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EDUCATION :Distance Learning Ascendant
With real-time, interactive learning online a reality today, will tomorrow's campuses have bricks and mortar?
J.P. Thompson is dean of the School of Extended Learning at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, which is a member of Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium.
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Business New Haven
11/15/1999
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Is the Connecticut State University [CSU] system's distance-learning effort mostly online?
Distance learning for us is pretty much all online, Web-based, Internet-based. We doing this through CSU Online. Southern [Connecticut State] is one of the four campuses of the Connecticut State University system, so the vendor that we use to get our courses out there on the Internet is the vendor that the system office uses. But we are also members of the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium [with Teikyo Post University and Charter Oak Community College].
What exactly is your job?
The Distance Learning Consortium is a service-provider. What I do is to manage, oversee and coordinate all of the courses and degrees that will be delivered via distance learning.
How has distance learning evolved?
It actually goes back to the 1800s with correspondence learning and independent courses. Out of that grew the need to find avenues for serving what we would call typically the 'non-traditional' learner - an adult learner, a person who might be a single parent, might be working full time, who may have a lot of barriers to becoming a traditional student. They don't fit in box of the 18- to 22-year-old, full-time, having Mom and Dad taking care of them [college student]. And as we became more industrialized as a nation, it became more important to provide training and outreach and bring education to people who want to progress in their jobs.
What technologies bridged the gap between correspondence courses by mail and the Internet?
The audio portion of it came along, then the videotapes and the tele-courses, which are professionally produced programs. PBS is one of the outstanding providers for that type of thing. It's supplemented on campus. And then of course it came into the interactive video, where you could see and hear people at a distance. And now of course it has gone to just the desktop. There's a desktop video [product] that we're not currently using but down the way we definitely will. It will be totally interactive voice, video and data.
How do interactive videos work? Is there a live, real-time person on screen?
Oh, yes.
So you can ask questions?
Yes.
What's the barrier to that? Is it simply the speed of modems?
Availability of equipment and server capacity. It's out there, but it's hard to jump in all at once because it is expensive. You have to work into it and build your market as you go.
We've done pretty well. Southern is one of the largest providers of Internet courses.
Who is the typical student who is learning off-site today?
It's people in their early 30s. There are more women than men. They tend to be employed and to have family responsibilities. Travel is hard for them, and time is really [precious to] them. [To attend classes on campus] you would have to give up an hour or two hours of driving time. You would have to have a baby-sitter. You'd have to give up your personal and family time. This way, people have access to computers just about everywhere. So wherever you have a computer, that's your class. You can take a class with you, basically.
How many students are now served in this fashion at Southern and statewide?
[At Southern] it is close to 300. Each semester we offer about 18 to 20 courses. Statewide it's over 1,000 students. And it is growing.
In theory, at least, wouldn't we eventually need only one college, or the best professor for each subject in the world? What implications does distance learning have for the future?
I don't see that happening. Southern has some unique programs, and those are the programs that I think we should focus on. Whether you're specially accredited or whether it's an area that is in high demand, if you have the ability to deliver it then I think you should. I have not seen the erosion of on-campus enrollment. Actually, what you're doing is bringing in a new population of people that you might not have been able to reach without using the system.
So you're not competing with yourself?
No. As with anything, it takes a lot to get it off the ground. There is a development stage, there is a stage for marketing and to get the word out there. But now we're seeing people come from Japan, China, other states. So this has gone beyond the state of Connecticut. Ideally you want to bring in a diverse group of people from outside of the region, as well as provide an enhanced service for your clients.
Does it cost the same to take a class online as it does to take it the traditional classroom way?
Not through the CSU system. They have established a set fee because they wanted it to be the same for everyone. They had a three-year period to find out what the market looks like out there.
The American Association of University Professors must not think much of this.
Everything seems to be happening fast, and it really isn't. [Distance learning] has been out there for a long time. But I think it's just caught their attention. And those who are involved with it know that there are the same safeguards and measures that you would have whether you're doing a course online or not. You still have all the elements you have in a course. You still have the approval process. [In the end], the key to any good course is the professor.
Are there some fields of study that lend themselves more to online learning than others?
With technology today you can expand the limits of what you could do ten years ago. But I still believe there are some courses that are better suited to this delivery system. It goes back to the faculty members, because they have certain preferences and teaching styles. We also look at a hybrid situation where maybe you don't go 100-percent online. You take steps to reach that point down the line, but maybe you start at 50 percent online, because there are some who still like that personal contact. [Students] can't hide online like you can in a large lecture hall.
Do you foresee a time when more people will be learning online than in classrooms?
I think it's always going to be a question of providing various service options for learners. The adult population is the growth population; the 'non-traditional' student is no longer the non-traditional student. It's been said that people who graduate from school today will change careers anywhere from five to ten times. That's an area that we are getting into.
What are the implications of this for businesses?
There are other universities and vendors coming in to do our job for us. British Open has been very successful in England and now has a foothold in the United States.
What's British Open?
It was their first non-traditional distance learning university. It's huge - there are hundreds of thousands of students enrolled. They obviously saw a need there. They obviously saw a market in the United States because now they have a campus in the United States. Here, [textbook publisher] Harcourt-Brace is starting an online university.
What will this program look like in ten years?
It is probably going to be a lot like it is now. I would like to see more of the hybrid thing. I still think ideally it's good for 18- to 22-year-olds to be on campus. I think that socialization that you and I went through is good. But once you become an adult you are much more focused on the goal. I think we will be doing more on-site with business and industry and government. We will be better listeners and communicators, asking the right questions and listening to the answers. We will have to be more competitive, deliver what we say we are going to, and do in a reasonable length of time.
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