Tower under Siege: Technology, Power, and Education 9780773569102

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The Tower under Siege Technology, Power, and Education

We are facing a paradigm shift in education, pushed by technology and the new delivery systems it makes possible, and pulled by the demands of lifelong learning required by a knowledge economy. The student is no longer the captive client of monopoly education providers called “universities.” Issues involving the nature of education, its definition, its power structure, and its culture are being debated: the question is not only how something is taught but what is taught, when, why, by whom, and for what purpose. Who should control education? How much privilege should professors have? What rights do students have as “consumers?” In The Tower under Siege Brian Lewis, Christine Massey, and Richard Smith explore these important themes and issues from the varying perspectives of students, teachers, policy makers, and administrators. They describe the opportunities, changes, and policies developing in Canadian universities and governments in response to the education revolution. While most studies of the education revolution tend to be highly polemical, The Tower under Siege occupies a middle space, identifying issues and policy processes used to manage change and create more opportunities for education. The Tower under Siege will be of great interest to anyone concerned with, excited about, or worried by the expanding role of technology in higher education: teachers, researchers, students, parents, policy makers, and administrators. brian lewis is professor of communication and director of the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University. christine massey is a PhD candidate in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University. richard smith is assistant professor of communication and director of the Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology at Simon Fraser University.

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The Tower under Siege Technology, Policy, and Education brian lewis christine massey and richard smith

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2001 isbn 0-7735-2170-4 (cloth) isbn 0-7735-2171-2 (paperback) Legal deposit third quarter 2001 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for its activities. It also acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Lewis, Brian The tower under siege: technology, policy, and education Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-7735-2170-4 (bound) – isbn 0-7735-2171-2 (pbk.) 1. Education, Higher – Effect of technological innovations on – Canada. 2. High technology and education – Canada. 3. Higher education and state – Canada. 4. Educational change – Canada. I. Massey, Christine II. Smith, Richard (Richard Keith) III. Title. lb1028.3.l48 2001 378′.00285 c00-901723-2

This book was typeset by Dynagran Inc. in 10.5/13 Sabon.

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Contents

Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

xiii

1 A Call to Arms: Promises and Politics of Telelearning Technologies 3 2 Throwing Down the Gauntlet: The Rise of the For-Profit Educational Industry Nicholas V. Galan 11 3 From the Ramparts: Government Telelearning Policies 29 4 Strategies: Federal and Provincial Government Policy Initiatives 46 5 Dispatches from the Front: Policies and Policy Practices in Post-Secondary Institutions 89 6 In the Trenches: Student Perspectives Brent de Waal 140 7 Negotiating the Terrain: Strategies for the Future Appendix: Issues Map Bibliography Index

173

161

155

150

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Preface

This book consolidates two years of work on the use of computers for teaching and learning in Canadian universities and colleges. We brought to this project our collective expertise in information and technology policy and our knowledge of the Canadian postsecondary sector, and applied it to this emerging field. We were studying a highly changeable subject: each month, it seemed, a new initiative was announced, a new controversy erupted, and a new Web site appeared. Despite this volatility, certain themes continually re-appeared. These themes guided our analysis. This book attempts to communicate these themes and make a constructive contribution to the debate. Ultimately, however, policy researchers can only offer advice and guidance: it will be up to everyone involved in Canadian post-secondary education – the administrators, the entrepreneurs, the teachers, the students, and the bureaucrats – to pave the way for technology and post-secondary education in Canada.

methodology In September 1997, we began a systematic review of policies and processes that affect the implementation and use of telelearning technologies in Canadian post-secondary institutions. These technologies include all aspects of computers and computer networks used in teaching and learning.

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Universities are among our oldest social institutions, and today face enormous pressure to change. We have always had debates about the purpose of the university, its pedagogical program, and its relationship to other social and political structures. Now, however, these debates have been given renewed vigour and urgency by the availability of advanced information and communication technologies for teaching and learning. These include computers, computer networks, and the software and telecommunications networks that link them together. When these technologies are used to connect distant learners, they are called “telelearning technologies.” When referring to their use more generally to include local as well as remote teaching innovations, we sometimes call this “technology-mediated learning” (tml). These technologies are proving to be catalysts for profound organizational change within higher education. We reviewed both on-line and printed government documents. Interviews – in person and by telephone – were conducted with officials in selected government departments and agencies. Policy-makers and bureaucrats in ministries of education, finance, and development were queried about existing and developing policies for telelearning technologies as well as relevant policy processes (e.g., committees, strategic planning, negotiations, and decision-making). Interview results were cross-checked with additional interviews and documentary research. (See the bibliography for a list of interviewees.) A similar process was put in place to review the policy issues in universities and colleges. Administrators and faculty members from universities and colleges across Canada were interviewed in person and by telephone. Institutional policy and planning documents were collected and analysed. Attention was paid to both policies in place and policies needed as a result of arising issues. Policy processes were also tracked as institutions sought ways to negotiate changes in practice initiated by the use of telelearning technologies. These primary data were complemented by secondary research including a survey of higher-education publications, mass media, Internet newsgroups, and newsletters. As an enormous set of issues began to emerge, there was a need to track and organize the data. An “issues map” was created as a general methodological and conceptual tool. Policy issues were tracked on a spreadsheet in which some 150 policy issues, grouped into larger subject area, were listed. These issues were then mapped against a range of actors and agents in the telelearning arena:

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faculty and instructors, students/participants, administrators, policy-makers, governments, and businesses. Issues were further classed through a variety of overlays – major/minor, obstacle/opportunity, and positive/negative, for example. In addition, a computer database was established, organized by the same categories as the issues map, to track project data such as documents and interviews. Keyword and issue searches became possible.

ov e rv i e w Our objectives as researchers were threefold: 1 to survey current policies and usage for telelearning technologies in Canadian universities and colleges, as well as emerging private education providers; 2 to identify and review relevant federal and provincial government policies and programs; and 3 to identify potential new policy initiatives for telelearning technologies and develop a list of priorities for further research in policy and socio-economic impact studies. Chapter 1 sets the context. The “education revolution” is a small but vitally important part of the information revolution. Telelearning technologies offer our post-secondary institutions great promise, but there are also real and important tensions in our move to on-line learning. Policy decisions are crucial, but never have policy-makers seemed so overcome with events, so dazed, and in such disarray. The information revolution seems to have challenged the functions and capabilities of policy itself, and has transformed the policy context. Implementing telelearning technologies in our post-secondary institutions involves complex pedagogical and institutional issues. Our policy research has shown that a set of issues involving the nature of education, its definition, its power structure, and its culture are now beginning to be debated. Debates about telelearning can quickly become polarized as issues well beyond pedagogy come to the forefront – control over education, the privilege of professors, and the rights of students as “consumers,” something that questions not only how a subject is taught, but what, when, why, by whom, and for what purpose it is taught. Those of us involved in

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higher education are witnessing changes in demand, costs, funding, delivery mechanisms, and the nature of competitors. Technology may be the focus of debates within our institutions, but often it is just one expression of the larger forces at play. Part of our research involved articulating the economic, social, and cultural issues driving these changes. Chapter 1 identifies a middle space, a mid-range of opportunities, issues, and policy processes that can be addressed and implemented. Chapter 2 (by Nicholas V. Galan) continues our analysis of the policy issues environment by examining the rise of the for-profit education industry, a new model of educational delivery in a competitive and increasingly fragmented education “marketplace.” Since the early 1990s, the post-secondary educational sector has faced increasing pressure from a for-profit service industry seeking to capitalize on emerging market opportunities in education. Entrepreneurial individuals and organizations are vigorously challenging the long-held view of education as an enterprise best left to the public sector. Private providers such as the Apollo Group, with its University of Phoenix, have successfully crafted innovative business models to prove the viability of profit-making educational enterprise. Innovations in technology and media, especially the advent of the Internet, have created levers that allow education providers to expand their scope, scale, and revenuegenerating capability in ways that are impossible in place- and time-constrained environments. Traditional institutions have not turned a blind eye, however: many are carefully tracking the for-profit sector’s progress, while some are actively entering this new market with competitive, profitmaking strategies. Chapter 2 describes new developments and pays close attention to the economic and social trends that are driving change in post-secondary education. Chapters 3 and 4 examine Canadian federal and provincial policies and initiatives. Chapter 3 focuses on general trends while chapter 4 looks in more detail at specific policies. The terrain of higher education in Canada is changing in ways that are facilitated and encouraged by government policies directed at telelearning technologies. These two chapters reveal several significant trends. First, telelearning policies for the post-secondary sector straddle the boundary between education and economic development policy, a shift that alters conventional educational-funding criteria. Second, telelearning

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technologies are being implemented in ways that support other government policy goals, such as greater integration and efficiency in provincial post-secondary systems and increased support for labourmarket needs. While the implications of these changes are not yet entirely clear, we can anticipate the need for policy processes that include greater recognition of the role of negotiation among governments, administrators, and faculty. Chapters 3 and 4 argue, therefore, that there should be a new emphasis on policy processes that explicitly address dissolving boundaries and connections, and emerging organizational forms. The higher-education sector seems inadequately prepared for these challenges. Chapter 5 reviews the broad range of policy issues now being faced by Canadian universities and colleges. These issues are divided into three categories: “Doing Things Right,” “Doing the Right Thing,” and “Policy Processes.” Universities and colleges that implement telelearning technologies often find themselves facing a variety of issues not encountered when delivering courses face to face. For example, telelearning technologies can provide a broad range of non-traditional users with access to courses. What kind of new or different support services will these students require? As well, students are often concerned about who will have access to files in which electronic discussions are stored, how identities are safeguarded, and how long these files will be stored. These kind of concerns with the appropriate and effective implementation of telelearning technologies can be broadly classified as concerns on how to implement these technologies, or “Doing Things Right.” The micro-issues of implementation, however, quickly raise questions about “Doing the Right Thing” – the larger, often politically charged questions that form the policy environment for telelearning technologies. These issues address why we use telelearning technologies and can include questions about the purpose of education, the role of professors/trainers, and the goals of business/education partnerships. These broad policy debates, while easily polarized, can help to define an institution’s goals so that choices about how telelearning technologies are implemented become apparent. Clearly, these two aspects of telelearning policy – “Doing Things Right” and “Doing the Right Thing” – are linked, and both must be dealt with in organizational policies and practices. The importance of sound policy processes that can deal effectively with both

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aspects of policy cannot be overstated and is the focus of the final section of chapter 5. Chapter 6 (by Brent de Waal), captures policy issues not revealed in Chapter 5: this chapter deals specifically with the experiences and perspectives of students, asking, What is it like to be a student taking on-line courses? This chapter demonstrates that this seemingly simple question belies a complex reality. The change in environment from a traditional to a virtual classroom entails a fundamental shift for both students and instructors in their assumptions, skills, and ability to communicate. Chapter 6 probes the reality of the collaborative nature of an on-line classroom, drawing on the experience of students who have taken university credit classes on-line. At issue is the sometimes ambiguous nature of taking a course in which all or much of one’s interactions are mediated through a computer. Additional issues, including the myth of on-line collaboration, the discipline factor, and technological hurdles, are also discussed. Our review of policy issues for the use of telelearning technologies in universities and colleges has revealed to us that there are no easy answers. Each institution is unique and has its own institutional culture, program strengths, and technology requirements. Not all institutions will be well served by a large-scale transition to telelearning methods. Some institutions and their students could benefit from a more effective use of telelearning technologies in certain areas. While we found no single answer that could be applied to every situation, in chapter 7 we have isolated strategies and certain specific areas of action that will be useful for any institution engaging in on-line education. Our recommendations for institutions are followed by a set of recommendations aimed at provincial and federal governments and policy-makers. We also offer suggestions for further research on the significant social and institutional changes underway in our post-secondary system.

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Acknowledgements

Many people contributed to the research and production of this book. The authors would like to thank Joanne Curry, executive director of TeleLearning-NCE and Lucie Nobert, of the Office of Learning Technologies, for their support of the research that made this book possible. We thank as well Industry Canada and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (cmec), in particular Janet Halliwell and Robert Patry, for their support of an interim study. We would like to thank Ron Marteniuk, dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Simon Fraser University, for his encouragement, Lucie Menkveld for her administrative support, and Jennifer Jenson for her editorial work. We thank the Simon Fraser University research assistants who helped us, particularly Carolyn Reitzel, Bob Everton, Mark Lowes, and Nathan Russell. Above all, we would like to thank our graduate students and colleagues who have joined us in researching and debating questions of technology, their effects on the shape of the Canadian university, and the policies encouraging these changes. We wish to thank the participants in our courses, our seminars, and our conferences, as well as the interviewees in government, universities, and the private sector who have helped to highlight issues for us. This book is in large part the collective work of a research team comprising the co-authors and all those who have worked, debated, and argued these questions with us over the last two years.

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The Tower under Siege

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1 A Call to Arms: Promises and Politics of Telelearning Technologies

The implementation of telelearning technologies as part of a socalled “revolution” in education has been seen by both promoters and critics as a watershed event. We regard technology-mediated learning (tml) as just one example of a more general social phenomenon – the move to an information society. tml refers to the widespread use of computers and computer networks in the teaching process, in classrooms, or at a distance. The word “telelearning” comes from a research initiative that was sponsored by the Canadian government’s National Centres of Excellence research program. One of those National Centres of Excellence, nce/Telelearning, has become the focal point for research and technology transfer on technology-mediated learning via networked computers. Telelearning technologies include e-mail discussion lists, bulletin board systems, news and topic services, computer conferencing, directories, customized educational environments, and computer networks such as the Internet. The effect of these technologies on post-secondary education is frequently confusing and contradictory, but is visible on many levels, from how people live and manage their lives every day, to the highest decisions of organizations and governments.

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g l o b a l i z a t i o n , p o s t m o d e r n i t y, a n d t h e g row i n g u s e o f t e c h n o l o g y in universities Many factors influence the use of telelearning technologies in Canadian universities. While policy factors are important, they must be considered within the larger socio-economic conditions of our society. Two of the most important changes in recent years have been globalization and the shift from a modern to a postmodern culture. In the context of educational change, globalization has come to mean three things, in the view of Larry Kuehn: The first is the destructive effects of a globalized competition that increasingly operates without restraint. The second is restriction of democracy – limits on the capacity of government to carry out the wishes of its citizens to put restraints on the excesses of globalization. The third is the distortion of the social purposes of education when education becomes too centred on its relationship to the economy. (Kuehn, 1997, 66)

The combined impact of these three concerns is an educational system apparently gripped in a downward spiral toward a lowest common denominator among all nations and participants in the global economy. Ironically, one of the chief enablers and facilitators of the movement toward global markets for people and things – information technology – is held out as a necessary and inevitable response to these pressures. In the latter part of the twentieth century, some aspects of the technological world fell into disrepute, including nuclear power (the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were harbingers of this fall) chemicals (Bhopal, global warming), and genetic modification of foods. Information technology, however, seemed curiously immune from this criticism, perhaps because of the way in which it appears to pose no threat to the physical world (Moll, 1997). This “immunity” seems to be fading, however. Increasing concerns about the role of information technology in aiding the actions of “hackers” and surveillance experts (both legitimate and freelance) have led to a sense of diminished personal privacy and a concern for community security. As a result, the prospect of computerizing and networking schools and universities, something that had widespread

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support as recently as five years ago, is now somewhat more controversial (Noble, 1995). The impact of globalization is certainly being felt in classrooms and offices around the world. The Winter 1999–2000 issue of Issues in Science and Technology, a us-based magazine of technology policy, examined the future of higher education. Among this series of articles were several that asked hard questions about the role of the university and of a university education in a globally competitive and connected world. The opportunity – and the threat – from worldwide audiences for educational materials has not escaped the notice of planners and pundits. All wonder what will happen when the world is available to the kids next door (Munitz, 2000). Globalization – in travel, communication, and trade and trade policy – is resulting in new international markets for labour, capital, and commercial enterprises, including the educational enterprise. The sense of urgency is captured by James Duderstadt: This perspective of a market-driven restructuring of higher education as an industry, although perhaps both alien and distasteful to the academy, is nevertheless an important framework for considering the future of the university. Although the post-secondary education market may have complex crosssubsidies and numerous public misconceptions, it is nevertheless very real and demanding, with the capacity to reward those who can respond to rapid change and punish those who cannot. Universities will have to learn to cope with the competitive pressures of this marketplace while preserving the most important of their traditional values and character. (Duderstadt, 2000, 39)

The other major contextual aspect of our discussion of tml and the policy landscape that influences it is the movement to what Bill Readings has called a “postmodern” university (Readings, 1996). Readings’s book, The University in Ruins, is a comprehensive attempt to come to grips with the enormous social and cultural forces that are sweeping university life as we enter the third millennium. The very term “postmodernity” has its roots in an analysis of the university. Readings is not content with a simple understanding of the problems facing the university into a general “postmodern syndrome,” however: The question of the postmodern is a question posted to the University as much as in the University. Yet since the postmodern has by and large ceased to function as a question and has become another alibi in the name

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of which intellectuals denounce the world for failing to live up to their expectations, I prefer to drop the term. The danger is apparent: it is so easy to slip into speaking of the “postmodern University” as if it were an imaginable institution, a newer, more critical institution, which is to say, an even more modern University than the modern University. I would prefer to call the contemporary University “posthistorical” rather than “postmodern” in order to insist upon the sense that the institution has outlived itself, is now a survivor of the era in which hit defined itself in terms of the project of the historical development, affirmation, and inculcation of national culture. (Readings, 1996, 6. Emphasis in the original)

Whatever we call it, the sense is that universities, once a vibrant source of critical analysis of and guidance for national culture, are clearly in retreat. The university – technology-driven or otherwise – is, at least in the view of Readings and other critics, no longer contributing to social and cultural advancement. Postmodernity, and all that it stands for in the context of university life, is in many ways the cultural counterpart to globalization – a sweeping aside of past projects and an uncertainty of future direction. These two forces – globalization and postmodernity – can be thought of as the landscape upon which our policy analysis is built. They provide some of the context for what is to come in subsequent chapters, although we should not be overly fixated on the big picture just yet because, as in many other technical issues that confront us, details matter. In education, details are negotiated and put in place through policies and programs. The remainder of this book seeks to bring those details to life for the reader and to provide concrete illustrations of the way in which tml is being implemented in universities and colleges across Canada. This book deals with the particular set of policy issues associated with the implementation of telelearning technologies in Canadian universities and colleges. Policy decisions are crucial: the information revolution seems to have challenged the functions and capabilities of policy itself, and has transformed the policy context. In National Information Infrastructure Initiatives, Ernest Wilson describes four stages in the “product cycle” of policy development: • as the scientists and engineers tout the cutting-edge advantages of the new technology, it reaches and begins to motivate the discourse and action agendas of senior bureaucrats;

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• the social scientists – the gurus – take up the case, describing the extraordinary advantages of these new possibilities; • a wider group of social scientists begins to look critically at questions of haves and have-nots, possible downsides, and possible inequalities; • the circle finally expands to encompass a range of more comprehensive analyses from a social science perspective. (Wilson, 1997, 2–3)

In the development of education technology policy we have, rather quickly, reached the third stage, in which critical examination of issues has become a stand-off between opposing camps of pro- and anti-technology forces. The educational issues are extraordinarily important – and extraordinarily divisive. In our research we have enumerated many dozens of issues, each with competing players (administrators, professors, students, businesses, and teaching assistants) and competing values (cultural, social, and, occasionally, pedagogical) (see the Appendix).

the potential The opportunities and the potential of telelearning technologies can be understood in terms of its benefits to learners and to institutions. Learner Benefits Telelearning is thought to benefit student learning by enriching the traditional learning experience and extending the experience to more people. One of the most common observations about telelearning is that it enables distance learning. In addition to bringing educational opportunities to learners inadequately served by existing face-to-face educational services, telelearning also enables distance students to use technologies such as computer conferencing to communicate with other students to a degree previously unachievable. The pace of distance learning, which previously relied on the slow (mainly postal) exchange of printed documents, has therefore increased dramatically. The learning experience for both face-to-face and distance students can be enriched and enhanced through telelearning tools. For example, reference materials that were previously inaccessible can now be viewed by students via the Internet. Telelearning technologies can also be used to create simulations of phenomena too small,

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too large, too fast-paced, too expensive, or too dangerous to bring into the classroom. Additionally, telelearning can bring post-secondary education to a new group of students who lack the time or ability to attend on-site campus courses. Working adults and advanced learners are key beneficiaries of the process of extending advanced training beyond the walls of colleges and universities. This benefit depends, of course, on learners having access to the necessary hardware and connectivity. In addition to extending and enriching the traditional learning experience, telelearning provides opportunities to engage teachers and students in new methods of teaching and learning collaborations. The excitement about the potential of telelearning technologies comes not just from the implementation of new technology but from the combination of the networking capabilities of the new telelearning technologies with an approach to teaching and learning that is learner-centred, distributed, and collaborative. This marriage of educational philosophy and technological development is most clearly demonstrated in Canada by the kind of research being undertaken by the TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence (Telelearningnce), a federally funded research initiative that began in 1995. Finally, telelearning gives students a self-paced environment that fits into lives already busy with family, work, and other responsibilities. In this way, telelearning offers the potential for greater personalization of teaching and learning. Institutional Benefits Telelearning technologies offer much to institutions as “value-added” strategies in which new technologies are seen as components that can be added to existing structures. These strategies may mean adding new aspects to face-to-face teaching or extending the reach of campus- and paper-based distance programs. By extending learning to these new groups of learners, telelearning offers the potential to expand the traditional post-secondary client base: learning can be made available to students regardless of distance, traditional geographic boundaries, or catchment regions. Asynchronous learning formats, in which the students proceed at their own pace, allow mature learners – many with paid employment that restricts their ability to attend classes on campus – to enrol in university and college courses.

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New client groups offer potential new revenue sources for postsecondary institutions, an important consideration in a time of declining government funding. Programs can be tailored for learners in specific areas or industries and made available to them for learning at their convenience.

the tension Technological change in the educational process appears to have interfered with the balance of power that for centuries has placed the university at the centre of the learning process. Eli Noam describes the traditional university as centrally buttressed by three facts about information flow: (i) information is centrally stored; (ii) scholars and students come to the information; and (iii) there is a wide range of information under one roof. As other educational providers enter the market, universities can no longer, however, cover all subject areas or claim ownership of highly distributed scholarly communities or the transmission of higher knowledge. “This system of higher education,” Noam writes, remained remarkably stable for over 2,500 years. Now, however, it is in the process of breaking down. The reason is not simply technological; technology simply enables change to occur. The fundamental reason is that today’s production and distribution of information are undermining the traditional flow of information and with it the university structure, making it ready to collapse in slow motion once alternatives to its function become possible. (Noam, 1995, 247)

This transition raises important and alarming questions in the traditional institutions of higher learning and the bureaucracies, faculties, and student groups connected to them. As we move from localized, institutionally centralized educational systems to highly decentralized, distributed models, what will become of our universities and colleges as institutions? What will happen to the people, spaces, and stakeholders? Finding the Balance The enormous promise of on-line learning makes it tempting for some of the more short-sighted among us to see technology-enabled

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distance learning as a panacea for all the problems and challenges facing education. Ross Paul and Jane Brindley caution against this, however, and urge us to focus on the “softer” lessons of distance education: the importance of collaboration and of taking a critical, learner-centred view of technologies; and the centrality of studentsupport services in the design of courses, programs, and institutions (Paul and Brindley, 1996). Implementing telelearning technologies in our post-secondary institutions raises complex pedagogical and institutional issues. Our policy research has shown that the nature of education, its definition, its power structure, and its culture are now beginning to be debated. Educators are witnessing changes in demand, costs, funding, delivery mechanisms, and the nature of competitors. Teaching takes place between what often seem to be two diametrically opposed camps: those who believe that technology is the answer to all of our problems, and those who reject outright the centrality of technology in education. Part of our research involved the articulation of the economic, social, and cultural issues driving those two camps. We also sought to identify a middle space, a midrange of opportunities, issues, and policy processes that can be addressed and that may work. Chapter 2 focuses on an area in which existing highereducational operations are shifting most radically. It begins with an in-depth analysis of telelearning technology, and an overview of the state of play in the commercial education industry – who is investing, and where and why. This description of the “changing environment” of higher education will lay the groundwork for our discussion of responses by both policy bureaucracies and our postsecondary institutions.

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2 Throwing Down the Gauntlet: The Rise of the For-Profit Education Industry N I C H O L A S V. G A L A N

Private firms in the for-profit education industry deliver education, training, support services, tools, and infrastructure to education markets. The growth of this industry is a critical indicator of accelerating change in post-secondary education. Practitioners and observers can benefit from an analysis of this industry, since it is here that much of the innovation and change that education is currently experiencing originates. This chapter investigates the characteristics of the for-profit education industry: its rise, growth, and implications for the future. While the industry is large and varied, with market participants operating in such sectors as private-education delivery, technology products and services, publishing, and extra-curricular tutoring and testing, this chapter focuses on the phenomenon of the private, degree-granting organization and its implications for traditional, post-secondary education. Particular emphasis is placed on market and social forces for growth in the for-profit industry and the special role of information technology as a catalyst. Much of the data reported are from the us, since aggregated information is widely available in that country. As well, the vast bulk of education-market activity currently originates in the us. Canadian information is cited where available.

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from market failure to m a r k e t da r l i n g : t h e r i s e o f t h e f o r- p ro f i t e d u c at i o n i n du s t ry Before the early 1990s, traditional economic perspectives maintained that the educational endeavour was a market failure, because the free market was unable to provide all the social benefits associated with education. Thus, the public good was best served by leaving the administration of education to the public sector, which defined and shielded institutions from change and maintained a monopolistic control over how, when, where, and under what conditions post-secondary education was experienced. The beginning of the 1990s was a watershed period, during which the marketplace began to take a second look at education. Reported influences on this shift in perception included diminishing public confidence in the ability of the public sector to deliver consistent, high-quality education, and the increasing pace of technological innovation, which allowed the creation of “value-added,” technology-based educational products and services (Eduventures, llc, 1998). These factors, coupled with the sheer magnitude of educational expenditures, caused segments of the private sector to reassess their view of education and spurred a significant movement toward new product and service provision in the more profitable education markets. Measuring Growth Market indicators point toward significant growth in the for-profit education industry. Several measures, including total spending, industry revenues, level of investment, and the market value of the leading publicly traded education firms, reinforce this trend. Working toward an understanding of the facts and dynamics of the industry is important for all those involved in the traditional public sector, as well as for government regulators. The Education Market: A Private-Sector Perspective Education is a large industry. Total us expenditures on education in 1997 were $670 billion, which represented 10 per cent of total

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Throwing Down the Gauntlet Educational component

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$300 $300

$350 $350

Cost (in US $billions) Private profit Privateor orfor for-profit

Public Public

Figure 2.1 Education Markets in the us Source: Martin, 1998.

gross domestic product (gdp) (Sandler, 1998). Placed in context, education was second only to health care in total spending in the United States. While the K-12 sector received the largest portion of the total education pie, higher-education spending accounted for more than $150 billion (see Figure 2.1), which represents an inviting and relatively non-colonized “space” for competitive private firms. The technology component of the education market is also significant. T.H.E. Journal, of Tustin, California, reports that 1998 technology budgets for hardware, software, and connectivity in post-secondary education totalled $3.1 billion (T.H.E. Journal, 1998). Demographic change is an important force spurring the entry of the private sector into education markets. The eighteen- to twentytwo-year-old undergraduate is no longer typical (Hedegaard-Bishop, 1998). Adult learners, seeking credentials for career advancement, retraining, or simply in pursuit of continuing education, are entering educational institutions in large numbers. Supporting this new cohort requires an understanding of their dramatically different needs. This demographic shift also represents, however, an opportunity for education providers, both public and private, to reconfigure or design their offerings to capture a burgeoning and, theoretically, more affluent market. As the following sections discuss, private industry has been first off the mark in fulfilling the needs of these new markets.

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i n d u s t ry r e v e n u e s Private-sector entry into education markets has been aggressive. Revenues grew by 23 per cent from 1996 to 1997 on total revenues of us$64.6 billion (1996 revenues were $52.5 billion) (Eduventures, llc, 1998). Industry analysts believe that revenues will reach us$100 billion in 1999 in the United States (Eduventures, llc, 1998). While the private sector once focused largely on the textbook-publishing business, the field of play has expanded to include large firms that serve markets that were once the preserve of traditional educational institutions. For-profit firms, such as the Apollo Group’s University of Phoenix and University of Phoenix Online, are providing accredited undergraduate and graduate degree programs, for example. In Canada, Information Technology Institute (iti) is delivering Bachelors and Masters degrees in business and the applied sciences, for a profit, in six major Canadian cities (see iti’s Web site, http: //www.iti.ca). Other education markets served include supplemental services (e.g., outside-of-school testing and tutoring), system and curriculum integration, and hardware and software. How the Investment Community Views Education Another indicator of industry growth is the level of investment flowing into education companies. The once-shunned education market sector has become a “darling” in investment circles: approximately $8 billion in venture capital was funnelled into education companies in 1997. The industry is witnessing the emergence of substantial education practices and portfolios inside established investment banks and venture-capital firms. “Boutique” investment houses and venture funds with specialized education practices are also entering the investment landscape. Private us foundations, such as the Paul Allen Foundation and the Milken Family Foundation, are making significant investments in education companies. Table 1 lists examples of investment bank education portfolios, specialized education-only venture funds, and private foundations that have emerged since 1990. At the time of writing, no Canadian investment firms had yet established dedicated education industry practices. The infusion of venture capital into start-up and established growth-seeking firms has also increased the number of publicly traded education companies. Securities Data Corporation reports that education-industry equity issuance in the form of initial

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Table 1 Investment Banks, Venture Funds, and Foundations Investing in Education (1998) Investment Banks and Brokerage Houses

Specialized Venture Funds

Private Foundations

BancBoston Robertson Stephens

EduVentures, llc

Paul Allen Foundation

International Finance Corp.

Core Learning Group, llc

Milken Family Foundation

Merrill Lynch

Scripps Ventures

Nations Bank Montgomery Securities Salomon Smith Barney Parchman, Vaughan & Company, llc First Chicago Equity Capital

public offerings (ipo s) rose from us$127 million in 1995 to us$338.3 million by September 1998. Secondary offerings, or the total number of additional shares released into the stock market, rose from us$297.5 million in 1995 to us$380.2 million by September 1998. All told, this represents a 69 per cent increase during the time period cited (Securities Data Corporation, 1998). How Education Companies Have Fared in the Marketplace Along with industry revenues and levels of private investment, the performance of education securities in the marketplace can be a telling indicator of current and future industry performance. Bellwether education industry stocks have, on the whole, performed well. Several leading securities firms and investment houses have established “education indices” to track industry performance against traditional benchmark market indices and established industries. Leading stocks in the post-secondary degree-granting market, for example, have witnessed Dow-beating growth in the last three years. The Apollo Group, parent company of the University of Phoenix and the University of Phoenix Online, has seen its stock appreciate by nearly 300 per cent since January 1996.

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DeVry Inc., parent of the DeVry Institute, a private, degree-granting school, has experienced similar equity appreciation (75 per cent growth in 1995; 40 per cent in 1996) (Shuch, 11 June 1996). BancBoston Robertson Stephens (BancBoston), a key investment bank with an aggressive education portfolio, has established an education index to measure industry performance against the benchmark Dow Jones, Russell 2000, and Nasdaq Composite indices. Included in the BancBoston index are the Apollo Group, DeVry Institute, cbt Systems, and Sylvan Learning, among others. This index consistently outperformed the other benchmark indices from January 1997 to September 1998, with a sharp and sustained growth increase reported during that time. Given this and the other evidence reported above, the trend in the for-profit education industry is toward substantial growth.

b e yo n d t h e n u m b e rs : socio-economic factors driving t h e e du c at i o n i n d u s t ry ’ s g row t h A number of forces for change in the educational system have been cited as being instrumental in the rise of the education industry. Analysts have tended to focus on the following factors: 1 a gap, real or perceived, in the ability of post-secondary education to deliver appropriately skilled workers to “knowledge” industries; 2 the rise of the notion of lifelong learning as a prerequisite to personal security; and 3 the advent of sophisticated information technologies that enable time- and space-independent education. The Skills Gap Blustain, Goldstein and Lozier state that “capitalism’s ‘creative destruction’ produces an unending stream of new markets, products, services, and technologies, all of which demand training” (Blustain, Goldstein, and Lozier, 1999, 52). This observation echoes oft-heard industry laments from, in particular, technology companies, that skilled talent is difficult to come by and even more difficult to retain. There is a perceived need for targeted skills development in

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post-secondary education to support sustained industrial competitiveness in the context of hyper-competitive global markets. Private education has responded in a fairly uniform way by targeting and packaging specific curricula, particularly in the information technology (it) and business management arenas, created “compelling” marketing messages to attract students, and devised innovative modes of delivery, with customer service as its mantra. The University of Phoenix, DeVry Institutes, and iti, are among the most visible (and profitable) advocates and practitioners of this approach in the private sector. Specific private-sector market strategies are discussed in detail later in this chapter. Lifelong Learning Among the consequences of rapid innovation and change in the economic landscape has been the necessity to provide an infrastructure for the continuous upgrading of skill sets and knowledge bases as people move from industry to industry and from career to career. The notion of lifelong learning as a social necessity has resulted in the demographic shift described earlier: the entry of a large cohort of returning adult students into our educational institutions. In the United States, it is reported that as many as 40 per cent of those seeking degrees are forty years of age or older. This compelling demographic set demands a rethinking, if not a complete overhaul, of a post-secondary system characterized by operations and offerings based on the needs of a very different learner community. This view is supported by Duderstadt when he argues that “to meet the demands of this growing population, existing institutions will have to change significantly, or new types of institutions will have to be formed” (Duderstadt, 1999, 4). Information Technology The advent of ubiquitous networking and increasingly affordable and powerful multimedia computers has created opportunities for the delivery and management of education in new ways. According to some observers, it also has the potential to fundamentally change the post-secondary education endeavour. Technology has always been present in education, but, increasingly, new networked

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technologies and powerful computers currently at the centre of change and debate have the power to turn the educational-delivery paradigm on its head. Notions of interactivity and opportunities for collaborative learning have also spurred significant investment and activity in the research community. The Canadian TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence (Telelearning-nce) is a large-scale, federally supported research network conducting basic and applied research in collaborative pedagogical approaches supported by networked computing (see TeleLearning-nce, http: //www.telelearn.ca). From a business standpoint, the presence of ubiquitous, networked, multimedia computing in universities, schools, homes, and offices is an inviting market opportunity. Spending on technology, technology-based education-company revenues, and investments in educational technology companies continue to rise. Technology and Learning Magazine of San Francisco recently stated that education technology is the fastest-growing market in the us education industry, based on an increase in revenues from us$4.5 billion to us$6.5 billion in the last five years (Technology and Learning Magazine, http: //www.techlearning.com/). The technology sector includes many products, from preschool reading and writing software, “edutainment” titles, supplemental K-12 materials, and sophisticated virtual labs and simulations, to completely Web-based course-delivery mechanisms targeted to the post-secondary and continuing-education sector. The Internet and the World Wide Web If technology is the fastest-growing industry sector, Internet or Webbased course delivery is the most important subsector, with potentially profound implications for post-secondary education. The increasing sophistication of Internet technology and its ability to remove time and space constraints opens new opportunities not only for the extension of course delivery, but also for the innovation of institutional forms. Private-sector education providers have already jump-started the Internet-based education process by establishing on-line education business units to complement campus-based offerings. The University of Phoenix Online is an example of this kind of unit. Truly non-traditional players have also emerged, such as zdnet’s zdu, the on-line course-delivery arm of Ziff Davis, a large

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publisher in the technology field. zdu offered technical courses, such as Java programming and Web publishing. Students paid us$5.00 per month for basic tuition (zdnet University, http: //www.zdu.com; now http://www.elementk.com). The zdu example illustrates the property of Web-based education that is perhaps most attractive to the for-profit providers: it allows firms to extend their reach geographically and increase their rate of growth. Equity investors demand evidence that a firm can achieve strong revenue growth, and Web technology is seen as a powerful lever to create efficiencies, scale, and competitive advantage – prerequisites for sustainable business growth. Geographically constrained private campuses have difficulty attracting enrolment from outside their immediate locales, thus hampering growth (in the absence of capital available for expansion). With adequate marketing, the Web can offer firms the scale required to “play in the big leagues.” Other characteristics bringing the Web to the forefront of the private sector’s imagination include: • cost-efficient distribution. From a “cost-of-sale” perspec-

tive, traditional, instructor-led and place-based education delivery is inefficient. The expanded reach and asynchronous nature of Web-based communication allows providers to package and distribute courses to a much larger number of learners. • consistent, standardized curricula. In a time when much rhetoric calls for “relevancy” and “market-ready” skill provision in post-secondary education, the Web promises a more easily controlled and managed curriculum-delivery mechanism. The end result, should standardization become a core value proposition in the marketing message, might indeed be a commoditization of courseware. The perils of such a result are well recognized, but it remains a positive point for private providers, whose chief goal is the delivery of profits to their shareholders. • demographic capture. The marketing function is an element still largely alien to the culture of traditional post-secondary education, but it is a critical element of the private sector’s strategic psyche. The computerization of education allows the capture of rich marketing data – from simple customer surveys to log-file activity analyses – that aid in the creation and packaging of follow-on, value-added products and services aimed at increasing the provider’s share of the learner’s wallet.

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US $ Billions Billions US$

$8 $6 $4 $2 $0

1997 1997

2002 2002 Year

Figure 2.2 Market for Web-based learning, 1997 and 2002 (estimated) Source: International Data Corporation, 1998.

• rapid customization. Efficiency, standardization, and demo-

graphic capture converge in a provider’s ability to rapidly customize programs and develop new products to meet customer needs. The absence of senate and board structures, which may impede change inside organizations, also bolsters this customization. The “This is not a democracy!” cry often heard inside corporate boardrooms holds especially true in the educational enterprise. Based on the reported advantages of Web-based education delivery, market analysts are beginning to make rather bold assertions about exponential growth in that sector. International Data Corporation, for example, forecasts that, by 2002, the Web-based learning market will have grown from us$197 million (in 1997) to us$5.5 billion (see Figure 2.2). • global markets. Now that the World Wide Web has entered the educational-media mix, the possibility for international distribution and expansion can be inviting to private-sector operators. The Web theoretically increases marketing, promotional, and distribution reach to include markets traditionally protected by distance and national boundaries. International expansion has been slow, however, and few companies – even those with Web-based offerings – have made large investments in or even announcements on international strategies. Web-based “dot-com” educational companies are proliferating in the United States and North America and the industry’s marketing focus seems to be tightly keyed into North American markets, which are sizable and

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represent the majority of ready, willing, and Internet-connected customers. Other factors, such as the high cost of “customer acquisition” on the Web and the very real barriers erected by culture, language, and varied curricula, are keeping even the larger players inside their own backyards. This focus on North American markets will likely change, however, as companies that have established a beachhead in local markets begin to eye growth opportunities worldwide. Asia, for example, is increasingly seen as an enticing growth opportunity because of the number of potential customers, the large population of persons with Internet access, and a rebounding economy. One company that has recently made a sizable step into the Asian market is Onlinelearning.net, ucla Extension-credit’s marketing and distribution partner. A December 1999 press release from OnlineLearning.net announced the creation of 1to80.com, “Asia’s first online knowledge portal,” designed to market accredited American programs to students in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Korea (1to80.com and OnlineLearning.net press release, 2 December 1999). While North American companies’ marketing dollars and programs are currently targeted to emergent North American markets, further strategic investments in international markets will likely take place in the future.

the play ers Degree-granting private education providers are but one component of the private-education industry. Other elements and firms are forming, expanding, or consolidating to create “value chains” that enable the most efficient business processes and distribution systems to evolve. Table 2 highlights four key sectors in technology-based postsecondary education and gives examples of companies in each sector. System and curriculum integrators are, essentially, service providers that enable education providers, both public and private, to move their course offerings to an on-line environment. Companies such as Real Education Inc. of Colorado provide post-secondary institutions with turnkey, on-line course-delivery infrastructures. ibm’s distributed learning services provide institutions with end-toend solutions, enabling them to manage the on-line delivery process, from student registrations to grade management.

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Table 2 The Four Key Segments of the Technology-Based Education Industry Private Education and Training

System and Curriculum Integrators

Apollo Group (University of Phoenix Online) Information Technology Institute

Real Education Inc. International Business Machines (ibm)

Tools (Hardware and Software)

Supplemental Services

Webct Educational Technologies Virtual Learning Environments Inc. Blackboard Systems

Sylvan Learning Systems

An array of tools and platforms for the delivery of on-line courses is also emerging. Tools and tool sets allowing course delivery and management, virtual labs and simulations, and collaborative conferencing facilities are beginning to proliferate. Webct Educational Technologies, in Vancouver, bc, is a course-delivery platform that has enjoyed significant success. Since its inception in 1995, Webct has sold over 900 licences to 450 educational institutions in thirty countries, including a high-profile, 1000-level course licence agreement with ucla. Webct recently entered into a strategic alliance with Real Education Inc. to support Real Education’s service offering as its course-delivery platform. The emergence of such partnerships may signal the beginning of consolidation as the industry matures. The supplemental services sector, once anchored in the K-12 domain, is also making an attempt to validate itself in the postsecondary and corporate markets. The most visible player in this space is Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc., which, having established itself in the K-12 testing and tutoring market, is offering services in testing, tutoring, and prior-learning assessment in what it calls the “lifelong learning field.” This development gives a good snapshot of the private postsecondary landscape. While still (arguably) in its infancy, the prognosis seems to be that explosive growth, fuelled in large part by both organizational and technological innovation, is on the horizon. The next section discusses some key strategies that private education providers employ in the pursuit of market share.

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customer service in the academy: marketing, selling, and service in pr ivate e du c at ion Shifting Paradigms Successfully bringing a product to market requires a “bulletproof” marketing approach. Private education may have found the most compelling approach embedded in the language of what has been called the “learner-centred paradigm.” Learner-centred thinking begins with the assumption that traditional institutional forms place the locus of decision-making in the institution and, in particular, on faculty. Choices regarding course offerings and scheduling are beyond the control of the student who pays for his or her education. This institution-centric model has been criticized as being anachronistic, outmoded, and inappropriate for today’s environment. Advocates of a learner-centred model argue that education should be focused toward the needs of the learner. This marketdemand-driven model goes beyond course and program offerings: it argues that fundamental institutional change must occur, in which every administrative function – from student registration to certification – focuses on learner needs and away from institutional convenience (Twigg and Oblinger, 1996). Private education providers are well positioned to take advantage of this shift. Unconstrained by tradition and regulatory requirements that can act as barriers to innovation, private companies are free to experiment, innovate, and extract as much value from the learning market as possible. As private firms, they are not required to provide broad-based course offerings to serve the interest of the public good, leaving them free to hone in on lucrative niche markets. At the core of their marketing messages lie notions of choice and relevancy: prospective customers are told that there is a different way to obtain the knowledge and skills that will equip them for participation and advancement in high-demand fields. The Apollo Group’s University of Phoenix and University of Phoenix Online provide an example of this marketing message in action. By targeting working adults seeking general education and skills upgrading, the University of Phoenix has followed what Duderstadt has called a “convenience-store model” of product and

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service delivery to attract a market segment it understands well (Duderstadt, 1999, 16). Services such as continuous enrolment (students may begin their programs at any time during the year); multiple-mode materials ordering (via Internet, telephone, and fax); a fully staffed technology-support centre (University of Phoenix Online); and a faculty trained in the use of technology illustrate the company’s customer-service orientation. Branded Education Another significant market-entry strategy is the “branding” of education products and services. Private firms see value in leveraging the brand identity of leading public institutions and marketing those brands and courses on-line. The recent partnership between ucla and Onlinelearning.net is an example of a private firm’s licensing, packaging, and selling of a recognized institution’s course offerings on-line. While the eventual success or failure of this particular endeavour is yet to be determined, this strategy provides a model other private providers might well follow in the future. The market strategies described above are a few features of an increasingly competitive and emerging marketplace. As the industry matures, it is possible that we will witness consolidation in the form of mergers and acquisitions as the more successful firms begin to expand and dominate markets. This is indeed a time of change that requires traditional colleges, universities and public vocational institutions to reassess their roles and mandates for the future. The following section describes some ways in which the traditional sector is coping with the increasingly competitive climate.

responses from the front: reactions to the new competition The public post-secondary education community is broad and varied in philosophy, approach, and mandate. Accordingly, the community has responded in varying ways to competition from the private sector. While some open-access institutions are well equipped to innovate, swimming in competitive waters has, for many, never been a necessity, and so the learning curve can be steep.

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An attempt to categorize and analyse institutional response to change reveals four distinct approaches: 1) non-response; 2) consortia and strategic alliances; 3) the creation of innovative public institutions; and 4) head-to-head competition. (This analysis is largely restricted to the North American experience.) Non-response Including “non-response” in a taxonomy of institutional strategies can be dangerous, as it is unlikely that any existing institution will remain completely unaffected by a changing competitive landscape. All institutions need to respond in some way as competitive pressure and policy structures that govern them change. Many institutions continue in a “business-as-usual” manner, leaving the creation of innovative structures out of core policy and planning processes. For larger universities, shepherding change can be especially difficult, given ageold structures and faculties that can be powerfully resistant to real and perceived threats to the status quo. A common characteristic of all universities and colleges, however, appears to be a lack of strategic planning for the move into on-line education. Almost all institutions are proceeding with some level of on-line education, no matter how small in scale. Few, however, have integrated these projects with overall institutional goals and mandates. As a result, many of these telelearning efforts are doomed to remain marginal and under-financed. Consortia and Strategic Alliances Some institutions are opting for strategies that allow them to build partnerships with other institutions in order to leverage their strengths and expand offerings across greater jurisdictions. The Western Governors University (wgu), a consortium of universities in sixteen us states and territories, offers technology-based distance education as a way to increase accessibility. Students enrolled with wgu may opt for credit-based programs. Degrees are granted by participating universities and competency-based degrees are obtained directly from wgu. Public response to the wgu initiatives has to date been lukewarm at best. At its launch, wgu succeeded in attracting a mere ten students, far below the five thousand they had hoped for (wgu, http: //www.wgu.edu).

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The California Virtual University (cvu) consortium was designed as a response and alternative to perceived competition from wgu. Its recent demise, however, illustrates the need for a coherent and competitive strategy, not simply an on-line alternative to traditional courses. cvu suffered from many weaknesses, one of which was an unclear value-added strategy. There was little advantage to students using the Web-based catalogue, cvu provided no registration services, and ensured no standard interfaces or approaches. The value to participating institutions was also unclear, and consequently those institutions refused to provide the financial commitment required to keep cvu operating (Weiss, 8 April 1999). The partnership between ucla and Onlinelearning.net described above is an example of a public/private strategic alliance aimed at leveraging brand, technology, and the marketing competencies of the private sector. The Creation of Innovative Public Institutions The Technical University of British Columbia (Techbc) is a newly created public institution whose mandate is to serve the needs of a changing educational landscape. Techbc stresses accessibility, responsiveness to the needs of the industrial sector (particular the technology sector), and the provision of a significant proportion of course offerings on-line. Techbc was surrounded by controversy early on and was the target of a boycott by the Canadian University Faculty Association (cufa) because of its lack of a Board of Governors and questionable policies relating to tenure. The boycott has since been lifted, however, and the university began accepting students into its regular programs in the fall of 1999. The growing pains suffered by Techbc are an example of some of the challenges associated with fundamental change. Royal Roads University (rru) is another new university based in British Columbia. rru was created in 1995 on a site formerly occupied by a military college. Its mandate is to create alternative approaches to post-secondary education, primarily through marketdriven applied and professional programs in partnership with industry and workplace advisory boards. Its target market is the mid-career professional. Course delivery is typically a combination of interactive on-line learning and short, intensive, campus-based residential modules.

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Compressed twelve-month Bachelor of Arts degree completion programs are also available in Commerce and Environmental Science. Graduate programs currently offered include a Master of Arts or Science in Environment & Management, a Master of Arts with concentrations in Leadership in Training, Conflict Analysis, and Management, and Master of Business Administration with concentration in Executive Management, Human Resource Management, Public Relations and Communications Management, or Digital Technologies Management. rru’s operating budget is currently $16 million, of which $9 million comes from the provincial government and $3.75 million comes from federal seed funding, which expires in 2001. rru aims to make its learning programs financially self-sufficient. Direct Competition Some traditional institutions are beginning to consider engaging their competitors directly in the private sector through the deployment of technology-based, distance-education offerings. Some are simply moving core first-year and other “standard” courses on-line under the administration of existing institutional structures. Stanford University Online in the us and Athabasca University in Alberta have both adopted this strategy. A more radical approach is also emerging. New York University (nyu) recently announced the creation of a large-scale, for-profit subsidiary to develop, market, and manage on-line courses in key areas. This strategy is explicitly positioned as both a response to the challenge of for-profit institutions, such as the University of Phoenix Online, and a chance to seize the market opportunities offered by the Internet. The for-profit structure was selected by nyu in order to allow them to raise adequate levels of seed capital to successfully operate their intended on-line programs. Seed investment is expected to fall in the us$20–$30 million range (Arenson, 7 October 1991).

a n e vo lv i n g competitive environment Much has been said, written, and made of the impact that increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous information technologies will

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have and have had on education. Two important impacts are the way in which the private sector has viewed technology as a valuecreating tool for education markets and the way in which the market is “smiling” upon technology-based education ventures. While the advent of networked information technology is not solely responsible for the rise and exponential growth of the for-profit education industry, it will likely play a key role in the industry’s growth in the future. It is in this technology-intensive, innovation-driven, and marketoriented environment that traditional institutions will find themselves. In this environment, administrators and policymakers will be forced to realize that, at the very least, a serious reassessment of the institution’s role in the educational enterprise must be undertaken. On the other hand, planners may have to come to grips with the possibility of a radical redefinition of their institutions and their missions. They will find themselves thrown into a competitive game and forced to play by the rules of business. Competency in marketing, selling, and customer service may find their way into the core of institutions which, in turn, may find themselves in a deregulated and competitive milieu. Keeping a close eye on the markets and understanding their dynamics is one crucial way that traditional educational institutions can identify emerging trends and reduce uncertainty in planning.

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3 From the Ramparts: Government Telelearning Policies

In this chapter, we examine the more general Canadian federal and provincial policy trends that have an impact on the use of telelearning technologies. We focus on trends in dozens of initiatives in an effort to better understand the dynamics of policy for telelearning technologies in post-secondary education, by placing initiatives and issues in the context of what we call the “melting borders” between education and the economy. The chapter begins by outlining overall Canadian government policy. Albert Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, was the first truly influential political proponent of the information revolution in North America. Gore likened the development of the “information superhighway” to the development of the us interstate highway system, which his father, senator Albert Gore Sr., helped to create in the 1950s. In Canada, John Manley, the minister of Industry, carried Gore’s automotive imagery even further: “Henry Ford and other automotive pioneers left a legacy of transforming significance … the impact of the information society will be no less profound” (Manley, 1995). Struggling to “keep up with the Joneses,” to find a place on the new world scene, Canada now sees itself as a “world knowledge broker,” putting the information revolution to the service of the country’s internationalist, democratic vocation (Axworthy, 6 December 1996). Technological convergence, and the convergence of capital and labour into global markets and production systems, has thrown us

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into new realms of policy convergence. Today, most countries are greeting emerging communication technologies with new, globally harmonized regulatory and economic policies. Rhetorically, the search for a Canadian policy strategy for the information revolution has been framed by three traditional policy objectives: to create jobs in Canada through innovation and investment; to ensure universal access at reasonable cost; and to reinforce Canadian sovereignty and cultural identity. These might be called fundamental, traditional “national priorities,” values that have long guided Canadian communications-policy formulation. On the other hand, these objectives have been largely undermined by some relatively new preoccupations – we might call them “globally oriented” concerns – in that they are meant to prepare the country both economically and technologically for participation in a new, worldwide information infrastructure. While rhetoric has not entirely shifted away from Canada’s preoccupation with sovereignty and national identity, the general policy focus has moved away from cultural protection and the protection of public sector services towards Canada’s “competitiveness” in a free-market economy. This trend is especially clear within economic policy itself, where the focus on the traditional national priorities of domestic job and market protection has given way to the larger question of Canadian industry’s ability to compete on an international stage. Previously highly regulated businesses and industries have been allowed to merge both vertically and horizontally and to expand to a size and strength deemed appropriate to compete globally, even as they swallow up domestic competitors, rationalize their operations, and lay off personnel. There is also much less concern with cross-ownership or with concentration of power. Thus, Canadians are offered the spectacle of industrial and communications giants competing with each other, overseen but encouraged by governments whose job is now to negotiate the broad rules of competition and assist the giants’ efforts. Nationally regulated, functionally restricted monopolies are disappearing, replaced by a competitive marketplace model on a global scale. In short, the Canadian government’s commitment to a globally oriented, privately developed, market-based regulatory framework has thrown into question the entire nationalistic communications/ public service policy framework of the past several decades. As the new infrastructure is established, an entirely new policy framework is also developing.

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g e n e r a l t r e n d s : h i g h e r- e d u c at i o n policy in the information age Not surprisingly, a similar situation to that described above exists in Canadian higher-education policy. Policies addressing the use of telelearning technologies in post-secondary education find themselves firmly entangled within Canada’s overall information and economic strategies and straddling boundaries between educational and economic objectives. Educational issues are both extraordinarily important and divisive. New technologies necessarily evoke debate and policy decisions around appropriate educational methodology and its implementation, evaluation, administration, and costs. Our policy research has shown that the nature of the university, its definition, power structure, and culture are now beginning to be debated. These debates evoke preconceived notions of economy, society, and education and are concerned with the very definition of public institutions. For many years we have believed that both the economy and education function in the service of society. Are we moving now toward a world in which education and society are increasingly seen not as ends in themselves, but as means toward another end? Are they simply tools meant to serve the economy and its masters, especially those large corporations that are helping to create and fund our delivery infrastructures and sponsor our courses? Have we built ourselves a Trojan horse? As we move from localized, institutionally centralized educational systems to highly decentralized, competitively distributed models of learning, what will become of the university as an institution? What function will it serve? What will happen to the people within it? What will happen to its physical space? Will it simply disappear, without fighting? One thing is certain – the university is undergoing profound transformation. Our research has shown that government policies (at all levels) tend to encourage these transformations, for better or worse. Trends in Canadian Federal Policy Initiatives In Canada, education falls (ostensibly) within provincial jurisdiction. Nonetheless, the federal government has carved out important

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roles in areas such as student support, chair funding, infrastructure development, partnership facilitation, and basic and applied research funding. Telelearning – which potentially involves all of these types of activities – has been the focus of numerous important federal interventions, including the first Information Highway Advisory Council (ihac), which served a significant agenda-setting function for government telelearning activities. In Phase I of its work, ihac created a Working Group on Lifelong and Workplace Learning. The group’s report, tabled in December 1995, made broad-ranging recommendations for action by the federal government, based on the conviction that learning was central to every part of the Information Highway. Citing the important impact of learning technologies on (i) personal development; (ii) social cohesiveness and harmony; and (iii) Canada’s competitiveness, the Working Group recommended the creation of a national strategy for technology-based learning, as well as a memorandum of understanding for action among the numerous interested federal departments, with Human Resources Development Canada (hrdc) acting as the lead department. In practice, Industry Canada has been the federal government’s lead agency for most initiatives associated with the Information Highway, a reflection of its intention to link Information Highway activities to economic growth and development goals. In the area of education, a kind of hydra has emerged. Both hrdc and Industry Canada are active in the educational sector, but have very different agendas. (The broader issue of overlapping jurisdictions and duplicated efforts in this area has been recognized within the federal government and is the subject of a discussion paper prepared for three government departments. See jem Infotech Marketing and Globis Dimensions Inc., 1998.) Restructuring education systems to take advantage of information technology has been a key part of Industry Canada’s strategy. This focus can be seen as part of a larger strategy to promote the development of Canadian high-technology businesses. SchoolNet, the department’s flagship program in this area, supports electronic networking, primarily in the K-12 sector. New Media and Entertainment, in the Information Technology Industry branch, works to encourage the growth of an export-oriented, distance-learning industry in Canada. Notemakers, a competitive funding program for the development of on-line, for-credit university and college courses, employs Canadian youth to produce the program.

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The decision to fund the Canadian TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence (Telelearning-nce) was a significant policy initiative, and one in which Industry Canada played an important role. The goal of the overall program is to link basic and applied research and development with economic goals and growth. The program is managed by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (nserc) which, in turn, reports to the minister of Industry. The competition for Telelearning-nce was announced in 1994 as part of a larger call for nce s in several targeted areas. The proposal, led by a national group with headquarters at Simon Fraser University, was awarded $13.1 million in 1995 for an initial 3.7 years and in 1998 received renewed funding of $13 million for an additional four years. Telelearning-nce is one of fourteen nce s across Canada and the only one with a strong social-science element. Other networks focus on the natural sciences, engineering, health and biotechnology, information technology, and natural resources. hrdc has been most active through its Office of Learning Technologies (olt). This office was created to promote the “effective use of learning technologies” among adult learners in Canada. Its vision, mission, and program objectives demonstrate a different focus than that of Industry Canada, which has prioritized economic growth and development. olt’s focus is on lifelong learning and the development of a learning culture to adapt to changing employment conditions. It acts primarily as a catalyst, facilitator, and information sharer. It also contributes funding for research and for the implementation of projects by not-for-profit organizations across the country. olt maintains a significant database on its Web site and organizes on-line conferences on specific telelearning-related topics. It has assembled a large consultative group of experts on telelearning issues from the educational, private, and government sectors, and also has a role in the development of policies and strategies for telelearning technologies both inside and outside of government. Other key federal departments involved (to lesser degrees) in telelearning include Canadian Heritage and Foreign Affairs and International Trade (dfait). Heritage is responsible for a key dossier – copyright policy. Canada’s most recent round of amendments to its Copyright Act, Bill C-32, did not address issues related to the use of digital materials (e.g., digital rights and digital copying). While Heritage has some role in the development of educational resources and curriculum materials, to date it has not been active in this area for the post-secondary sector.

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dfait has always had a role in promoting Canadian educational institutions abroad through its embassies and trade missions. (A recent Team Canada mission to Asia brought along over fifty representatives of educational institutions, including university presidents.) The promise of telelearning technology has created renewed interest in education as an export: now, however, instead of bringing students to the country, we can bring Canadian institutions and courses to students abroad. dfait is currently exploring how it might best serve this new market given existing complementary activities by Industry Canada and other departments. Finally, canarie Inc. (the Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education) is a not-for-profit consortium involving the federal government, industry, and public institutions. It was created in 1993 to facilitate the development of Canada’s communications infrastructure, including CA*NetII. canarie has funded educational applications through its major Technical Applications Development (tad) and its Advanced Networks funding. In 1997 it launched a $2-million sector-specific program, the Health and Education Networking competition, as part of tad. Trends in Provincial Government Policy Provincial initiatives in telelearning technologies very greatly. Some jurisdictions have focused to such a large extent on cost-cutting and rationalization over the past few years that their thinking on telelearning seems largely confined to “bottom-line” questions. Other provinces, however, have adopted a more strategic approach, employing a variety of incentive and coordinating mechanisms in light of explicit educational and social goals. Nonetheless, certain common threads are apparent. e n h a n c i n g a c c e s s All provinces cite enhanced access to higher education as a rationale for supporting telelearning technologies. This agreement is not surprising: governments have long incorporated into policy the belief that high levels of educational attainment and economic development are linked. What has changed today are the types of education that government documents identify as key priorities – they must be flexible, “just-intime,” job-related, and cost-effective. Telelearning technologies are

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supported as a way to restructure education and educational access to meet the new demands of the marketplace. In British Columbia, for example, the “Access for All” strategy was devised by the provincial ministry of education in the late 1980s to meet the challenges of the “new global economy.” The province’s most recent major initiative, the controversial Technical University of British Columbia (Techbc), was created with the expectation that it would employ new technologies for delivering learning. A “Statement of Government Purpose” mandates this university to employ the most current educational technologies and methods. Techbc’s courses will all, initially, have an on-line component, with many becoming completely on-line as the curriculum develops. In Alberta, a provincial consultation document entitled Vision for Change explored the idea of using virtual learning systems to meet ministry goals of increased accessibility, cost-effectiveness, responsiveness, and accountability. Elsewhere, the provincial government has stated its intention to shift priority for learner accessibility away from the expansion of “places” toward investment in technological alternatives, distance-education curriculum, and support systems. providing a common technological infrastructure Between 1985 and 1995, all provinces initiated education-technology infrastructure projects, often in response to task force reports or studies that identified problems and possibilities for innovation. TeleEducation nb is a province-wide, distributed educational network with a mandate to provide all residents of New Brunswick with equitable access to a range of training, information, and educational services through information-technology networks. The network was initially funded as a five-year project under a federalprovincial Cooperation Agreement on Entrepreneurship and Human Resources Development. TeleEducation nb continues to be supported under a Canada/New Brunswick Regional Economic Development Agreement, managed provincially by the Regional Development Corporation. In Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Communications Network (scn), was created in 1989 to deliver educational programming using a combination of satellite delivery and fibre-optic cable. In Labrador and Newfoundland, stem-Net (Student/Teacher Educational Multimedia Network) was established to provide

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educational content to the K-12 sector and portions of the public post-secondary sector. It provides Internet connections for teachers, students, and schools as well as training and curriculum support. stem-Net was also initiated with funding from a federalprovincial Cooperation Agreement on Human Resources Development. merlin (Manitoba Education and Research and Learning Information Networks), created in 1995 by the Manitoba government, provides a variety of telecommunications services and infrastructure to content providers in the education sector. It also acts as an Internet service provider for the K-12 sector and tests new software and equipment. Nova Scotia operates ednet, in partnership with Maritime T&T Co. Billed as “Nova Scotia’s Education Gateway,” ednet is a wide area network (wan) that provides schools, libraries, community colleges, and other cultural organizations with cost-effective data communications for Internet connection, distance education, and administrative computer applications. Finally, British Columbia has launched its own network, the Provincial Learning Network (plnet), in 1998. plnet’s goal is to provide a common telecommunications network for the province’s 1,700 public schools and school-district offices, twenty-two universities, colleges, and institutes, and its twenty community skills centres. plmet will also be made available to independent schools, public libraries, museums, and science and cultural organizations. t w e a k i n g s y s t e m s – t a r g e t e d f u n d i n g A common policy intervention associated with telelearning technologies is to stimulate the development of technological infrastructure and content within institutions through targeted funding programs. Two notable examples are the bc Innovation Fund and the Alberta Learning Enhancement Envelope. The bc Innovation Fund operated from 1994 to 1996 by holding back 1 per cent of operational funds from universities and colleges. Institutions could only gain access to those funds by submitting proposals for innovative teaching programs. The majority of the proposals submitted by the institutions involved the use of technology. The Innovation Fund has been credited by many in British Columbia’s universities and colleges with kick-starting the use of new educational technologies at their institutions.

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Alberta’s Learning Enhancement Envelope (lee) has been successful in promoting the use of educational technologies in that province’s post-secondary institutions. lee is a $50-million fund (over five years, from 1996/98 to 2000/01) to assist Alberta’s twenty-six post-secondary institutions in integrating technology into program-delivery and student-support systems. An important condition of funding is the submission of an institutional technology strategy. Saskatchewan also made an early foray into the area of incentives with its 1995 Multimedia Strategy. The strategy provided funding for infrastructure and content development at the province’s universities and colleges. Funding was made available by the CanadaSaskatchewan Infrastructure Works program. An integral part of TeleEducation nb’s initiative is the TeleCampus Program Development Fund (pdf) ($5.4 million over three years will be provided). Applicants from the private or public sector can apply for up to 50 per cent of the cost of developing an on-line course. Projects must include a business case for the marketability of the program beyond New Brunswick. pdf supports TeleEducation’s economic development goals by seeding small companies and contributing to the building of a provincial multimedia education and training industry. In Nova Scotia, the Information Economy Initiative is part of a federal-provincial Economic Diversification Agreement, of which $13.5 million has been allocated to the university sector. Acadia University has announced that some of its share of the funds ($2.4 million) will be devoted to “enlarging its Acadia Institute for Teaching and Technology (aitt), the primary on-campus site for research, development, and technical support of computer-enhanced learning” (Acadia University, 31 July 1998). Finally, Quebec announced a targeted funding program for technology use in its colleges. Support was provided for the modernization and improvement of equipment, the integration of technology into teaching, and for a program that provided evaluation and group purchasing of software as well as instructional support. c o o r d i n a t i n g b o d i e s Another policy instrument used in telelearning is the creation and support of coordinating bodies that have responsibility for on-line learning initiatives. For example, in British Columbia, the Standing Committee on Educational

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Technologies (scoet) was created to provide advice to both the ministry of Education and the college and institute system. It has been operating since 1991. scoet’s role in this system was formalized in 1997 when it was made a permanent part of the Centre for Curriculum, Technology and Transfer (c2t2). scoet has successfully generated a great deal of activity on a small budget, particularly with respect to both provincial and institutional policy developments. scoet often includes university users in its informal activities, although efforts to create a single coordinating body for educational technology in British Columbia have so far been unsuccessful. scoet’s model has attracted the attention of other provincial bodies seeking coordinating mechanisms for their own jurisdictions, such as Alberta’s Advisory Committee on Educational Technology. A 1997 report by the Saskatchewan Technologies in Learning Working Group also recommended the creation of a coordinating body “to advise the post-secondary education and training sector on policy and strategic priorities, facilitate inter-agency collaboration and communication with stakeholders, and develop the province’s collective expertise for enhancing learning through technology” (Technologies in Learning Working Group, December 1997, vi). In Newfoundland, the Open Learning and Information Network (olin) is a provincial consortium comprising the major postsecondary institutions, public libraries, and telecommunications carriers. olin facilitates open learning in the province using a variety of delivery mechanisms and provides a way of focusing on-line course development from numerous parties around the province. It was initially funded by a federal-provincial Human Resource Development agreement and has been renewed under a similar Economic Renewal Agreement. The Ontario government indirectly contributed to the creation of a non-governmental networking body when its 1996 Open Learning Strategy provided seed funding for the Network for Ontario Distance Educators (node). node is a virtual network that fosters collaboration and coordination among those using telelearning technologies, including post-secondary faculty and administrators. It provides an electronic newsletter, Web-based conferences, and a variety of professional development and research resources.

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p o l i c y f r a m e w o r k s Policy frameworks are efforts to develop a coordinated strategy and common goals for the implementation of telelearning technologies within a provincial jurisdiction. The development of a coherent strategy is a fairly advanced stage in a continuum of policy development. Of all provincial jurisdictions, New Brunswick stands out as the place where telelearning technologies have become part of an integrated policy approach. This has happened because the government, under the personal and committed interest of former premier Frank McKenna, clearly identified TeleEducation nb as a key part of its emerging economic strategy, designed to create a workforce ready to participate in the information economy. “The network forms part of the province’s strategic agenda for economic independence which is dependent on raising the general level of education of the province, particularly among the inhabitants of rural areas” (McGreal, 1998). What distinguishes New Brunswick’s approach from those of other provinces is its intent to create an education and training industry as the central element in its economic plan. Telelearning in New Brunswick is designed as an economic development strategy first and an educational strategy second. The government is a powerful catalyst in this project, creating demand for on-line learning in public institutions and incubating the development of the information technology sector. This coherent strategic approach has not been duplicated in any other provincial jurisdiction. Melting Borders Although New Brunswick’s strategic approach has not been duplicated elsewhere, it merely marks the apex of an evolutionary trend common across all jurisdictions, both federal and provincial. This trend is characterized by: • a growing inter-relationship between educational and economic

development policies; and • a reshaping of higher education systems.

Telelearning technology policies are being implemented in ways that respond to and in turn reinforce and strengthen these trends.

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e d u c a t i o n a n d e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t Education has been long been seen as a public service function. Today, however, we are witnessing considerable interest and activity in the export and wealth generation potential of this sector, which has led to attempts to match education delivery to real markets, and to students as consumers. Tellingly, an examination of public funding sources for the implementation and support of telelearning initiatives reveals a systematic use of economic development funds by most provincial governments. Telelearning is seen as a tool of economic development and an instrument of economic policy. New Brunswick, as we have pointed out, is an advanced example, but there are many others: • In Prince Edward Island, Holland College and the University of pei

have received funding from the Canada/pei Regional Economic Development Agreement to create the Information Technology in Education Centre. This centre has been created as a for-profit agency explicitly mandated to be an “economic development catalyst, providing opportunity for entrepreneurs, new partnerships and joint ventures. Through the centre, educational products can be developed, delivered and exported internationally” (University of pei, 1998). • In Ontario, the Knowledge Connection Corporation, seeded by the provincial government, will stimulate the creation of a learnware industry in the province. • Funding for Nova Scotia’s Information Economy Initiative is drawn from a federal-provincial Economic Diversification Agreement, of which a total of $13.5 million has been allocated to the university sector. This funding shift is somewhat opportunistic, however. For example, all provinces have identified access to education and telelearning technologies as priorities, yet all are limited by recent reductions to their education budgets. There is little ability within education departments to make significant upfront investments in technology while simultaneously maintaining existing services and satisfying the current constellation of stakeholders. It is clearly within the mandate of provincial departments of economic development,

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however, to fund new technologies and industries in support of the transition to a knowledge economy. If this shift is opportunistic, it also marks a fundamental shift in ideology and objectives. As previously mentioned, the educational opportunities considered most readily accessible through these new technologies are those that are flexible, responsive to non-traditional learners, job-related, and cost-effective. We have witnessed the popular and political entrenchment of the concept of lifelong learning – learner-centred education throughout one’s life, usually in response to required career changes. Telelearning technologies offer the possibility of meeting increased demands for education through lifelong learning, delivered by the economies of scale offered by distance technologies. It is this marriage of educational philosophy and technological development that allows policies for telelearning technologies to straddle the boundary between education and economic policy. Clearly, policies that target economic development have different priorities and criteria for measuring success than do educational policies. For example, programs meant to stimulate the development of on-line content often consider the export potential of courses and “learnware.” Other criteria important to economic development programs include the number of jobs created and the creation of spinoff companies. The economic goals of these programs raise important questions about the relative importance of educational-related criteria learning outcomes and educative experiences, for example. r e s h a p i n g t h e h i g h e r- e d u c a t i o n s y s t e m In 1985 it was still possible to say that “the expenditure of tax dollars in the higher education field remains as probably the most autonomous field of public expenditure in Canada” (Southern and Dennison, 1985, pp. 83–4). This is no longer the case, however. Autonomy in public education has declined in recent years as budgets have shrunk and governments attempt to gain greater control over those funds. Provincial governments are increasingly dissatisfied with their indirect policy influence and are seeking new ways to have a more direct hand in influencing post-secondary education. While universities and colleges in Canada are still independent in principle, a new relationship between the higher-education sector and governments seems to be evolving.

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The sheer number of government-initiated studies, task forces, and advisory groups on higher education provide one indication that governments are unhappy with the status quo: our search showed that eleven different studies have been done since 1993. These reports repeatedly identify a similar set of problems that, taken together, illustrate a “common wisdom” about difficulties within our higher education institutions. Elements of this common wisdom include: • a relative lack of emphasis on teaching and a greater focus on

research; • a lack of coordination between institutions in the same province; • a lack of attention to provincial priorities; and • a lack of transparency and accountability.

The result of this general environment of examination and re-evaluation has been a clear trend toward more direct government involvement in the management of universities and colleges, which is often driven by concerns about system efficiency and the need to reduce costs. One could argue that the most significant policy decision made by governments in the 1990s has been the series of reductions to operating grants. There has been a province-wide program review in Quebec and a large-scale rationalization process in Nova Scotia, for example. Telelearning technologies figure into this equation in several ways. The reports often include recommendations for action in the area of telelearning. (An important exception here is Ontario’s Advisory Panel on the Future of University Education, which showed little interest in telelearning.) Telelearning is both a vehicle and a catalyst, reshaping the world of education and linking educational institutions with each other and with the worlds of work and government policy. l i n k i n g p o s t- s e c o n da ry i n s t i t u t i o n s i n to sys t e m s Telelearning technologies are often presented as a way to promote greater coordination among different elements of the system. One of the goals of higher-education policy today is to achieve greater integration within provincial systems. This transformation has been documented by Glenys Patterson, who observed a clear and growing trend in post-secondary education away from the traditional

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segmented system of elite (usually universities) and other (usually vocational) institutions toward a fusing of complementary institutional strengths and system permeability (Patterson, 1998). Similarly, Moran and Mugridge argue that we are moving toward greater system integration: as a result of financial and political pressures, governments now treat higher education as a system with many linked parts, rather than as a number of separate institutions, each with its own vision, culture, and modus operandi. Traditional values of institutional autonomy are being replaced by ones of resource sharing and knowledge (Moran and Mugridge, 1993, 159). In Canada, efforts to expand credit-transfer arrangements, the creation of university-colleges in British Columbia, the promotion of partnerships between universities and colleges, and combined degrees all point to the adoption of these new values. The benefits of a more integrated post-secondary system are expected to include (among others) the elimination of duplication, cost-effectiveness, and greater flexibility for students. The rationalization exercises completed or underway in several provinces explicitly include system integration as a goal. Telelearning technologies can contribute to greater system efficiency in two ways. First, since geographic boundaries disappear when courses are taught on-line, it is argued that it no longer makes sense for two institutions to be offering the same course on the Web. Second, cooperative ventures among institutions do make sense, since start-up costs for entry into on-line-course delivery are high. The clearest risk is a loss of program diversity. American initiatives, such as Western Governors University and California’s Virtual University, are an extension of this trend toward system coordination supported by telelearning technologies. Canadian provincial governments are putting in place some of the elements of an environment that would support such a move. There will likely be considerable future activity in this area, although the form it will take remains unclear. l i n k i n g p o s t- s e c o n da ry e d u c a t i o n t o t h e w o r l d o f w o r k Higher-education policy is also encouraging a greater degree of coordination between education and employment needs. This change is most relevant and dramatic for universities that have not traditionally been expected to directly sustain this link.

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Telelearning technologies figure prominently in this new linkage, increasing access to educational opportunities in support of lifelong learning. Techbc is a good example. Its mandate is to develop and deliver programs at the graduate and undergraduate level “that mirror the networked society.” Techbc is expected to work closely with business and labour to focus on applied and technologyrelated professional fields. Telelearning technologies are integral to Techbc’s course delivery and the way in which instructors and students communicate (Crawford, 1998). Taken together, these developments describe a significant trend: the traditional boundaries between universities and colleges, school and work, and government and university are becoming more porous and less distinct. Telelearning technologies are being implemented in ways that support these changes and new connections, links, and organizational forms. At the same time, the complexity, cost, and pedagogical demands of telelearning technology also drive institutions to greater levels of collaboration and interdependence.

are there cracks in the mirror? The kind of change described above will demand – more than ever – discussion, negotiation, and inclusive policy processes in order to ensure that the evolution does not occur in an entirely reactive and uninformed way. A greater understanding of the implications of these changes for our universities and colleges as social institutions is needed. It is not yet entirely clear what will be gained as the post-secondary sector adopts and adapts to the use of educational technologies. It is even less clear what we will lose, as the culture and the structure of the university as an elite and privileged institution pursuing advanced research and teaching is shaped by new technological and economic imperatives. One surprising finding of this study is that most policy actors seem to see their actions as ahistorical, and fail to take account of previous experience in the use and adoption of educational technologies. With few exceptions, provincial documents tend to reveal boundless optimism about the use of technology. The policy documents show no evidence of a debate but merely concern themselves with how to implement these technologies in the most effective way possible.

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This lack of perspective is puzzling, since all provincial education systems should be familiar with previous experiments in educational technology: in the 1980s, for example, radio, television, and computers were widely expected to revolutionize education. In fact, in discussions we conducted government officials expressed far more measured views about the potential of technology to transform education than official public documents would suggest. Many knew the history of, or had direct experience with, the past “hype” over expected technological revolutions and were aware of telelearning’s strengths and weaknesses. It would have been useful for government documents to be more explicit about how the lessons learned from those experiences could inform their implementation of telelearning. How will telelearning technologies be prevented from becoming yet another technological “fix” for an education system whose problems are deeply structural, social, and financial? Are there certain thresholds of access to technology, for example, below which we will produce an inequitable education system? Is there a point at which spending precious financial resources on technology rather than classroom space and teachers is counterproductive? To date, it seems as if the changes occurring in post-secondary education have left our universities and community colleges watching on the sidelines, struggling to keep up with the latest developments. Instead, these institutions should be leading the debate, or at least be a significant part of it. There is much to be discovered about the appropriate use of telelearning technologies and how they can expand and strengthen the public mandate of Canadian higher education.

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4 Strategies: Federal and Provincial Government Policy Initiatives

Chapter 4 examines the policy initiatives of the federal and provincial governments in greater detail. Many of these initiatives were mentioned in Chapter 3 but will now be elaborated on, thus providing a more detailed account of policy initiatives in Canada.

federal initiatives Information Highway Advisory Council (ihac) In Phase I of its work, ihac created a Working Group on Lifelong and Workplace Learning. The group’s report, Making it Happen: Final Report of the Learning and Training Working Group, was tabled in December 1995 and made many broad-ranging recommendations for action by the federal government, based on the conviction that learning was central to every part of the Information Highway. It recommended the creation of a national strategy for technology-based learning as well as a memorandum of understanding for action among the main federal departments, with hrdc as the lead department. The recommendations in the area of education pay lip service to social development issues. For example, in citing reasons for its belief in the importance of learning technologies, the Working Group lists (in order) (i) personal development; (ii) social cohesiveness and harmony; and (iii) Canada’s global competitiveness.

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Further, it recommends that Human Resources Development Canada (hrdc), not Industry Canada, take the lead follow-up role. Organized labour appears to support the approach to education issues taken by ihac. The first ihac report in September 1995 included a minority dissenting report by Jean-Claude Parrot of the Canadian Labour Congress (clc). In it, Parrot noted that his objections lay primarily with those parts of the report that prioritized the role of the market over government regulation, particularly in employment and workplace-related matters. Notably, however, Parrot did not take issue with the recommendations in the area of learning and training. Again, for ihac’s final report in 1997, Parrot declined to endorse any of the recommendations, with the exception of those related to Lifelong Learning and the Workplace. The May 1996 response by the federal government to ihac’s recommendations, Building the Information Society, included few specific recommendations for action in the education area, acknowledging that education lies within provincial jurisdiction. It identified the federal role as one of facilitating partnerships and cooperation among provincial governments and stakeholders. ihac’s final report in 1997, Preparing Canada for a Digital World, reiterated the principle that lifelong learning is central to all aspects of the Information Highway. Its recommendations focused on the need to address the policy and research gaps that exist in this area. It recommended the creation of a national forum in which all policy issues could be raised and resolved, and specifically gave the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (cmec) the responsibility to investigate this possibility, in cooperation with hrdc and Industry Canada. Industry Canada As discussed in chapter 3, Industry Canada has in fact become the lead agency responsible for the Information Highway, reflecting the government’s commitment to link Information Highway activities to economic growth and development goals. Some of its specific initiatives under SchoolNet and other programs are described below. n o t e m a k e r s Notemakers is a SchoolNet pilot project that was initiated in the autumn of 1997. It is designed to help Canadian universities and colleges develop course offerings for the Internet.

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The first call for proposals was aimed at consortia of no fewer than five provincially chartered post-secondary institutions. Awards of between $50,000 and $100,000 were available from a total fund of $500,000. Applicants had to demonstrate matched in-kind or financial contributions and have the course available and accredited by all consortium members. Notemakers is partially funded through the federal youth employment strategy. As a condition of funding, notemakers grantees contribute to the strategy by employing Canadian youth to develop the course materials. The first round of awards under the program was made in December 1997 to six consortia representing thirty-five institutions for twenty-two courses. The second call for proposals relaxed the consortia requirement somewhat but required that courses be modular and that they incorporate interactive elements for learners. the com m uni ty ac ce ss pro g ra m (ca p) ca p was designed to increase the ability of Canadians to access Internet services. According to cap documents, less than 20 per cent of Canadians have ready access to the Internet *from their homes and offices. Even lower rates of access exist in areas outside of major urban centres. cap aims to link 5,000 rural and remote communities to the Internet for learning, electronic commerce, and government services delivery. Eligible communities with less than 50,000 inhabitants can receive grants of up to $30,000 if they can demonstrate community commitment, matching funding from other sources, and evidence that the project can be continued once the federal grant is spent. The 1998 federal budget provided continued funding for cap within the $205 million to be shared with SchoolNet. o t h e r i n i t i a t i v e s f ro m i n d u s t ry c a n a d a There are many other initiatives underway within various branches at Industry Canada. For example, the New Media and Entertainment Branch is working to promote the development of an exportoriented distance learning industry in Canada. The Information and Communication Technologies, Software, Advanced Networks, and New Media Branch is also interested in telelearning and in building recognition for Canada around the world as a source of technologyenabled learning, primarily for the corporate market. As well, the Multimedia Learning group focuses on building a strong domestic

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market that would include universities and colleges as key content providers (jem Infotech Marketing Ltd., 1997). Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education (canarie) canarie Inc. is a not-for-profit consortium comprising the federal government, industry, and public institutions. It was created in 1993 to invest in infrastructure for the Canadian portion of the Information Highway – primarily high-speed networks. canarie’s mission is to facilitate the development of Canada’s communications infrastructure; stimulate next-generation products, applications, and services; and communicate the benefits of an information-based society. As such, canarie’s interest is in building network capacity to allow for telelearning and other networking activities, such as telemedicine. Through its Technology and Application Development funding program and its predecessor, the Technology Development/ Technology Diffusion Program (td2), canarie has funded research and development of educational applications. In 1997, canarie launched its second sector-specific initiative, the Health and Education Networking competition. Examples of canariefunded telelearning-related projects include a McGill University project to offer a music course over the Internet and a Carleton University initiative to migrate some of its instructional television courses to the Web (node, 1999). Another of canarie’s initiatives that has possible implications for learning is the CA*NetII. This high-speed, second-generation Internet network will connect universities, research institutions, and industry. In 1997, canarie announced that the Advanced Networks Applications Competition will stimulate applications that use CA*Net II, specifically in the areas of research and distance learning among organizations connected to the CA*Net II network. In January 1999, canarie announced that there were eleven recipients of its sharedcost funding program under the CA*Net II Institute Funding Program, several of which were related to telelearning (canarie, 1999). Human Resources and Development Canada (hrdc) o ff i ce o f l ea rn i n g te ch n o lo g ie s ( o lt ) o lt has been created within h r d c to promote the effective use of learning

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technologies, primarily among adult learners in Canada. The vision, mission, and program objectives demonstrate a different focus than Industry Canada, which has prioritized economic growth and development. Telelearning Network of Centres of Excellence (TL*nce) The overall goal of the nce program is to link basic and applied research and development with economic goals and growth. The program was initiated in 1989 and the 1997 federal budget granted the program permanent annual funding. The program is managed by nserc (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) which, in turn, reports to the minister of Industry. Canadian Heritage Canadian Heritage is responsible for two policy areas relevant to telelearning technologies in the post-secondary sector: copyright policy and Canadian content development (see Chapter 3 for details). Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (dfait) The recent growth of and interest in telelearning entails a different focus for dfait: instead of bringing students to Canada, it can now market Canadian institutions and courses abroad. Within dfait, the office of International Academic Relations is currently exploring how it might best fulfill this new role, given existing complementary activities by Industry Canada and other groups. A clear possibility includes making greater use of their Canadian Education Centre Network (cec) (see, for example, www.apfnet.org/cec). Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (cmec) c mec was established in 1967 as a venue for collective action by all provincial education ministers. “The Council is the instrument through which ministers cooperate with other national education organizations and ensure liaison with federal departments. It is also

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the body that represents Canadian education internationally” (see www.cmec.ca/abouteng.htm). In the educational-technology area, cmec sees its role as one of information gathering and sharing. Other national educational bodies perform the role of providing a venue for policy coordination. policies and initiatives Joint Declaration In 1993 cmec met in Victoria and issued a joint declaration on their future directions. This action plan endorsed the principle of lifelong learning and expressed the view that Canadian society depends on an informed and educated citizenry who, while fulfilling their own goals of personal and professional development, contribute to the social, economic, and cultural development of their community and of the country as a whole (cmec, 1993). The action plan included a commitment to a Canada-wide focus on open learning and distance education, particularly in postsecondary education. Developments in Information Technologies in Education: a Response from Canada This document, Developments in Information Technologies in Education, was prepared for the 13th Conference of Commonwealth Ministers for Education. It outlined the status of Information Technology in all levels of education in Canada, and identified cmec’s priorities as: • the development of a common vision of information technologies

to complement vision statements from the provinces and territories; • the development of a strategic plan that would identify the potential benefits of a collaborative approach and determine priorities for cmec action, taking into consideration current and planned initiatives; • a review of teacher education, including current pre-service and in-service training in the area of information technology, and the development of a comprehensive overview of practices and policies in each jurisdiction; • the development of a framework for student learning outcomes, under the leadership of Alberta in the west and Nova Scotia in the east, that defines key learning outcomes related to information

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technology for the end of grades three, six, nine, and twelve and provides examples of learning activities that illustrate certain specific outcomes; and • consideration of the feasibility of establishing a consultative mechanism on information technologies for lifelong learning. Such a mechanism would be an ongoing way to facilitate the resolution of policy issues around technology and lifelong learning (cmec, 1997). The report’s concerns are funding; equal access to computers at school and at home; inordinate focus on technology over teacher development; barriers to collaboration among jurisdictions; copyright; and developing content that is culturally and linguistically appropriate for Canadians (cmec, January 1997). ihac Recommendations cmec has considered the ihac recommendation that it become a central consultative and coordinating body for telelearning initiatives in education around the country. cmec believes that other bodies already exist within the education sector that could both adequately fulfill this role and are already doing so. The Conference Board National Education Committee and the Canadian Education Association, for example, allow for a wide variety of stakeholders to meet and discuss these issues, and so cmec has no desire to duplicate these efforts. In consultation with jurisdictions, cmec has found that the best service it can provide is one of information sharing. This approach was supported in a 1995 report, Distance Education and Open Learning in Canada (cmec, 1995). Among its recommendations were that three initiatives be undertaken: • that information be gathered and a liaison with Industry Canada

and non-governmental organizations be initiated, in order to develop a working plan for establishing a clearinghouse and for determining a process for information exchange; • that a briefing paper be prepared to document federal legislation and international conventions affecting distance education and open learning and to describe current regulatory issues from the perspectives of the federal and provincial/territorial governments, telecommunications providers, and user groups, and to describe the business environment of distance education and open learning; and

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• that a manual of best practices on partnerships be developed,

based on successful past and existing joint ventures.

p rov i n c i a l i n i t i at i v e s As mentioned in chapter 3, education policy is, by law, a provincial responsibility. Provincial responses to technological opportunities have varied widely. British Columbia i n t r o d u c t i o n Increasing access to education has been a key policy focus for higher education in British Columbia since the late 1980s. It has been achieved by both increasing the number of institutions and relying on distance-delivery modes. The continued support and expansion of the Open Learning Agency (ola), the creation of the University of Northern bc (unbc) and the Technical University of bc (Techbc), and the creation of the university colleges, are all examples of this approach. There is no indication that this general policy direction will end, although the current state of reduced funding for the sector would seem to work against the establishment of any more new institutions. With respect to the use of telelearning technologies, government policy played an important role in generating activity in the postsecondary institutions. The Innovation Fund was cited by many of our interviewees as key to kick-starting programs in their own institutions. It was succeeded by the Information Highway Fund, which was available only to the colleges. Policies for the college and university sectors have been developing separately. The college system has been coordinating its activities through a government-sponsored office, the Standing Committee on Educational Technology (scoet). While this office has been a small financial investment for the government, it has succeeded in generating a great deal of activity, particularly with respect to both provincial and institutional policy development. scoet’s model is of interest to other provinces seeking appropriate policy and coordinating mechanisms for their own jurisdictions. scoet often includes university users in its informal activities, although efforts to create a single coordinating body for educational technology in British Columbia have been rejected by university administrators.

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One of the trends in provincial government policy for the highereducation sector is to achieve greater system coordination. This trend can be seen in the college sector’s new strategic plan, which has been supplemented by the Educational Technology Policy Framework, developed for the province’s college system. One of the more general trends in telelearning for the post-secondary sector in North America is the emergence of regional consortia of existing institutions. In this respect, the British Columbia college sector is preparing itself well. policies and initiatives Access for All The “Access for All” strategy was devised by the provincial government in the late 1980s to meet the challenges posed by a new global economy. This policy was aimed at raising British Columbia’s participation rates to national averages by 1995 by opening new facilities in geographically neglected areas and by widening the opportunities for groups traditionally excluded from the post-secondary system. Recognizing the difficulty posed by the province’s topography, the strategy opted from the beginning to use enhanced telecommunication technology through interactive networks to deliver education to geographically isolated groups. Standing Committee on Educational Technologies (scoet) scoet was set up in 1990/91 to provide advice to both the Ministry of Education and the college and institute system (via the cceo, or Council of Chief Executive Officers). Its members were selected to represent a range of areas of expertise as well as a range of institutional responsibilities (from the presidential level down). scoet, as a system-wide coordinating body, fulfills a vital need in the college system, since each institution is too small to act alone yet the system is too decentralized to create single policies for all of them. By taking on small yet strategic actions, scoet evolved from an ad hoc advisory body with no operational responsibilities to a formal advisory and operational body operating from within an institutional support system. Its focus is on facilitating and enabling the use of educational technology in the colleges. It coordinates several user groups to allow for the networking and sharing of experiences. These user groups include university staff and faculty. It also organizes a biannual conference, Connections.

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scoet began its work slowly, completing three research projects before it released its first report, Educational Technology: A Building Block for the Future, in 1993. Many of the recommendations in this report reappear in later publications by scoet or by Jim Bizzocchi, its past chair. The report called for actions intended to support and promote system-wide communications, training and development opportunities, technical and instructional objectives, innovation and collaboration, and capital funding goals. In September 1995, scoet organized the Policy Forum on PostSecondary Distributed Learning Environments. This conference involved all key stakeholders in the post-secondary system, including the Ministry of Education, senior college/institute administrators, and university academic vice-presidents. Participants also identified the need for more coordinated action among institutions in educational technology. The Distributed Learning Task Force was a direct outcome of the forum. It released its draft report for comment in November 1996 and released its final report, Access and Choice: The Future of Distributed Learning in British Columbia, in May 1997. This report rejected the recommendation for a single educational technology coordinating body for the post-secondary sector, which was included in the draft report. It took a more conservative, cautious approach to changes in distributed learning, describing its path as an evolution, not a revolution. Acknowledging institutional autonomy, it called for forms of partnership and collaboration that avoid centralization but enable information to flow so that appropriate decisions can be made within the individual institutions. The report recommended re-examining a variety of policies, including residency, multiple admissions fees, technology fees, recognition of courses taken outside the province, and advanced-standing arrangements (Distributed Learning Task Force, 26 November 1996). Skills Now Innovation Fund, 1994–96 British Columbia’s Innovation Fund was a targeted funding program aimed at encouraging universities and colleges to develop innovative teaching and learning approaches. The vast majority of proposals cited the use of technology as a key component. While universities resisted the directed nature of the program, it was successful in generating some innovative activity, especially in technology-enhanced learning.

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Policy on Educational Technology In the spring of 1995, the Ministry of Education announced the following policy on educational technology: The Ministry recognizes that current and emerging educational technologies have special significance in the continuing development of the college and institute system. In particular, the Ministry recognizes: • the need for curriculum, professional, and resource development to match the pace of the rapid rate of technological change, and to ensure that educational programs are current both in their use of technological skills and their inclusion of technological information; • the continuing need to utilize advances in telecommunication and information technologies to meet the infrastructure requirements of the system and to maintain parity with developments external to the system; • the ongoing need to better serve the public by optimizing the capabilities of the system, through technological enhancements and alternatives in the delivery of educational services (British Columbia Ministry of Education, Skills and Training, 1995).

Charting a New Course, 1996 This strategic plan for British Columbia’s colleges and institutes system identifies four goals: 1) relevance and quality; 2) accessibility; 3) affordability; and 4) accountability (British Columbia Ministry of Education, Skills and Training, 1996). The plan reaffirmed scoet’s mandate – to advise the ministry on all matters of educational technology implementation and to give it formal status as a permanent committee. On the role of educational technology, the plan stated “face-to-face learning will not, and should not, be completely overtaken by electronic forms of delivery” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, Skills and Training, 3 December 1997, 20). The plan also created the provincial Learning Highway initiative. Learning Highway Fund The Learning Highway Fund replaced the Innovation Fund in 1996/97. This fund differs from the Innovation Fund in that it simply makes the funds available to the colleges upfront, and they are asked to report back on how the money was spent. If funds were not spent appropriately, then the college would not receive funds the following year. Since eligibility for funding is determined after the fact, the Fund does not provide the government

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with as much leverage as the Innovation Fund did (British Columbia Ministry of Education, Skills and Training, 1996). Techbc British Columbia’s newest university was created by legislation in July 1997. Its mandate is to develop and deliver programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels that will address specific needs in strategic industries in British Columbia, in particular the high-technology industries. On-line course delivery has been an important element of the university’s planning. All courses will have an on-line element, with most courses eventually migrating to the Web completely. Techbc had its formal launch in September 1999. Provincial Learning Network (plnet) The Provincial Learning Network was launched in April 1998 by the provincial government. plnet is a telecommunications network that links the province’s public schools, colleges, university colleges, and community skills centres. It will also be made available to independent schools, public libraries, museums, and science and cultural organizations. (Universities are not explicitly included since they already have good telecommunications infrastructures.) The government committed $123 million over six years to develop the network. Its goals include: • supporting equitable access to educational programs and infor-

mation resources; • increasing cost-effectiveness through economies of scale; and • supporting current and future innovation in educational delivery

(plnet, 1999). Educational Technology Policy Framework In November 1998, the Educational Technology Working Group was convened to provide advice to the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology and all parts of the provincial college system on the implementation and communication of a multi-year educational technology strategy. The Working Group was a direct outcome of policy outlined in the strategic plan for the provincial college system (see “Charting a New Course,” above). The Group’s report addressed a broad range of issues associated with educational technology and made a number of policy recommendations for consideration by both

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the provincial government and the college system (Technology Working Group, 22 July 1999; 8 September 1999). Alberta i n t r o d u c t i o n The Alberta government has taken a decisive approach to developing policies for telelearning, thus creating strong incentives for the use of technology in its post-secondary institutions. These policies are part of the government’s overall strategy to rationalize government and its operations. Alberta’s performance-based funding plan for the post-secondary sector was designed to address the need for greater accountability and openness in the post-secondary system. An early vision document for learning technologies noted this context as the background to its own deliberations: “Policy is shifting us toward decentralization, rationalization and re-engineering of services” (Alberta Advanced Education and Career Development (aecp), November 1995). For the post-secondary sector, this rationalization has included reductions to operating grants (as all provinces have experienced), a system of performance indicators and accountability measures, and the creation of new, directed funding programs, known as “envelopes.” Envelopes of funding allow the government to seek specific outcomes from the higher-education sector. Improving access to education is one of the goals of Alberta’s postsecondary policy. To achieve this goal, the government has stated its intention to shift priority for learner accessibility from direct expansion of “places” (i.e., buildings) to investment in technological alternatives and the enhancement of instruction, improvements to related support services, and distance-education curriculum and systems (aecp, 1997). To date, it seems that Alberta’s approach has been successful in generating activity in the post-secondary sector. The University of Alberta is well advanced in using telelearning in some areas, and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology is also a leader. policies and initiatives New Directions for Adult Learning in Alberta New Directions for Adult Learning Alberta, a broad-ranging 1994 document, was based on a series of consultations. It set out directions for the Department

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of Advanced Education and Career Development, and identified four goals: increased accessibility, improved responsiveness, greater affordability, and more accountability (aecd, October 1994). Learning technologies are identified as a way to improve accessibility to education and as an effective learning aid. The document also calls for more cooperation among the universities in institutional specialization and program development, in order to achieve greater quality, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency (aecd, October 1994). A Vision for Change A process was initiated in 1995 by the Adult Development Branch of the Advanced Education and Career Development Department to begin a discussion on how technology could be integrated into Alberta’s Adult Learning System. While many institutions were already proceeding with telelearning on their own, the Ministry saw a need for more system-wide discussion and collaboration. The process was meant to bring people in the field together in a way that had not yet happened. Vision for Change: A Concept Paper For the Development of a Virtual Learning System was the basis for discussion (aecd, September 1995). It is largely an uncritical document that lays out an ideal scenario of a virtual learning system and its benefits for learners in Alberta. This document and the process were an important input into the creation of the Learning Enhancement Envelope. Vision for Change presents part of the rationale for using technology in education: 1 2 3 4

the use of technology is critical to many careers; technologies facilitate more efficient and effective learning; the prevalence of technology requires education to keep pace; and technology is a tool for re-engineering the educational system.

A province-wide virtual learning system is a way to meet department goals of increased accessibility, cost-effectiveness, responsiveness, and accountability. The report points to the need for two codependent infrastructures: a services support network comprising “soft” infrastructures, such as learner services; and curriculum and an electronic network linking learners and educators with services (aecd, September 1995).

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Part of the vision presented is of a more widely integrated system of post-secondary institutions as interdependent organizations. This integration could be achieved by modifying or removing formal and informal restrictions that limit learner access and responsiveness as well as performance indicators that encourage interdependency among educational providers. The Learning Enhancement Envelope (lee) The Learning Enhancement Envelope distributes funding to Alberta’s twenty-six postsecondary institutions to assist them in integrating technology into program delivery and student-support systems. lee is meant to assist in the development of a system-wide virtual learning environment. An important component of lee is that it requires the submission of technology-integration plans from institutions requesting funds. While these submissions are not formally approved by aecd, they are part of the process of demonstrating grant eligibility. All requests for funding and technology integration plans must be submitted through the office of the president. This requirement is a way, perhaps, of ensuring senior-level interest and commitment. It has been easier, however, for large institutions with more resources (e.g., the University of Alberta) to fulfill this requirement than it has been for smaller colleges. The Learning Enhancement Envelope funds six areas: 1 curriculum adaptation to technologically supported delivery methods; 2 increased courses and programs; 3 professional development; 4 research; 5 new models of learning; and 6 equipment and infrastructure purchase (aecd, June 1996). While most lee funding is distributed according to enrolment figures, one-third of it is set aside for collaborative initiatives and another small amount is awarded on merit, based on performance. The former is meant to help achieve more system-wide coordination, a goal of aecd. The Curriculum Redevelopment Fund The Alberta Department of Advanced Education and Career Training provides funds to the

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Learning and Skills Television of Alberta (formerly the public access tv network) for the redevelopment of curriculum and for the purchase of air time. The programs are used by all kinds of provincial educational institutions. Funding was announced in 1993 and includes $8 million through 2000. It has been redirected to focus on adult learning in order to complement lee. Funds were dispersed on a competitive basis and provide only up to 20 per cent of total necessary funds. Compared to lee, crf is a small player. The Infrastructure Renewal Envelope In 1996, the provincial government awarded $23 million over three years to a new Infrastructure Renewal Envelope to modernize and update equipment in post-secondary institutions. Eligible expenditures include computers for teaching and supporting student learning. Saskatchewan i n t r o d u c t i o n Saskatchewan has a history of using interactive television, satellite technology, and live television broadcasts to deliver education. These media are managed by the Saskatchewan Communications Network. Not surprisingly, the provincial government has shown an early interest in telelearning, initiating a process in 1993 that culminated in the 1995 Multimedia Strategy. As a province with a relatively small population and a small post-secondary sector, however, the funds available have been limited and funding programs have focused on helping institutions create their own resources and expertise. After an initially promising start, the Multimedia Strategy stalled amidst some departmental reorganization. In 1997 a process was initiated to reinvigorate the strategy by convening a group of representatives from post-secondary institutions. This meeting resulted in the formation of the Technologies in Learning Working Group. In January 1998, this group’s report identified issues and recommended strategies to implement and manage instructional technologies in the post-secondary sector. It recommended that Saskatchewan move carefully into technology-enhanced learning, employing technologies in a way that supports system values of quality, equity, choice, coherence, and sustainability. The next phase will likely include the creation of a coordinating body to complete the strategic plan and to implement it, with the participation of sector partners.

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policies and initiatives Saskatchewan Information Technology and Telecommunications Strategy Advisory Committee In 1994, the report of the Saskatchewan Information Technology and Telecommunications Strategy Advisory Committee, Enabling Prosperity: Saskatchewan in the Information Age, was released. It pointed to the eventual dominance of knowledge-based industries and recommended working toward a skilled, information-literate population. Distance Education and Technology Strategy The Distance Education and Technology Strategy came about partly because in 1993 the Department of Education identified distance education as one of its five priorities. Its four other priorities were leadership and coordination, program development, learner support, and partnerships. The document it produced was eventually translated into the Multimedia Strategy funding program. Multimedia Strategy The government unit responsible for educational technologies in Saskatchewan is the Multimedia Learning unit. It is contained within the Department of Education, and was created by the Multimedia Strategy in 1995. The Strategy was intended to provide funding for infrastructure and content development. Its principle was not so much to build “smart” classrooms as to create champions in the institutions. Both of the province’s universities have created teaching development centres that support the use of technology. The strategy funds three broad categories: 1 Infrastructure: funding for schools and regional colleges to develop telecommunications infrastructure through a Telecommunications Enhancement fund; 2 Networks: the creation of a Multimedia Learning Network, which comprises a range of learning media, including print, audio, video, data, and live televised broadcasts. This network will eventually link all learners to the Internet, SchoolNet, the provincial electronic library systems, the province’s two universities, the Institute of Applied Science and Technology, and the Government Correspondence School; and 3 Program development: funding for courseware and training consortia for instructors (Saskatchewan Education, Training and Employment, May 1995).

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The strategy was also partly funded by the Canada-Saskatchewan Infrastructure Works program, to the tune of $934,000. Under the agreement, $173.1 million has been earmarked for infrastructure projects in Saskatchewan. The Canada-Saskatchewan Infrastructure Works Program was extended recently to provide another $34 million in new investments in the province’s infrastructure. MacKay Report on Universities Harold MacKay was appointed by the Minister of Post-Secondary Education to initiate discussions with the universities on revitalization issues. His September 1996 report identifies several external pressures on universities, including new learner needs, new competitive forces on the traditional on-campus model of education, competition from the technologydriven distance-education market, and changing expectations of the social and economic role of universities. It focuses on how universities and colleges can collaborate and communicate their benefits to society and the economy more effectively through accountability and reporting measures. MacKay identifies information technology for administration and course delivery as one area of potential collaboration (MacKay, September 1996). The author found, for example, that “neither university at present appears to intend to significantly refocus its teaching delivery in the near term through increased on-campus use of technology or through a substantial replacement of classes delivered on-campus by technology-based distance education. Thus there is no perceived need to follow the course set by universities such as Acadia University …” (MacKay, September 1996, 43). While MacKay argues that the socializing function of universities for students and their communities cannot be replaced by electronic means, he recommends that universities collaborate on a strategic technology overview, especially for education delivery (MacKay, September 1996). Public Interest and Revitalization of Saskatchewan’s Universities This November 1996 report details the Saskatchewan government’s views on the universities’ public-interest function. Among the issues identified as being part of the public interest is the “integration of technology in teaching and learning.” The report stated that it is in the public interest for universities to integrate multimedia learning approaches in all facets of education and training in order to enhance both quality and effectiveness, increase access, and prepare learners to participate fully in a society based increasingly on global

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development, sharing, and trading of knowledge (Saskatchewan Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training, 1996). With respect to university autonomy, the report states that “the people of Saskatchewan provide through legislative appropriation more than two-thirds of the universities’ operating revenues from the public purse. In return for this support, the universities are expected to advance the public interest and repay public trust as responsibly as they can and to revitalize themselves substantively and procedurally whenever necessary.” It further identified the government’s role: “Government plays a major role in creating the fundamental legislation and mandates within which the universities operate and in developing processes to ensure that the public interest is advanced through university programs and services. To fulfill this role, the government must clarify the public priorities, needs, and expectations which should inform the universities’ operations and decisions” (Saskatchewan Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training, 1996). Multimedia Advisory Committee The Multimedia Advisory Committee was created as part of the Multimedia Learning Strategy. The committee’s worked stalled somewhat, however, after a departmental reorganization. It was reinvigorated in the spring of 1997 through a three-day planning session with stakeholders in the higher-education system. Representatives from the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Regina, the Ministry of Education, the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, SaskTel (the provincial telephone company), the aboriginal institutions, and others were present. The values agreed to by this group were: • • • •

quality, equity, choice, diversity, and coherence; openness to sharing of technology innovation; mobility and transferability; and continuous evaluation (Saskatchewan Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training, 7–9 May 1997).

Technologies in Learning Working Group The Technologies in Learning Working Group was created on the invitation of the deputy minister of Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training. Working Group members were nominated by institutions considered to be education and training partners and included representatives from

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the two major provincial universities, SaskTel, the Saskatchewan Communications Network, the Indian Federated College, other provincial colleges, the provincial library, and the provincial Ministry of Post-Secondary Education. Their December 1997 report identified the need for a strategic plan to coordinate and guide efforts by the province’s post-secondary system as it implemented telelearning options. It recommended that this strategic plan be guided by five principles: • quality – of technology, academic content, and pedagogy; • equity – of access despite place of residence or socio-economic

status; • choice – in technology, programs, and learning styles; • coherence – in provincial infrastructure, software, program stan-

dards, credit transfer, and articulation; and • sustainability of technology within available resources.

Another important element of the strategic plan was its recommendation that a coordinating body “advise the post-secondary education and training sector on policy and strategic priorities, facilitate inter-agency collaboration and communication with stakeholders, and develop the province’s collective expertise for enhancing learning through technology” (Technologies in Learning Working Group, December 1997, vi). Since the report was issued, officials with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Post-Secondary Education have developed a proposal for a Saskatchewan “seedbed” for technology-enhanced learning that would coordinate opportunities for collaboration, research, and innovation in the province’s education and training system. Part of the goal of this provincial partnership is to address important policy issues specific to Saskatchewan, such as • helping rural and northern communities become self-sustaining; • improving First Nations and Métis peoples’ access to education

and training opportunities; • retaining students and graduates in the provincial labour market;

and • developing the province’s capacity to market and export intellectual capital (Saskatchewan Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training, 1998).

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Manitoba i n t r o d u c t i o n The release of the Roblin Report by the University Education Review Committee was a significant event. The report was highly controversial within the post-secondary sector for the way in which it applied general government policy goals of fiscal restraint, rational planning, and public accountability to higher education. The government of Manitoba endorsed many of the report’s recommendations, reflecting a view that post-secondary institutions needed to be brought more clearly in line with overall government policy goals. For example, the government endorsed the creation of “centres of specialization” in the universities that would be directly related to jobs and to the economic growth industries of the province, as outlined in their Framework for Economic Growth. These growth industries include health care, aerospace, information and telecommunications, environmental industries, agri-food processing, and tourism. Another recommendation endorsed by the government was the replacement of the University Grants Council with a Council on Post-Secondary Education. The new council will address the lack of a system-wide approach to policy in post-secondary education. Part of its responsibilities include developing a system for new learning technologies and distance delivery. With respect to telelearning, the Manitoba Government supports a network infrastructure through merlin (Manitoba Education and Research and Learning Information Network). The issue of expanded content is being addressed through the work of the Post-Secondary Committee on Educational Technologies. The First Year by Distance Education program (fyde) has been operating for a few years now and the committee is expanding the program’s on-line delivery. policies and initiatives Roblin Report The report of the University Education Review Committee, Post-Secondary Education in Manitoba: Doing Things Differently, also known as the Roblin Report, was released in December 1993. Its mandate was to consider public accountability, accessibility, and cooperation and links between universities and community colleges. In general, the committee found that i) the quality of teaching is declining; ii) research has become the primary

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focus, to the detriment of teaching; iii) university research lacks sufficient provincial focus; and iv) there is a lack of public accountability in teaching, research, and service (University Education Review Committee, December 1993). One of the committee’s biggest concerns was the need to achieve greater cooperation between colleges and universities. To this end, it recommended the creation of a Council on Post-Secondary Education, whose goal would be to facilitate a system-wide approach and mandate for Manitoba’s post-secondary system. In general, the committee recommended that universities rationalize their functions, including faculty duties. The use of technology was seen as one way for universities to use their resources more strategically. Student access problems could be resolved through expanded distance-education delivery, for example. The Report thus recommended further development of the distance-education delivery system, pointing to new technology and the developing Information Highway as key components of any new system. A special agency of the proposed council would coordinate these activities, guided by the principle of “access to knowledge” for all Manitobans (University Education Review Committee, December 1993). The committee also urged universities to correct their lack of public accountability and poor public image through improved reporting. It also acknowledged that First Nations education is a significant issue for Manitoba, and so recommended a First Nations Post-Secondary Education Authority (University Education Review Committee, December 1993). Government Response to the Roblin Report The government’s response to the Roblin Report endorsed several of its recommendations, including the belief that university “Boards of Governors/ Regents should invest resources for the broad application of communication and learning technologies to the learning process both on and off campus. This investment should be consistent with the government’s overall strategy in the area of telecommunications” (Manitoba Education and Training, June 1994). In addition, the government took the following actions: • it created the Council on Post-Secondary Education; • it asked university Boards of Governors/Regents to examine new

ways of managing faculty time, with a view to increasing the

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quality of teaching, reducing internal service commitments, and, possibly, having some faculty specialize in teaching while others focus on research; and • it committed itself to investigating and developing a system of performance indicators and other accountability measures (Manitoba Education and Training, June 1994). (merlin) The Manitoba Education and Research and Learning Information Network provides a variety of telecommunications services and infrastructure to content providers in the education sector (universities, colleges, etc.) who wish to deliver distance courses. merlin also acts as an Internet service provider for the K-12 sector and tests new software and equipment. It was created in 1996 out of a departmental organization. merlin’s goal is to become a costrecovery unit, and so it has begun charging fees for its services. Pilot Project for Distance Education and Technology In 1994–95, Manitoba Education and Training allocated $750,000 for the funding of pilot projects in distance education and technology. This money was divided among the K-12 and post-secondary sectors and was available for only one year, on a pilot basis. Council on Post-Secondary Education and the Post-Secondary Committee on Educational Technologies The Council on Post-Secondary Education was created following a recommendation in the Roblin Report. It replaced the University Grants Commission and has many of the same funding and program-approval functions, although it now also has responsibility for the colleges. The council set up a Post-Secondary Committee on Educational Technology that includes representation at the academic vice-president level. This committee is currently developing a business plan for the expansion of the fyde program, which allows students in remote communities to take a common first-year university program in Manitoba through a variety of delivery modes. All courses are completely transferable to the two provincial universities. The committee is expanding fyde to on-line delivery, developing a plan for the wider application of telelearning over a three- to five-year period, and creating a Manitoba “virtual learning environment.”

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System Restructuring Envelope The System Restructuring Envelope was created in 1997/98 as part of a new funding process for Manitoba’s post-secondary education system. The envelope is allocated to projects that address system changes, including the use and application of technologies in the education process. Council on Learning Technologies The Council on Learning Technologies was created to provide advice to the Minister of Education and Training on policy issues associated with the educational uses of technology throughout the province’s education and training system. Members of the council include representatives from public schools, universities, colleges, the Council on Post-Secondary Education, the Ministry of Education and Training, and merlin. In April 1998, the council released its draft planning framework for the implementation of information technologies in the K-12 and post-secondary systems. The plan recommended: enhancing faculty competency; extending student support systems; using partnerships to extend the virtual-learning environment; developing an appropriate technological infrastructure for students; and • supporting administrative systems (Council on Post-Secondary Education, 31 March 1998). • • • •

Ontario i n t r o d u c t i o n Since the Ontario Council on University Affairs was disbanded in August 1996, government responsibility for the higher-education sector in Ontario resides with the Ministry of Education. Like many other provinces, Ontario has appointed a committee in recent years to examine its post-secondary sector. Unlike many other reports, however, this advisory panel’s document did not recommend significant changes to the sector and made almost no mention of the use of technology (Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, 1993). The Ontario Ministry of Education does not currently have an active program for the use of telelearning technologies in the

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post-secondary sector. In 1995, the Ministry created a policy on distance and open learning that included initiatives to coordinate the use of technology. This policy was discarded after the provincial election, however, when the Progressive Conservatives succeeded the New Democratic Party. The policy was instead replaced by a one-time investment in the 1996 Open Learning Strategy. Additional policy changes have dealt with bureaucratic or “red tape” issues that have facilitated telelearning initiatives but did not require a financial commitment from the government. One issue that is anticipated to require attention in Ontario is the Ontario Degree Granting Act, which stipulates that universities with “a presence in Ontario” must get approval to offer degrees. The Ontario government has a clear interest in new-media technologies, but with the exception of its support for the Knowledge Connection Corporation (see below) this interest has not been directed toward the public higher-education sector. The government has committed $20 million over three years to its Telecommunications Access Partnership (tap) program. This program is geared primarily toward improving Information Highway networks and explicitly excludes from funding “projects solely for course design or for development of any materials for education, training or other instructional purposes” (Networks Ontario, 30 March 1999). Funds can be used, however, to support the development of infrastructure for course delivery. The Franco-Ontario Distance Education Network received tap funds for this purpose. policies and initiatives Tuition fees In 1995 the Ministry of Education deregulated international student fees. One reason cited for this change was the removal of the competitive disadvantage that Ontario institutions faced internationally in seeking students from abroad. Notably, in May 1998, the government announced that it was deregulating tuition fees for certain university programs, primarily professional and business programs. Knowledge Connection Corporation (kcc) kcc is funded by the Ministry of Trade and Tourism as part of their Sector Partnership Fund. It was created in 1995 as a non-profit consortium to identify and disseminate best practice with respect to distance learning and to assist in the development of a learnware sector in Ontario. Its

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three-year funding arrangement with the government ended in December 1997, but kcc has succeeded in attracting funding from the private sector and now has a formal Board of Directors. Open Learning Strategy In 1996, the government announced its Open Learning Strategy. This strategy consisted of a $4-million, one-time allocation for a variety of initiatives, including technological infrastructure, the development of a credit-transfer system, and professional support and networking. Contact North, for example, received $2 million to increase its video-conferencing capacity as well as to establish Internet connections at its sites under the Open Learning Strategy. Contact North is a distance-education network for Northern Ontario. It was created in 1986 and established as an ongoing government program in 1990. It operates as a neutral network with no teachers or credentials of its own. Its communications network is used by colleges, universities, and secondary schools to deliver courses and programs across Ontario (Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, 18 June 1996). The University of Western and Le Collège des Grands Lacs received $784,000 under the Open Learning Strategy as start-up funding to create the Network for Ontario Distance Educators (node). node is a professional network, focusing on a variety of support issues such as professional development, information sharing, and course-development. Finally, an initiative of a group of Ontario colleges that eventually became LearnOntario received a small amount of funding ($35,000) to support its use of information technology in delivering courses and instructional-design support. LearnOntario just recently announced its official launch as a not-for-profit organization to support electronic curriculum in the Ontario post-secondary system (Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, 18 June 1996). Future Goals for Ontario Colleges and Universities This discussion document was distributed at the same time as the panel on the future of Ontario’s post-secondary system was created, in 1996. It lists several key factors that are influencing post-secondary education policy development in Ontario, including: • Demographics: enrolment is expected to increase until the year

2010 because of population growth;

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• Labour force requirements and social-policy priorities: demand

for post-secondary education is expected to increase as employability is increasingly linked to level of education. Employers want employees with “generic” learning and research skills, because managerial and professional positions are expected to account for almost one-third of all new jobs. In addition, education assists social-policy reform by promoting self-sufficiency and reduced dependence on public resources; • Funding considerations: the need to do more with less; and • Use of technology: “It is important for all institutions within the post-secondary education system to have technologically advanced delivery systems, in order both to achieve economies of scale in the long term and to remain competitive in the global education community” (Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, July 1996, 9). Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary Education The Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary Education delivered its report in 1996. It was entitled Excellence, Accessibility, Responsibility: Report of the Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary Education. The panel was created in July 1996 to advise on: • the most appropriate sharing of costs among students, the private

sector, and the government; • ways to promote and support cooperation between colleges and universities; and • what needs to be done to meet the expected levels of demand for post-secondary education, including demand for proposed private institutions (Advisory Panel on Future Directions for PostSecondary Education, December 1996). The report did not recommend any sweeping changes to the existing system, noting instead that the basic structure of Ontario’s post-secondary system was sound. It recommended that privately funded universities should be established only if they were designated as not-for-profit and were regulated in the same manner as public universities, with the same requirements for governance structures and affiliation (Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary Education, December 1996).

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Compared with other similar advisory bodies in other provinces, the report was remarkable for its lack of discussion of technology: it devoted just two paragraphs to the question and made no recommendation on the use of information technology. It stated that “we believe information can be a powerful tool to enhance teaching and expand learning opportunities, if used appropriately … we believe collaborative institutional arrangements and partnerships with the private sector can offer cost-effective ways to acquire the technology and to develop or adapt curriculum. We encourage colleges and universities to pursue these arrangements” (Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary Education, December 1996, 53). Quebec i n t r o d u c t i o n The Quebec Ministry of Education has shown an interest in developing telelearning technologies for the entire education sector and has facilitated a socio-economic conference on the subject. This conference led to two programs for the use of new information and technology programs in the colleges and the universities. Quebec’s strategy is notable for the emphasis it places on teacher training and support mechanisms. In addition, Québec supports Télé-université, one of Canada’s leading distance-delivery institutions of post-secondary education. These initiatives are taking place within a broader context of rationalization and consolidation of the post-secondary sector. At the time of writing, the Ministry of Education was engaged in a consultative process with the university sector. The process was based upon the consultation document Universities and the Future: Government Policy Options Regarding Québec Universities. The original consultation paper did not specifically address telelearning technologies except to note them as part of the general environment of change facing universities today. A follow-up discussion paper looked more directly at the issue of information and communication in post-secondary education in Québec, asking if the government should take measures to promote their use and, if so, what measures would be most effective. (Notably, the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec issued its statement of principles on the use of information and communication technologies in February 1999.) The consultations also concern topics such as the role and status of universities, accessibility,

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teaching, student support, links between universities and the cégep (Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel) system, rationalization of programs, credit transfer, and accountability measures. This process is expected to result in a government policy on universities. policies and initiatives Conseil supérieur de l’éducation The Conseil supérieur de l’éducation was created in 1964, along with the provincial Ministry of Education, to advise the Ministry on all policy issues. In 1994, the Conseil devoted its annual report on the state of the education system to new information and communication technologies. The report, supported by several research documents, addressed needs in the entire education system, from the primary grades to postsecondary studies. It reviewed the case for using telelearning technologies in education and identified some of the major benefits, barriers, and risks. The report recommended that technology become an essential component in education, but in a way that complements other teaching methods. The Conseil also concluded that, for a variety of reasons, the Quebec education system does not currently offer the ideal conditions under which the full pedagogical potential of information technologies can be realized. To this end, its report recommended that the Ministry of Education develop a policy and an integrated plan of action for the use of technology in the Quebec education system. The research reports produced in support of this annual report process were notable for their cautious assessments of telelearning technologies, unlike the enthusiastic endorsements commonly found in other provinces’ assessments. Conférence socio-économique sur les technologies de l’information et de la communication In January 1996, the Conférence socioéconomique sur les technologies de l’information et de la communication was sponsored by the Quebec Ministry of Education (meq) to bring together the kindergarten to post-secondary education sectors. A temporary secretariat for the conference was created within the meq and a discussion document on the “état de la situation” (status quo), which was distributed to all participants, was produced.

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The goals of the conference were: • to develop a common vision of the current situation; • to identify objectives that meet the vision; • to define the measures and resources that ought to be dedicated to information and communication technologies (ict s) so that the

Quebec education system might take advantage of these technologies and contribute to the development of Quebec society; and • to have all partners commit to specific responsibilities (Quebec Ministry of Education, January 1996). The conference summary identified the training of teachers as a primary concern, and listed a series of commitments for each of the participants. The university representatives committed their faculties of education to researching and integrating ict s in their teacher-training programs, for example, and meq committed to various initiatives that would update its curriculum, make equipment available, connect schools to the Internet, and assist in the integration of ict s in the school system (Quebec Ministry of Education, January 1996). Ministerial Plan of Action for the Reform of the Education System In the fall of 1996, meq released A New Direction for Success, which outlined its plan of action over the next several years for the entire education system. (Quebec Ministry of Education, 4 February 1997). Although treated separately in the plan, the strategy for both cégeps and universities was consolidation and rationalization. cégeps would be encouraged to group their administrative services or to merge to form regional colleges. At the same time, colleges would be given greater leeway in deciding how to meet the program objectives and standards set for them by the meq. The plan called for the use of information and communication technologies in this process (Ministry of Education, 4 February 1997). For universities, the plan called for rationalizing the supply of university programs, reviewing funding rules, and drafting a new “social contract” between Quebec society and Quebec universities. This contract would focus on the universities’ mission, societal expectations and how they translate into university-system objectives, the dual role of universities as independent and public service

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institutions, the relationship between the universities and government, performance levels, and accountability. Partly in response to this call for rationalization, crepuq (Conseil des recteurs et présidents des universités du Québec) set up a joint commission in May 1997 to examine the relevance and complement of university programs. The plan also signaled meq’s plan to develop a policy for continuing education, assisted by an advisory committee made up of resource people from the field. This policy would include a consideration of new technologies. Plan d’intervention: Enseignement collegial In September 1996, meq announced its program for the use of information and communication technologies in college teaching. It provided funding in three areas: • Equipment upgrades: $7 million will be spent over the next three

years to modernize and improve equipment in the colleges, with a particular emphasis on networking internally and hooking up to the Internet. • Integration of technology into teaching: preferred projects should be designed with measurable objectives and include support for teachers and students. $2 million will be given annually for three years for equipment; $200,000 will be given annually for three years for technical and professional support. Collaborative projects with other colleges will receive special attention. • Support of Vitrine apo: $100,000 will be given annually to the collaborative project involving five regional cégep s for evaluation and group purchase of software, information distribution, and teacher training and support (Quebec Ministry of Education, 18 September 1996). In addition to these programs, funds were made available for projects that involve research (such as the Programme d’aide a la recherche sure l’enseignement et l’apprentissage, parea, which was given $100,000 for ict projects) and for projects that use the Internet for delivery (such as the Programme d’aide a la production du materiel didactique, which was given $300,000). Plan d’intervention: Engagement Universitaire In January 1997, meq announced a funding program for telelearning technologies, to be

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directed at the universities. The focus of this program is the training of future teachers and educators in the use of new information and communication technologies. In its preamble to the funding document, meq notes that universities have already made significant investments in it for administration and research and that changes are starting to be made in teaching. Further, meq already supports university adoption of new technology through general financing and the funding of new programs and renewing of existing programs. There are two main elements to this program: • A $3 million fund over five years for research on the use of it in

education at all levels of teaching was established. This fund is administered in collaboration with the Fonds pour la formation de chercheurs et l’aide à la recherche (fcar) as well as with school boards and the private teaching sector. The focus is to be on primary and secondary levels of schooling, and the intent is to better prepare students for the integration of technologies in their teaching. This funding is intended primarily for faculties of education. • $2 million was provided for faculties of education to purchase the equipment and software necessary to train future educators. To access this funding, the universities must present a plan for the use of technology in teacher training (Quebec Ministry of Education, 29 January 1997). Rapport du groupe de travail sur le financement des universités meq commissioned a working group on university funding, which reported in April 1997. Its mandate was to make recommendations on how to save money as well as how to deal with increasing enrollments and other pressures on the system. Part of its mandate was to examine how ict s could be promoted in teaching (Groupe de travail sur le financement des universités, April 1997). At the time of the report, university funding had been reduced for several years and tuition fees had been frozen. The working group was quite concerned with the declining funding base of the universities. The authors argued that the revolution in it and telecommunications meant that Quebec had to ensure that all those who have the aptitude for post-secondary education could gain access to it and that the quality of education available be at least as high as that found in other provinces and countries. The authors felt that

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telelearning can complement teaching, but that it cannot replace face-to-face contact. They recommended that crepuq and Téléuniversité cooperate on their initiatives so that the system can benefit from economies of scale. They also recommended that the Ministry reserve a fund for collaborative projects using ict s (Groupe de travail sur le financement des universités, April 1997). Inforoute de la formation professionelle et technique au Quebec The Inforoute de la formation professionnelle et technique au Québec is a Web-based information service for all professional and technical training programs available in the province. It promotes research and experimentation with new technologies by providing information on these research projects. It also supports an interactive network among professional and technical training programs. The site is self-managed: volunteers keep information up-to-date and moderate the discussion groups. Consolidation and rationalization appear to be concerns that will dominate for some time as the crepuq committee on programs continues its work. Telelearning technologies may become an important tool in this process. The Maritime Provinces: Cooperative Initiatives i n t r o d u c t i o n The Maritime provinces are unique in Canada in that they have created a formal mechanism for cooperation in their post-secondary sector – the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (mphec). mphec was established in 1973 as an agency of the Council of Maritime Premiers, and has some authority for program approval for all higher-education institutions in the Atlantic provinces. In the past, it acted as the funding intermediary between provincial governments and the post-secondary institutions and provided funding recommendations to the Maritime provincial governments. A 1996 report, Responding to Financial Challenges, stated that “probably the most urgent issue facing universities is the continuing decline in the level of financial support from governments.” Lately, mphec has been undergoing a reorganization. It has devised a new mandate and is waiting for that mandate to be passed into law by all constituent provinces. mphec’s role is shifting from that of a funding body to becoming more of an advisory body, with

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a focus on research. Currently, only New Brunswick and pei use mphec as their funding agency. With the reorganization underway, telelearning and distance education are not currently priorities for the Commission and it has not developed policies specific to telelearning. This omission is also due in part to a lack of new telelearning-based programs in Maritime institutions. Under its program-approval function, the Commission would have to approve a telelearning program only if it offered a new credential or if an existing program moved exclusively to on-line delivery. Telelearning may emerge as a more significant priority once mphec begins its consultations with stakeholders on the shape of its research program. Politically, there is interest in the region for expanded distancelearning activities. In May 1995, The Delivery of Education in the Atlantic Provinces via Distance – An Opportunity for Cooperation and Resource Sharing was presented to the Council of Atlantic Premiers. In response to this report, the premiers endorsed regional cooperation in the planning and delivery of distance education and stated that “mphec would work with the Department of Education and Training in Newfoundland to pursue actions to stimulate regional cooperation by the Atlantic institutions to utilize distance education technology to improve access to education, broaden opportunities for programs in the region, and to seek entrepreneurial opportunities for educational program and product export” (mphec, 1995). A recent initiative that originated within aau (Association of Atlantic Universities) to create a credential service might provide some momentum in distance learning. This service would give students degrees for the credits they had picked up at different Atlantic institutions. While some of the larger universities have declined to participate, the remaining group intends to put together a general Bachelor of Arts program that would be offered by various distance-delivery methods through the members of the consortium. New Brunswick i n t r o d u c t i o n New Brunswick stands out among Canadian provinces for the prominence it has given to telelearning. The provincial government has clearly identified TeleEducation New Brunswick (TeleEd nb) as an integral part of its economic strategy to create a workforce ready to participate in the emerging information

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economy. In its original conception and subsequent development, TeleEd nb had the direct and strong support of former Premier Frank McKenna. This support was essential in TeleEd nb’s ability to engage in an ambitious program. One of the elements considered key to New Brunswick’s advantage in this area is speed. Several documents emphasize the advantages of New Brunswick being the first jurisdiction in North American to initiate such a program and, as a result, establish itself as a leader in the field. The hope is that, beyond education, the distance-education network can also become a means of empowerment for remote communities and provide diversification and sustainable growth. TeleEd nb was initiated against a backdrop of poor educational achievement in New Brunswick: in 1993, more than 24 per cent of the adult population had less than a grade nine education and more than 52 per cent had never completed high school. The continuing education participation rate was 13 per cent; the national average is 20 per cent. TeleEd nb came about partly because Premier McKenna was personally committed to the project. It thus became part of his overall economic development plan. New Brunswick also already had a province-wide fibre-optic network. The government continues to act as a powerful catalyst by creating a demand for on-line learning in public institutions and incubating the development of the province’s information technology sector. policies and initiatives TeleEd nb TeleEd nb is funded through the Canada-New Brunswick Cooperation Agreement of Entrepreneurship and Human Resources Development. It was initially a five-year (1993–1997) joint project, with the federal government providing two-thirds of the funds while the provincial government provided the remaining onethird. Provincially, the Department of Advanced Education and Labour and the Regional Development Corporation were involved, as were certain public education institutions. nbTel provides TeleEd nb with access to its lines at discounted rates. In general, the first five-year phase focused on setting up the network infrastructure. The current five-year agreement is shifting to a focus on content and support for the province’s fledgling it industry.

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TeleEd nb also has a long list of values, which appear in several of its documents. The program aims to • provide the highest quality of service to students, teachers, institu• • • • • • • •

• •

tions, communities, and businesses using the network; make all services available in French and English; involve network users in significant decisions; ensure that all sites have the capacity to deliver as well as to receive courses; create a spirit of openness, creativity, and innovation; ensure that the network is a neutral highway accessible to all users and subject to fair and reasonable limitations; provide support for the development of courses and programming for distance education; ensure that the network does not control content; promote collaboration and resource sharing among institutions, the network, businesses, communities, and government departments; offer support to New Brunswickers outside the province who want to access courses and programs; and promote flexibility, experimentation, and tolerance (TeleEd nb, May 1994).

Another guiding principle emphasizes the need to operate through partnerships with various public sector organizations, the government, and private industry, on the understanding that no single institution can mount the necessary network and content alone. One of the main roles of the TeleEd nb’s central office is to facilitate partnerships, help groups and small companies access funding or secure contracts and, in general, act as a resource for the different elements of the system. As the central government office responsible for telelearning in the province, it works to ensure that activities that are undertaken further New Brunswick’s economicdevelopment goals. TeleEd nb also has a program development fund for content creation (see below), and the balance of funds ($6.1 million) has been devoted to setting up and maintaining the technological and organizational infrastructure of the program. An advisory board appointed by the Minister of Advanced Education meets regularly to make recommendations on network

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directions. The board has representatives from different government departments, the provincial universities, some colleges, the health sector, and the private sector. Communities hosting learning centres provide basic equipment, such as a compatible computer, a tv and vcr, and a fax machine. Host communities also provide rent-free space for the learning centre at an educational institution, community centre, library, hospital, First Nations reserve, or private workplace. Facilitators around the province provide a local link and support contact. Course delivery and administration are carried out by participating public and private educational institutions, private enterprises, and industry associations. These institutions pay the line charges associated with using the network. Delivery agents determine tuition fees for courses delivered through the network. One of the most important articulated values of TeleEd nb is that the users of the network must be involved in making significant decisions that affect the project. Accordingly, a TeleEducation Users Group has been established. This group meets three or four times a year in order to discuss and resolve operational issues related to program support and delivery. In addition, TeleCampus, an initiative of TeleEd nb, allows learners to access courses from post-secondary institutions, colleges, and private training institutions that provide services to learners and instructors. Program Development Fund A Program Development Fund (pdf) was created from TeleEd nb with $4.4 million set aside from the initial budget to support the development and adaptation of courses for distance education. Since the renewal of TeleEd nb, another $3.6 million over two-and-a-half years has been added. This funding is made available to private and public institutions on a cost-shared basis to a maximum of $100,000 for any given project. The institutions and companies that implement the projects are responsible for at least 50 per cent of the costs through their staff allocations and for the donation of resources and ancillary staff time. In fulfillment of its economic development goal, pdf awards seek to seed the development of small, private-sector learning technology companies. Eligible projects must contribute to the TeleCampus site as well as demonstrate their commercial potential including their export potential beyond New Brunswick (TeleCampus, 1999).

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Nova Scotia i n t r o d u c t i o n Although each Maritime premier has declared distance learning to be a priority, a comparison between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shows how differently this commitment can play out. Nova Scotia does not have an explicit provincial policy on telelearning or distance education for its post-secondary sector. Until recently, the focus of the province’s activities in this area has been on providing infrastructure and network support. Some attempts at coordinated activity occurred through inter-provincial agencies such as the Association of Atlantic Universities and the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, where there has been some interest in developing a common distance-education general university degree. The most recent attempt, however, to develop a joint university distance-education initiative among the province’s institutions has stalled. Nova Scotia announced a major initiative for telelearning in 1998 with its Information Economy Initiative. This initiative included $19 million in funding for the university sector, to be provided through a joint federal-provincial economic development agreement. Nova Scotia’s relatively late entry into this area must be seen in the context of the province’s overall post-secondary policy. It is one of Canada’s smallest provinces yet it has eight universities; New Brunswick has only two. Nova Scotia embarked on a process to rationalize its university system and to develop a new funding formula. Not surprisingly, this process left little time and effort for other policy initiatives. policies and initiatives ednet (Education Network) A significant role for the provincial government in telelearning is in providing infrastructure technical support through the ednet program. ednet is billed as “Nova Scotia’s Education Gateway to the Information Highway.” It is operated by both the Department of Education (Learning Resources and Technology Unit) and Maritime t&t (the provincial phone company). The Department of Education provides payment for ednet main users – libraries, public schools, and community colleges. The universities already have their own high-speed access and are not partners in ednet.

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Network Nova Scotia In 1992, Network Nova Scotia was formed. The network is an audio-graphics distance education network that is operated by the Learning Resources and Technology Unit of the Department of Education, which provides the network infrastructure and some training and pays for the connections. Network Nova Scotia provides the distance-education backbone for all community colleges and schools and coordinates scheduling of the use of the network. Most of the universities use the network to distribute their own content. Distance Education Nova Scotia, Inc. Distance Education Nova Scotia, Inc. was a proposal to create a joint venture between the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents, acoa (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency), the Nova Scotia Economic Renewal Agency, the Department of Education’s Learning Resources and Technology Unit, the Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education, Northern Telecom, and at&t. It was meant to act as a leadership, support, and coordinating mechanism for distanceeducation delivery in Nova Scotia. Its activities would range from seeking ways to improve access to distance courses to marketing and sales of courses. The initiative won approval from a group from the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents. At the time of writing, however, there has been no action on this file. Information Economy Initiative In 1998, the Department of Education and Culture announced a $62.1-million program to fund computers and networking in Nova Scotia’s schools, universities, and communities. Of this total, $19 million is being allocated to three universities – Dalhousie, Acadia, and the University College of Cape Breton (uccb). The project includes a high-speed research network linked to Dalhousie, Acadia, and uccb, and provides the technology to eventually include other universities, the Nova Scotia Community College, and Collège de l’Acadie. In addition, each institution will lead its own initiatives. Acadia, for example, has put its $2.5-million share toward its Institute for Teaching and Technology where it will, among other activities, provide professional development opportunities for the province’s K-12 teachers over the next five years (Nova Scotia Department of Education and Culture, 24 May 1998).

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Prince Edward Island i n t r o d u c t i o n Prince Edward Island is Canada’s smallest province – its post-secondary sector consists of one university (University of pei) and one college (Holland College). Not surprisingly, the government has no policies specific to the use of telelearning technologies exclusive to post-secondary education. Instead, its investments in education and new communication technologies are aimed at making the benefits of information technology available to the community at large. The Knowledge Economy Partnership is a good example of the province’s goals in this area. Funding for a joint Holland College/upei Information Technology in Education Centre was received from the Canada-Prince Edward Island Regional Economic Development Agreement (reda). policies and initiatives Knowledge Economy Partnership (kep) kep is designed to improve information-technology networks and access and delivery of information to residents of pei. It will contribute to economic development, skill development, and the delivery of services. It is funded through a partnership with acoa. It continues the government’s efforts to create the pei Broadband Network, a $3.2 million project to build a province-wide atm (asynchronous transfer mode) network with a fibre-optic connection to the mainland. Some of the projects announced in April 1997 that have an impact on education include: • the Education Communication Technology Project, with funding

of $2.75 million (this is the largest initiative). This project is a network that will link all public school and public libraries on the Internet; • the Integrated Knowledge Network (ikn), coordinated by the Provincial Library Council, which will provide coordinated access to services and resource; and • a bilingual Science and Technology Awareness Site, aimed at increasing science literacy and awareness through the education system, communities, individuals, and businesses. This site is coordinated by the University of pei.

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Information Technology in Education Centre (itec) Although formally an initiative of pei’s two post-secondary institutions, Holland College and the University of Prince Edward Island, itec has received funding under the federal-provincial Canada/Prince Edward Island Regional Economic Development Agreement (reda). The two institutions have entered into a partnership to form itec, a “dually located, state-of-the-art information technology resource facility that will offer unique services to Prince Edward Island’s learning community” (University of Prince Edward Island, 5 March 1998, 1). The Centre is designed as an economic-development catalyst and is situated within the Island’s efforts to create a competitive information-technology infrastructure and jobs in the “knowledge economy.” The profit-oriented Centre will develop educational products and services for international export and will offer training, counselling, and information-resource services to Islanders. acoa and the provincial Department of Economic Development and Tourism are contributing funding from reda for the Centre (University of Prince Edward Island, 5 March 1998). A Strategy for Adult Literacy/Education in pei This document was released in July 1996 as a response to pei’s significant literacy problem. Its discussion of new technology and the new economy is limited, however, to describing contextually how these trends are making literacy even more important. Newfoundland i n t r o d u c t i o n The government of Newfoundland has directed funding from a federal-provincial agreement on human resources toward open learning. Its primary programs are stem-Net, a K-12 network, and olin (Open Learning and Information Network), which focuses on adult learning. Memorial University is host to both olin and stem-Net and figures in most telelearning and distance-education initiatives in the province. Like many other provinces, Newfoundland’s post-secondary system has undergone some rationalization and reorganization. Its college sector, for example, has recently been consolidated into a single College of the North Atlantic organization, and has many

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campuses. Similarly, the former Fisheries Colleges has been merged with Memorial University as the Marine Institute. Newfoundland’s history of dependence on distance education was cited by many as a key component in its adoption of and approach to telelearning. As a predominantly rural province, Newfoundland has always had to meet the challenge of distributing resources equitably. In the school system, it is not uncommon for small rural schools to have less than two dozen students and one to two teachers who must teach all subjects at all levels. Distance learning therefore has always been important, in many forms. olin builds on this history, and pays particular attention to its choice of delivery, since it is aware of the danger of building new, technological barriers to access. olin is now directing some of its attention to exploring the export and marketing potential of its products. policies and initiatives Open Learning and Information Network (olin) olin is a provincial consortium in Newfoundland comprising the major postsecondary institutions, public libraries, and other participants. Members include Memorial University, stem-Net, The Telemedicine Centre/tetra, the Provincial Public Libraries Board, the Provincial Department of Education, College of the North Atlantic, Operation Online (an organization that promotes the province’s it sector), and the Marine Institute. olin’s purpose is to facilitate open and flexible provision of education and training by supporting the learning and related needs of its partners and their clients; develop, adapt, and coordinate delivery of new learning materials, methods, products, and services; foster development of innovative methods of instruction for learning activities; and provide access to global information sources that support learning. As a result, olin has a varied set of projects in distance-education evaluation, course production, and professional development, in a wide range of settings and partnerships. stem-Net stem-Net is a K-12 educational network for Labrador and Newfoundland. It provides Internet connections for teachers, students, and schools as well as training and curriculum support. It is described as a grassroots network that has gradually grown in

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response to demand. Relevant policy concerns are the cost of access for rural users and acceptable use policies. Cooperation Agreement on Human Resource Development and Economic Renewal Agreement Both olin and stem-Net were funded by the Canada-Newfoundland Cooperation Agreement on Human Resource Development. This fund was completed in March 1998 and was replaced by a new agreement on economic renewal, from which $11 million has been designated for post-secondary new-media and distance learning. As part of its economic renewal terms of reference, the fund requires a focus on market and export development. It also helps to develop the local it sector. The preceding snapshot of provincial education technology initiatives illustrates the variety of approaches that have been adopted. While the precise configurations and programs may change over the years, this diversity will continue to be a hallmark of education policy in Canada.

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5 Dispatches from the Front: Policies and Policy Practices in Post-Secondary Institutions

Universities are among our oldest social institutions and today face enormous pressure to change. We have always had debates about the purpose of the university, its pedagogical program, and its relationship to other social and political structures. Now, however, these debates have been given renewed vigour and urgency by the availability of advanced information and communication technologies for teaching and learning – telelearning technologies – that signal a fundamental shift in the interests of policy-makers in today’s economy. The increased visibility of technology in all that we do in universities makes it tempting to focus our attention on technology as the locus and the driver of change. Despite much media attention and recent academic criticism, however, the changes within universities are facilitated, but not caused by, new telelearning technologies. Change in universities is not simply a result of forces acting upon the institutions but rather a complex interaction of internal and external drivers. The use of telelearning technologies intersects with a host of social, political, and economic factors currently influencing university reform. In this context, technology has become the catalyst for change, reacting with other elements in a system change in both form and structure. As we began to investigate the variety of ways in which telelearning technologies interacted with a host of other factors associated with post-secondary education in Canada, we catalogued many

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different kinds of issues. These are appended to this book as an “issues map” (see Appendix). Despite the number and complexity of questions before us, it was clear that there are three main issues facing universities and colleges today: “Doing Things Right,” “Doing the Right Thing,” and “Policy Processes.” Universities and colleges that implement telelearning technologies often find themselves facing a variety of new issues not encountered when delivering courses face to face. For example, telelearning technologies can provide access to courses for a broad range of new users. What kind of new or different support services will these new students require? As well, students are often concerned about who will have access to files in which electronic discussions are stored, how identities are safeguarded, and how long these files will be stored. These kind of concerns with the implementation of telelearning technologies can be broadly classified as concerns on how to implement these technologies, or “Doing Things Right.” These micro-issues of implementation, however, quickly raise questions about “Doing the Right Thing” – the larger, often politically charged questions that form the policy environment for telelearning technologies. These issues address why we use telelearning technologies and can include questions about the purpose of education, the role of professors/trainers, and the goals of business/education partnerships. These broad policy debates, while easily polarized, can also help to define an institution’s goals so that choices about how telelearning technologies are implemented become clearer. These two issues, “Doing Things Right” and “Doing the Right Thing,” are linked and so must be dealt with in organizational policies and practices. The importance of sound “Policy Processes” that can deal effectively with both aspects of policy cannot be overstated. The following discussion of the policy issues for universities and colleges is organized into these three broad, overlapping categories.

doing the right thing The Culture of the Professor An important part of the culture of our universities is the authority of the professor. In a traditional classroom, the professor is unlikely to be visited by peers, superiors, or even students from other classrooms. No one views or will evaluate the professor’s teaching.

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Telelearning technologies can make teaching a very public act. What was once an arena that only the professor and his or her students shared may now be opened to the scrutiny of peers, academic administrators, and other students. A professor’s authority and knowledge are suddenly revealed for everyone to see and to evaluate. This potential change in status extends to the way in which on-line and distance-education courses are often created. In the face-to-face context, the professor has been said to work in one of the last craft occupations. He or she is responsible for every aspect of course design, development, and delivery. In distance education, and in on-line education, the professor’s job has become “unbundled.” A faculty member is now just one part of a team of people working together to develop a course. Such a team might include an instructional designer, a multimedia designer, a project manager, and a faculty member working as a “content expert.” The course may be taught by another faculty member, perhaps a part-time professor. This model was pioneered first at distance-education universities and is now finding its way into traditional universities: Techbc, for example, has adopted this model for its program and course development. Certainly, some faculties have deliberately chosen this set-up as they actively pursue on-line learning models in their work. It is important to understand, however, the fundamental nature of this change to the culture of the university, particularly as overzealous administrators seek to speed their institutions into the future. The Changing Pedagogical Model The changing role of the professor, from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” is part and parcel of larger changes in the way in which our universities and colleges teach. “Competency-based education,” “outcomes-based education,” and “learner-centred education” are all parts of different thrusts for reforms that affect face-to-face and on-line teaching. While telelearning technologies offer the potential for great interactivity, since they create independent and collaborative learners and support different learning styles, the widely touted pedagogical advantages of on-line learning do not occur automatically. Rather, good on-line teaching is the result of informed and deliberate course design and good teaching, both of which require effort and planning.

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A report from the us-based Institute for Higher Education Policy (ihep) reviewed contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education. The authors were highly critical of research into technology-based learning and found that most of the work they examined ended up addressing pedagogical issues. Technological issues were not as important as other factors, such as student motivation, learner characteristics, and instructor training. The ihep report concluded that: “To that extent, the research has had a salutary effect in that a rising tide lifts all boats. Any discussion about enhancing the teaching/learning process through technology also has the beneficial effect of improving how students are taught on campus” (ihep, April 1999, 31). Telelearning can act as a catalyst for change in our universities and colleges in both campus-based and distance-learning activities. Rensselaer Polytechic Institute (rpi) in Troy, New York, provides us with a good example of how technology, combined with a creative and thoughtful curriculum design, can produce better learning and improved productivity. Faced with a $25-million structural deficit and a desire to revamp its introductory math and science courses, rpi replaced some lecture courses with “studio” courses, in which students work at multimedia-based workstations. Faculty thus have more flexibility in designing their courses and dividing time between lectures and activities. Students are performing at higher levels and rpi is reporting a savings of between $10,000 and $150,000 per course (Zemsky, August 1997). The Changing Student Demographic m a t u r e l e a r n e r s An important catalyst for much of the interest in telelearning-based courses is the changing nature of the student body. The average age of students is increasing, as greater numbers of adults participate in post-secondary education. The participation rate for persons aged thirty-five to fifty-four years doubled from 1976 to 1993 (cmec, 15 September 1998, 88–9). This trend is important for telelearning because of the type of demands that (usually) working adult students make on their educational institutions. (See chapter 2 for a further discussion of the needs of adult learners.) Convenience and flexibility are key issues for students who must balance work and family responsibilities while they pursue higher education. These students cannot easily

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move to another city to attend an institution with a specific program nor are they able to attend classes during the day. They therefore welcome asynchronous, flexible, on-line courses. Mature learners are often the focus of for-profit virtual universities. The University of Phoenix does not accept any student under the age of twenty-three. Online Learning.net, ucla’s spin-off, which offers extension credit courses, also targets mature learners. Adult learners are usually considered to be better suited to distance learning and self-paced environments than the traditional young, first-year university or community college student, who may lack the motivation and self-direction necessary for success in distance learning. Universities and colleges can employ telelearning technology to move into mature-learner markets such as employee and professional education. Telelearning technologies can provide the flexible environment that many full-time, employed students are seeking while also providing institutions with an enlarged, national catchment area. Technology enabled executive mba programs, such as Athabasca University’s on-line program and Queen’s University’s video-conferencing program, are successful models already in place. Centennial College is developing an on-line post-diploma certificate in care coordination for working nurses. It has included an evaluation component and will be comparing the on-line group to a set of nurses taking the same courses in a traditional classroom setting. The shift in the student demographic means more than just a change in student learning styles and schedules. More mature students seem to bring a greater emphasis on service – the university begins to see itself as a service provider and the student becomes a consumer. Arthur Levine and Jeannette S. Cureton point out that fewer than one in six of all undergraduates today fits the traditional stereotype of the American college student – that is, someone eighteen to twenty-two years of age and living on campus. As well, older, part-time, and working students now attending institutions of higher education have quite different expectations: they want the same kind of customer relationship they have with their bank, telephone company, and supermarket – relationships that provide them with convenience, low cost, and service (Levine and Cureton, 1998). The University of Phoenix has recognized this demand for service. Dr. John Sperling, chief executive of the Apollo Group (which includes the University of Phoenix), says “We grow the market by

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appealing to people who find traditional four-year colleges too inconvenient. Convenience, convenience, convenience. Customer service, customer service, customer service. That’s the name of the game” (Stamps, August 1998). t r a d i t i o n a l s t u d e n t s While much of the discussion about the potential of telelearning is centred on how to attract new clients, it also needs to focus on meeting the needs of existing students by offering more flexible learning environments. Lori Wallace’s research at the University of Manitoba shows that the majority of learners in degree-credit distance-education courses are a demographic subset of the on-campus student body: under twenty-six years old, urban-dwelling, and employed an average of twenty hours per week in service or clerical jobs (Wallace, May 1998). us institutions have found similar patterns. In the State University of New York’s (suny) on-line program, for example, 80 per cent of participants are full- or part-time students living on a suny campus (Gehl and Douglas, 29 March 1999). It is clear that the needs of the traditional university student are also changing. Recent Canadian indicators show that university and college students are delaying their entry into school, taking longer to complete their studies, and interrupting and then resuming their studies during the course of their programs (cmec, 15 September 1998, 84). The reasons for these changes are unknown, but it is reasonable to assume that increasing student debt load is a factor: the number of full-time students aged twenty to twenty-four who are combining studies and work has increased over the last twelve years (cmec, 1998, 62). The flexibility of telelearning-based courses is therefore appealing to these students as well. Many on-campus students could use an on-line course to free up a day to work at a parttime job. Others might prefer to take entire programs by distance, in order to give them time to maintain jobs they already have near their homes, since tuition costs, despite recent increases, are still significantly lower than the total costs of attending university in another city. In light of this demand for “distance” education by on-campus students, post-secondary institutions must ensure that the needs of this group are met by distance-education practices that were originally created for a very different type of student. For this reason, many practitioners prefer the phrase “distributed learning,” which

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implies that learners may not really be at a great distance from their instructors since technology is used to allow greater variety and flexibility of learning modes and activities. The Socialization Function of Universities One of the broader implications of the change in student demographics when coupled with the increased use of telelearning is the fate of the university campus itself, and campus life. The changing profile of post-secondary students and the changing means of delivering courses have real implications for universities and colleges as social spaces – places with a sense of community, place, and geography. The best universities are as much associated with their location as with their intellectual rigour – Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford all have histories of societies, athletic rivalries, and legendary pubs that contribute to their allure. It is worth asking what will become of these experiences as we come to depend more and more on electronic educational environments. In a recent review of research on distance learning, the Institute of Higher Education Policy (ihep) noted that all research focused on individual courses: none looked at complete academic programs (ihep, April 1999). The university or college experience is much more than just a collection of courses. Two crucial traditional functions of the university or college experience are socialization and mentoring. At the undergraduate level, the university experience is about varsity teams, clubs, student politics and, of course, parties. Friendships born at these activities often form the basis of enduring social networks that can support both career and personal goals. Brown and Duguid also argue that, at the graduate level, university education is a process of enculturation into a discipline in which the implicit practices of a specific community are the key to success (Brown and Duguid, July/August 1996, 11–13). Other researchers have identified the positive effects of obtaining a university degree, including changes in identity, self-concept, and self-esteem, the development of attitudes and values, moral development, and career choice and development (ihep, April 1999). A real danger is that residential colleges will become available only to the wealthy – those who can afford to travel and immerse themselves in the culture of a university. On-line education will be used by those who cannot afford the luxury of attending an

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institution or who must work while they study or otherwise meet other financial commitments. Will this on-line education provide students with the same social and economic advantages as resident students? The Role of Distance Education in Universities and Colleges The increased attention that distance education is receiving because of the development of tele-learning technologies is clearly a case of the periphery moving into the mainstream. Distance-education departments in universities have traditionally operated outside the mainstream of university life. Some faculty regard distance education suspiciously from an academic standpoint: distance-education departments are seen as service units, without a rigorous research program that lends their teaching credibility. Institutional practices reinforce this view. Faculty rarely receive adequate credit for their distance-education activities for promotion and tenure, and the distance-education team approach to course development can be perceived by faculty as a threat to their expert status, teaching autonomy, intellectual property rights, and the academic quality of the course (Olcott, 1996, 28–9). The increasing importance of distance education also presents cultural issues for universities and colleges as institutions who must decide how central distance education will be to their mission and to what extent it will become part of mainstream academic offerings. In making decisions about the emerging role of their distanceeducation functions, traditional post-secondary institutions will need to decide whether they want to maintain internal competition, co-ordination, or central planning. One alternative is to give departments or faculties their own distance-education responsibilities, including the opportunity to keep the revenues and assume the risks. The new Technical University of British Columbia has opted to not have a separate distance-education department. All courses will be developed under an integrated model that will allow them to be offered either on-line, on-campus, or, more likely, through a combination of both. Ryerson Polytechnic University, by contrast, has just recently opened up a new distance-education unit within an existing continuing-education unit.

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Copyright f a c u l t y o w n e r s h i p r i g h t s Intellectual property has become a “flash point” for telelearning communities within universities and colleges. Questions around ownership and intellectual property encompass many of the broader issues around telelearning, including a fear of loss of faculty control, a shift in power in post-secondary institutions, and the future of education in a global economy. Universities have been showing more interest in the question of intellectual property ownership created on their premises and by their staff. During the 1980s, universities’ rights to ownership of inventions created through research with institutional facilities became standard policy at all Canadian universities. It is now believed that courses, curricula, and lecture notes may be heading down the same path, given the expanding market for on-line courses. Developing intellectual property policies for telelearning-based courses should be a priority for Canadian educational institutions. There is currently no consensus as to whether on-line courses should be treated as books authored by faculty members, upon which the university lays no claim, or as inventions over which universities claim at least partial ownership. Ownership of work completed in the course of employment can be dependent upon the nature of the employment relationship itself. Existing court cases support faculty ownership of their intellectual property, but universities can easily get around such decisions by simply making special agreements for course development, as is already often the case with distance- and continuing-education programs. For example, if a college decides to develop a multimedia on-line business course to sell to specialized business audiences, it could recruit and pay separately all faculty for the project. Even if the faculty were drawn from the college in question, copyright would likely belong to the college, particularly if a copyright clause were written into the employment contracts (Gorman, 1999). Faculty may also seek ways around existing policies. For example, many universities and colleges have seen their professors simply avoid university administrations and create companies and private deals for on-line course publication and distribution. This trend will continue unless institutional intellectual property policies are negotiated, clearly defined, and communicated.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education has cited Athabasca University as the “messiest example” of disputes over intellectual property. The faculty association had an existing arrangement with the university whereby 30 per cent of the revenue produced and developed by Athabasca faculty and courses sold to other institutions was returned to faculty via their association. In 1994, the university attempted to unilaterally change the policy so that the administration would retain 75 per cent of the revenues, with the balance returned to the departments of the originating faculty member or members but not to the faculty association or directly to faculty. Under threat of a lawsuit, however, Athabasca agreed to revert to the previous policy until a new one could be negotiated (Guernsey and Young, 1 June 1998). It’s clear that copyright policies and procedures need to be clearly laid out and negotiated in advance of potential problems once an on-line course becomes successful. (More on this topic is discussed in the section on policy processes, below.) u s e o f c o p y r i g h t e d m a t e r i a l The use of copyrighted material by faculty and schools in their curricula is the other side of the copyright issue. At present, Canada’s copyright laws do not explicitly deal with digital materials or even the educational uses of digital materials. In this policy vacuum, course developers are advised to proceed cautiously and to obtain permissions to reproduce all material. For distance-education providers, who are heavy users of copyrighted material, the task of obtaining copyright clearance for use of digital materials is proving to be both time-consuming and costly. Publishers tend to balk at making their information available on-line and copyright permissions are often more expensive than for traditional print sources (Baggaley, 1998). Corporate Involvement The changing landscape of academia is also apparent in the growing number of partnerships between post-secondary institutions and private firms. Canadian universities and colleges have been working with private industry for years to conduct research. What is evident now is a growing private interest and involvement in course development and delivery. For example, Dalhousie University has partnered with iti (Information Technology Institute) to create an

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York University Faculty Association Collective Agreement 1996-1999, Article 23.02 The copyright to all forms of written, artistic, and recorded works (including, but not limited to, lecture courses and videos thereof, computer programmes, choreographic numbers, cartographic materials, bibliographic materials, and course materials, including correspondence course packages, course packages to be delivered on the Internet, multimedia instructional packages and interactive text books) shall be retained by the employee(s) responsible for the origination of the materials in whole or in part, pro-rated to reflect the contribution of the originator(s). (http://www.yroku.ca/yufa/ca/art23.htm) Brandon University Faculty Association Collective Agreement, 1998–2002, Article 21.1 “The Employer acknowledges that it has no interest in the sense of ownership or part ownership in any printed work, lecture notes, work of art, computer programme, or recorded work (for the purposes of this Article ‘recorded work’ means any recording, whether audio or video, made by means of tape, film, phonograph, kinescope, software or other similar medium and including any notes or other matter which accompany the medium) of a member unless special arrangements have been made with the member. Such special arrangements can only be made by completing the Copyright Licence Agreement in Appendix E. Entering into such special arrangements shall not be a condition of employment, except for those external sessional appointments (Article 7.16 b) made for the purpose of developing courses for distributed/distance delivery.” (http://www.bufa.org/ ca-98/bufa_21.htm) Acadia University Faculty Association Collective Agreement, 1997–2000, Article 33.20 (http://hobbes.pc.athabascau.ca/~aufa/). Canadian Association of University Teachers (caut), Policy statement and model clause on copyright (http://www.caut.ca/English/Policy/Info_Serv/ Copyright.htm). Burk, Dan L. (Autumn 1997). Ownership of electronic course materials in higher education. Cause/Effect 20, 13–18 (http://www.educause.edu/pub/ ce/cem97/cem973.html) Figure 5.1 Institutional Copyright Policy Sources

information technology-specific mba program. In 1999, tuition was $38,600 for nine months of full-time study and two years of parttime distance study. The part-time courses are offered via the Internet by the Dalhousie School of Business. The Northumberland Institute is a private management school owned by its parent company, LearnSoft Corporation. It is currently

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negotiating with the University of New Brunswick (umb) to offer an Executive mba in technology, information, and innovation. The course will be delivered on-line and targeted to working professionals and managers in the information-technology sector. The Northumberland Institute is responsible for the construction and delivery of the curriculum and courses, as well as for providing optimal customer service; unb provides the accreditation and awards the degree. The above examples make it clear that corporate interest in course development and delivery is found primarily in highly profitable niches. We are unlikely to see similar interest and activity in the humanities, social sciences, and pure sciences. We can already see significant corporate involvement, however, in the provision of information technology hardware and software – the infrastructure to support teaching and learning on-line. ibm’s laptop leasing program in support of mandatory laptop programs has done very well in Canada, with at least nine universities and colleges participating in the program (node, April 1999). University and college campuses clearly offer a valuable client base for software and hardware manufacturers. In the United States, Indiana University entered into a four-year, us$6-million contract with Microsoft to provide its 100,000 faculty, staff, and students with that firm’s most popular desktop and network software products. Canada has not yet seen the high-profile controversies that occurred in the us over corporate involvement in the provision of telecommunications infrastructure and services for universities. The California State University (csu) system’s failed California Educational Technology Initiative (ceti) was subject to highly vocal opposition. Despite the program’s failure, csu officials are still seeking corporate partnerships, albeit on a smaller scale, to finance the expansion of their telecommunications infrastructure. These controversies, however, should help ensure that university and college administrators proceed carefully with far-reaching corporate partnerships.

doing things right Academic Policy Issues a c c r e d i t a t i o n a n d q u a l i t y c o n t r o l The use of telelearning technologies throws into question many standard academic policy issues. For example, most traditional universities have

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residency requirements for degree completion. Does on-line learning make these requirements obsolete? When is residency required and why? And what proportion of technology costs should students be expected to contribute through fees? Electronic educational institutions are currently grappling with questions of accreditation and quality control. In the us, for example, Western Governors University (wgu) is currently undergoing an accreditation process for its competency-based degrees. In 1998, concerns were raised by accreditation commission members that wgu may be seeking college credential for what are essentially corporate-training programs (Blumenstyk, 6 February 1998a, A23). Accreditation in Canada is a very different process. Each province sets its own rules about who may or may not use the term “university” and who may award degrees, and the rules vary by jurisdiction. The term “college” is usually not as regulated, although many provinces require some sort of college program-level accreditation or approval. In this way, the provincial governments are the de facto accreditors for public universities, and some of them regulate the accrediting agencies responsible for private providers. Since the vast majority of Canadian educational institutions are public institutions, many have their authority to grant degrees established by legislation. Provincial program-review processes ensure the continued quality of course offerings. For private institutions, regulations are designed to take effect when an educational organization establishes a “presence” in a particular province. In the past, this has meant that out-of-province or foreign institutions that advertised in a province but did not actually operate there were exempt: they were considered to be correspondence schools. A “virtual” institution throws into question the concept of presence. The current interest and activity in on-line education could pave the way for virtual institutions to take on a substantial market share of higher education in a province without being subject to regulation and oversight. Only Ontario has identified the need to examine the notion of presence in its existing regulations. The challenge of accreditation is more than simply one of semantics, however. The increased use of distance-education methods will require that accreditation and program approvals pay particular attention to distance education’s unique challenges and approaches.

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A report prepared for the us-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation made the following recommendations: • Institutions need to set guidelines for measuring student perfor-

mance in distance-education courses. • When judging institutions, accreditors should consider contact between students and professors and the use of distance-teaching techniques that have proven effective. • Institutions should make distance education a consideration when hiring and training faculty members, to assure that professors are prepared to use new teaching technologies. • Institutions should be technologically up-to-date to assure that students don’t have difficulty “attending” classes (McCollum, 15 May 1998). Of course, the proliferation and extension of telelearning has the potential to create even more significant challenges for accreditation. Many people have contemplated the possibility of the completely “unbundled” institution, in which professors and tutors act as independent contractors, working full time in a knowledge-based industry or for another educational institution. Faculty would no longer “belong” to a particular educational institution, and learners would no longer be obliged to register with a particular institution. An institution might simply act as a facilitator between instructor and student or as a multimedia reference library in which learners pick and choose the information they want. In this scenario, accrediting bodies would grant status to professors and programs, and students would apply to the accreditors for certification of their learning credits and for a degree (Brown and Duguid, July/August 1996). Perhaps a more immediate possibility opened up by the proliferation of on-line offerings is the multi-institution degree. Again, this is an issue where some of the conditions predate telelearning. Athabasca University, for example, has long given students credit for previous courses so that the student may put those credits toward earning an Athabasca degree. The closest current example of the multi-university approach is wgu’s model for competency-based degrees. Students who elect for a competency-based credential need not take any courses at all – they must simply pass the competency-based exams. Most students, of course, develop their competencies by taking courses, which may

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Degree.Net (http://www.degree.net) Offers information on accredited and non-accredited distance-learning postsecondary programs. Oxford Open University (http://www.angelfire.com/mo/EmirMohammed/ university.html) Canadian student Emir Mohammed has mounted a Web site – a phony Oxford Open University – demonstrating just how easy it is to deceive unsuspecting students. Figure 5.2 Accreditation Resources

be from any institution. Students therefore choose those courses based on the courses’ ability to help prepare the student for particular competencies, not for specific credits. There are many obstacles to be overcome before the awarding of multi-university degrees from traditional institutions becomes a reality. The “not created here” attitude, decisions over which institution would actually award the final degree, and the development of consistent articulation policies are all obstacles to this vision. o r g a n i z a t i o n a l m o d e l s The administration of telelearning is part of the question of where to place responsibility for the management of information technology generally within the university. In this respect, there are many who argue for a strong coordinating role for the university library. For example, the University of Toronto has placed responsibility for the Learning Commons with the library. At the University of Indiana, the Center for Teaching and Learning is housed in the library. In this way, the Center has active participation from information specialists and copyright experts (Gilbert, 6 April 1998a). The library as a central coordinator for information technology can offer many advantages in certain universities. The library is a highly visible unit and highly valued within the university community. Adding a technology function to the library’s responsibilities can ensure that initiatives assume a high profile and that a high priority is placed on equitable access to information. This approach cannot work for every institution, however. If the library is still new, struggling for cash, or under the aegis of a

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less-than-powerful vice-president, the addition of a technological function will simply add to the its woes. To aid success, the library should have high ratings from students and faculty and normally be given adequate resources to achieve its mandate. (For example, a research-focused university might place more emphasis on its library holdings than a primarily undergraduate institution.) a r o l e f o r a c h i e f i n f o r m a t i o n o f f i c e r ( cio) ? Steven Gilbert notes that hiring a chief information officer (cio) is difficult for two reasons. First, it is unclear what functions the cio should oversee: should it be combination of academic and administrative computing? Should the library be included, given its increasing role in managing information resources? (Gilbert, 22 June 1997). Second, Gilbert points out that it is not clear that there are qualified people to fill these positions. He suggests that the ideal cio would possess some combination of computer science, library science, and an mba, along with some practical experience as an academic administrator and in the rapidly changing technology industry. Of course, he or she would need the university-valued credentials of teaching experience and an “earned doctorate,” if not an actual doctoral degree (Gilbert, 22 June 1997). A combination of clearly articulated responsibilities, necessary qualifications, and university-recognized credentials is crucial for this new position to gain the respect and authority it requires. One Canadian university appointed a cio in the early 1990s. Eventually, because of a number of authority and political credibility issues, the position was discontinued. Similarly, Gilbert describes how at several institutions the cio position was slowly allowed to sink to a lower level in the hierarchy once colleagues discovered that the incumbent could not simultaneously keep up with the rapidly shifting responsibilities of a technology-intensive job and contribute as a peer with other vice-presidents (Gilbert, 1997). Far more American universities and colleges have created ciotype positions than have Canadian institutions. McGill University appointed a Vice Principal of Information Systems and Technology in January 1998, however. This position is responsible for educational technology, telecommunications, computing systems, and the library – an impressive portfolio. Simon Fraser University is currently among the institutions considering the creation of a similar position, but is finding it difficult to fill.

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f e e s Special technology fees are becoming increasingly common as universities and colleges seek ways to finance the high cost of keeping up with new demands for information-technology services. The varied experiences of institutions in implementing such fees demonstrate that their success hinges on the clear articulation of their benefits for those who must pay them – the students. Technology fees should only be implemented when and if it can be demonstrated to students that they will receive something of value for their money. This is particularly important when a student fee must be approved by a vote of the student body. At the University of British Columbia (ubc), for example, students voted down a proposal for a student technology fee because they could not see any evidence of efforts by ubc to improve their learning through the use of technology. At the University of California, Los Angeles (ucla), a $10 to $14 fee was added per course to help fund the Educational Enhancement Initiative. One of the main benefits of the fee, it was argued, was that each course would now have its own corresponding Web site, created by the course professor and a student technology assistant. Students complained, however, that in most cases the sites were simply on-line versions of class handouts (Weiss, 31 March 1998). In other institutions, students have been more supportive of additional fees to fund technology-supported learning. Students at Algonquin College, for example, initiated a proposal for a technology fee that would be directed toward specific technology initiatives. The fee is supported by an agreement between the student association and the college that clearly delineates the responsibilities and standards that the college must meet, subject to annual review (see http: //www.algonquincollege.com/its/services/it fee memo.html). Another example of a well-designed technology fee proposal can be found at Louisiana State University. Its student technology fee has a plan attached to clear and measurable goals and objectives for how the funds will be used (see http:// www.lsu.edu/). Competition and Cooperation Among Public Institutions c o m p e t i t i o n : t h r e a t s There has been much concern about the potential for “virtual universities” to steal students and revenue

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away from traditional, campus-based institutions. A flurry of high-profile initiatives, particularly in the United States, has heightened fears. A review of these virtual-learning initiatives reveals that, while the threat is not as dire as some might have imagined, it does require strategic responses from Canadian institutions. First, the vast majority of on-line programs are directed at mature learners – adult workers with full-time jobs who are seeking upgrading. Canadian institutions have not traditionally devoted significant resources to this type of learner and will need to adapt if they want gain access to this market. An additional benefit of more asynchronous and flexible telelearning-based programs for adult learners is that these programs can also provide greater options for campus-based students, many of whom are also trying to customize their course schedules to fit their needs. Second, the market for higher education is expanding. In a knowledge-based economy, adult workers will be returning for retraining and upgrading throughout their careers. The younger, traditional, university-age population will also expand as the “baby boom echo” matures. This expansion means that there will be room for many players, serving many different needs. This market will not necessarily create “mass markets for learning,” but will “create options that are more and more customised for individual learners in organised patterns of inquiry” (Hanna, March 1998, 92). The development of this new market suggests that administrators and governments should not simply focus on large, solitary players. A more insidious threat than the “alligator” of an Internet-enabled “open university,” for example, is the “piranha” attack from small topic- or domain-specific niche players. These organizations will be nimbler and better able to take small bites out of the educational market, leaving possibly very little for traditional suppliers. Niche players are also better positioned in many cases to respond to shortterm or narrow demands because they lack administrative overhead and layers of senate, boards of governors, and various faculty committees and provincial boards. Instead of concerning themselves with the competitive threat from emerging on-line educational providers, Canadian post-secondary institutions need to mobilize and build on their individual strengths to offer their own specialized, targeted programs. These programs must be developed with an eye to better serving existing campus-based

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students through more flexible offerings and with support for a wider variety of learning styles. Unfortunately, the state of preparedness of Canadian universities and community colleges varies greatly. All institutions are involved to some degree in telelearning, usually through a handful of innovative faculty members who are experimenting on the margins. This should not surprise us since, as organizations, universities and colleges provide a place where it is possible for the periphery to experiment easily with new ideas and techniques in curriculum and pedagogy – an important asset during a time in which technology and firms are in constant flux. The core of these institutions, however, resists change. Their structural conservatism only allows fundamental change to happen glacially, a feature that some have suggested is in fact an important cultural asset (Gilbert, March/ April 1996). As a result, only a handful of Canadian post-secondary institutions have truly identified telelearning as an institutional priority. Others have avoided the internal debate that inevitably accompanies the declaration of priorities and are quietly putting into place support structures that will enable more experimentation and, perhaps, an eventual diffusion of telelearning practices into the mainstream. An exception at the university level is Acadia University, which has moved dramatically and throughout the institution to respond to the telelearning challenge. At another extreme, Techbc is a completely new institution that puts telelearning as a core part of its delivery model. The same is true for the new Royal Roads University, which has developed its own unique approach, combining telelearning-based courses with residential components aimed at the adult worker. The lack of strategic planning in the vast majority Canadian institutions, however, is not unique. A review of leading on-line providers elsewhere reveals a surprising lack of institutional strategy around the decision to go on-line (Massey and Curry, 1999). This means that Canadian institutions can still establish a competitive advantage in this area if they move forward with sound market research and quality offerings. c o m p e t i t i o n : n e w o p p o r t u n i t i e s New client groups offer potential new revenue sources for post-secondary education, an important consideration in times of declining government

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funding. Programs can be tailored for learners in specific areas or in specific industries and made available to them for learning at their convenience. The extension of existing expertise to new ends can also contribute to institutional and faculty renewal. Okanagan University College has successfully extended the revenue sources for an existing program. The College initiated a process that progressively adapts its trades programs to computer-based distance-delivery mechanisms, targeting its programs to tradespeople who have been working in their field for several years and who require skills upgrading but cannot travel to a college for courses. The workplace provides the hands-on experience while the course provides the theory. A flexible combination of on-line delivery, audio-graphic conferencing, and cd-rom technology is used to connect students and instructors. Programs for automotive technicians and recreational-vehicle technicians have been well received and have generated interest in the College from industry associations. In 1998, the program won the Bellwether Award, established by the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Florida to recognise outstanding and innovative programs that are successfully leading community colleges into the 21st century. Massy and Zemsky argue that we will soon think of universities in terms of “market niche.” They offer a three-part classification – brand name, convenience, and mass-provider. Brand-name campuses draw their advantage from their status and selectivity. They cater mostly to full-time students from traditional age groups. Convenience institutions, on the other hand, are celebrated for their userfriendliness and market-responsiveness. In this category, one finds a mix of community colleges, the University of Phoenix, and other institutions geared to students for whom a liberal arts degree is unappealing. Finally, the mass-market institution awards many traditional degrees in standard branches of academia and enrols students of all ages, often in part-time courses (Finn, 8 January 1998). This classification is important because it identifies the need for colleges and universities to become better at understanding their clients, their clients’ needs, and how to market to that niche. Part of this process includes matching existing strengths to growth potential. co operation : alliances and partn ersh ips Alliances and partnerships will be critical to our post-secondary institutions’ success in telelearning. Partnerships allow for the best use of resources

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and can reduce the duplication of efforts. They also allow different partners to focus on their respective areas of expertise. For example, the University of Waterloo offers an on-line Management of Technology Program with the Open University (ou); this partnership allows Waterloo to benefit from ou’s years of experience in distance education as well as utilize some of ou’s existing curricular materials. Waterloo, for its part, brings to the partnership its reputation as a leading educator in technological innovation and its knowledge of and access to the local high-technology sector (see http: //innovate. uwaterloo.ca/mot-de/info.html). The broad range of opportunities available in the provision of on-line learning makes it even more important that institutions be clear about their priorities and that they focus their efforts, since no single party will be able to perform all functions. The formation of partnerships, consortia, and strategic alliances occurs in response to both opportunities and competition. Contact South is a consortium of Ontario colleges that is pooling its resources to develop and offer on-line courses. It was created partly as a response to perceived increases in competitive pressures. The venture has expanded quickly as more colleges recognize the benefits of collaboration in telelearning. Thirty-six of Pennsylvania’s colleges have also entered into a statewide agreement to strengthen their distance education in response to competition from brand-name providers, including the increasingly dominant Pennsylvania State University (Selingo, May 1998). Partnerships can also come about because of external incentives. The Atlantic Notemakers consortium of six universities arose in response to an Industry Canada program to fund on-line course development in Canadian universities and colleges. Consortium members have collaborated on first- and second-year courses that will be offered to students throughout Atlantic Canada via the World Wide Web. First- and second-year courses are an ideal place in which to begin these collaborative ventures since they are more amenable to common curriculum. Upper-level undergraduateand graduate-level courses may prove to require more negotiation and flexibility in order to achieve common courseware and transferable credits. Elsewhere, smaller bilateral agreements abound. For example, the College of the Rockies in British Columbia has entered into a

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partnership with sait (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) to support remote learners in the Kootenays who are enrolled in sait on-line engineering technology courses. The recently formed LearnOntario/L’Ontario Apprend is another example of interinstitutional collaboration. In this case, a nonprofit organization – LearnOntario – has been created to encourage and support the development of telelearning courses in Ontario universities and colleges by being a resource centre, partnership builder, training organization, and “developer of communities.” The organization is jointly administratively supported by Ryerson Polytechnic University and Centennial College, and funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training. There are many other examples of such partnerships, and we are likely to see many more. We are also likely to see more government policies that will encourage the creation of cooperative alliances and partnerships in support of provincial policy goals to seek greater integration of provincial systems of higher education and to make more efficient use of resources. Caveats Clearly, partnerships and other forms of alliances are being instigated by many universities and colleges as a means of reducing the risk of entering into the world of on-line learning. The difficulties of creating and sustaining such partnerships are not to be underestimated, however, particularly among post-secondary institutions unused to cooperating with other institutions and organizations. It has more often been the case that universities have jealously guarded their autonomy, traditional catchment areas, and reputations. Power is an often unacknowledged and crucial factor in recommendations for partnership strategies. As well, not all attempts at partnership succeed. In British Columbia, a series of well-designed events was held to create a strategy for distributed learning among the province’s universities and colleges. Efforts to create a single coordinating body with responsibility for distributed learning in both the universities and colleges never materialized, however, because of the universities’ reluctance to participate. In the end, the colleges proceeded on their own. In the Atlantic provinces, an ambitious proposal was put forward by the Association of Atlantic Universities Telelearning Committee to create an Atlantic Canada Universities Open Learning Accrediting Service. This service would have had the authority to grant

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degrees to students based on qualifying courses they had taken from a consortium of Atlantic universities. Apart from the political intricacies of making such alliances work, there are also significant questions about the role and purpose of our universities and colleges. Our community colleges, for example, have been created to cater to the needs of their local communities. What happens to this role when, for instance, a group of colleges joins together to market their on-line courses around the country? (Blumenstyk, 1998b). As markets expand for on-line courses of all kinds, our community colleges will find that some of the courses developed for local needs will be well received elsewhere and can be marketed far and wide. Colleges will be then faced with deciding how to balance the needs of their local constituencies with the market needs of far-away students. Accessibility Issues access It is much too early to claim that offering only distance education options to any segment of society determined by rural location or lack of wealth can truly provide something like quality of educational opportunity. (Gilbert, cited in Holt, Summer 1998)

Increased access to post-secondary education is often cited as a rationale for the development of telelearning options. Our emerging knowledge-based society will put greater demands on universities and colleges for lifelong learning opportunities, so those opportunities must extend far and wide. Telelearning can help to fulfill this expanding demand. Clearly, there is promise in the ability of telelearning technology to reach remote and rural students, and those who cannot attend courses on campus. This promise is not necessarily easily realized, however. Personal ownership of computers is on the rise in Canada but the technology is still far from ubiquitous. The rate of access to the Internet is even lower. It is not enough to simply invoke the benefit of improved access. We must also pay attention to its quality. A recent report from the us-based College Board described ways in which on-line courses are actually creating new barriers to access. A barrier can be erected when, for example, an institution charges higher fees for on-line

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courses than for traditional courses. It is also unclear whether those students traditionally excluded from higher educational opportunities are taking advantage of new access opportunities through telelearning. Are on-line courses reaching those who might not otherwise have access to higher education, or are they simply accommodating those who would simply enrol in post-secondary education? The answer is simply not clear at this point in time (Gladieux and Swail, 1999). For students with disabilities, telelearning technologies offer both promise and limitations. Students who are unable to attend campus-based classes because of physical limitations can now participate in classes on-line from their homes, depending, of course, on the nature of their disabilities. There are several research efforts underway that can inform higher education policies in this area. For example, the adaptech research project at Concordia University, led by Dr. Catherine Fichten, is investigating the use of information and adaptive technology by Canadian post-secondary students who have disabilities. Saint Mary’s University is currently working with ibm Canada to pilot speed-recognition software, which will benefit hearing-impaired students. The university’s Atlantic Centre of Research, Access and Support for Disabled Students was established in 1985. ow n e rs h i p o f c o m p u t e rs by s t u d e n t s Student access to telelearning courses and programs requires that all students have access to the necessary hardware and software, as well as access to the Internet. In general, distance-based programs – that is, those programs that assume that students will never see the campus – tend to resolve the issue by simply making ownership of a computer a mandatory part of the program. Students are also given guidelines as to minimum hardware and software requirements. The choice of an Internet Service Provider (isp) is usually left to the student. Healthy competition in the Canadian isp sector has meant that institutions have not had to make special arrangements or deals on behalf of their students (see, for example, Athabasca University’s Web site: http: //www.athabascau.ca/html/courses/vital/sys-req.htm). The integration of telelearning into on-campus courses is different. Universities have traditionally provided computer labs on campus, where students have free access to a wide range of computer

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hardware and software. This situation has, in the past, worked well for limited student computing needs, but will not be sustainable as more and more courses incorporate even the simplest of on-line features, such as e-mail lists. For example, Simon Fraser University’s (sfu) review of its academic computing services calculated the capital cost of space, furniture, power, and communication per student computer to be $10,000, not including ongoing annual operating costs of $1,200 per computer. To allow each of sfu’s full- and past-time 15,000 students thirty-four minutes a day of access to computer time would require $4 million in capital costs alone; operating costs would be additional (Tolan, 24 September 1997). These kinds of costs (if they are accurate) are clearly not supportable in the current fiscal environment. Further, the benefits of such major purchases are suspect if students cannot be allocated adequate computer time to complete meaningful tasks. Many students, it seems, have already decided that owning a computer is a priority. A 1998 survey of sfu undergraduate students found that 90 per cent reported having access to a computer for school-related work off-campus (sfu, 1998). There is no reason to think that sfu is atypical of other Canadian urban campuses. As student computer ownership becomes a de facto part of postsecondary education in Canada, care must be taken to ensure that it does not become yet another barrier adding to the cost of education. Universities and colleges could pool their purchasing power to develop, for example, a variety of provincial or national options such as lease-with-buyback options at preferred rates, loans and grants programs for outright purchase (with provincial and/or federal governments), or loaner computer programs. The diversity of computer systems that will inevitably come with student computer-ownership policy also raises support-service issues. While support-service questions are discussed in detail later in this book, the following guideline from the University of Alberta is helpful: Any policy related to computer requirement should be universal and independent so that a base of functionality is provided to all students regardless of discipline, class standing, residential status or other characteristics. Hence, access to computing should be equitable while respecting the diversity of technological needs from program to program. (University of Alberta, nd)

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Sonoma State University has created a comprehensive policy around the use of laptops: Sonoma State University in California has a mandatory computer ownership policy for its students. To address issues of equity and access, the University maintains a pool of laptops available for loans. It has also made arrangements with the university bookstore and with local suppliers to make computers available to students at lower cost. In addition, a special loan program has been created at a local banking institution. These provisions, and a number of others, can assist students in meeting minimum computer equipment requirements. (Sonoma State University, 1998)

The “Laptop University” One possible solution to the student access problem that warrants special attention is the “laptop university,” the generic name for a policy that requires all students to own a laptop computer. Generally, this option has been implemented for campus-based programs and students. Courses and programs are adapted to take advantage of connectivity and other capacities of a laptop computer. This initiative presents a variety of policy issues and challenges to universities. Some of the issues are similar to more general telelearning policy issues already dealt with in this book – faculty support and development; student-support services; the need for strategic planning; and a sound implementation plan. For a review of these issues as they relate to the laptop university option, see The Laptop College by the Network of Ontario Distance Educators (node, April 1999). There are, furthermore, considerations specific to the laptop option. For example, financial arrangements can make a difference to the program’s affordability. At Acadia University, and at other institutions, the cost of the computer lease is built into tuition, which was raised accordingly when the program began. The university leases the computers and then issues them to students. This arrangement allows students to include the cost of the computer when they claim the tuition credit on their income tax returns. It may also allow the cost to be offset by provincial student-loan programs (node, April 1999). Other institutions have chosen instead to create special technology fees to fund their laptop programs. Many of the claimed pedagogical and curricular benefits of laptop use in universities and colleges are simply convenience factors.

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For example, laptop computers permit the use of electronic course syllabi, on-line assignment submission, electronic marking processes, and e-mail access to professors. This is not to say that laptops cannot help to bring curricular innovations to campus, but that innovation and convenience should not be conflated. In fact, as noted in the node report, convenience for working, adult students at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, was the single overriding factor in the school’s decision to make the use of laptops mandatory in the program (node, April 1999). The use of laptops also introduces concerns about durability, upgradeability, and theft. Humber College rejected the laptop option partly over concerns about theft. The College found that many successful laptop programs were located in rural campuses where theft was less of a concern. Nonetheless, Sheridan College, located in the sprawling suburban area that surrounds Toronto, has just announced plans to expand its highly successful laptop program. Implementing a laptop program will certainly change a classrom environment, and little research has been done on exactly what changes might occur. At first, however, it seems that a culture of “haves” and “have-nots” appears, as those students in the laptop program stand out from those students in programs not yet computerized. A phased implementation, in which first-year students acquire laptops while senior-year students are left out, can also leave the graduating class feeling cheated (node, April 1999). Wakeforest University, a laptop-using university in North Carolina, has surveyed its two cultures – the students included in the phasedin implementation and those not included. It found that students in the laptop program demonstrated many positive traits, such as: • • • •

greater participation in class discussions; more positive relationships with faculty and administrators; a higher likelihood of voting in student elections; and an increased interest in playing games in the student union building (of course, it is unclear whether this is a positive outcome). This group also exhibited some negative traits, however:

• knowledge acquired from reading and from listening to the pro-

fessor decreased, as did the use of reference materials;

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• students raised concerns about their total development; • students reported they were getting less of a general education;

and • volunteer and extracurricular activities decreased (Griffith, 25 July

1998). Curriculum Development and Evaluation In traditional education a teacher teaches. In distance education an institution teaches. This is a radical difference. (Keegan, nd)

Telelearning’s technological and pedagogical principles fundamentally challenge the ways in which universities and colleges have traditionally been expected to teach. This raises a number of questions about both the quality of the educational experience and of learning. Most institutions are poorly equipped to collect and analyse this information, depending largely on teaching evaluations completed by students at the end of each course. By contrast, the University of Phoenix has put in place sophisticated systems for continually monitoring student satisfaction, progress, and a variety of other data that are subsequently used to guide curriculum development. This model is more akin to privateindustry systems for quality control than to university models based on collegial governance and faculty autonomy. Bearing in mind that student satisfaction does not automatically translate into high-quality education, the level of satisfaction still remains an important albeit indirect indicator. Distance-education research has shown that, from the student’s perspective, the availability of comprehensive learner supports is a crucial indicator of success. The features of telelearning that attract students are the same as those that give them trouble – the flip-side of on-line learning’s convenience and flexibility is a course that is always present, waiting to be addressed, and thus easily avoided. The local institution’s function should not be limited to providing support services, however. First, expertise in both content and alternative educational delivery is found across Canadian post-secondary institutions. Telecommunications enables collaborative processes and projects that can pool this distributed expertise for the production of telelearning courseware and programs. Second, courses “brokered”

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from elsewhere will require a regional context that makes knowledge relevant to the local student. Local institutions can add value to a course brought in from another institution by having it facilitated by or supplemented with sessions from a local instructor. Modular courses also offer professors the ability to draw on multiple sources, including their own institution’s, to develop customized courses sensitive to local conditions and student needs. Research in distance education has long held that there is no significant difference between face-to-face classrooms and distance learning. Sufficient activity in telelearning means that data collection on teaching and learning effectiveness and new learning models is now possible. In this area, TeleLearning-nce plays a particularly important research role, since we know much less about taking entire post-secondary programs on-line than we do about taking the same program on a campus. We do know that the university or college experience is much more than just a collection of courses. s t a n d a r d s The development of standards, both technical and consumer-oriented, is a policy area that definitely requires interinstitutional partnerships. At present, the most important initiative in this area is the Instructional Management Systems (ims) project. Led by Educause, an organization that promotes the use of technology in higher education, ims is a set of standards designed to allow electronic-teaching tools developed by different software and publishing companies to work together, regardless of origin. The project’s open and object-oriented principles offer an alternative to proprietary on-line educational content, which is often tied to a specific software platform or university. With ims, educational content can be developed in modules and then reused and recombined with other materials to produce curricula suited to the needs of specific students and courses. ims investors include Microsoft, Apple, ibm, Peoplesoft, International Thomson Publishing, kpmg, government representatives from around the world, and several, primarily American, universities. Version 1.0 of the ims standards was released in 1999 (see www.imsproject.org/). Another important group that is working on developing standards for on-line learning is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ieee) and its Learning Technology Standards

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Committee. Educause participates in ieee committee meetings and intends to submit its own standards to ieee as the first step in establishing certified international standards. ieee approval can then go on to more rigorous ansi (American National Standards Institute) and iso (International Standards Organizations) standards approval processes (Newman, nd). Consumer protection and education will also become important as telelearning expands and opportunities for learning abound in both the private and public sectors. The distinction between a “digital diploma mill” and a well-recognized and well-respected institution will become even greater. Consumer-related standards and protection are usually matters of national jurisdiction, but telelearning challenges these national boundaries. There are currently no coherent consumer protection policies, although the work by gate (Global Alliance for Transnational Education) on the quality of transnational education is a step in the right direction (Cunningham et. al., January 1998, 159–60). Some independent efforts are also filling the gap. Pearson Education and the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications have produced the Distance Learner’s Guide. Based on the success of a previous book, Distance Education, A Consumer’s Guide: What Distance Learners Need to Know, the new book includes information on how students can gauge quality offerings and the kind of student-support services they should demand. Support, Labour, and Course-Maintenance Issues t h e s u p p o r t s e r v i c e c r i s i s Steve Gilbert of the Teaching, Learning and Technology Group has warned for several years of a “support-service crisis” in the United States for educational uses of information technology. “Those who succeed in getting more people engaged with technology are being ‘punished’ with dramatically increased demands for their services, demands which they cannot meet” (Gilbert, 1998b). The annual Campus Computing Survey of Information Technology in Higher Education corroborates Gilbert’s observations – providing adequate user support services has consistently ranked among the top concerns of highereducation planners and administrators (Green, November 1996; November 1998).

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The support-service crisis was inevitable as universities and colleges in the us began following similar patterns: increase investment in it, but give little attention to the increased demand for technical support. Faculty and student expectations began to rise as they anticipated the arrival of new technology. Demands for equipment and more support increased and the pattern repeated itself. Thus, user support declined just as faculty and student aspirations increased (Gilbert and Green, 1995, 20). A number of different types of support services are necessary for the effective institutional implementation of educational technology: network and technical support; pedagogical and multimedia support staff; help-desk staff; library services; and training services for both students and staff. No one has written of a parallel support-service crisis in Canada, although there are clear signs that support systems are under strain. Funding cutbacks have meant that academic computing units must respond to increased demands with proportionally fewer resources. Computing-services units are also faced with the unique challenge of competing for people with skills that are in high demand in other parts of the economy. One Canadian university, for example, lost half of its computing-support staff to private industry within a twoyear period. Needless to say, replacing and training lost staff requires time and funds that are already in short supply. At the same time, user demands are increasing. One indicator of increased use is the size of institutional modem pools. York University reports that its pool started with ninety-six modems in 1996 and expanded to 1,100 modems by 1998 (York University Computing + Communications Services, April 1998). p l a n n i n g f o r s u p p o r t The provision of adequate support services must be included as part of the planning process for the development of on-line courses and programs. Successful competitors in the on-line area, such as the University of Phoenix, make a point of providing easily accessible and responsive learner services, such as on-line registration, fee payment, course catalogues, and access to counsellors and financial aid. They are equally clear, however, about services that they do not provide. For example, on-line students are fully expected to provide their own computer and Internet connection to participate in classes. This policy is in stark contrast

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to Canada’s public universities, which have made considerable investments in computer labs, modem pools, and other facilities for student use. While it may not be realistic for all of Canada’s public universities and colleges to require students to own computers and hold isp accounts, our institutions can be clear about the nature and extent of service they will provide. Athabasca University publishes a set of service standards that clearly informs students of how quickly they can expect responses and action for a variety of requests, from computer help-desk queries to marked exams. Algonquin College set out standards and services as part of its student-approved technology-fee program. Universities and colleges that are serious about improving learner services will see the use of information technology as a way to extend services such as registration and book purchasing. In many cases, universities will have to develop and deploy “e-commerce” in order to conduct financial transactions on-line (Morrison, 1998, 5). Well-developed and well-designed student-support services can also be part of a new, competitive strategy for post-secondary institutions. Like traditional students, students who are learning on-line will need access to financial-aid, advising, and libraries. Support services can provide a key advantage over offerings from “offshore” on-line institutions. Local institutions have libraries, face-to-face counselling, computer labs, and other services. Terry O’Banion has expanded on this need for student support. He introduced the “learning college” concept, in which local community colleges will become brokers of course content developed elsewhere and specialists in student services. The learning college will assist students in identifying and selecting courses from those available by distance education, provide career counselling, technical and on-line support and training, competency testing, and other services (O’Banion, 1997). A 1997 report from accc identified a similar approach, focusing on how telelearning could be used to strengthen the “core of collegeness,” such as coaching and counselling learners (Association of Canadian Community Colleges, March 1997, 25–6). Dennis Holt of Southeast Missouri State University describes eight principles for designing collaborative support structures for teaching and technology:

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• commit to an institutionalized link between technical support for

• • • • • • •

instructional technology and the more general objective of improving teaching and learning; provide professional staffing for both technical support and instructional design; leverage resources by using student technology consultants; provide flexible, one-to-one assistance to faculty for creating and using instructional applications of technology; provide summer opportunities for faculty development in instructional technology; embed instructional technology development efforts in a wellconceived institutional strategic plan for information technology; centre all development efforts on some accepted standards for effective teaching and learning; and involve faculty in planning, oversight, and the generation of ideas for the development of instructional technology (Holt, 1998).

There are many ways in which institutional support-service units can collaborate to avoid unnecessary overlaps or gaps in service. For example, at Simon Fraser University, the Instructional Development Group (idg) is an umbrella organization for the LohnLab for Teaching Technologies (Instructional Design and Production), the library, the Centre for University Teaching, Academic Computing Services, and the Instructional Media Centre (which supplies traditional media production such as graphics and video). idg gives faculty points of entry into using other media, including on-line technologies and new media, as an integrated part of teaching in their content area. Instructional design support, materials/media production support, and computer server/infrastructure support allow faculty to spend their time in communication with students through technology. Centralized and specialized units can support faculty in their use of new media for teaching, advise on their choice of technology, and assist with technical matters. Faculty should feel in control of the pedagogical goals and course content and feel that they are dealing with manageable technology. This helps to get faculty excited about the possibilities that new technology offers. Establishing the levels of support that can allow faculty to focus on their skills as instructors and content experts and to source expert technical and design help as needed is difficult. Faculty ought

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not to be burdened with a “laundry list” of new computer software and hardware technologies to master in order to teach on-line. Even a fair-sized development and production unit would become overburdened if asked to convert 5 per cent of an institution’s conventional teaching to on-line delivery (O’Hagen, 23 September 1998). Keeping the technology simple can help. There are many popular programs available that make it easy to create on-line environments in which the instructor creates content, manages student accounts, and, sometimes, even maintains servers. Most professors can manage a basic listserv as an add-on to a face-to-face course, but some courses will need simulations or graphics to communicate adequately to students. Student Technology Assistants Student technology assistant programs are often cited as partial solutions to the financial and service demand crunch for academic-computing units (Gilbert, 1998b; Yohe, 1996). Most of these programs employ students to codevelop on-line courses with professors. The rationale is that many young students already possess technical expertise. Some programs try to employ students who have participated in the face-to-face version of the course; the students are then able to contribute to the on-line course by redesigning it based on their prior experience. This type of program has several benefits: the student receives some financial support; the student trains the professor in the new technology; the student becomes trained in pedagogical approaches; and these programs offer one of the few opportunities for undergraduate students to work closely with a professor. Student technology assistant programs are actively used in some American universities, such as Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, and are also being tested in several Canadian universities. m a n a g i n g e x p e c t a t i o n s Managing the support-service expectations of both faculty and students is crucial in this time of spiralling technological change and capabilities. Kenneth Green’s 1995 Campus Computing Survey showed that 56 per cent of faculty have unreasonable expectations about user support services. The publication of service standards such as Green’s is an important part of managing expectations, as is allowing users to become partly self-sufficient. Moving new users from stages of high

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support-service levels to moderate levels helps to keep the provision of comprehensive support services a sustainable endeavour. f a c u l t y d e v e l o p m e n t Faculty, of course, are central to any telelearning initiative in a university or college. This means that adequate attention must be paid to faculty concerns over workload, technical support, training, and other labour issues. The last two Campus Computing Project reports (1998 and 1997) indicated that the single most important it issue for post-secondary institutions was, “assisting faculty integrate technology into instruction” (Green, November 1998). Educating the Educators Telelearning clearly creates new technological and non-technological support requirements for both faculty and students. To date, much of the telelearning activity at universities and colleges has occurred because a handful of faculty members have experimented on their own, with little institutional support. These “early adopters” put in countless hours to learn the technology, develop their own curriculum resources, and support students in their technological learning curves. While most early adopters made the sacrifice willingly, the challenge for post-secondary institutions in adopting telelearning is in bringing along the rest of the faculty, or at least a critical mass. It is at this point that support and development functions become crucial. A study conducted in 1993 by the University of Southern California found that of a thousand colleges and universities surveyed, 86 per cent did not have a policy of rewarding faculty for developing courseware and 60 per cent had no formal projects for developing instructional software. The full utilization of on-line tools to develop courseware will only occur when faculty feel encouraged to invest the time and energy required to develop it. Most Canadian universities and colleges have developed some sort of faculty training or support mechanism for Web-based functions. These vary widely in their comprehensiveness and the level of support offered – from lunchtime “How to Surf the Web” courses to summer institutes and sabbaticals. Many are associated with existing centres for faculty development, though others are not as integrated. The challenge lies in identifying the necessary training, providing adequate levels of support, and integrating the many service units necessary for delivering an on-line course.

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Faculty training will be needed for the technical aspects of the technology as well as for the pedagogical aspects. Faculty who usually conduct lectures will need to learn new skills so that they can facilitate on-line discussion groups and encourage collaborative learning. There will also be a cultural shift, as faculty become part of course-development teams, working with multimedia developers and learning designers and sharing responsibility over course content and goals. The benefits of pedagogical training methods are not limited to telelearning, of course. Ironically, much of the attention being given to distance learning has further renewed interest in improving university teaching practices. This interest can help on-campus teaching as much as on-line teaching. A variety of incentives can be used to encourage experimentation and innovation. Revised promotion and tenure policies are an important part of this process. Portland State University uses an integrated pedagogy and technology faculty-development program that employs faculty “coaches” to guide fellow members. Based on the understanding that faculty should be as rewarded for their “scholarship of teaching” as for their research scholarship, the program teaches faculty how to research and document their teaching practices and rewards them through promotion and tenure policies (see http: //www.oaa.pdx.edu/cae.htm). Funding programs can also be used to encourage faculty to use telelearning in their teaching. Some funding can be offered to faculty to assist their course development, for example. These funds can be provided as a teaching release, a stipend, or through a competitive award system. Awarded funds do not need to be significant – $5,000 is often adequate. Enough must be awarded to buy a piece of equipment or hire a student. It is not enough to simply award funds and to expect faculty to develop the courses. Comprehensive technical and instructional design support must be available if faculty are to make the best use of their time. George Brown College’s Learning Innovations and Academic Development (liad) combines many of the elements discussed above in its annual competition for distance-education proposals from faculty and staff. Winning faculty spend a year at liad developing their distance-education projects with technical and other support from liad staff. Faculty members are released from their regular teaching duties and funding is provided by the academic vice-president. Replacement teaching staff are provided. After their

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year at liad, faculty members return to their departments to pilot and implement their courses. Special seminars or extended “summer institutes” have also been offered, usually through faculty-development offices. The leading of these courses by other faculty members has also proven to be successful. Some institutions have created special annual events, at which innovative teaching is featured and faculty are given the opportunity to demonstrate their on-line courses to their colleagues. Portland State University has an annual “Technology Fair,” for example, and sfu hosts an annual Symposium on Innovative Teaching. The sfu Symposium includes a conference at which research on various aspects of university teaching is presented. This approach recognizes two of the pillars of university life: collegiality and research. On a provincial scale, the Centre for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology (c2t2) (bc) sponsors the Connections conference, held every two years, as well as a number of smaller professional-development events on a more regular basis. The c2t2 model has sparked interest in other Canadian provinces, where similar co-ordinating mechanisms are being planned by, for example, Alberta’s Advisory Committee on Educational Technology (acet). Portland State University has included technology-assisted teaching within a broader program of curricular reform for tenure and promotion structures. The program begins with pedagogical principles, trains faculty in these principles, and then applies the technology through a model of peer support and training. A “scholarship of teaching” is thus promoted, grounded in standard academic procedures of research, peer review, and assessment. This approach is borrowed from the Carnegie Foundation’s “Advancement of Teaching,” which advocates that instructors rigorously examine and reflect upon their own work as a valid research topic (Guernsey, 15 February 1999). All of these examples are of voluntary and incentive programs. Compulsory teacher-training programs remain rare. Royal Roads University (rru) is an exception: it has made a Learning Facilitator’s Certificate compulsory for its entire core faculty and some associate faculty (rru, 1998). Of course, Royal Roads’ mandate is unique – to be a market-oriented, adult-centred institution. Full programs are also available to train professionals and/or faculty in distance and on-line learning and teaching methods and management. Compared with the us, Canada has few educational

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technology programs. Concordia offers a Master’s degree, a Ph.D., and a diploma option through its graduate program in educational technology. New programs are quickly beginning to emerge, however. The University of British Columbia has developed a Certificate in Technology-based Distributed Learning, which is aimed at academics, instructional designers, instructors, and program administrators in post-secondary education. Universities and colleges also need to provide faculty with the space to allow for “safe experimentation” with new methods of teaching and course delivery. For example, a British Columbia college professor was encouraged to teach a pilot on-line program since it provided him with a teaching release and since the success or failure of the course would entail no risk to recurring departmental funding. l i b r a r y s e r v i c e s The library is a central part of the campusbased university experience. The size and nature of library holdings are measures of a research university’s stature and are part of its lure to students and researchers. While much progress has been made in digitizing some aspects of library collections, particularly recent journal collections, these efforts still include only a fraction of most collections. It will be a long time before books, smaller, or older publications are digitized, if ever (node, June 1998a). The type of virtual library available to on-line students is typified in one highly successful program, the University of Phoenix’s “Online Campus.” Its “virtual library” almost entirely comprises journals, magazines, and trade publications. For articles and other resources not located within the library, students can make a search request to the library staff or consult their local library. On the whole, this collection probably serves the University of Phoenix students best since most are enrolled in business programs that are geared to the kind of up-to-the minute literature found in journals and trade publications. For more comprehensive public universities and colleges, limited library resources can restrict the kind of subjects that can be taught on-line. These constraints could mean that on-line curricula are moulded to fit the available research resources. While some students can be referred to their local university or college library, many rural students – one of the groups that on-line education is supposed to serve – will only have access to a public library, which often do not offer the specialized collections required in higher education. Further, the convenience of on-line resources may deter students from seeking

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relevant older or printed information that can provide valuable context and historical perspective (node, June 1998a). As a report by node notes, on-line technologies have done little more than increase the speed of access to library materials and have not improved the extent and reach of that access. This report makes several recommendations to assist in addressing these difficulties: make use of interinstitutional agreements to support distance students in whatever location they may find themselves (for example, the Electronic Library Network in bc), and consult librarians when planning for new on-line programs to ensure that on-line collections are developed and available to support pedagogical goals (for example, Simon Fraser University has appointed librarians in every subject area; they are responsible for identifying and maintaining an inventory of on-line resources for their assigned discipline (node, June 1998a). The issue of cost, however, is unavoidable and will require institutions to make crucial, priority-based decisions. Funds devoted to the development of electronic library services can take away from resources that are earmarked to improve non-electronic library sources for distance learners. User fees are an option, although their use means risking the creation of new financial barriers for students. At the University of Alberta, for example, students can pay an additional $110 per term, which provides them with unlimited document delivery, library loans, and extended reference service. Otherwise, costs are $5 per item for document delivery and article and $15 per book by interlibrary loan (node, June 1998a). l a b o u r The negotiation of faculty contracts over the last two years has served to highlight the tensions between university administrators and their teaching staff over telelearning. Indeed, it was the faculty strike in March 1997 at York University that first indicated how serious the divisions had become. Two of the key issues during that strike were class size and technological change. The Collective Agreement between the university and the faculty association now contains the following clause: [17.01] (e) (i) In matters not specifically covered by the Collective Agreement where changes in existing practices with respect to computing and information technology would have a significant impact on terms and conditions of employment and/or the professional responsibilities of all, or potentially all employees, changes in existing practices would be effected through written notification as per 17.01 (b) above;

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(ii) In matters of a Faculty-wide nature where technological change would have significant impact on terms and conditions of employment and/or professional responsibilities, changes in existing practices would be effected through written notification as per 17.01 (c) above. (York University Faculty Association, 1997)

In November 1998, the University of Manitoba Faculty Association reached a tentative agreement that gave faculty the right to choose whether or not to use various educational technologies and to be protected against any job loss that could otherwise result from such technologies (Manitoba, 1998). The Canadian Association of University Teachers (caut) has developed model clauses for faculty collective agreements on the instruction of courses on-line and for the choice of teaching materials. These model clauses state that a faculty member is free to either choose or refuse to use specific teaching techniques and technologies and that faculty should receive adequate training for the use of technology (caut, May 1998a; caut, May 1998b). It is generally agreed that courses taught on-line currently require more preparation and teaching time from professors. Course preparation for face-to-face teaching has been a solitary activity done at one’s own pace and perhaps only over the course of the semester as the course is taught. Telelearning, however, often requires a team approach, in which faculty members are expected to work with a variety of specialists to prepare a course prepared in its entirety, and in advance. If support staff are not available, then faculty must prepare and research all on-line materials themselves. Computer-conferencing courses can also generate mountains of e-mail messages, since students are usually required to contribute to the discussion a minimum number of times. While this format may lead to improved learning for the students, overloaded faculty will find that their other work suffers. Infrastructure Issues t h e i m p l e m e n t a t i o n c y c l e Gilbert and Green outline a typical cycle of the implementation and integration of information technology in an organization: Stage 1: some planning, investigation and experimentation take place. There is recognition that the leading competitors (peer institutions) have

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already started to use technology. There is the recognition by some individuals that they can do some of their work better and faster if they can use the most widely available functions of a desktop computer. A decision is made to permit small groups to go ahead with experiments or to ignore the fact that they already have done so; Stage 2: a few years of marked increase in planned capital investment for individual workers/professionals and surprising increases in operating expenses – with little reduction in other expenses. Additionally, there are unanticipated but significant delays in implementing some of the most “obvious” applications. The organization slowly begins to accomplish some tasks never before attempted and experiences a modest gain in the scale or scope of new activities; Stage 3: a few years of readjustment ensue, where costs and annual investments in technology stabilize, while capacity continues to grow and new functions are developed and implemented; Stage 4: finally, there are several years where the organization achieves new levels of efficiency and effectiveness – but the organization is no longer really in quite the same “business” it was in the beginning. No one seriously asks if technology-increased productivity compares with the previous ways of working, because the organization is no longer pursuing the old objectives and no longer works in the old way. No one seriously considers abandoning the technology because it has become inconceivable to accomplish what is now being done without it. (Gilbert and Green, 1995, 10–11)

Writing in 1995, Gilbert and Green suggested that universities were at stages 1 or 2. In 1999, we would argue that Canadian institutions are still largely at this stage. This is not to say that one small unit in a particular university may be moving to stage 3. As organizations, however, our colleges and universities remain at the moneyspending stages. The above cycle is based on research in the private sector. Universities and colleges, however, tend to have more decentralized decision-making structures and as a result can be expected to move through the stages more slowly than industrial organizations of the same size (Gilbert and Green, 1995, 11). Learning from the experiences of large industrial organizations and their adoption of it, Gilbert and Green foresee two great risks: 1. many institutions will focus on technology, with inadequate attention to other components of the process. This will lead to marginal (if any)

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gains, great individual and organizational frustration and, ultimately, to unrealized potential; 2. only a few institutions will have the financial and personnel resources and commitment necessary to achieve the educational potential of information technology – providing access to superior learning options for students and new levels of faculty productivity. (Gilbert and Green, 1995, 22)

Both of these risks can be addressed if adequate attention is paid to the integration of technology into overall institutional plans and missions and with the clear articulation of goals for educational technology. c o s t As universities and colleges around the world are discovering, involvement in telelearning requires a significant, often extraordinary, investment in hardware and network infrastructure. While funds are often made available for these types of investments by governments, it is generally part of a larger “zero-sum” game, as funds are withdrawn from other possible areas, such as human resources, research, and capital expenditures. At most universities and colleges, the distribution of network and computer resources is uneven across departments and faculties. While many institutions are making efforts to bring all staff up to a minimum equipment level, the root of the problem seems to be how post-secondary institutions treat computing expenses. Kenneth C. Green’s annual Campus Computing Survey of American universities and colleges has shown that the bulk of computer purchases are made with “budget dust” – funds left over at the end of a fiscal year that must be spent before they are lost. Few institutions amortize the cost of equipment and fewer still can provide an accurate inventory of their technological assets, much less produce an estimate of their it costs. The 1998 Campus Computing Survey found that less than two-thirds of us colleges have an “acquire-retire” plan to manage the recurring cots of replacing technology (Green, November 1998). Clearly, a better understanding of the cost of it to higher education is needed. A project to identify it costs at the California Polytechnical Institute, led by Lev Gonick, came up with a total of $500 per fte (full-time equivalent) for all computing functions, including distance education, academic and administrative computing, faculty and student use, and overhead.

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Tony Bates of the University of British Columbia has conducted cost-benefit analyses of several on-line course offerings as part of a TeleLearning-nce-supported project. His research has attempted to identify the total costs of developing and delivering an on-line course as well as analyse benefits, both direct and indirect. In general, his findings for a ubc on-line course show that expected costs were far less than the actual costs of developing and offering the course, even when budgeted by an expert in technology-mediated distance education. Major contributions to cost overruns could be attributed to a series of academic policy issues that made the development and delivery of an on-line course difficult, such as registrations, admissions policies, and bookstore procedures (Bates and Bartolic-Zlomislic, 1999). The ubc course in question was developed and offered in partnership with an institution in Mexico. This partnership proved to be a significant factor in reducing overall costs. It seems clear that telelearning cannot be expected to bring significant cost savings to teaching and learning in the short term. By all accounts, the investment of time and specialized personnel it takes to develop an on-line course costs significantly more than creating the equivalent face-to-face course. Telelearning has the potential, however, to make university teaching and learning more cost-effective in the long-term if it is accompanied by a strategic marketing plan that seeks new revenue sources for the same course. Partnerships with other institutions are an important part of such efforts, as is a longterm view: these plans might expect to see a return on investment over a five-year period. This approach presents a significant cultural challenge to our institutional leadership. Canadian universities and community colleges do not, as a rule, make investments in order to compete. While our institutions believe they are demand-driven, in fact inertia and internal drivers are more important: the two most common reasons a course is offered at a university are because it has always been offered or because a professor develops an interest in a specific area. d o i n g m o r e w i t h l e s s The challenge of dealing with spiralling technology demands and their associated costs can be daunting. It is possible, however, to use telelearning technologies to reduce the costs and improve the quality of teaching and learning. Telelearning thus becomes a “value-added” strategy, adding new

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A: Access: where will learners prefer/need to learn: home, work, local centers, on campus, in transit? To what extent do the technologies used meet these requirements? C: Costs: is this a suitable technology in terms of cost, given the volume of programmatic activity and the numbers of learners likely to be involved over the length of the program? T: Teaching functions: presentational requirements of the subject; required teaching and learning approaches. To what extent do the technologies used meet these requirements? I: Interaction and user-friendliness: how do learners and teachers interact? What is the quality of interaction? Do students and teachers require a great deal of training to use this technology? O: Organization: what changes in organization will be required to facilitate the use of a particular technology? N: Novelty: how ready or robust is this technology for the target group? Has it stimulated funding and innovation and a re-generation of faculty/students? S: Speed: how quickly and easily can material be updated and changed? How quickly can materials be produced or learning materials accessed using this technology? (Bates, 1995, 1–2) Figure 5.3 Tony Bates’s actions Model for Measuring Costs and Benefits

value to face-to-face teaching and extending the reach of campusbased and paper-based distance programs. In an example of doing more with less, the University of Ottawa has created Biodidac, a database of biological images and text that provides an excellent on-line resource for biology lab students. Biodidac assists students in preparing for and better understanding the content of their biology laboratory sessions. The impetus for developing the resource was a funding crunch: student learning in the labs was suffering because of increased class sizes and decreased funds for buying specimens for dissection.

policy processes Fostering Change Our research has shown that policy processes are critical to the development of sound policies and strategies for telelearning

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technologies. The issues associated with on-line learning are quickly and easily polarized, linked as they are to fundamental ideas about the purpose of education, the role of professors, and the sharing or wielding of power. Institutional policy processes should: • use a transparent process of deliberation and implementation; • make decisions based on research (since academic culture values

research, the basis for decisions about technology needs to be clearly communicated and documented); and • enable faculty to feel in control of the technologies, which should also fulfill an academic purpose. technology planning and strategies All too often, computing plans are focused on technology itself, rather than on how technology enables faculty and students to achieve some of the key instructional or research goals of the institution. (Hawkins, cited in Nedwek, 1999)

Strategic planning for information technology has been part of university and college planning processes for a long time. What has changed is the addition of new functions for information technology – teaching and learning. Still, while many universities may be aware of the need for planning, few have successfully extended it to information technology. The 1998 Campus Computing Project report, although based on us data, is instructive. Just under half of us colleges reported having a strategic plan for information technology, more than 60 per cent did not have a financial plan, and less than a third had a plan for using the Internet in their distancelearning initiatives (Green, November 1998). A study of 150 technology officers in American universities found that approximately 10 per cent of them participated in no technology planning at all, saying that it was a frustrating, time-consuming endeavour that distracted instead of contributed to their day-to-day tasks. Nonetheless, this study found that a majority of technology officers devoted a considerable amount of time to strategic planning. The successful processes were able to distinguish between the two functions of technology planning – socioeconomic and strategic goals (Ringle and Updegrove, 1998).

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Socioeconomic goals for technology planning are issues concerned with process. In this case, the goals for a planning exercise are to: • • • • • •

align technology with other institutional priorities; disseminate knowledge about technological needs and constraints; build alliances with key decision-makers; lobby for and obtain financial and other resources; address existing technology needs; and keep an eye on the leading edge. (Ringle and Updegrove, 1998)

These process goals were the most important part of technology planning for technology officers. The second part of technology planning – the strategic – is concerned with technical issues. Given the speed at which technology is changing, few officers would confidently predict their institution’s needs two or three years down the road. For this reason, technology planning needs to focus primarily on process issues and not become mired in technical details (Ringle and Updegrove, 1998). These findings corroborate our own findings about the important role of policy processes for institutional telelearning policy. Technology needs will change quickly and unpredictably. It is crucial, however, that there be a forum for addressing the role and function of technology in the institution, since this same study found that the least successful technology plans were those that were marginalized and set apart from overall institutional strategic planning (Ringle and Updegrove, 1998). John Daniel addresses the development of technology strategies extensively in his book, MegaUniversities and Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education. Daniel makes the point that change works best if it supported by peer groups and training and if research results are used to demonstrate the reasons for change. He also argues that it is unrealistic to expect single technology decisions to work for entire universities. The organization as a whole can support technology in strategic ways, however, while allowing units to determine the best way in which to carry out their own priorities for their students and disciplines (Daniel, 1996). Alberta’s Learning Enhancement Envelope (lee) program provides funding to that province’s post-secondary institutions for technology-enhanced learning and makes an institutional technology plan a requirement for funding. As a result, institutions in

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• Build a broad multi-year framework for it goals and objectives: Determine

who are your customers and inventory stakeholder assets, goals, unmet needs, and plans; document strategic functional objectives within each institutional domain (e.g., instruction, research, community service, communication, administration); perform a quick and dirty swot to get a feel for the feasibility of functional objectives. • Obtain stakeholder assessment of priorities • Rank order needs based on key criteria • Iterate for clarity and general consensus • Refine priorities • Disseminate it planning framework • Operationalize it planning framework • Disseminate widely annual operational goal listing • Monitor and assess progress toward realization of annual operational goals (Hollowell and Nedwek, 1999) Figure 5.4 Components of an it Plan

Alberta are developing a body of knowledge about technology planning for teaching and learning. The Standing Committee on Educational Technology of British Columbia has also developed a guide to educational technology planning. The Committee’s plan describes an inclusive process that includes advisory and communication processes to assist in getting “buy-in” from different internal groups. They avoid the common pitfall of strategic planning by focusing on implementation. A regular process of revision ensures that any plan is not set in stone for a period of more than two years, allowing for negotiation and adaptation to new circumstances. The plan is meant to be flexible and adaptable to the specific cultural and institutional circumstances of different colleges and universities (Bizzocchi et al., 12 October 1998). Strategic Planning An emphasis on planning requires an understanding of the unique nature of strategic planning in universities. Strategic planning cannot be applied in universities and colleges in the same way it is applied in the private sector. Organizational goals in higher education are often vague and, even when well defined, contested. Vagueness can be seen as a virtue, of course: The

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division of responsibility for priority setting between disciplinary units and the organization as a whole is unclear. Individual units are continually scanning their own discipline’s environment and are making informed micro-judgments that may conflict with the macro-judgements being made for the organization as a whole. There may therefore be covert, but real, contradiction of organizational strategy in the intent and actions of individual units (Norris and Poulton, 1991). Cynthia Hardy argues that many university strategic plans display a fatal lack of emphasis on implementation. She shows, however, how an “executive management” model of strategic planning cannot be imported into universities, since it assumes a unitary organization with a common goal. Universities are pluralist organizations in which different groups often have competing visions. This means that difficult decisions, such as the reallocation of funds, never occur, because the plan avoids conflict by ignoring how power is distributed and how decisions are made within the institution. In light of these concerns, Olcott (1996) offers a policy process for aligning institutional academic policy with distance-education practice. The need for alignment will become more important as distance education continues to move progressively from the periphery to the core of institutional functions. Olcott argues for a reciprocal adaptation of both distance-education units and institutional policy and practice: distance-education systems must adapt in order to create an environment that values mainstream academic norms, and institutional practices must recognize the advantages of the distance-education approach. This rapprochement can be achieved by avoiding traditional areas of discontent and agreeing on a commitment to educational values such as quality, accessibility, and responsiveness. Olcott looks at a range of areas in which policies can be reformed: the recognition of distance-education teaching for tenure and promotion purposes, academic residency requirements, and intellectual property (Olcott, 1996). Organizational Change Much of what we have discussed concerns organizational change in our universities and colleges. According to Hanna, for change to occur in established organizations, three conditions must be met.

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There must be (i) enormous external pressures; (ii) people within the organization who are strongly dissatisfied with the status quo and; (iii) a coherent alternative embodied in a plan, model, or vision (Hanna, March 1998, 66). It is this third condition that presents perhaps the greatest challenge to our institutions as they chart their course in this emerging environment. Sound policy processes are a crucial part of the development of this alternative plan because “the collegial tradition of academic governance makes it unlikely that a technology strategy developed without extensive faculty input would have any impact” (Daniel, 1996, 137). It has been suggested that the challenge to using educational technology effectively in universities and colleges is threefold: • Technical: providing adequate support and training; • Pedagogical: helping faculty reorient their teaching to best exploit

the technology; and • Institutional: reorienting the institution to the effective deployment of educational technology. (Morrison, 12 March 1998) The first two issues can be addressed with changes in policy and funding. The final step, however, requires something more difficult – leadership and vision. Organizational change in our universities and colleges, therefore, requires a delicate balance of collegial and collaborative policy processes, led by someone with a vision for the institution. Such grandiose organizational change projects are clearly not suited to all institutions – most would surely fail. All, however, are capable of beginning to address the place of educational technology in their teaching and learning. Part of this process is simply allowing innovation to make its way through the institution more effectively. Universities and colleges have been described as being organized along a “loose-tight” principle. That is, as long as an organizational member’s behaviour is generally aligned with organizational values, individual creativity and innovation are supported. If the individual’s behaviour moves outside the realm of these core values, the organization “tightens” as a response, in order to guide behaviour back to the core values (Olcott, 1996, 30–1).

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Part of the challenge for post-secondary institutions in finding a way to effectively use telelearning is to create an environment in which it is not only safe to experiment on the periphery, but it is safe to fail in the centre. As Gilbert observes, the institution must feel “safe to take the risks needed to improve learning and teaching in times of constant, accelerating change” (Gilbert, 1998). The alternative is to continually innovate at the margins without ever affecting the core. Kay McClenney observed this trend in innovation in American colleges. She noted that despite mounting pressures for change, most innovative practices are kept at the margins of institutions, thus relieving pressure on the college to truly transform the institution (McClenney, cited in Gianni, 1998). Teaching and Learning Roundtables (Gilbert) One of the most useful models for introducing pedagogical and technological change is the Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtable (tltr) program co-ordinated by Steve Gilbert of the Teaching, Learning and Technology Group (tlt Group), an affiliate of the American Association for Higher Education (see http: //www.tltgroup.org). The tltr program provides a set of tools to help institutions shape goals, facilitate discussions, and organize the implementation of strategies outside the bureaucratic structure. A set of structured activities privileges institutional values and pedagogical principles over the use of technology. For example, participants are asked what it is they most value about their institution and would hate most to lose. Only then is technology examined to see how it might support stated values and principles. The University of Ottawa and Carleton University jointly sponsored a tltr workshop to begin these processes at their institutions. A tltr-style committee could approach its membership strategically, making it broadly representative of key units in the institution. It is important to have the support of senior-ranking individuals, of course, but they need not be members. The most useful members will be at the operational levels – those who either work with technology or would be expected to. One of the strengths of the tltr model is that it places telelearning issues firmly within the context of “doing the right thing.” As discussed, many technology-planning exercises have failed because

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they were marginalized from broader questions of institutional mission and purpose. A tltr group ensures that there is a forum within the institution for those who have concerns about the use of technology. Another strength of the tltr model is that it provides a broad set of organizing and operating principles that can be adapted to local circumstances. Gilbert suggests that tltr groups need not assume a formal policy function in their institution. Some groups, however, have found that over time their credibility within the institution is such that they are asked to take on a policy role. Each group will establish itself differently. The tlt Group sponsors national events to help local tltr s get started and to allow established roundtables to share experiences and strategies. In this way, local strengths are supplemented by a national network of support. Finally, the greatest contribution that tltr s seem to make to institutional telelearning policy is in their communication function. Staff and faculty from dispersed units in the institution discover shared experiences and learn of useful innovations. Support units discover ways in which they can more effectively support telelearning activities. For decentralized institutions of our universities and colleges, this is an important achievement. This chapter has reviewed a broad range of policy issues that emerged from institutional documents, a literature review, and a set of interviews with faculty and staff at Canadian universities and colleges. While wide-ranging, not all potential policy issues are covered here. Chapter 6 examines the particular concerns and issues that arise for students enrolled in on-line courses.

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6 In the Trenches: Student Perspectives BRENT DE WAAL

What is it like to be a student taking on-line courses? This simple question belies a complex reality. The change in environment from the traditional to the virtual classroom entails a substantially different experience for the student. The ability to work on-line changes a number of the assumptions that most students have about the classroom. Students are keenly aware of the many instructional elements that exist in a regular classroom. They understand when they should come to class, when they should participate in that class, and when they should simply take notes and listen. Homework is assigned and is sometimes reviewed in class. The classroom environment and the instructor guide the learning process. This process is internalized and normalized, and thus becomes the reference point for comparison with an on-line course. In contrast, the on-line course is, at least for now, largely an unfamiliar environment. Students do not always know when they should log on or the extent to which they should participate. They are often unsure as to what their “homework” actually is. In addition, the on-line environment allows for a much more heterogeneous student body than does the traditional university classroom. Social and geographic constraints mean that the university tends to produce a homogeneous group of students, similar in age and social grouping. Full-time students sharing a full-time

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university experience also have similar priorities and time-management issues. In an on-line classroom, however, people with different priorities are made to work in a collaborative environment, and thus conflicts are often present. This chapter examines the experiences of students who have taken courses using telelearning technologies. It also looks at issues of access, technical support, curriculum, evaluation, privacy, and university procedure. Analysis is based on interviews and discussions with students taking on-line courses over the past two years. The student group had experienced approximately twenty-six offerings of eight different courses. Students volunteered to participate and were interviewed by phone and in person. All the students interviewed were enrolled in undergraduate and graduate university programs and their on-line studies were a part of credit courses. The courses were generally grouped into the following categories: • Self-paced course design: a course based on a correspondence-style

distance-education model. Students read materials and completed assignments that were marked by a “tutor.” Students worked in isolation at their own pace. • Collaborative course design: a course based on a tutorial-style model. Students were responsible for background reading and research and were then expected to work in collaboration with other students in the class. Students compared, critiqued, and defended their work with their peers. The students who responded to the survey were grouped into three categories: • The traditional full-time university student: these students were

enrolled in full-time studies and were taking an on-line course in addition to other campus-based courses. • The distance-education student: these students were engaged in full- and part-time studies but did not attend classes on campus. • The full-time employed student: these students were engaged in the pursuit of a diploma or certificate, did not attend any campus classes, and were working full-time.

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student expectations The distinctions between students taking on-line courses are important. Each group had quite different expectations about learning on-line. The differences fell into two categories: technical experience and familiarity with the academic environment. Technical Experience Expectations were divided between novice and expert Internet/ computer users. Those students who had some experience with on-line technologies expected their on-line educational experience to reflect their previous experiences. These students were looking for high-quality feedback, quick responses, visually rich materials, and, overall, an exciting experience. In addition, they expected a high level of control over their learning and desired reliability, quality, and support. Novice users, on the other hand, often approached on-line courses expecting to be behind technologically. For many of these students, a stated objective for taking the on-line course was to learn about technology and become Internet/computer literate. These students often did not know what to expect of the course, signing up without understanding of what the week-to-week tasks might be. Other novice users found themselves using on-line technologies because they had to – the course was a prerequisite. Some of these students resented being forced to learn “technology” to participate in the course and expected their use of technology to supersede their attention to the course content. Familiarity with the Academic Environment The other difference in expectations revolved around the student’s familiarity with the academic environment. Those already enrolled in the university had few concerns about the logistics of taking a course on-line. They were already familiar with the registration process, add/drop procedures, course payment, and other institutional processes. Students who were taking courses and were not already enrolled full- or part-time expressed concerns about many of the “standard” university procedures. Students who were signing up for a single

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course wondered why they had to go through the standard admissions process when they never expected to physically attend the institution or make use of campus-based resources. Most students expressed concern over issues of access to the institution’s technological infrastructure. For example, since at Simon Fraser University there was concern over the number of subsidized modem hours available, there was no distinction or exception made for those students who were not coming to the campus. Many students felt that the policy left them no option but to subscribe to a local Internet Service Provider (isp). Other concerns included access to digital-library holdings, personal Web-server space, and e-mail accounts. Students at a distance from the university generally expected high levels of access to these resources. What many students found, however, was that the majority of institutional policies and procedures were created for and were primarily applicable to local residents living near the institution. The exceptions to the above rule were the diploma- and certificate-seeking students, who entered programs designed explicitly for on-line delivery. For these students, procedural and access requirements were tailored to the off-campus student, who could access materials over the Internet. The final distinction in student expectations surfaced with the students who were full-time employees pursuing a diploma or certificate. These students were adamant about issues of practicality, quality, and achievement in their on-line courses. They discussed the process of learning in the on-line classroom more as a consumer of an educational product than as a student in a classroom. This was a striking contrast to the more traditional students. The full-time employed students had much higher expectations about feedback, instructor availability, and technical support. They were also more willing to question the relevance of each activity within the course, emphasizing practicality and applicability of those tasks. Getting On-line The initial connection to the Internet and the technologies used in the on-line course created the most difficult challenges for the majority of students interviewed. As noted, familiarity with computer and Internet technology varied widely among the students.

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The expectation was that the university was responsible for all the technological aspects of the course-delivery mechanism (i.e., all the servers, modems, hardware, and software). Most students felt that they were entitled to all the technical support they needed to get their system operating and connected. Students also felt that this service should be covered by their tuition fees. For all the student groups, there was an expectation that technical support should be provided at no extra cost and available seven days a week. Many felt this support should also be available twenty-four hours a day. The issue of support is one of the most problematic for successful course implementation. The combination of a wide range of student ability to use and maintain computers, combined with a desire by instructors not to exclude students simply on the basis of their technological skills, creates a situation in which instructors and technical-support staff are often unable to anticipate and manage support in a sustainable manner. Many of the students taking courses both on campus and on-line expressed a concern over the instructor’s belief that the students’ technological expertise had a negative impact on their grades in the course. As such, students were reluctant to fully disclose their technological shortcomings. Some students never said that they had never owned their own computer and were using friends’ and family’s systems. Students were also reluctant to disclose to the instructor or instructional assistant that they experienced continuing technical problems. In one case, a student was unable to install and use virusprotection software and so continued to send the same virus every week to the instructor. This technological confusion can be prevented through prerequisite courses that introduce students to hardware and software and through stringent technological specifications. Achieving this level of proficiency can be difficult, however. Students expressed concern that prerequisites did not exist or were too general or vague. A certain basic level of instruction is necessary, the institutions believed, to keep the course accessible to students. Students also complained that the courses they were taking were about specific subject matter areas and not about computing science. Many felt that a course designed to teach the technology would not

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be one in which they would enroll. Quite a few of these courses were also isolated electives and not part of a comprehensive program. For these students, it was the combination of the subject matter and online technologies that made the course appealing. Finally, a number of students mentioned the problem of “pirated” or illegitimate copies of course software. Many received technical advice that helped them to reinstall the software and solve their technical problems. Rarely would students confess to the technical-support staff, however, that they did not own a legal copy of the program. These students also did not have the proper software documentation and so often asked for explicit instructions from the technicalsupport staff. Financial pressures were given as the primary motivation, although the students were not willing to admit that they were using pirated software. These kinds of unspoken gaps can result in confusion when technical staff are unable to resolve the reasons for recurring technical problems. Many of the courses in which the students in this study were enrolled made heavy use of free clients, such as Web browsers, which eliminated the need to purchase extra software. Other courses bundled the software into the cost of the course. Others installed a licensed version of the software in the institutions network and labs for use during the semester. This did not assist the distance-learning student, however. Cost expectations were also important to students, who felt that any additional costs should be addressed either in the tuition fees or should fall within what they would normally spend on textbooks for traditional, campus-based courses. Time-Commitment Expectations Time was a central discussion point for all the students interviewed, because the technological delivery of the course implied efficiency. Most students expected that 1 the on-line course would not require any more work than a traditional, campus-based course; and 2 the technology would give better access to the course instructor. This improved access was often defined as including more individual attention and in-depth replies to student queries.

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Students expected feedback from the instructor early in the course. When they felt they were getting that feedback, students were comfortable and confident in the on-line environment. When they did not get that feedback, however, they felt isolated and “out of control.” Communication with peers did not seem to have an effect on feeling comfortable in the on-line environment. The instructor was clearly the anchor. Peer-to-peer communication was useful, and groups could form without instructor feedback, but students felt abandoned when these separate groups formed.

curriculum Access to Resources Nearly every course in this study used multiple media for the communication of course material. There was a strong use of textbooks and library work, and Web materials varied in their complexity and depth from course to course. Many courses used Internet technologies only for communication between students and instructors: no course material on the Web was used. Students expressed no real concerns about the use of text-based materials. In some courses, there were concerns about access to primary research resources when students needed an adequate set of library materials to finish papers and assignments. In these cases, there was a great deal of concern about the differences in accessible materials between students located in larger centres and those in remote regions. Equitable Workloads One charge that was repeatedly commented upon was the shift in the homogeneous nature of the classroom. In most university programs, students share a fairly common experience. They are enrolled in a similar number of courses, have fairly equal access to resources and materials, and share similar time constraints. The asynchronous nature of many on-line courses completely shattered this familiar model. Some students had strong concerns about their ability to compete fairly in an international, on-line classroom. Often, they were in a situation in which a classmate had

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only that one class to complete and no other commitments on their time. The unencumbered students raised the level of each assignment and on-line collaboration to one unachievable by someone with a full load of university courses and work or family obligations. In both cases, the instructor encouraged and praised the “superhuman” efforts of the student who had no extra obligations. The time-pressed students felt frustrated and unwilling to approach the instructor for fear of sounding “unmotivated” or “whiny.” This concern highlights the problems found at one end of the creation of on-line “communities.” Instructors often insist that students become part of this virtual community, and put a great deal of time into creating an on-line experience. Some students reported, however, that if they made the kind of commitment expected to this collaborative, community-building process, they would never be able to take more than one on-line course at a time – the effort would be unsustainable. Thus, the heavy emphasis on creating community created a great deal of stress and frustration for some students. Collaborative Learning The model of student-centred, group-based learning is at the core of many on-line course designs. It is a necessary model in an environment in which all students are actively communicating on-line, since instructors need to learn how to keep student workloads and their own workloads at roughly the same level as campus-based courses. Like technical support and computer literacy needs, however, students come to these courses with a wide range of skills, few of which include collaborating on-line. Students face a number of constraints to collaboration: • A typical student’s access to technology and technical literacy

means that students can only communicate with text-based, asynchronous messages. When pressed for time, with deadlines looming, students fall back on faxes and phone calls, which are easy to use, dynamic, and cheap. • Working collaboratively or in teams requires specialized skills and knowledge of each group member’s strengths and weaknesses. In a thirteen-week semester, there is little time to build a solid team when many of the students are using computers collaboratively for the first time.

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• When teams are picked randomly, group dynamics sometimes do

not form and the students resort to “taking turns” doing the group project. • Students seemed unable to clearly explain how they believed they were supposed to use the technology to collaborate. They had few models for understanding group dynamics. Students with better technology and better access had more options for collaboration. Evaluation: Getting Good Feedback Students expectated virtually instantaneous feedback from an on-line course. In one example, during an on-line synchronous office hour, one student logged on at precisely 9:00 am (the beginning of the chat session) and asked what his grade was for the major project that was submitted electronically only nine hours earlier. Working on-line seemed to leave many students with an expectation of individualized feedback. They felt that responses should be given very quickly and they were often unwilling to be kept waiting. A student who may have sent a message to the instructor on a Friday could check e-mail all weekend, expecting the reply. If an instructor is not clear as to how and when he or she will respond to students, his or her e-mail in-box may be filled with frustrated messages. The quality of the feedback is also an important consideration. The tools for creating and returning feedback, such as marks and comments from the instructor, can make a big impact on the student’s impression of how the course is progressing. Most students reported receiving feedback by e-mail directly from the instructor. Students expectated feedback to be “at least as good as a markedup paper.” They often complained about the lack of comments throughout their assignments. Again, the technology often got in the way of this process. Students expected the technology to facilitate this process, but found themselves having to purchase new software or spending time learning advanced features, such as the annotation feature in many word-processing programs. As a result, feedback often did not meet students’ expectations. Privacy Students expressed a great deal of concern about on-line privacy and anonymity. There was suspicion around the anonymity of their

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responses to forms and questionnaires, for example. Until students have some experience taking courses on-line, they will not be comfortable with the possibility that their activities may be studied or analyzed. Students were also concerned about being misrepresented on-line. One student accidentally left herself “logged in” to a course after using a public lab. Another student came along and sent obscene messages to the instructor using her secure system personal identification. Luckily, the instructor felt it was out of character for this student, and talked with the technical-support people before confronting the woman. The student was devastated when she found out what happened, and wondered if she would have been believed had she been a more difficult student. These kinds of problems may become more common in the future.

the outlook for on-line courses In spite of the many reservations that students expressed, when asked whether or not they would take the course again most responded affirmatively. There was a large undercurrent of faith in the technology, and most students believed that, over time, all the “bugs” would work themselves out. Again, the primary motivation for continued work on-line was the belief that time and convenience are worth the troubles the students experienced. There is, of course, a distinct possibility that the subjects interviewed are technologically biased, as they self-selected for both the course and the follow-up survey, but experiences nevertheless illustrate that we have a long way to go in developing the technology, the social conventions, and the pedagogical designs necessary for a vibrant learning environment that reflects the excellence of a traditional higher-education experience.

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7 Negotiating the Terrain: Strategies for the Future

Our review of policy issues for the use of telelearning technologies in Canadian universities and colleges suggests that only complex answers to complex issues exist. Each institution is unique, with its own culture, program strengths, and, consequently, technology needs. Not all institutions will be well served by a large-scale transition to telelearning methods, and some institutions and their students could certainly benefit from a more effective use of telelearning technologies. We can, however, isolate certain broad areas of action that will be useful for any institution engaging in on-line education. These are described below. These institutional recommendations are followed by a set of recommendations directed at provincial and federal governments. We also offer some suggestions for further reflection and research on the significant changes underway in our post-secondary system.

re co mme ndatio ns for universities and colleges Increased activity in on-line education is leading to strong local, regional, national, and even international markets for these specialized programs of learning. Post-secondary institutions will be challenged to draw upon the breadth and, especially, the depth of their existing program offerings and adapt these to learner demands

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as opportunities arise. In terms of content depth, universities and colleges clearly have an initial advantage over private tml (technology-mediated learning) institutions, such as the University of Phoenix. They must use this advantage strategically. Canadian universities and colleges that want to prepare themselves for the challenges and opportunities of tml should focus their attention on four areas. They provide an supportive environment for meeting new opportunities: 1 technology: networking capabilities, minimum hardware and software configurations for faculty, student-owned computing programs, a method for tracking and accounting for information technology (it) costs, and a technology strategy that addresses regular upgrading and replacement of equipment. 2 technical and pedagogical support: faculty development in technology and pedagogy, student support and training, and curriculum design expertise. 3 policies and policy processes: a transparent process for addressing the use of technology in education, identification of institutional priorities for technology, faculty rewards and incentives, promotion and tenure policies, intellectual property, promotion of partnerships, and transfer credit arrangements. 4 strategic planning: integration of educational technology goals with institutional goals, identification of learner needs that could be met with technology, identification of real and new markets that could be addressed with telelearning and supported by market research, and matching existing institutional strengths with market opportunities.

r e c o m m e n da t i o n s f o r g ov e r n m e n t s Provincially, some jurisdictions have focused to such a large extent on cost-cutting and rationalization that their thinking about telelearning seems to exist exclusively in terms of how it affects bottom-line issues. Other provinces have adopted more aggressive “carrot-and-stick” approaches, using specially designated technology funds as a way to direct efforts in key areas, possibly removing that money from the normal funding envelopes of the highereducation system.

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In the emerging education marketplace, governments can and should help to ensure that public institutions maintain a strong role. They should not leave this function entirely to the narrow interests of the private sector. Key areas of focus for government should include: 1 infrastructure funding: government assistance should be provided to help bring all institutions up to minimum standards of computing and networking capabilities. These standards would include providing all faculty members with the minimum training necessary to engage in telelearning. These measures are particularly important for smaller institutions, because they are generally less well endowed than large universities. Funding decisions should also be co-ordinated to complement and support institutional-funding strategies such as student technology fees and employee purchase programs. 2 a broad-based approach to the implementation of telelearning technologies: institutions seeking funding for the implementation of telelearning should demonstrate that their strategy goes beyond a focus on technology. Technologyintegration plans, such as those required by the Alberta lee, could be a model. Eligible technology expenditures should include faculty development and training, the development of support structures for students and faculty, library development, and research on teaching and learning effectiveness. Assistance should thus include provisions to move technology concerns from capital to operating budgets. 3 policy frameworks: each province should be able to identify its priorities and strategies for adopting telelearning in its postsecondary institutions. This identification will help co-ordinate efforts among institutions. For example, Saskatchewan has built upon its Technologies in Learning Working Group to develop the Saskatchewan Network for Learning Excellence. The Network, a consortium of the provincial government, universities, and colleges, is building a “seedbed” for tml in Saskatchewan that will address policy, research, and innovation. In British Columbia, the Distributed Learning Task Force grew out of a policy forum with senior-level participation from all of the province’s postsecondary institutions. The Task Force produced a final report, Access and Choice, with a recommended plan for the province (Kershaw and Bizzocchi, 1997).

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Clearly, since tml crosses more than just provincial boundaries, a national perspective is important as well. Federally, Notemakers is an example of a program that provides the means for creating partnerships and consortia that cross provincial boundaries. Similar initiatives can be expected to emerge over the next several years.

leading the debate on change in education: research priorities The higher-education sector today is in the same position as the telecommunications and banking sectors were when they first faced massive deregulation. Lifelong learning has become the new mantra, and has helped to create a growth in demand for new services. At the same time, world education markets are fragmenting, with niche markets developing on both international and regional scales. To date, it seems as if the changes occurring in post-secondary education have largely left our universities and community colleges watching from the sidelines, struggling to keep up with the latest developments. If indeed there are fundamental changes coming, our post-secondary institutions should be leading the debate, and leading research as well. Gary Berg notes that the public preoccupation with the use of technology has masked a more fundamental debate about leaner-centred education and its integration into post-secondary institutions (Berg, 1998). There are many questions still to be asked, let alone answered: • Is there still a role for a general liberal education in a world where

technical skills seem to be so highly valued? • As the boundaries within universities that separate education and training functions become more permeable, what distinguishes a university education from that received at any other institution? • Are there real differences between students who obtain a degree on-line and those who obtain one on-campus? For example, do on-line students develop the robust social networks that are often at the root of successful political and economic careers? • Are models of competency-based education, such as that used by the Western Governor’s University, acceptable and amenable to Canadian university and college education? If so, in which disciplines might they be applied?

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• How does the university’s mandate for research fit into the debate over tml? Organizations such as the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (aucc), the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (cmec), the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (accc), and the Canadian Education Association (cea), among others, have individually and collaboratively begun discussions about the future of education in a knowledge society. For example, cmec issued a consultation document entitled Public Expectations of Postsecondary Education in Canada. accc’s work on educational technology has also contributed to a basis for informed debate in this area. In 1997, it issued a report (Mobilizing for the Future) that discussed many of the issues identified above, in particular faculty development and support, and the need for senior-level leadership. accc maintains a Web site and database on educational-technology capabilities in Canadian colleges and has formed an educational-technology advisory group. Another good example of needed initiative is idea – the Institute for Distance and Distributed Education Advancement. A collaboration between cade (Canadian Association of Distance Educators) and ola (Open Learning Agency), idea provides input and responds to provincial, national, and international policy initiatives on distance education and emerging, distributed learning systems. It seems likely that telelearning technologies will be widely adopted by our universities and colleges over the next few years. The choices before us – in teaching models, institutional form, and educational goals – will appear less daunting if we begin from a sound understanding of the real strengths and weaknesses of our existing system. How can we implement telelearning in a way that supports the features we value most about our post-secondary system? How can reform most benefit learners and our institutions and how should it be implemented? The speed of technological change pressures us to answer these questions later, after the technological investments have been made and before the lessons have been learned. We need not give way entirely to that pressure, however. At this stage in the development of telelearning, it is still not too late to begin a serious consideration of these issues and the policy implications they raise and to structure our policy processes and our use of technology accordingly.

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Appendix: Issues Map

One of the most useful tools during the interviews and documentary research that went into the creation of this book was a “grid” of policy issues and stakeholders. We called this our “issues map.” The grid took the form of a set of issues (down the left hand side) and a set of stakeholders (across the top). By looking at events and policy initiatives and placing them on the intersections of our grid, we were able to identify those aspects of technology policy that were most problematic.

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Appendix

Major/Minor; Opportunities/Threats Faculty/ta s/Trainers

Issues/Users access New user groups Remote users Mature learners Computer literacy/awareness Cost Access to hardware, software & Internet administrative issues Academic policies credit value for on-line courses/programs on-line admissions/registration credit-transfer arrangements multi-institution degrees Status & rights of distanceeducation students Fee structure Cost per student Operating times Redundant facilities Physical infrastructure maintenance Promotional activities curriculum Need for new course design Teaching methods On-line/face-to-face mix learner-centred collaborative learning participatory design Grading/marking techniques cheating Updating/maintenance of courseware Classrom dynamics equity People with disabilities Gender issues

Faculty

ta s

Trainers/ Instr.

Stud./Part.

Adm.

Gov.

Bus.

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Major/Minor; Opportunities/Threats Faculty/ta s/Trainers

Issues/Users Cross-cultural issues Language Socio-economic evaluation Cost/benefit Indicators Class size Teaching/learning effectiveness Research on telelearning Standards and standard-setting ethics/privacy/security Informed consent Ownership/copyright Access to course by non-students Disclosure of on-line discussions Data archiving Anonymity/Privacy Use in research Harassment Security Open Internet access/appropriate content future of the university University culture Sense of place/geography Privilege of professors Role of distance education Purpose of education Role of research vs. teaching implementation Course Development Funding of course development Responsibility for course development Credit for development courses Technical support

Faculty

ta s

Trainers/ Instr.

Stud./Part.

Adm.

Gov.

Bus.

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Major/Minor; Opportunities/Threats Faculty/ta s/Trainers

Issues/Users Research of new technologies Developing courseware/ programs General research into telelearning Technological infrastructure needs Inter-organizational coordination Intra-organizational coordination Use of incentives/promotion tax incentives Organizational models/visions Course costing Business partnerships Academic partnerships labour Compensation/reward system Workload/tasks Remote teaching Job security/lay-offs Training time Contracting out policy processes Strategic planning Power relationships Top-down/bottom-up socio-economic issues Corporatization Privatization Competition support Training training on technology teaching methods training/ support on-line communication skills study/learning skills training

Faculty

ta s

Trainers/ Instr.

Stud./Part.

Adm.

Gov.

Bus.

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Major/Minor; Opportunities/Threats Faculty/ta s/Trainers

Issues/Users Course development assistance Library support On-line/technical support Peer tutor support Counselling Financial assistance Advising Computer resources technology Design/interface standards Speed/performance Telecommunications infrastructure Cost Software requirements Ease of installation Flexibility Offloads management to user Technology planning

Faculty

ta s

Trainers/ Instr.

Stud./Part.

Adm.

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Bus.

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Bibliography

Maintaining accuracy and responsible documentation in a new age of fleeting repositories is a new issue facing scholarly research. One of the limitations of using new information systems such as the Internet is that a number of references found in the endnotes are from Web sites that are no longer in operation at the time this book went to press. In references such as these, we have provided as much additional information as possible for readers. Acadia Receives $2.4 Million From Federal-Provincial Project [press release] Acadia University, Office of Public Affairs. Wolfville: Acadia University, 31 July 1998. Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary Education. Excellence, Accessibility, Responsibility: Report of the Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-secondary Education. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, December 1996. Alberta Advanced Education and Career Development (aecd). Annual Report, 1996–97. Edmonton: aecd, 1997. – A Proposal for Performance-based Funding: Promoting Excellence in Alberta’s Public Adult Learning System. Edmonton: aecd, November 1995. – Enhancing Alberta’s Adult Learning System Through Technology: Policy Guidelines and Procedures for the Learning Enhancement Envelope. Edmonton: aecd, June 1996. – New Directions for Adult Learning in Alberta. Edmonton: aecd, October 1994.

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Index

access, 111–16; and computer ownership by students, 112–16, 144. See also laptops accreditation, 100–3; “presence,” 101 Alberta, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Alberta Apollo Group. See University of Phoenix Bates, Tony, 131; “action,” 132; cost-benefit analysis, 131 Bill C-32, 33. See also copyright; Canadian Heritage British Columbia, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, British Columbia ca*NetII. See Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education. California Virtual University (cvu), 26

Canadian Heritage, 33, 50. See also copyright Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education (canarie), 34, 49; ca*Net II, 49 changing pedagogical model, 91–2 chief information officer (cio), 104; at McGill University, 104; at Simon Fraser University, 104 collaboration: among faculty, 91; among students, 147 Community Access Program (cap). See Industry Canada competency-based education. See changing pedagogical model convenience-store model, 23–4 cooperation, 108–11; niche players 106, 108; opportunities, 107–8; “piranha” and “alligator” attacks, 106; threats to, 105–7; threats and opportunities, 105–11 coordinating bodies. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, trends

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174

Index

copyright, 97–8; Copyright Act, 33; faculty ownership rights, 97–8; use of copyrighted material, 98 corporate involvement in universities, 98–100; California Educational Technology Initiative (ceti), 100 cost-benefit analysis, 131; “action,” 132 Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (cmec), 50–3 curriculum, standardized, 19. See also education companies, factors driving growth curriculum development and evaluation, 116–18; standards, 117–18. See also faculty development curriculum issues for students, 146–9; access to resources, 146; collaboration, 147; equitable workloads, 146; evaluation, 148; privacy, 148–9

economic development. See education and economic development educating the educators. See faculty development; support, faculty development education and economic development, 40–1 education companies, 14, 21–2; factors driving growth, 16–21; and investment, 14; markets for, 21; return on investment, 15–16; and venture capital, 14. See also education industry education industry, 11–28; size, 12– 13; customer service, 23–4; growth of, 12–13; response from universities, 25–7. See also education companies enhancing access. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, trends

Daniel, John, 134 demographic change, 13, 19, 71, 92– 5; mature learners, 92–4; traditional students, 94–5 Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (dfait), 33–4, 50 distance education, 96 Distributed Learning Task Force (bc), 55 doing the right thing, 90–100; the culture of the professor, 90–1; socialization of students, 95–6. See also copyright; corporate involvement in universities; demographic change; distance education doing things right, 90, 100–32; fees, 105. See also access; cooperation; curriculum development and evaluation Duderstadt, James, 5, 23–4

faculty: as content experts, 91 faculty development: educating the educators, 123–6 federal government policy: overview, 29–30; trends, 31–4 First Nations: and access to education, 65; hosts for TeleCampus, 82 funding: recommendations, 152 George Brown College, Learning Innovations and Academic Development (liad), 124–5 Gilbert, Steve, 138–9; “support service crisis,” 118–19. See also chief information officer; infrastructure: implementation cycle; teaching and learning roundtables (tltr) globalization, 4–5, 29–30 global markets. See education companies, factors driving growth

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175

Index

Gore, Albert, 29 Green, Kenneth C., 130 Hardy, Cynthia: on strategic planning, 136 Human Resources Development Canada (hrdc), 33; Office of Learning Technologies (olt), 33, 49–50 Industry Canada, 32, 47–9; Community Access Program (cap), 48; Notemakers, 47–8; Schoolnet, 32 Information Highway Advisory Council (ihac), 32, 46–7; and Canadian Labour Congress, 47; and Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (cmec), 52; and Parrot, Jean-Claude, 47 Information Technology Institute, 14; and Dalhousie University, 98 information technology plans, 135. See also education companies, factors driving growth infrastructure: cost, 131; doing more with less, 131–2; implementation cycle, 128–30; issues, 128–32; student perspectives, 143–4 Institute for Higher Education Policy (ihep), 92, 95 Instructional Management System (ims), 117. See also curriculum development and evaluation, standards Internet and World Wide Web. See education companies, factors driving growth Internet service provider (isp), 112, 143 investment. See education companies Knowledge Connection Corporation (kcc), 70–1 Kuehn, Larry, 4

labour force requirements and telelearning in Ontario, 71. See also linking post-secondary institutions: into the work-world labour issues, 127–8; and Canadian Association of University Teachers (caut), 128; at University of Manitoba, 128; at York University, 127 laptops, 113–6; at Acadia University, 114; at Sheridan College, 115. See also access, and computer ownership by students Learning Enhancement Envelope (lee), 134. See also provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Alberta Learn Ontario, 110 library services, 126–7; student perspectives, 146 lifelong learning. See education companies, factors driving growth linking post-secondary institutions: into systems, 42–3; into the work world, 43–4 MacKay Report on Universities (Saskatchewan), 63 Manitoba, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Manitoba Manitoba Education and Research and Learning Information Networks (merlin), 36, 66. See also provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Manitoba Manley, John, 29 Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (mphec), 78 mature learners. See demographic change

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176

Index

Metis. See First Nations, access to education Moll, Morita, 4 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (nserc), 33. See also Industry Canada Network of Centres of Excellence (nce) on Telelearning, 3, 18, 33, 50, 117 New Brunswick, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, New Brunswick Newfoundland, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Newfoundland New York University (nyu), 27 Noam, Eli, 9 Noble, David, 5 Nova Scotia, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Nova Scotia Office of Learning Technologies, (olt). See Human Resources Development Canada Olcott, Don: on policy processes, 136; on values, 137 Onlinelearning.net, 24 Ontario, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Ontario Open Learning and Information Network (olin), 87 Open Learning Strategy (Ontario), 71 organizational models, 103–4. See also chief information officer outcomes-based education. See changing pedagogical model

policy frameworks. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, trends; recommendations policy processes, 90, 132–9, 151; fostering change in, 132–5; and organizational change, 136–8; and strategic planning, 135–6, 151. See also teaching and learning roundtables postmodern, 5–6 “presence.” See accreditation Prince Edward Island, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Prince Edward Island provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, 53–88; Alberta, 58–61; British Columbia, 54–8; Manitoba, 66–9; New Brunswick, 79–82; Newfoundland, 86– 8; Nova Scotia, 82–4; Ontario, 69– 73; Prince Edward Island, 85–6; Quebec, 73–8; Saskatchewan, 61– 5; trends, 34–9 Provincial Learning Network (plNet), 36. See also provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, British Columbia quality control, 111. See also accreditation Quebec, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Quebec rapid customization. See education companies, factors driving growth Readings, Bill, 5–6 Real Education Inc., 21–2 recommendations, 150–4; for governments, 151–3; for universities and colleges, 150–1

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177

Index

Roblin Report, 66–8. See also provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Manitoba Royal Roads University (rru), 26–7, 107; and faculty development, 125 Saskatchewan, telelearning policy initiatives. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Saskatchewan Schoolnet. See Industry Canada Simon Fraser University: capital costs for computers, 113; Symposium on Innovative Teaching, 125. See also Chief information officer; Network of Centres of Excellence (nce) on Telelearning skills gap. See education companies, factors driving growth software: free, 145; access to, 146; and piracy, 145; proficiency, 144; training, 144; viruses, 144 standards. See curriculum development and evaluation, standards Standing Committee on Educational Technology (scoet), 53, 54–5 strategic planning. See policy processes, and strategic planning student expectations, 140–6; and experience with on-line courses, 142; and familiarity with academic environment, 142–3; and getting online, 143–5; and time commitments, 145–6. See also demographic change, mature learners, traditional students student technology assistants, 122 Student/Teacher Educational Multimedia Network (stem-Net), 35–6. See also provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, Newfoundland

support, designing collaborative structures, 120–2; and faculty development, 123–6; and labour and course maintenance issues, 118–28; and labour issues, 127–8; and learner support, 116; and library services, 126–7; managing expectations, 122–3; recommendations, 151; support and support services, 118–22 Sylvan Learning Systems, 16 targeted funding. See provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, trends teaching and learning roundtables (tltr), 138–9 Technical University of British Columbia (Techbc), 26, 44, 57, 107 technological infrastructure, recommendations, 151. See also provincial government policies and initiatives for telelearning, trends technology-mediated learning, 3; institutional benefits, 8–9; learner benefits, 7–8 TeleEducation New Brunswick, 79– 80 telelearning, defined, 3; issues map, 155; research priorities, 153. See also Network of Centres of Excellence (nce) on Telelearning University of Phoenix, 14; and library services, 126; and mature learners, 93–4; student satisfaction, 116; and support, 119; and University of Phoenix Online, 18, 23 University of Waterloo, Management of Technology Online, 109 values, in forming telelearning policies, 137

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venture capital, 14. See also education companies Webct, 22 Western Governors University (wgu), 25, 102; and accreditation, 101 Wilson, Ernest, 6–7

Working Group on Lifelong and Workplace Learning. See Information Highway Advisory Council zdNet University, 19 zdu. See zdNet University Ziff Davis. See zdNet University