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The Distance Dilemma
Online learning may be the key issue in higher education. But not all Connecticut colleges are quick to embrace it
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Business New Haven
11/29/1999
By: Mitchell Young
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What was it like 550 years ago when scholars and educators first learned of Johann Gutenberg's miraculous new device, the printing press? How many saw in Gutenberg's simple hand mold a tool which, through the use of movable letters which, for the first time, made mass printing a reality - a new wave of communications would soon begin? And what were the questions they asked when this new technology first unfolded?
Today, how many would argue that virtually all we've come to know as modern life at some point sprang from this new method of sharing ideas, knowledge and experience?
For many educators, a new Gutenberg paradigm is unfolding, as a small vanguard of administrators, professors and entrepreneurs are trying to reshape education, literally, around the globe.
From South Africa's Institute for Distance Education to Connecticut's Distance Learning Consortium, businesses, government agencies and colleges are seeking new ways to integrate today's telecommunications and software technologies into current education and training needs.
The Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium - 30 colleges and universities statewide including the University of Connecticut, the state's community college system, Southern Connecticut State College, the University of New Haven, Quinnipiac, Albertus Magnus, Teikyo Post, Sacred Heart and Fairfield - are working together to share costs, expertise and promote online education. The courses offered by consortium members have been accepted as part of a demonstration project by the Federal Department of Education for scholarship funding.
Among the state's higher-education fraternity, only Yale, Trinity, Wesleyan, Mitchell and Connecticut College have yet to hop on the consortium bandwagon. But on virtually every campus discussions, experimentation and evaluation of the potential impact of technology on education and the mission of the colleges themselves are being rethought.
Edward Klonoski, director of the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium, says that course growth is accelerating at an explosive pace. “This fall, consortium schools will have 102 courses online,” he explains. “Last fall we had 36, and last spring we had 68. This semester 1,350 students will log onto courses offered by members of the consortium.
“We're growing our capacity and experience,” he adds. That growth is fueled by several forces. “The correspondence model wasn't interactive,” Klonoski explains. “In Web-based education the student is interacting with fellow students and faculty. It isn't live, but there is plenty of interaction.
“It's a way to bring education to a new group who can't or won't go to classes and it's important for the retraining needs of today's modern industry. Even lawyers and doctors are required to take continuing credit units,” Klonoski adds.
Contrary to popular view, online courses are not simply video-conferencing sessions where students view an instructor on a video monitor. Most courses are presented “asynchronously,” meaning students take the course when it is convenient. They take tests, answer and ask questions, comment on fellow student's presentations by e-mail and other software that allow them to share and participate in the creation of documents such as spreadsheets or reports.
An art-history course, for example, might feature a Web presentation of artworks, with the professor requesting feedback on each presentation. Unlike the classroom, everyone is expected to participate. While the student may be in his pajamas, most professors say the student is less able to “hide” and avoid participation than in a traditional classroom setting.
Professors create online courses much as they do “stand up” ones. Course material, however, is served up on the Internet and successful courses utilize Internet technology to create interaction.
Klonoski points to an apparent contradiction: the desire for greater human contact as a driver of distance learning. “This technology is based on a basic human drive to communicate,” he says. “People want to use computers because they want to communicate.”
Klonoski sees a vast potential market for Connecticut's colleges in this new field. He cites a study by SCT Banner, an educational software maker, which calculates that there are 100 million people in the U.S., Asia and Europe who are employed, speak English - and need further education.
“If our employment requires lifelong learning, can we deliver that with the existing infrastructure,” he says. “We can't give visas to everyone who wants to come to the U.S. to learn. Education is a great potential export for America.”
One company hoping to cash in on the online education market is eCollege.com, a Colorado company that is among the fastest growing in that state - the company filed with the SEC earlier this autumn for its initial public offering. eCollege.com provides technology, curriculum development and other support services to more than 100 colleges offering online courses, including the Connecticut State University (CSU) system.
Representatives of eCollege.com were in Connecticut earlier this month to award a $150,000 grant to CSU to support the creation of an online Master's of Library Science (MLS) degree offering.
According to CSU officials, the online component of the MLS program was partially a response to an increasing demand from high school and college librarians wanting to learn how to incorporate multimedia and Internet technology into traditional library resources. The accredited degree will encompass 40 online courses by spring 2001. Students will be able to complete the program in as little as 18 months.
While the online inventory of courses is growing, only a small fraction of instructors have actually created and presented an online course. Kathy Murphy of Gateway Community-Technical College developed her public-policy course with a grant from the distance-learning consortium.
“Many professors believe that you have be a 'techie' [to create an online course],” Murphy says. “But I had the technical support from the consortium; all I had to do was make the pages. The hardest part was developing the course itself.
“Now I'm adding to the course trying to get more interaction between myself and the class,” she says. “What's different is that the students have to respond.
“What we're doing now is trying to get the students to read each other's responses and comment on them. We had a very lively discussion on gun control and violence in schools.”
As in a “stand-up” class, participation counts, Murphy says. “I make [interaction] a big part of the grade. We have a richer discussion for it.”
Judith Slisz, dean of the Accelerated Degree Program at Teikyo Post University in Waterbury, says her college has invested heavily in online courses. It is the only Connecticut school to offer four baccalaureate degrees online: management information systems (MIS), criminology, integrated business and management.
Colleges aren't buying these courses off the shelf - not yet, at least. Slisz says all online courses at TPU are taught by TPU professors using their own material.
Even so, “We never have trouble staffing our online courses,” she says. “Fifty percent of our faculty have designed and are teaching online courses. It is a lot of work to design a course, but there is a big demand for them - many are maxed out. We have approximately 420 students taking courses [one or more] online.”
Slisz also praises the potential for interaction. “Online, there is no roadblock created by language, or presentation skill, or stuttering, for example.”
Employers are also embracing online learning. “Our whole program got started when the Association of Field Service Managers came to us for help with their continuing education and credentialing needs,” Slisz explains. “These folks were working very long hours and were often on call, etc.” - thus the need for flexibility.
Today, 98 percent of employers reimburse online courses as any other, Slisz says. “It's a matter of recognizing that there are many adults who have demanding and busy lives, and we want them to meet their educational goals.”
Theodore R. Marmor, a professor at Yale's School of Management (SOM), reflects some of the ambivalence on the part of educators and administrators at schools where the primary “customer” is not the stressed-out, time-starved adult learner.
“Anybody's who's been involved in a Socratic dialogue knows there's nothing comparable on the Internet,” Marmor says. “Do I want to do this [online teaching]? No - it's like having sex without people.”
Despite the misgivings, Marmor says he's planning on putting all his papers on the Web, and speaks well of a videoconferencing session he moderated with participants from Australia and New Zealand. “Frankly, the presentation was an extremely efficient way to get a sense of these people,” he says.
Like many of his Ivy League counterparts, Marmor has published several books and is much in demand for lectures and presentations. Could the Internet make him a “star” of online education? Marmor acknowledges potential conflicts between institution and professor, but dismisses them as the same old conflicts - with some new twists.
“All of a sudden, a professor can potentially become a small business,” he says. “If you separate the intellectual consequences from the certification, I see no difference in an online course from putting out your book. I'm the owner of my ideas, but my Yale career is a partnership - I don't think of it as mine. This [question] is no different than unlimited consulting or speechifying.”
David Sloan, an English professor at the University of New Haven, teaches perhaps one of the less likely courses for computer learning: American humor. He has developed and taught courses on Mark Twain and “power writing” online as well.
Of Internet dialogue, Sloan says: “Students do need to be well disposed and reasonably comfortable with the computer. However, my experience is that the Socratic method is significantly enhanced in that the thoughtful get as much time to speak as the glib. In our American humor class we have more than 500 e-mails contributing to our discussions.”
The Internet isn't the only technology occupying minds on campus.
“My personal belief is that the role of libraries has to change,” says Barry Nalebuff, the Milton Steinbach Professor of Management at Yale's SOM and chairman of Yale's Information Technology Services Committee
“We have not preserved our oral material,” Nalebuff notes. “We have a cheap and effective technology to preserve lectures, but we aren't doing it. For example, Dino Geangakoplos a retired professor of Medieval Roman History, no longer gives his lectures, and no one teaches the course. It will be lost forever.”
Nalebuff does see a role for online learning at Yale. “I think we'll see course material used in other institutions - high schools, for example. One issue is the content; the other is the certification. I don't know how we do the certification.
There is a need even a need for greater learning flexibility among Yale faculty, alumni and staff. Online education may not be as good as in classroom, but it's a lot better than not getting it. “There are courses I would like to take at Yale that I could never get to,” Nalebuff says.
Looking to the future, Nalebuff says, “I have a colleague at Harvard, Clay Christensen. He has a book, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail [Harvard Business School Press, 1997]. It says that successful firms don't create certain innovations, because they listen to their customers and customers aren't asking for lesser quality and cheaper products, but for better, higher-quality products. Thus innovation from below is often missed by leaders in the field.
“At Yale, our customers - students - are asking for more direct contact with professors, not less,” Nalebuff explains. “To the extent we're listening to them, we're not going to be looking toward online education. Over time, however, the quality of long distance learning will grow until it is actually challenging what we do.”
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