- reduce costs
- enhance reputation
- improve learning
- promote offerings
- generate income through selling software
(Inglis, Ling, and Joosten, 2002)
What seemed to be missing was related to the resource issues we're looking at Unit 6: an increase in market share. Perhaps the authors meant this when they said "promote offerings" but if so, it's not very clear. It seems to me that many institutions believe that DE will help them increase enrollment/revenue/market share.
Another way to look at this is to see that nowhere on the list from the text is the idea of increasing access (again, may have been implied in "promote offerings" but this is unclear).
I have shared with some folks who were in previous classes with me that one of the local universities where I teach as an adjunct had asked me before to adapt my course from a F2F class to an online course. One of the reasons (at least told to me) was that the university was opening a campus in a smaller city about 1.5 hours away and that having my course as a DE class would allow students at that campus to take it, without a long commute.
This makes sense but we can see that in this case even the issue of access relates to the idea of revenue generation. Opening another campus I am sure was seen as a way to tap into a market that the university must have deemed could support it--otherwise why spend all the money that goes into this?
So while we're thinking about all the resources that go into creating a DE course and program, I think it's important to realize that most organizations (whether for- or non-profit) need to see some sort of return in order to justify the resource investment.
Let's hope that improving learning and meeting students' needs are seen as valid returns. But underlying all of it is revenue (in most situations, any way). And I don't mean to demonize this--institutions must have revenue to operate, I understand.
I know in my other practice setting (of my day job managing CME), a huge reason we have done more and more DE programming is the availability of funding.
What about your organizations or companies? If you're doing DE, why?
Dierdre,
ReplyDeleteCurrently, I'm not in an organization that has a distance program, however, I do agree with you that increasing revenue is probably the biggest (but not talked about) reason that institutions implement distance programs. It makes sense: if a business (and colleges and universities are businesses) can reach more potential customers, why wouldn't they?
Plus, I believe, it's also a matter of keeping up with the times we live in. With practically everyone in the industrialized world now having some type of access and/or interest in technology and benefitting in some way from the conveniences it provides, it makes perfect sense for organizations to get their hands into it. Because if they don't, they can be sure that their competition will. And nobody wants to be left out in the cold.
This calling of attention to whether revenue generation, while very important, should be the be-all-and-the-end-all (sp?) of education is timely. It seems that every week in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. or in the AAUP publication there is another article about schools cutting programs on the basis of revenue alone, or people with tenure losing their jobs during layoffs because they are seen as not bringing in revenue.-JD
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