NEWSLINE - Summer 1999

AACSB Issues Quality Guidelines Amidst Rapid Growth of Distance Learning Programs

They were charged with developing guidelines for enhancing quality in distance learning. The guidelines were to help visit teams, accreditation committees and schools developing distance learning programs. The document that resulted from their work was to include both guidelines and explanatory reasoning for the characteristics that ensure quality in distance learning practices.

Now, after 18 months of work, AACSB’s Distance Learning Task Force, comprised of volunteers experienced with distance learning programs, has done just that. The task force’s report, "Quality Issues in Distance Learning," was published in July (all AACSB members received a copy). The 36-page publication includes 17 recommendations on program features that need special attention in development of distance learning programs. The report also provides a list of questions for prospective students to use when considering enrolling in a distance learning program.

"No one needs documentation to confirm the growing phenomenon of distance learning in higher education," said Milton R. Blood, AACSB managing director and director of accreditation, who served on the task force. "For most people in higher education, and certainly for people in management education, each day brings information about new developments," he said. "The fact that distance learning is growing at an accelerated pace seems too obvious to measure. In fact, measures of the growth taking place are difficult to find because the scene changes so rapidly."

The U.S. Department of Education has no statistics that report the number of institutions delivering distance education or the proportion of students involved in distance learning. "Even if such statistics were available, they would be obsolete," said Blood. "This is one more example of the amazing speed with which technology adoption can transform practice. In recent years, we have witnessed this phenomenon with faxes, microwave ovens, personal computers, cellular phones and the Internet."

The distance learning phenomenon is part of a larger fundamental structural transformation taking place in higher education. That larger structural change is driven in part by economic forces, in part by greater international mobility and communication, and, in part, by changes in technology. "Technology changes obviously are having a significant influence on distance learning," said Blood. "In addition, technology is transforming much of the pedagogy for campus-based learning"

According to Blood, the implications of these dramatic changes in the longer term are unknown. "It has been a popular amusement for higher education analysts and futurists to imagine scenarios and outcomes for the ferment occurring in higher education today. However, the track record of soothsayers (even when they are predicting for a field in which they have a great deal of expertise) would make us think that the most likely outcomes have not yet been imagined," he said. "In 10 years, higher education will appear much different from its current structure—of that we can be sure. What we cannot know is how it will be different."

Questions abound as to what is driving this change. Is it driven by opportunities for educational improvement? Is distance learning better than campus-based learning? Can it be accessed by audiences for whom traditional higher education is not available? Alternatively, is distance education being driven by competitive market forces? Can institutions reach out to markets they have previously not been able to tap? Can entrepreneurs provide new higher education products that win customers through improved service, higher product quality or lower price?

"Probably both educational improvement (at least in access) and competitive market forces play a part in the growth of distance education," said Blood. "One impact of the competitive forces is to move institutions to develop and implement programs more quickly than they might if they were free to deliberate (in traditional academic fashion) on just the education issues. This enhanced speed of development will generate change more quickly and with more innovation than otherwise would occur," he said. "The field as a whole will learn more from the higher level of activity. On the other hand, the haste means some of the experiments will go awry and some education will be ill-conceived or badly delivered. Every transition includes such inefficiencies, and they create learning opportunities if we are observant," he said.

David Stephens, Utah State University business dean who chaired the task force, said it is critical in the distance education effort that a distance learning strategy be firmly anchored in a school’s mission. "If this is not something that an institution values or something that an administration or faculty value, if schools don’t see it as leading them somewhere to achieve one of the objectives they’ve chosen for themselves, then they probably shouldn’t be in distance learning," he said

Especially highlighted in the task force report are the circumstances of distance learning that make a direct translation from the practices of campus-based learning inappropriate. For example, in electronically delivered distance learning programs, technology support for both faculty and students requires special attention. As another example, faculty tasks are sometimes unbundled in a distance learning program. Some faculty design courses, others deliver them, and still others create and implement assessments of learning. "This calls for new procedures in faculty management, development and reward," said Blood. "Further, the logistics of learning assessment are quite different in on-the-ground and distance learning programs. Suitable arrangements must be developed to ensure that learning meets educational goals and that proper safeguards validate the assessment experience."

"There are many examples of institutions around the country and the world that got into distance learning because they thought there might be economic opportunity there — they thought that by launching a distance learning program that they could broaden their market — that they could pull in students that they couldn’t ordinarily reach — and that by pulling in these additional students and charging them some kind of substantial tuition, they could create a new source of revenue," said Stephens. "There is no question that if you can expand the number of students and if you can penetrate into new markets, there will be new revenues flowing to your institution. But any business dean five minutes into the job knows that deans are not trying to maximize total revenue — what they’re worried about is the relationship between revenue and expenses," he said. "There aren’t many schools that are involved in distance learning that have a very rosy story to tell about the relationship between revenues generated in distance learning and the expenses associated therewith, particularly in the short run."

The task force report does not prescribe how institutions are to manage processes in the 17 highlighted areas. "It is not a cookbook or a how-to handbook for persons creating distance learning programs," said Blood. "Rather, the report highlights critical areas that need attention. It was written for two audiences: persons developing distance learning programs and peer reviewers evaluating the quality of distance learning programs," he said. "While written to be helpful to peer reviewers, it does not establish new AACSB standards for distance learning. It also does not change the accreditation standards for distance learning programs, although it will help reviewers raise appropriate issues as they evaluate programs delivered by nontraditional processes."