to speak of ‘open and flexible learning’ when, in fact, the reference is to distance education.

Experienced distance educators might be surprised at the great emphasis presently laid on this obvious feature of distance education. What do we refer to when we speak of flexible learning? Theoretically speaking, there are several dimensions of flexibility. Institutions, administrative structures, curricula, and strategies and methods of learning can be either rigid and fixed or flexible and easily adaptable. While the very goals of education are reconsidered and quite often changed, we are in a transformation process even with regard to our values. In practice, however, flexibility has assumed special meanings which have become instrumental in university reform: 1) there is a focus on increased accessibility—universities should be flexible enough to attract and enrol more and new groups of students; 2) there is a focus on the individual learners in order to allow them to learn when they want, what they want and how they want.

The urge to make our universities more flexible has increased so considerably that one can speak of a campaign towards more flexibility at many universities. In Australia, for instance, Murdoch University has developed a master plan for a ‘flexible teaching and learning policy’ in which students should be allowed ‘to have a choice of teaching modes, assessment modes, accesses to teachers, peers and learning resources which suit the style and circumstances of the learner’ (Atkinson, 1997). A similar plan has been developed by Macquarie University, in which individual need is met by providing for choices offered in time and place of study, learning styles, access, pace, progression and learning pathways (Gosper, 2000:1).

The gap between theory and practice

This description shows clearly that the two terms partly overlap, especially in the area of access and teaching methods. Flexibility seems to be the more powerful and influential concept. The subsequent analysis of eight models of distance education will show an inherent relationship between the terms openness, flexibility and distance education. Seemingly, these terms are in the process of merging. However, if we have a closer look we can see that the current juxtaposition of the terms distance, open and flexible learning does not always mirror the reality of distance education. Keegan (1993:290) rejected the equation of other terms with ‘distance education’ with the sarcastic argument that ‘open and flexible learning systems seldom work with distance education and distance education systems are often neither flexible nor open’. However, it is useful to continue emphasizing these two dimensions of distance education, as they signify new perspectives of pedagogical reform.

Models of distance education—in retrospect

Consciously or subconsciously, every distance teaching institution is shaped by certain theoretical notions and ideas about distance education. These can be transformed into concepts. If these concepts are strong and convincing they can be developed into models. The models we are going to refer to are pragmatic ones in the sense that they can be tested in experiments as well as in practice. But not only this, most of these models have already become fixed or even ‘petrified’ as they are institutionalized; so, references will be made also to corresponding institutions. The focus will be on their different conceptual underpinnings and their inherent qualities of openness and flexibility.

Historically speaking, it might be useful to select and refer to the:

• examination preparation model;
• correspondence education model;
• group distance education model;
• learner-centred model;
• multiple mass media model.

The origin: examination preparation model

A prerequisite for this model is a university that limits itself to holding examinations and conferring degrees. This means that it abstains from teaching. Consequently, the students study recommended literature, and discuss it with partners and others.The institution provides information about the examination regulations and special reading lists.

This model was designed and institutionalized when the University of London was founded in 1825 for the benefit of those who could not afford to be enrolled at the University of Oxford or Cambridge or who could not attend these universities as they lived far away in the colonies of the British Empire. Presently, this model is still practised by the University College of the University of London, and also by the Regents of the University of New York. Recently the Chinese government has established a great system of self-study after the same model. More than 1.8 million people, most of them adults working for a living, have already earned their diplomas and certificates in this way (Song, 1999:1).

This model is not discussed in the literature, and many practitioners even deny that it exists. However, it plays a certain role in distance education, and has the following characteristics:

• Openness: It is remarkable that this early model of distance education was developed in order to facilitate and open access to university for those who could not afford to study at Oxford or Cambridge. It was designed to provide education for the class between the ‘mechanics’ and the ‘enormously rich’ (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999). This humanitarian goal mirrors liberal ideas of the time about education in a very distinct way. We recognize an early approach to what was to be labelled much later ‘equality of opportunity’ in the second half of the 20th century.
• Flexibility: In a way it is possible to maintain that this model of learning and teaching is the most flexible one we can imagine. There are no fixed curricula, no fixed times and places, no fixed age groups, no fixed external impediments. It is entirely up to the students themselves to adapt the learning process to their very personal needs and circumstances.
• Features characteristic of distance education: This form of self-study is distance education as the students learn at their homes and follow the reading instructions given by the faculty of the university where they are enrolled and where they take their examination. It is an early form of distributed learning. If we refer to the beginnings of the University of London, it was a model of distance education for several additional reasons. For the first time, higher education was to be extended to adults who had to work for a living; the university was opened for new and alternative groups of students; university reform was suggested as it required independent and autonomous learning in its purest form; and the protagonists of this model were motivated by liberal, religious and humanitarian ideas. Seen under these aspects, this model can certainly be considered a forerunner of the next model developed 10 to 20 years later.

A longstanding convention: correspondence education model

This model is more than 150 years old and is the most widely used, as it was and still is applied in many countries all over the world. It is, so to speak, the ‘examination preparation model’ plus the teaching activities of presenting written or printed teaching texts, assignments, correction of assignments, regular and ad hoc correspondence between teachers and students, and examinations.

Correspondence schools and correspondence colleges started using this model in the second part of the 19th century; for example, Toussiant-Langenscheid in Germany, Denmark’s Brevskole, Wolsey Hall in England, Ecole Universelle in France, and PBNA in the Netherlands. The University of South Africa used this model in the second part of the last century. In principle, it is also used to a great extent by distance teaching universities, even by those that take pride in informing us that they are ‘multiple media and open universities’. Everyone who wants to understand fully the methodology of teaching at a distance today must study this first-generation model of distance education, which reveals the following characteristics:

• Openness: This model provides access to all those who cannot attend regular schools for quite a number of reasons. Schools patterned after this model tend to enrol as many of these students as possible—be it for humanitarian or profit reasons or both. In particular, they are open to adults.
• Flexibility: By using the technology of the time—printing press, railways, post—the correspondence schools developed a new system of teaching and learning mainly based on written instruction with a certain degree of inter-activity by means of self-tests and tutor-marked assignments. This is the reason for its incomparable flexibility. Not only could the students decide when, where, for how long and how they wished to engage in their studies, the system could also offer tuition to students living in many different places.
• Features characteristic of distance education: This is a model of fully developed distance education. Its structure is patterned on principles of the industrialization process (division of labour, use of technical means, quality control etc). Important elements are: planning, design, production and delivery of pre-prepared and massproduced printed courses, and written communication between teacher and taught. The model is used for commercial as well as humanitarian reasons. Quite often it helps to overcome emergency situations (eg in times of war and depression).

We should see and acknowledge that over a period of 150 years this model has developed a considerable number of specific pedagogical approaches typical of distance education, which are not necessary and hence unknown in other forms of academic instruction. Even today’s virtual instruction has its roots in these correspondence schools and colleges. There is the danger that the special pedagogical strategy of the correspondence model will be neglected, ignored or even shunned by enthusiastic technology protagonists and will eventually be lost.

The Asian version: group distance education model

This model is similar to the multiple mass media model as radio and television are used permanently as teaching media. However, lectures through these media are not received by individual students but rather by groups of students attending obligatory classes where they follow the explanations of an instructor, discuss what they have heard and watched on TV, do their assignments and take their tests. No special printed teaching materials are developed and distributed, with the exception of the customary ‘lecture notes’. Because of the continuous use of radio and television (cable and satellite) and recently also of videoconferencing systems, this is also a model of the open university.

The Chinese Central Radio and Television University (CRTVU) is the most prominent example of this model. But similar models are also used by the University of the Air in Japan and by the Korean National Open University. They display the following characteristics:

• Openness: This model is open not only to degree students, but also to secondary school students, school leavers, and ‘independent viewers and listeners’. This type of open university leaps over the boundaries of traditional educational institutions, and opens its door to great numbers of students.
• Flexibility: The flexibility of this model is impressive as it overcomes the limitations of time and space, age, occupations, subjects, and traditional institutions. It is astounding how easily techniques of distance education and regular face-to-face instruction can be combined.
• Features characteristic of distance education: This is a model of distance education based on the transmission of lectures by radio and television, listened to by registered students in classes. However, the methods of teaching and learning are not adapted to the special needs of the distant learners. This means that we can interpret this model as a form of technically extended campus-based education.

In quest of autonomy: learner-centred model of distance education

This model envisages a college with the mission to reach out to students who choose to pursue college learning through alternative means to campus-based instruction with fixed schedule, place, programme and structure. These students study independently at home, meeting the assigned tutor individually about once a month for counselling, mentoring and guidance. The students’ discussion with their tutors on their plan, what and how to study are written down in form of a contract between the student, the tutor and the university (contract learning). The students study the agreed-upon literature, sometimes attend a course in local educational institutions, and use learning resources offered by their college, eg small group meetings, online courses, learning packages and special courses for distance learning.

The Empire State College of the State University of New York has the longest and most successful experience with this particular model. Within 26 years, it had produced 30,000 graduates by teaching students in this way. The model shows the following characteristics:

• Openness: The college has been successful in providing access to higher education from the State of New York to those (including minority learners, persons with handicaps, and senior citizens) who are under-served by campus-based universities.
• Flexibility: Because of the departure from the traditional academic structure (like set courses, time, residential obligations) and because of its alternative techniques and learning modes, this college shows the highest degree of flexibility in many ways, including the adaptation of the learning—teaching system to the learning needs of the individual students, and cooperation with many educational institutions everywhere in the state in order to provide additional support for the students.
• Features characteristic of distance education: This model is a further example of learning at a distance as the students live and learn in locations distributed all over the state. While special programmes are developed for lifelong learning, it also contributes to continuing education and university reform, and to the creation of a learner-centred approach and autonomous self-regulated learners. The Empire State College can serve as a structural model for the emerging ‘virtual university’.

A big thrust forward: multiple mass media model

This model was developed in the 1970s and 1980s. Roughly speaking, it combines elements of the earlier two models, namely ‘independent self-study’ and ‘correspondence education’, along with use of radio and television and provision of learner support at study centres. The necessary faculty has to be employed; many specialists in instructional design, media pedagogy, testing and institutional research have to be integrated into the academic structure; and cooperation with radio and television corporations has to be ensured. This model became very important as it helped to shape the structure of many distance teaching universities all over the world. The British Open University has developed this particular model of multiple (mass) media distance education to perfection. More than 40 open universities all over the world have been influenced by its outstanding achievements. This model shows the following characteristics:

• Openness: Providing access for new groups of students is an important feature of this model. It was used for initiating and supporting the movement towards ‘open learni...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Series editor’s foreword
• Introduction
• Part 1 Open and distance education models
• Part 2 Policy and planning
• Part 3 Institutional management
• Part 4 Management of processes
• Part 5 Quality assurance and accreditation
• Part 6 Internationalization