Eugene, Oregon
May 13-15, 1998

The Future Network: Transforming Learning and Scholarship

Distance Learning: A View From the For-Profit Sector

William Durden, President
Sylvan Academy

As was said in the introduction, I've had an opportunity to spend about 20 years in a research university. I am now spending time in a for-profit distance learning environment in the education industry itself, albeit still from the academic point of view. I've learned a lot of things in a year.

The Caliber Learning Network is a distributed, distance learning environment. We attempt to work with approximately 30 leading institutions to bring adult certificate and degree programs in four basic areas--health, information technology, education, and the medical profession--to the public. We work with the research universities using technologies that are highly integrated and live, via satellite and Internet.

Our initial contracts are with, for example, the Hopkins medical institution and the broadcasting of the certificate program leading to a degree program in the business of medicine.

One of my principal responsibilities is negotiating and talking with institutions, the institutions that you represent. What I've seen is, particularly from your point of view, something that could potentially be disturbing. Except for a few rare situations when I begin to negotiate with the university, with the research university particularly, I find that seldom is the library brought into play. It is simply not at the table. That is very disturbing because decisions are being made by another party for your clients, who later will want information, the type of data that is an integral part of the university, the part that actually defines a university.

Let's now look into what I think I can share with you about my initial year in this environment. I would like to start by quoting a colleague from the University of Pennsylvania, the interim provost, Michael Wachter. If you have a chance, look at the April 21, 1998 article in the University of Pennsylvania's journal, The Almanac, "Report of the Provost's Committee on Distributed Learning," available at http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v44/n30/distlearn.html. It goes into many areas of interest. It is a probably the best document I have seen so far on this situation within the universities.

This is a quote from that document: "This new environment [distance learning] carries with it both enormous promise and considerable risk, the inherent risk in doing nothing and the risk in doing something, but not doing it well. Those institutions that can change, innovate and lead are likely to thrive; those that cannot are in danger of losing their preeminence. We affirm that in distributed learning, as in residential learning, Penn must retain its position as the institution of choice for the very best students."

Dr. Wachter asks certain questions, and I think these are framing issues for discussing distance learning in your universities. These are questions he believes Penn's faculty and staff should be asking.

• What technologies work and how will they differ across programs?
  
• What type of infrastructure will be needed to support these programs and make certain that they are successful?
  
• How will these distributed learning collaborations be structured?
  
• What standards will guide admission to the program and how will students' progress be monitored?
  
• How will faculty be chosen to teach in distributed learning programs? If standing faculty are used, what is the best way to compensate them?
  
• Who will monitor the quality of the programs offered to ensure that the reputation and standards of the University are maintained?
  

Note the questions that are being asked of distributed learning. Ask those very same questions for live teaching taking place right now in the classroom. Who is monitoring the quality? Who is watching this? It's very interesting as we move to new technologies the questions that surface. Rigor comes into play where it may not be in play to the degree that we believe it is at the current moment.

I'll mention this now and come back a little bit later, but this is a very critical point. I headed the German department at a great institution, but I was nervous teaching when I had to use A.V. equipment. The A.V. Department did not inspire confidence in the faculty. The technology, Internet, and everything else is following in this grand tradition. The faculty are nervous. Universities do not also necessarily have the monies, the salary scales, and schedules to retain the type of talents needed to maintain these systems if they're fully operating. This must be looked at squarely.

I want to concentrate on three areas of interest. These are interrelated, but they come up in all my negotiations. They all exist in dichotomies. First in the discussion of distributed learning: For-profit companies are playing a large part. I don't think they'll go away. It's just how we use and integrate them. But underlying that meeting of for-profit with the non-profit there is incredible tension. There are stereotypes from both sides that are in play, making interaction very difficult.

Let's take a look at some of these misconceptions or conceptions. Education is often thought by business to be large, unwieldy, bureaucratic, ever slow in decision-making and dependent on committees. Business, on the other hand, is often thought to be small, in a way unique. It's fast moving, and it's unencumbered. I can say that where I work there are absolutely no committees. That does not mean there's not discussion, but there are no committees. But then you get into some other areas. You get into the issue that, when it comes to a decision in business between quality and profit, profit wins. That's a conception brought into our discussion.

On the other hand, let's look at some of the business-type reflections on academics and some of the reflections of your colleagues on academics. There is more motivation to succeed in business than in education. Arthur Powell, who writes about universities, says that American education offers more opportunities than incentive. In universities there is no accommodation of risk-taking, change, or creativity, really. Fear and nervousness of straying from the status quo are greatly present. Exceptions are maintained as exceptions--that's in policy--and are never integrated into common practice.

Again, you have a very slow decision-making process most of the time, but that slow process is given moral high ground; it's said to be virtuous that you take more time. You have outdated policies that do not permit you to move quickly in ever changing environments, and yet it still exists on moral high ground. These are not my personal opinions. Please understand that I'm trying to give a little bit of an outline.

Often you operate with petty, destructive fiefdoms, department to department, among small groups of people: There are unbelievable personal issues that stop the virtues of education. And when there are change structures at your universities, they are highly vulnerable. Usually, if they are protected by one administrator, that administrator is vulnerable. In addition, they are never accommodated into the core of the university; they exist forever outside.

Now let's go to the second element: Technology. Universities are asking: Is technology yet sophisticated enough, acceptable enough, to convey a serious academic program? I will admit that, as this morning's speaker said very clearly, the young people are ready for technology. I would say, however, that, yes, they're ready for technology, they are ready for manipulating data, and they are comfortable with the systems, but they are skeptical of serious, long-term learning through technology. They, too, have had bad experiences with technology. And that is still a question as to whether we can deliver quality academic programs in a distance learning environment.

Secondly, can technology handle secure student assessments? Can it handle assessments through test questions? We really haven't achieved that yet. That's another key question.

Let's go to the last and perhaps the most important distance learning question, particularly for you: Should a research university even be in the business of broadcasting its contents to a mass market? After all, most distance learning today is not in graduate or even undergraduate programs--it is certification and recertification, those types of adult professional programs.

Many believe that outstanding research universities are not in the business of building ever increasing numbers of clients, but in restricting access and thus preserving your brand name. Indeed, some libraries may follow this perspective; that is, if you're in distance learning and your audience is constantly getting larger, what is your audience? To whom do you give materials? Is there any end to the audience administrators are creating for you to serve? Can a university really make money with distance learning? The cost of infrastructure, the reinvestment, and the product costs are overwhelming. What is the role of for-profits in this? Is there a role?

There's a great fear among the faculty that distance learning and for-profit companies will eliminate faculty. Indeed, Michael Milken is rumored to be taking that path, and he has quite a bit of wealth to back his program. In addition, something very close to you, what about the companies that simply buy intellectual property and keep it, restrict it, and do not share it, in the non-profit sense?

Is there a role? Yes, I believe there's a role. For-profit should be in distribution, marketing, providing a technological infrastructure and production of any series or any course. The universities should supply the content and guard it, make sure it's of the highest academic quality. And it should always come along with its library system. The library is part of defining the university's quality. It's part of defining its distinction.

Now brand names: Many universities will say to me, "We'll deliver our brand name." Universities are seeing brand names as ways of making money. The question is: How do you see it? But it clearly is being used.

What is an appropriate award for faculty, what motivations do you provide for faculty, how do you pay these faculties, and what do you do about the star faculty member who doesn't care about the institution, cuts a private deal with a company, and offers a course? For several of the universities with which we have dealt, faculty members have come to us privately and said, "Let's cut a deal." We told them no.

The last issue is credit: Can you give credit? If you offer a course on campus, that course has passed all requirements and credit is offered. But if you give the same course through distance learning, are there any changes? Is it less academic? Can you now not give credit?

One other issue I am very concerned about--I encounter this day in and day out--is that distance learning and the issues I have just outlined are issues that go to the heart of the university itself, its core. What is its teaching, content, instruction, delivery? The university should be discussing this, it should be confronting distance learning. But what is happening? The majority of universities with which I deal marginalize distance learning, put it in a separate department, over to the side. Even such things as the Western Governors University http://www.wgu.edu/ and the California Virtual Universities http://www.california.edu/ are separate from the school systems so the universities are protected from confronting key issues, causing change, and getting themselves in shape for the next decade. What should be done? Each university should confront distance learning at its core, and it should come up with a teaching plan and a set of recommendations for dealing with this. The University of Pennsylvania has done this; it is part of the document I've referred to. That's why I urge your looking at it, and I'll just mention the four items they have in place to do this.

Firstly, they are creating a distributed learning venture capital fund to help all aspects of the university start the tentative developments. They're also forming a distributed learning facilitation unit. Again, this is not a separate unit to carry out all distributed and distance learning, but rather to permit quicker ways for the core departments and schools at the university to move through the system.

They are forming a unit from the general counsel office and the executive vice-president to monitor contract formulation to be consistent with the interaction with both non-profit or for-profit. They are establishing a school by school strategic planning and reporting situation for the distance learning initiative.

Finally, they are formulating a structure to approve, monitor, and evaluate distributed learning programs from each school--not by the central administration, but from each school.

This is just a little insight into some of the issues that I've encountered as I've begun this rather interesting road of being a bridge between the for-profits and the non-profits. It's a very exciting period, but certain decisions must be rendered and certain roads must be taken, or it may very well get out of hand--it probably is to a certain extent already.

Thank you for these few minutes to reflect on this. I appreciate your time.