Issues in Open and Distance Learning

 Overview 

These materials support a discussion that:

·    situates open and distance learning in a political context; and

·    outlines resource mobilisation, collaboration, and quality assurance as three of the major ways in which open and distance learning programmes respond to their contexts.

Source materials for this topic

Bowles, S., and H. Gintis. Schooling in capitalist America. London: Routledge, 1976.

Evans, T., and D. Nation (eds.). Open education: policies and practices from open and distance education. London: Routledge, 1996.

Fagerlind, I., and L. Saha. Education and national development: a comparative perspective. 2nd ed. London: Butterworth Heinemann, 1989.

Gatwa, B. The Zimbabwe Integrated Teacher Education Course. In B. Koul and J. Jenkins (eds.), Distance education: a spectrum of case studies. London: Kogan Page, 1980.

Harris, D. Openness and closure in distance education. London: Falmer Press, 1987.

Moran, L., and I. Mugridge (eds.). Collaboration in distance education. London: Routledge, 1993.

Oxenham, J. (ed.). Education versus qualifications? London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984.

Perry, W. The genesis of the first open university. In B. Koul and J. Jenkins (eds.), Distance education: a spectrum of case studies. London: Kogan Page, 1980.

 Government and society

Educational objectives    

Countries, both developing and industrialised, invest in education to achieve a myriad of economic, political, and cultural objectives. These include:

·    expanding free adult literacy and primary education to enhance the social mobility of the poor;

·    producing graduates from secondary schools who can perform technical and administrative functions (for example, the indigenisation programmes implemented in recently independent countries to replace expatriates); and

·    producing graduates from higher education institutions who can supply the managerial and teaching and training skills need in both public and private sectors.

Education contributes to

·      political socialisation;

·      cultural homogenisation;

·      economic growth;

·      upward mobility;

·      expanding the use of national language or languages; and

·      deepening the understanding of national history.

Discussion:  Ask the participants to analyse the economic, political and cultural objectives in their own country and to discuss whether or not they feel that educational objectives are being achieved – if not, why not?

Bases of political support for open and distance learning

Where open and distance learning has attracted political support, it has done so for a variety of reasons. Among these are:

·    to meet training needs; that is, to train large numbers of people quickly and cheaply;

·    to widen access in the interests of equity; for example, to educate more girls and women;

·    to widen access in response to a demand that cannot be met through the expansion of conventional education; for example, to provide primary education where no schools exist;

·    to bring in educational reform; for example, to provide those adults in the United Kingdom who were deprived of an opportunity for university education because of the ‘11 plus’ exams system a ‘second chance’ at higher education; and

·    to reduce the threat of protest that is facilitated by bringing learners together; for example, the setting up of open and distance learning institutions by some regimes to meet the demand for higher education and yet keep learners dispersed.

Discussion: What is your participants’ experience? Why has open and distance learning attracted support in their context? Ask your participants to turn to the case studies that have been provided with this kit to compare the reasons they present as to why open and distance learning are supported in their countries.

Types of power

Ideology and politics are not extraneous variables in open and distance learning, but critical determinants of the context within which it succeeds or fails.

Governments and other groups within society exercise three kinds of power over education, including open and distance learning institutions:

·    coercion: to a greater or lesser extent decreeing how an institution shall operate, deciding whether it can award degrees, setting limits to what it can teach;

·    funding: giving or withholding funds, or setting fee policies, thereby exercising economic power; and

·    policy: by its influence on policy and its ability to set in place regulatory frameworks, seeking to ensure that an institution reflects its own ideology.

Examples:

Zimbabwe Integrated Teacher Education Course

(Source: Gatwa (1980).)

·     Demand for education in a newly independent country had coercive effect on government, which in turn led to a demand for more teachers and to the government decision to establish the Zimbabwe Integrated Teacher Education Course (zintec).

·     Government exercised strong economic power over zintec, allocating resources to it and determining that teachers trained through it got the salaries due to qualified teachers.

·      Programme as a whole reflected government ideology.

Establishment of United Kingdom Open University

(Source: Perry (1980).)

·     Important backing by a politician with considerable economic and coercive power, without which the university could not have been established against the indifferent or hostile academic community.

·     Future prime minister referred to the creation of an education trust to provide funding.

·     Proposal underpinned by ideological commitment to educational expansion.

Discussion: Add other examples, perhaps from the case studies in this kit. Use this as an opportunity to discuss with your participants the effects of power on their programmes, how these programmes have developed and in response to what forces.

 

Groups that exercise power

A government is not the only group within society that can exercise power over an educational body. Other groups that can exercise power include:

·      donor agencies;

·      learners;

·      staff; and

·      other institutions.

These groups are set out in the following diagram.

Political Power and Institutions

 

Institutional domains

Looking at this diagram from the top down makes it look as though the institution is a powerless creature and that political analysis should confine itself to examining the forces acting upon it.

Not so. Looking at the diagram from the bottom up, we can ask a new series of political questions, such as the following:

·    How far can the institution meet the coercive, economic, and ideological needs of the various interests that affect it?

·    Can it help to train a workforce and so meet the economic demands bearing on society, governments, and learners?

·    Can its courses reflect and reinforce the ideology of government?

·    Are the ideology of the staff and the power they have over the curriculum such that its courses deliberately challenge government ideology?

Discussion: Take advantage of the wealth of examples available both from your own and your participants’ experience.

Politics and management decisions

Political discussion about the purposes of education, educational effects, access, and control may seem far removed from the day to day problems faced by those who manage open and distance learning.

Here are some examples of how broader political questions can affect management decisions.

Discussion: Participants can doubtless think of additional examples.

Access and quality

For a given sum it is possible to raise the quality of teaching (for example, by providing more learner support) or to widen access (for example, by enrolling more learners or reducing fees). How the balance between the two is resolved is very much a political matter.

Control over broadcasting

In many countries, governments exercise control over the content of broadcasts. Teachers on the other hand believe they should have the last word over the content of any teaching, whether broadcast, spoken, or printed. Control over broadcasting is very much a political matter.

Legitimacy

The more an institution and its methods are seen as legitimate by the public, its learners, governments, and other institutions, the easier will be its relationships with government and with society in general. If its policies, purposes, and methods are very different from those of conventional education, it is likely to be seen as a second best alternative. The quest for legitimacy may drive an institution to increasing rigidity in its course offerings, entrance requirements, and so on.

 Sources of funding

Mobilising sources of funding for open and distance learning provision inevitably involves managers in competition and other politically charged activities. A number of sources of revenue exist, each with a different implication for managers.

Government funding

Government subsidies are a source of revenue over which institutions have little control.

Institutions must compete with each other for an equitable share.

·    Government funding and its corresponding control over the institution may severely limit an institution’s ability to generate revenue or market its product.

·    Government funding may also create a dependence on this principal revenue source.

·    Government funding may be variable because of other government priorities.

Many governments fund education on an enrolment-driven formula.

·    An enrolment-driven formula makes it easy to estimate revenues within a reasonably narrow range; but on the other hand it may mean dealing with formulas based on questionable assumptions.

·    For example, governments may assume that unit costs at all institutions are the same. Open and distance learning have a unique cost structure, however, with few if any classrooms and higher course development costs.

·    In order to fit the formula, open and distance learning providers may have to use arbitrary equivalents, such as the ‘full-time equivalent’ student, or fte.

If funding is based on submissions from institutions, then the expenditure plan — the budget — becomes a powerful document and must be carefully prepared, as part of an institution’s strategic plan.

Tuition fees

Tuition fees are usually the second-largest revenue source; therefore estimating fee revenue accurately is extremely important.

Determining a reasonable tuition fee can be a difficult task and may involve several factors, not all of which are compatible. Some such factors may be:

·      government policy;

·      revenue needs;

·      market elasticity(how much enrolments are affected by the price of the course);

·      mission of the institution; and

·      comparison with other institutions.

Discussion: You might wish to ask your participants the following questions: Can you think of other factors? How are fees set in your institution?

Ancillary operations

Open and distance learning institutions can generate substantial revenue from activities outside the normal course delivery. Example of such activities include:

·    textbook sales: for example, Athabasca University has turned course books into textbooks for sale through a commercial publisher;

·    course material sales: for example, Indira Gandhi National Open University, like many other open universities, makes its materials available to other institutions for a fee;

·    consulting fees: for example, Open University World Wide in the United Kingdom realises revenue for the Open University through overseas and domestic consulting and training activities; and

·    charging out their facilities: for example, the Sudan Open Learning Organisation realises considerable revenue from selling printing services to other agencies.

Budgeting and costing are particularly important for these operations, so that markups are properly determined. Unless such activities can generate a reasonable net income or return on investment, they may not justify the effort put into them, especially if there are substantial fixed and indirect expenses.

If care is taken, however, income from such operations may be available to improve the quality of the mainstream operations, and there may be fewer restrictions on its use.

Internally generated revenues may also be important from a political perspective. An institution that generates its own revenues may be viewed favourably by its government funding sources.

Other revenue

The most important type of revenue in the ‘other revenue’ category is likely interest earned on short-term investment of cash temporarily surplus to operating requirements. Budgets form the basis for a cash management system.

Solicitation of donations and endowment funds can be very important also, but are usually reserved for specific purposes.

Discussion: Ask your participants how their institutions earn additional revenue.

Capital funding

For an educational institution to maintain and improve its services, capital funding is required.

Capital funding requires substantial amounts of money concentrated in a short period. Unless the institution has the power to finance its own capital programme, it usually depends on either government or fund raising, neither of which is necessarily an assured funding source.

A capital budget becomes important as a vehicle to present capital requirements, usually over a three- to five-year period. It should cover both equipment and building replacement, as well as innovative technology.

Discussion: Ask your participants to list the sources of revenue in their own institutions and the proportion of each. How do these proportions affect strategies for obtaining funding? What are some other possible revenue sources? Are there advantages in becoming less dependent on the major revenue source? This activity should take about 30 minutes.

 Collaboration

Terminology

Collaboration in open and distance learning contexts is taken to mean individuals or institutions working together for mutual benefit, typically as a way of pooling resources for their maximisation.

Collaboration can take place:

·      within and between nations;

·      between different distance teaching institutions; and

·      between distance teaching institutions and conventional teaching institutions.

Examples:

amref, the African Medical Research and Education Foundation;

inades, the African Institute for Economic and Social Development; and

Canada’s ‘Knowledge Network’, in which a satellite broadcasting facility was set up to serve several teaching institutions on the west coast.

Motives for collaboration

Six arguments that are often used for collaboration are:

·    economic efficiency: Joining together can reduce costs per unit and promote internal and external efficiency;

·    technological: For the industrialised world in particular the technical infrastructure for collaboration — telecommunications — is in place. For both industrialised and developing countries, institutions can band together to share the costs of major infrastructure support;

·    equity and access: Schemes that involve collaboration between an institution in a developed country and an institution in a developing country are becoming increasingly popular as ways of assisting developing country institutions to implement open and distance learning in order to make access to education available to as broad a range of people as possible;

·    quality: It is argued that collaborative course development can result in a better product, by providing access to resources that are not normally available, involving a wider group of professionals, making available a wider range of course offerings, and maintaining wider bases of information and resources;

·    moral and philosophical: Collaboration helps to promote and sustain international dialogue, foster international harmony, and increase understanding and world peace; and

·    political: Access to education is always an important political issue, along with the need to achieve increased efficiency through close integration and rationalisation. Collaboration has been encouraged to foster both these ends.

Discussion: Are there other motives, in your and your participants’ experience?

Evaluating opportunities for collaboration

Because collaborative initiatives often encounter unexpected difficulties and costs, we need to evaluate arguments like the ones listed above.

Here are some questions to ask when considering any collaborative initiative:

·    Does it make better or more extensive or new uses of resources that are available within one or more communities?

·    Does it provide an opportunity to improve the quality of learning materials?

·    Does it increase educational opportunities for a wider learner population while retaining its relevance to learner needs?

·    Does it provide a useful response to political pressures of various kinds?

·    Does it relate effectively to a perceived need to guide or initiate changes of various kinds in particular societies?

Discussion: Apply this list to a collaborative venture you or your participants know well.

Models of collaboration

Three broad elements can be distinguished in collaborative activities:

·    type of exchange: is it a transfer (one-way) or a pooling (two-way) type of exchange?

·    level of development: does the exchange involve institutions or countries of the same or different economic levels?

·    source of finance: is the activity internally financed (by the institutions themselves) or externally financed (by governments or donor agencies)?

Collaboration can also take place on a number of levels:

·    information-sharing: individuals, institutions, and systems exchange information about learners, programmes, academic publications, and operational activity; for example, the International Centre for Distance Learning (icdl) database;

·    tactical collaboration: involves a formal agreement between two or more institutions to develop, deliver, or both develop and deliver materials for mutual benefit; for example, brokerage of materials from other institutions to meet your needs. For example, Napier University in Scotland delivers courses in Mauritius, as described in the case study which is in this kit;

·    consortia: characterised by a formal partnership, joint allocation of resources, and an independent managing agent. Institutions set up formal agreements that may involve co-production of elements of a course, complete joint course production, joint learner enrolments, or cross accreditation and credit transfer; and

·    mergers: characterised by the creation of a new entity out of previously independent entities. For example, the case study included in this kit for Deakin University describes the merger of institutions delivering open and distance learning that has taken place in Australia; the case study for Charles Sturt University also refers to issues surrounding the merger of two institutions.

Risks and benefits

We can identify a hierarchy of collaborative initiatives in terms of the complexity, risks, difficulties, and benefits involved.

Risks and Benefits of Collaborative Initiatives

 

Low risk                                                                    Modest benefits     

Sharing information (resource and research centres)

Exchanging information

Exchanging advisers and consultants

Collaborative staff training

Accepting each other’s students

Acquiring and/or exchanging external materials

(tactical collaboration brokerage)

Collaborating on evaluating external materials

Collaborating on the adaptation of materials

Cooperating on the development of related course units

Establishing credit transfer agreements

Creating a common open learning system (consortia)

High risk                                                                     Major benefits      

The risk of failure increases along the progression shown by the arrows, because of:

·    the degree to which the participants may be required to change their existing systems and practices; and

·    the increasing extent to which the comparative assessment of existing standards is required.

The benefits increase, because of the potential for increased

·      cost savings;

·      learner interchanges between countries; and

·      commonality of standards.

Problems of course transfer and co-production

Tactical collaboration involves the transfer of resources. Two ways in which resources are transferred are course transfer and the co-production of learning materials. Here are some of the problems associated with these practices.

Course transfer

Institutional administrative problems:

·     availability of suitable materials;

·     copyright and ownership of materials; and

·     pricing policies.

Academic problems:

·     appropriateness of language or treatment of subject matter;

·     appropriateness of credit weighting;

·     difficulty of fitting new course into existing programme structures;

·     materials reflecting a different culture;

·     appropriateness of academic level; and

·     congruity of delivery requirements with proposed system of home institution.

Sociocultural problems

·     validity and cultural relevance of knowledge, skills, and attitudes;

·     whose history counts; and

·     appropriateness of pedagogy.

Discussion: Take advantage of the wealth of examples available both from your own and your participants’ experience. Take a look at the Napier University case study that is part of this kit.

Co-production

Problems involved in the joint activity of two or more institutions in producing materials that they will all use include:

·    agreement over who should produce what and to what standard;

·    learner entry requirements;

·    problems of training academics to work with unfamiliar media;

·    academic and administrative procedures and control;

·    obtaining permissions to adapt existing material;

·    reconciling needs of different audiences;

·    meeting recruitment targets;

·    maintaining full consultation and collaborative decision making;

·    specifying agreements in sufficient details to ensure all parties aware of responsibilities; and

·    staying within budget.

Sustaining effective collaboration

The following principles and guidelines can help partners achieve effective collaboration that can be sustained over time:

·    Collaboration schemes should always be between institutions, with institutional backing guaranteed.

·    Where feasible, an institution receiving advice or technical assistance from another institution should attempt to cover the costs from within its own resources or propose some other service in exchange.

·    Where the help and backing of aid agencies is sought, every effort should be made to persuade them to facilitate inter-institutional partnerships rather than parachuting in outside consultants.

·    Institutions should examine the regional and local potential for collaboration before seeking help from elsewhere.

·    Efforts should be made to redress the unequal flow of transfers between the developed and developing countries; for example, by creating an international centre to provide facilities and services not covered by the regional centres.

·    Emphasis should be on training the trainers, who can modify as necessary the required techniques and organise their own in-house training.

·    Use distance communication methods as a vehicle for the transfer of knowledge wherever possible.

·    Promote exchanges of staff between institutions, aiming at an equilibrium of exchange visits.

Discussion: Ask participants if they have any ‘hints’ to add to this list from their own experience.

 Quality assurance

Why the concern with quality assurance?

While quality assurance may be a recently applied term in the educational context, there is nothing new about educational organisations’ undertaking systematic review and inspection of products and services to ensure their quality.

More recent use of and emphasis on the label, quality assurance, can be attributed to factors such as the following:

·    governments’ interest in return on public investment in education relative to other areas of expenditure;

·    the assertion that education and training is essential to economic recovery, growth, and competitiveness;

·    the assertion that the institutions responsible for education have failed in their mission in the recent past to meet demand because of ivory tower or anti-business attitudes; and

·    insistence that education costs should be reduced and educational organisations made more accountable.

Discussion: Does this list of external factors fit with your participants’ experience? Do they have other factors to add?

What do we mean by quality?

Discussion: Begin this discussion by distributing pieces of paper, one to each participant, and asking participants to write down — in letters large enough to be seen by the group — their definition of quality in an educational setting. When participants have finished, ask one of them to collect the sheets and pin them up in front of the group. Draw out the features common to them all, point out the differences, and ask whether any features can be added.

The features mentioned might include the following:

·      chosen standards or criteria;

·      the relative nature of quality;

·      services as well as products;

·      perceptions as well as measured outcomes; and

·      relevance.

What is involved in assuring quality?

Additional points to be made might include the following:

·      Everyone agrees on the desirability of quality.

·      There is less agreement, however, on what it is.

·      This is because ‘quality’ does not exist in isolation from its context of use.

·      Also, judgements differ according to whose views are being sought; for example,

a variety of different meanings define quality;

different stakeholders have different perspectives on quality; and

different functional areas within a single organisation have different views.

·      Priorities will vary according to

who is making the assessment; and

for what purposes the assessment is being made.

Checklist for a quality assurance programme

Quality assurance focuses attention on operational processes and systems. It has three main elements:

·    You set standards for a product or service.

·    You organise the production or delivery of a product or service so that the standards are consistently met.

·    You thereby create confidence in the client or recipient that what is promised is what will happen.

To implement these procedures, it is helpful to ask the kinds of questions in the following quality assurance checklist (Robinson 1994:187–188).

Quality Assurance Checklist

Quality policy and plan

·     Has your organisation developed a policy on quality with which all staff are familiar?

·     Has this been translated into a practical plan?

Specification of standards

·     Are there specified and clearly defined standards in place?

·     Have they been communicated to all concerned?

·     Are they specified for key activities?

·     Are they

achievable?

reasonable?

measurable?

Identifying critical functions

·     Have the critical functions for achieving the standards been identified?

·     Have they taken the learner as the starting point?

·     Have the procedures to achieve them been analysed?

Documentation

·     Are the procedures to be followed clearly documented?

·     Are they explicit?

·     Do they represent fact or fiction?

·     Are they consistent in different documents?

·     Are they concentrated on essential procedures?

·     Are they in a readable and user-friendly form?

·     Do all those who need them have access to copies?

Staff involvement

·     Have all staff been involved in the development of quality assurance systems?

·     Have their suggestions been built in?

·     Has enough time been given to this process?

Monitoring

·     Are there systematic monitoring mechanisms for critical functions?

·     Do they check whether standards are being met and procedures followed?

·     How do you know?

·     Are the findings disseminated?

·     Are they harnessed to appropriate action?

·     Do they result in improved performance or a review of practice, or a reappraisal of standards?

·     Do they provide effective feedback loops between providers of products and services and learners?

Training

·     Is there adequate provision of training and staff development?

·     Is this linked to the achievement of standards?

·     Are there effective mechanisms for assessing training needs?

·     Are these reviewed regularly?

·     Are resources allocated to meet them?

Costs

·     Is there a strategy for monitoring the costs of implementing and maintaining quality assurance activities?

·     Does this strategy take account of human and financial costs?

·     Are the costs greater than the benefits?

·     Is there a review process to find out?

These and other issues to do with quality assurance are dealt with in greater detail in Performance Indicators, Topic 9 of this kit.

Discussion: Ask participants to read and compare the sections on quality assurance in the following nine case studies: Deakin University, Murdoch University, the Open Access College, Charles Stuart University, University of Guyana, Indira Gandhi National Open University, University of the Philippines Open University, and the Southern Africa Extension Unit. What appear to be the definitions of quality used by these institutions? What procedures do they use for assuring quality?

 Practice exercises 

Domains of power

Instructions: Ask each participant to spend about twenty minutes setting down briefly for the case of their own institutions the following items:

·    the groups that exercise power over the institution: for example, government, donors, staff, learners, and other institutions

·    the kind of power they exercise: coercive, funding, or policy;

·    the relative impact of this power on the organisation’s operations: in other words, ranking the groups in terms of the weight they have in determining or influencing the directions in which the organisation can move.

Supply participants with a chart something like the following to guide their work. Divide participants into small groups (no more than five people each) to discuss and compare their analyses. Close with a general discussion of the outcomes. Are participants’ experiences of power quite similar or very different, and what accounts for these similarities and differences?

Group exercising power	Type of power exercised	Relative weight (5 = most powerful, 1 = least powerful)

Timeframe: Allow 20 minutes for individual work, 40 minutes for small group discussion, and up to 30 minutes for large group discussions; or, in total, up to one and a half hours.

Materials: Prepared hand-outs, flip chart paper and pens.

Collaboration role play

Instructions: Ask participants to consider the following scenario.

Three institutions are collaborating on the co-production of a new and innovative, degree-level programme in nursing. The three institutions are:

·    A prestigious university, which sees itself as the lead institution. The university also realises, however, that it would not have won the funding that is supporting this project without the collaboration of the other institutions because it does not at present offer any nursing courses nor does it do much distance delivery;

·    A community college, which sees itself as having the subject matter expertise here because it does have a nursing diploma programme with a good reputation. It is only a two-year programme at the moment, however, and the new programme is to be university degree-level, to which credit from the existing college courses is to be transferable.

·    A technical institute, which sees itself as the technical expert in open and distance learning because it has been doing distance delivery, using a wide variety of electronic media, for over a decade. It does not have any subject-matter expertise to contribute, however.