Distance learning

Academe, May/Jun 1998 by Rubiales, David, Steely, Melvin T, Wollner, Craig E, Richardson, James T, Smith, Mark F

The following report, prepared by the undersigned subcommittee of Committee R on Government Relations, was approved by Committee R in November 1997.

I. Introduction: Origin and Charge of the Subcommittee

Committee R on Government Relations created a subcommittee on distance learning at its June 1997 meeting in Berkeley, California.l The subcommittee's charge was to produce a report on distance learning for the November 1997 meeting of the full committee, focusing on three specific areas: faculty compensation, intellectual property rights, and academic freedom. While other entities within both the Association and the profession have been investigating the various issues raised by the growth of distance learning, the Committee on Government Relations decided to go ahead with its own subcommittee because both state and federal governments were pursuing initiatives promoting the practice.

Governors and legislatures across the country have talked of using distance learning to cut costs and improve access. The Western Governors' University is only the most visible example of this trend. At the federal level, the Department of Education has indicated that it will be addressing questions regarding accreditation of distance learning programs. The National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education examined the impact of technology on college costs. Both these federal undertakings will help determine the shape of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

After reviewing the issues involved, and previous Association statements and reports on aspects of distance learning, especially the 1969 Statement on Instructional Television and the recent work done by a subcommittee of Committee C on College and University Teaching, Research, and Publication, the subcommittee established several assumptions as a basis for its examination of the specific issues in its charge.2

Distance learning is not a future possibility for which higher education must prepare; it is a current reality whose growth potential is virtually unlimited. Distance learning, used properly in its various modes, can enhance the learning experience and increase access to higher education for a wide variety of potential students.

Distance learning, even used properly in its various modes, raises a number of issues that have to be examined carefully, to determine its impact on faculty, students, and the learning experience in general.

The subcommittee used those assumptions to examine the questions of how distance learning can be utilized to maximize the learning experience of the student, and how the faculty's traditional role in determining academic and pedagogical issues can ensure that maximization.

The subcommittee recognized that distance learning can be a valuable pedagogical tool to increase access to higher education for students not able to utilize traditional campus offerings, but it is in no way a substitute for the engagement of the teacher with the student. That engagement is fundamental to the educational process, and AAUP-supported policies are designed to provide standards for enhancing that engagement. Traditional Association practice is that policy statements have always been "designed to set a framework of norms to guide adaptations to changing times and circumstances."3 In order to provide a report useful to the concerns of our members and faculty in general, the subcommittee examined the new realities created by the development of technology in the classroom and developed some recommendations toward establishing standards to deal with that new reality. Committee R's basic recommendation is to urge revision of the 1969 Statement on Instructional Television to reflect subsequent technological changes affecting the classroom. More specific recommendations follow in the discussion below.

II. The Political Context of the Growth of Distance Learning

Distance learning has become increasingly admired by governors, legislators, institutional administrators, and critics and reformers of higher education, all of whom look on it as a more costeffective way than on-site delivery to make services available to a wider, more varied audience than ever before. Despite mixed evidence as to its effectiveness in answering the needs of higher education, the political pressure to implement distance learning continues to grow rapidly across the country.

The allure and promise of this technology to both policy makers and the public make it imperative that the Association act expeditiously to ensure the faculty role in shaping the course and velocity of distance learning's acceptance. Neither those who discern problems with distance education, nor those who embrace it, want to see technology misapplied or curricula adulterated through inadequate or inappropriate application. As educators, our first priority is pedagogical, yet we need to understand the political forces pushing this technology in order to have the impact we should in shaping the pedagogical environment.

There are several social and economic trends associated with the various technologies of distance learning that are driving the interest in its development and shaping the political debate about its implementation. These trends include new demographic realities, political constraints of state budgetary politics, cultural and lifestyle changes, and basic imperatives of technological development.