In the midst of an institutional rush toward distance education, some crucial issues are in danger of being forgotten. There are very few formal opportunities for faculty and professionals in higher educational institutions to develop knowledge of and skills in distance education, and particularly in the management of distance education. While there are a very small number of degree or certificate programs which grant certification in the field of distance education, most full-time faculty cannot reasonably attend these programs because they are either not easily accessible, require full time study for too long of a period, or are too expensive. Several institutions also offer short programs or certificates, but these often relate to specific technologies and skills. Distance faculty and administrators often end up learning how to develop, deliver and support courses through the trial and error method (getting occasional advice from their more experienced colleagues.) They do this with almost no background in distance education theory, pedagogical models, or positive examples of good practice.
It was felt that there are two critical needs that emerge from this analysis:
Given that need for such development and training in distance education, the author, Eugene Rubin, along with a German colleague, Ulrich Bernath, submitted a proposal in 1995 to participate in the “Global Distance Learning Initiative” of the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE), who, in collaboration with the AT&T Foundation, offered a series of grants for research/exploration in the area of distance education. They were awarded a grant for 1996/97.
The original objectives of this project for professional development in distance education were:
A decision was made early on to offer the seminar via the Internet using easily accessible and wide-spread computer-based technologies. Given the 10 week syllabus, the ongoing work commitments of the participants, and their location in different time-zones, it was also decided that real-time synchronous technologies were not appropriate. Asynchronous computer communication appeared to be the most appropriate mode of communication, and it was decided that web- based computer conferencing would be best to support the structure and objectives of the Seminar. It was felt that with this decision, the method and the content of the Seminar were consistent. Both the Internet and the World Wide Web were coming to the fore, and were potentially providing great opportunities for distance teaching, as well as teaching in general. For us, the web-based seminar was a positive example of the environment for which the participants were being trained. The web-based conferencing system that was selected was HyperNews, which is a Unix-based “threaded” system (the titles of the various messages look like an outline or “tree”, so that you can follow the “thread” of a particular part of the discussion.)
The general strategy of the Seminar was to encourage faculty development in two areas:
The syllabus for the Seminar was as follows:
Week 1: Introduction and practice with the conferencing system
Week 2: Foundations of Distance Education - with guest expert Börje Holmberg
Week 3: Institutional Models of Distance Education - with Gary Miller
Week 4: Theories of Distance Education - with Otto Peters
Week 5: Technology of Distance Education - with Tony Bates
Week 6: Introduction to Distance Education Applications and Project Planning
Week 7: Student Support
Week 8: Instructional Design
Week 9: Technology
Week 10: Summary and Conclusion, Project reports
In addition, the general Seminar environment was supported by :
The core professional development strategy of the Seminar was one of combining the idea of master practitioner with that of peer interaction. Each part of the syllabus was achieved by common discussion of a topic supported by interaction with a well qualified “expert” in the field of distance education. Thus, the design of the Seminar was one of a meeting of peers and not one of a relationship between students and teacher.
The Seminar Leaders were well aware that they were dealing with qualified professionals who were actively employed in academia, business or government. We were also aware that many of the academics were engaged in a regular teaching calendar. In other words, the participants were a group of working professionals who had commitments other than the Seminar. With that in mind, several aspects of the design of the Seminar are notable:
In addition, the core Seminar feature of visiting "experts" was a unique opportunity to interact (in almost real-time) with distinguished scholars and practitioners. It was reasoned that this would be a strong motivator for faculty to persist in the Seminar, since this opportunity would not normally be available elsewhere. The seminar leaders jointly provided the overall frame for each of the weekly discussions.
Overall, the Seminar clearly achieved its goals. The extensive debriefing at the face-to-face evaluations, as well as the on-line evaluation, indicated a high degree of satisfaction with the Seminar. Participants entered the Seminar with different personal objectives and goals, yet practically all felt that they had a positive experience, and to at least some extent met those personal goals. Specific data will not be described here, but several outcomes bear noting:
Participation data. The participants did not participate in the Seminar equally. Some “appeared” (made a comment) in every module, and some in only a few. Some made many comments within a module and some only one or two. On the surface, the participation rate in any one module ranged from 34 (out of 45) to 13 (out of 45). This was somewhat discouraging until we debriefed the participants at the face-to-face evaluation sessions. Here we found that almost all of the participants were actively reading the Seminar, even when they did not actively “speak”. Our evaluator, Helmut Fritsch, termed this phenomenon “Witness Learning”, to indicate that many participants were actively engaged in the Seminar even though they were invisible to the others.
Volume of participation. The volume of the contributions was quite large …. almost intimidating. The Seminar resulted in the equivalent of over 250 single spaced printed pages. The volume of the participants (45) and the experts/leaders (6) were approximately equal.
Structure of the interaction. Each module developed differently from the others. Depending on the goals of the module (Content focused vs organizational) and on the “style” of the expert/leader, the discussion involved different processes. Some experts were more directive than others, using a lecture type style of presentation, while others were more personal, directing their comments to individuals by name.
Technology of the Seminar. The technology required by the seminar was not a barrier to participation. However, the logistics of an international seminar required some preparation and planning. Because of the time differences (often up to 9 hours or more), participants and experts/leaders had to adjust their schedule. A functional day was often only a window of several hours (9 AM Pacific Standard Time was the equivalent of 6 PM Middle European Time), and the comments a particular participant put in today may not be read by another until tomorrow. Yet all of the participants seemed to be able to adjust to this without difficulty.
In 1998 two further Virtual Seminars were run on a self-supporting basis. These seminars followed the format of the first seminar, but with various refinements which streamlined the process. Each of these seminars was similar to the first in that there were approximately 40-45 participants from a wide variety of countries around the world. Yet each had a character of its own, with unique conversational patterns and topics of discussion. Despite this, the overall results of the seminars was quite consistent, with similar participation patterns and a similar large volume of discussion. In fact, the second and third seminars had even larger volumes of discussion.
A virtual Seminar is reading and writing and thus demands much of the participant’s time. The written contributions in the asynchronous discussion process differ from a synchronous and flighty chat and are fundamentally different from a conventional seminar. Engaging in a virtual seminar and using computer conferencing is a much more reflective process than face-to-face interaction. One types out one’s thoughts, rereads them, often edits them or adds to them, and sometimes even spell checks them. After carefully inspecting what one has written, they are then submitted for others to read. The meaning of the written word is measured and sincere, and it persists. It can be read and reread by others long after the termination of the seminar. Peters therefore characterized the virtual seminar as an example of a “knowledge building community.”
Conventional seminars do not allow all participants to contribute at once. They usually do not encourage a response from each and every individual. Moreover, it is difficult to attend to and keep track of a long sequence of oral contributions. A long list of written contributions is treated differently. You can stop when you wish and easily compare and contrast various contributions. You can go back and reread for clarification. The asynchronous computer conference is, in a way, a renaissance of reading and writing communication. We can now hope that it will bring us new and extended opportunities for teaching, training and learning, regardless of time and space constraints.
The positive results of the virtual seminar likely correlates with the interest of the participants in their own growth of knowledge and acquisition of skills. Clearly the relevance of the content is related to the participant’s persistence as well as their attitude. Our data clearly indicates a positive affect and a continuing involvement of the participants in the process of the seminar.
The discussion process in the virtual seminar needs leadership, direction and moderation to best use the opportunities offered by the media and the technology. In particular, it is important to get as much of the activities on the “surface” as possible. There is also an emotional component to the seminar. Participants not only reported a resultant positive or negative affect in the discussions, but also reported the establishment of varying degrees of personal relationships with fellow participants. We felt that this emotional component was critical to the success of the seminar.
One of the goals of the seminar was to enable a cross-cultural sharing of experiences, ideas and opinions. This was deemed to be a potential positive outcome because
Our three seminar experiences definitely supported the above supposition that the cross-cultural aspects of the seminar would result in positive outcomes. Not only was a broad variety of opinion expressed, but often these opinions prompted discussion that reflected a more comprehensive analysis and understanding of critical issues. This was particularly true of technology related discussions, where participants from nations that were not highly technology enabled often came up with innovative and useful solutions to problems that did not occur to participants from high technology countries.
By being globally accessible via the Internet, the content and interaction allowed participants to differentiate and generalize across cultural borders and among the diverse practices within the field of distance education. It gave depth to the learning and forced the participants to think beyond their own cultural and environmental constraints.
The seminar was also an example of distance education in practice. One of the primary goals of the seminar was to inform distance educators about issues related to the practice of distance education. We essentially “practiced what we preached.” It even allowed some of the more experienced participants to obtain a better understanding of their own student’s experience within distance courses. Finally, we consider our virtual seminar to be an outstanding success. The model has already been replicated in several other environments.
Perhaps the most important outcome of the seminar was the growing awareness among the seminar leaders that, while the seminar was a “success”, their overall goals were not being achieved. It was the hope of the leaders to develop a truly scalable training program. However, the seminar, as it was designed, was an additional workload on top of their distance education administrator’s role. It seemed impossible to continue it in that form, and it also seemed too difficult to turn into an ongoing activity at each of their institutions.
Furthermore, it was the seminar leaders' impression that the seminar discussions often raised more issues than they resolved, and it became clear that there were a myriad of skills and concepts which needed to be further developed by the seminar participants. In a way, the seminar just began to scratch the surface of the training issue.
Thus, with both of the seminar leaders coming to the same conclusions and raising these issue in their respective institutions, the idea developed that each of their institutions should seriously consider offering some sort of formal training for distance educators which would lead toward a credential. It was out of these discussions, both within and between their two institutions, that the idea of a formal Master’s degree in the management of distance education came about. A decision was made that the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) would develop and offer a Master of Distance Education degree, and that Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, would partner in this enterprise by developing and offering a certificate that would be fully integrated into the UMUC Master’s degree.
The Master of Distance Education is designed to serve the needs of individuals responsible for leading and managing distance education within government, business, non-profit and educational organizations. It is therefore worthwhile to examine the potential need in some of these areas.
A recent report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) market research firm entitled ONLINE DISTANCE LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION, 1998-2002, says that the number of college students enrolled in distance learning courses is growing by 33 percent per year. The number of students in distance learning classes is projected to reach 2.3 million by 2002. The proportion of two year colleges offering distance learning classes is projected to reach 85% (up from the current 58%), and the proportion of four-year colleges offering such classes is projected to reach 84% (up from 62%).
Peterson's Guide to Distance Learning Programs (1998) cites that of more than 1000 colleges and universities recently surveyed: 762 offered distance learning courses in 1996 and 860 offered them in 1998. Furthermore, of the proportion of those schools that offer distance learning courses, 68% used the Internet for delivery.
This rapid growth in distance education (DE) suggests a strong potential demand for the training of professionals in the field. A large majority of 2 and 4 year institutions in North America presently have either an individual or an office that is in charge of distance education. Many of the schools have multiple offices and/or multiple employees.
Many, if not most, DE positions require individuals who either have extensive experience or specific training in the field of distance education. Because most of the explosive growth in distance education has been recent, there are only a limited number of experienced personnel presently working in the field. There are only a few degree programs in the field and these have produced a limited number of graduates, so there are only a small number of individuals who have been specifically trained in DE as compared to the total number of present and future (predicted) positions.
Further evidence of demand for trained personnel in the field of DE is the explosive growth in private and non-profit organizations that are marketing distance education products and services in the education/training field. Such companies as RealEducation (eCollege), Collegis and Sylvan Learning Systems are marketing turnkey distance education systems to companies, universities and colleges. Organizations such as WebCT, TopClass, Blackboard, and Lotus/IBM are marketing software and related technologies for the delivery of web-based distance education. Other organizations such as V-Tel and PictureTel are releasing new versions of their video conferencing products, and many of the telecommunication companies are directly marketing distance learning services. Hundreds of companies have sprung up that have developed training and education courses and they are marketing these products directly to businesses, educational institutions and government. Most of these organizations either did not exist five years ago or did not offer these services and products. Many of them did not exist two years ago. The direct implication of this is that there is an increasing number of jobs that will require the skills and knowledge that is imbedded in the proposed degree program's curriculum. Thus there is already a pool of potential students working in the private sector that are appropriate candidates for the proposed program and there is some assurance of a future demand for the graduates.
It is useful to examine other programs because this provides further insight into the issue of demand. Presently, there are only a limited number of programs that are offering a similar degree. For example, similar degrees are offered at the following institutions: Florida State University, George Washington University, Nova Southeastern University, Athabasca University (Canada), The British Open University, The University of London, and The University of Southern Queensland (Australia). A number of these degrees have been offered for several years and their enrollments are healthy, if not exceeding their original estimates. Their program sizes are primarily limited by their resources for delivery (e.g. number of permanent faculty.)
Until recently, there have not been many institutions that have had extensive experience delivering distance education (and thus have a reasonable number of qualified practitioners to teach the subject). Internationally, institutions that have been leaders in distance delivery have initiated academic training programs (for example, the well respected British Open University, Athabasca University, and University of Southern Queensland). UMUC intends to follow their model of teaching what they both know and do.
The Masters of Distance Education (MDE) is a program designed to produce individuals capable of managing the distance education enterprise within educational, business, government, and non-profit organizations. In a rapidly expanding field, the graduates of the MDE will be prepared to engage in the planning, budgeting, development, delivery, and support of distance education and distance training programs. Students will:
The Master of Distance Education covers a broad range of topics that need to be addressed by distance education and training professionals. Graduates of the program will be able to develop a vision for the implementation of distance education within an organization and communicate that vision effectively to others; develop strategic goals and business plans for distance education within an organization; design and implement the necessary support services for a distance education program; analyze, design and recommend an organizational distance education technology plan, and manage the implementation of that technology in distance delivery; function effectively as leader, manager and team member within a distance education or training organization. Students will develop competencies in organizational and management processes; leadership and change management; information technology; business development, strategic action planning, and problem solving; and will understand the importance of both ethics and social responsibility. This is an applied degree, aimed at developing the managers of distance education and training organizations of the future.
It is intended that the proposed program should address a global audience. This is because a) the field of Distance Education is of an international character, with expertise, research and models that cross national boundaries, b) The market for graduates of the program crosses national boundaries, and c) there are only a small number of institutions worldwide that are offering a similar credential.
The program is actually conceptualized (when complete) as a group of approximately 18 courses. Students would be able to enroll in either the full Master’s program or in one of several Certificate programs. Students who enroll in a Certificate program would be able to continue on the Master’s program if they so chose.
The Master’s program will consist of six core courses and five elective courses. In addition, a student would be required to take either a distance education project course or an additional two elective courses.
The Certificate programs would be aimed at specific market niches. UMUC’s analysis suggests that these potential students, in general, do not desire a full Master’s degree (either because they do not think they have the time or energy, or because they already have an advanced degree and only want to upgrade or retrain). One example of such a Certificate would be the one designed for librarians. These students would likely be enrolled in another MLS program, or would be working librarians who would like to obtain a specific set of additional skills and knowledge. This Certificate will consist of 4 courses (two of which would be from the basic core of the Master’s program and two which would be developed specifically for the certificate as well as be electives in the Master’s program. Similar Certificates could be offered to Information Technology professionals, K-12 teachers and administrators, trainers in business and government, and military trainers, and to various international markets.
Further information regarding the UMUC Master of Distance Education degree can be found at: http://www.umuc.edu/mde/.