From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Distance-Education Backers Gaze Into the Future
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 09:55:16 -0500
Distance-Education Backers Gaze Into the Future, and See Customization
By SARAH CARR
As distance-education programs around the world continue to grow in size and
scope, some education leaders say content and customization -- not the
number of students served -- will be central to the future of the industry.
"The society that will be successful in the future will not be the
nation-state or community that can accommodate a steady stream of students,
but that nation that can lift the level of learning among all its students
rapidly and repeatedly," Gov. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah said last week at a
conference here. "Higher education ought to be focused on content, not
hardware."
Governor Leavitt was the keynote speaker at an annual conference, "the Role
of Universities in the Future
Information Society," held Friday and Saturday at Northern Arizona
University. Mr. Leavitt said advances in technology had led society from a
period of mass production into a period of mass customization.
The point was echoed by Richard Hezel, president of Hezel Associates, which
provides planning and research to distance-learning programs. "There are
those who might recoil at the idea of students as customers, but I think
what we need to do is treat them as customers," he said.
Mass customization is one of the goals of Western Governors University, a
virtual institution that Governor Leavitt helped create. Leaders of Western
Governors say its programs are designed to cater to customers, rather than
to set up inflexible requirements for students. Instead of awarding degrees
according to a strict, traditional system of academic credits, for instance,
Western Governors caters to the student -- the customer -- by issuing
academic credit when the student achieves "competency" in a particular
topic. (See a story from The Chronicle, May 7.)
Governor Leavitt said he anticipated that Western Governors would receive
accreditation next spring.
While Mr. Leavitt focused on the theoretical in his speech, Northern Arizona
officials said they had experienced -- on a practical, day-to-day level --
many of the concepts the Governor described.
Clara M. Lovett, the university president, said that when the university
began offering distance-education courses, administrators devoted a lot of
effort to figuring out what forms of technology would enable courses to
reach the most students. But now administrators have shifted their focus to
content. Ms. Lovett said Northern Arizona was trying to "export the academic
strengths" of the university, such as courses in teacher preparation and
environmental science.
Ms. Lovett said for-profit universities chose academic niches on the basis
of market conditions, but public universities like hers could afford to
focus on what they were good at -- as long as they earned enough to cover
their costs.
"The challenge we are facing right now is to decide on our content, on which
courses we are especially proud of," she said. "The fact that we can reach
millions of people is not all that important."
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Copyright 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education