Distance Education: The Status and Challenges
Won Kim, Cyber Database Solutions, Austin, Texas, USA
Timothy K. Shih, Department of Computer Science and Information
Engineering, Tamkang University, Taiwan
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Abstract
In the mid-1990s, the rise of the Internet and Web technology provided
a renewed impetus to distance education. Just as the rise of the Internet
and Web technology led to the subsequent dot com bubble and bust, the
promise of a revolution in education and society that distance education
was thought to hold turned out to be overblown. However, just as the
use of the Internet and Web technology is taking root in commerce,
governance, mass communication, etc. after the dot com bust, the use
of the Internet and Web technology in distance education is expected
to take root and deliver benefits to education and society over the
long haul. In this article, we examine the current status of distance
education, some key lessons learned from distance learning to date,
and what it will take to make distance education successful both from
technology and sociological perspectives.
1 INTRODUCTION
Today the concept of distance education is fairly well-understood,
and the potential importance of distance education in the future of
education is also generally acknowledged. With advances in multimedia
and communication technologies, distance education is being adopted
by corporations as well as universities. The idea is not really new.
One may regard 1922, when Thomas Edison invented motion picture and
boldly predicted that motion picture would replace textbooks in education,
as the starting point of the history of media technologies for learning.
Although Edison’s prediction has not exactly come to pass, video
tapes were used by the US army during World War II for the training
of soldiers. Television broadcasting became one of the pioneering technologies
for distance education. In the early 1970’s, Computer Based Training
(CBT) and Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) became important applications
of mainframe computers. The primary ideas behind CAI and CBT led to
today’s distance education in the early 1990’s through
the use of multimedia technology and the Internet. Distance learning,
distance education, cyber education, remote classroom, and e-Learning
are similar concepts.
About five years between the late 1990s and the
early 2000s marked the period of dot-com bubble. During this period,
the tsunami of investment
money chasing after just about any concept attached to the Internet
and Web technology and the lack of experiences with early uses of
the Internet and Web technology created a sense of euphoria and an
imminent
revolution in the way people work, live, interact, and communicate
in a borderless world where online virtual entities replace offline
counterparts and where all online contents are free for all. During
this same euphoric period, many predicted that distance education
would make traditional offline schools and universities obsolete, just
as
many predicted that online newspapers, libraries, bookstores, etc.
would make their traditional offline counterparts disappear. Such
predictions have not come true and are not likely to come true in the
foreseeable
future. Many students who took early online courses for academic
credit did not get much out of the courses, partly because they tended
to
cram near the end of a semester, there were no human instructors
to seek answers to questions, and the course materials were not adequate.
Some cyber universities have sprung up that offered college degrees.
However, employers and the society have been slow to accept them
as
equivalent to the degrees conferred by traditional universities.
These are but a few lessons learned from distance education thus far.
Despite
the bust of dot coms, the use of the Internet and Web technology
has been steadily taking root, without the crazy expectations and
predictions of the dot-com bubble period, in commerce, governance,
entertainment,
news media, communications, etc. The Internet and Web technology
are now providing entirely new or effective additional means for
organizations
to communicate and conduct transactions with their customers or
constituents. A sober assessment of the capabilities that advances
in communication
and multimedia technology can enable, along with an examination
of the lessons learned from distance learning endeavors during the
past
several years, should similarly make it possible for distance learning
to complement traditional in-class learning and make education
richer and more valuable to students, both in schools and corporations.
In
the remainder of this article, we will first review a general operational
model of distance education, then the current status
of distance education.
Next, we will examine technological and sociological challenges
that distance education needs to overcome to fully realize the
potential
of distance education.
2 AN OPERATIONAL MODEL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
The fundamental elements
of distance education are shown in Figure 1. They include policies,
people, and technologies. These are
the essential components which affect the development of
distance learning
programs.
On the policy side, the evaluation criteria for distance
learning programs affect the instructional quality and performance
of
students, which
in turn influence how much potential employers trust distance
education. The granting of the credit, diploma or degree
is an important consideration
for students to take courses or join a virtual university.
If the government or a university sets a high standard, fewer
students
will enroll. Thus
standard evaluation criteria should be established. The overall
evaluation may include teaching evaluation and a review of
course contents and
curriculum, as well as student performance evaluation. The
standardization of courseware format and platform (e.g.,
SCORM) will ease the
exchange
of course materials. It is time-consuming to create high
quality distance learning courseware. Courseware exchange
has become
one of the possible
solutions to reduce the load on courseware designers. Each
courseware has a copyright associated with it. An interesting
policy issue
is who owns the intellectual property (IP). In some cases,
the IP belongs
to the university (traditional or virtual), and corporations
or corporate training businesses. This is definitely different
from
the IP associated
with traditional textbooks, which belong to the publishers.
The IP issue is different depending on different institutes
and countries.
Moreover, just as traditional universities have different
focuses and strengths, the focuses of virtual universities
are different.
Other
policy issues are related to sociological behaviors of students,
such as how an individual trusts a friend in the virtual
world.
Figure 1: Elements of Distance Education
On the people side, several types of experts are involved. To create
distance learning courseware, education professionals, engineers, and
art designers need to work together. Distance learning platforms are
maintained by an engineer or an instructor. The administrator reviews
and manages courses as well as the curriculum schedule. An instructor
can maintain the distance learning platform, as well as managing the
schedule.
Various technologies are brought together to create, maintain
and run distance education programs. With advances in the capacity
of the Internet
(and Internet 2), distance education programs can make increasing
use of multimedia contents (such as video and animation). Web technology
allows the installation, update and viewing of course materials.
Video
streaming technologies are used in video conferencing systems to
support online discussions. It is possible to use education theory
to develop
distance learning resources and quantitative analysis of student
performance. 3
CURRENT STATUS OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
Supporting systems or tools used
in distance learning programs can be divided into two types:
- Traditional tools: videotape (S-VHS), cable/public television,
tele-conferencing, hardcopy textbook.
- More advanced or recent tools: CD-ROM titles, Web browser,
whiteboard, chat room, Real player, video broadcasting, satellite
video conferencing,
broadband video conferencing, audio conferencing, student assessment
tool, and administration system.
Note that hardcopy textbooks are still
widely used, even if it is possible to publish their electronic versions
on the Internet. Proprietary communication
tools are available to support online discussions, either in a limited
bandwidth and asynchronous environment (e.g., chat room) or in a broadband
real-time communication facility (e.g., video conferencing). A few
integrated systems such as WebCT are commercially available that provide
functions ranging from administration, courseware creation and management,
communication, assessment, and sometimes even course contents.
There
are three venues for distance education programs: regular and continuing
education programs in traditional universities, distance
learning portals, and virtual universities. In a traditional university,
most courses taught in the classroom are, at least in principle, feasible
for distance learning, except those that require lab experiments and
physical presence (e.g., physical education, music and arts). There
are a number of virtual universities. The University of Phoenix (http://www.phoenix.edu)
and Athabasca University (http://www.athabascau.ca) are two of the
largest virtual universities in the USA and Canada, respectively. The
University of Phoenix is one of the earliest virtual universities.
Among the 134 campuses, the University of Phoenix serves more than
174,000 students in 2003. The university also provides help with US
federal financial aid and private loans. With the large number of enrollments,
the University of Phoenix is also one of the earliest successful examples
of virtual university. Athabasca University is supported by the Canadian
government. More than 77,000 students are enrolled in 2003. Virtual
universities allow students to take advantage of the flexibility in
time and location. Students who are employed on a full-time basis are
able to complete higher level education without jeopardizing their
jobs. Software systems and student evaluation methods in virtual universities
are similar to those used in traditional universities.
E-learning portals
are another venue for distance learning. E-learning portals help small
to medium size companies to offer employee training
or customer service on the Internet. (Large corporations often develop
and run their own employee training programs.) Courses on practical
subjects, rather than on theoretical subjects, are typically offered
by e-learning portals. In some cases, customized course contents can
be built to satisfy the needs of individual companies. Often, e-commerce
facilities are incorporated into an e-learning portal to provide additional
services (e.g., book buying). Examples of e-learnig portals include
click2learn (http://home.click2learn.com), CyberU, Inc. (http://www.headlight.com),
Learn.com, Inc. (http://www.learn.com), SmartForce (http://www.smartforce.com),
SmartPlanet, Inc. (http://www.smartplanet.com), and THINQ (http://www.thinq.com).
Although
different distance learning programs have different business models
and target audiences, in terms of interactions between students
and instructor (and among students), distance learning can be divided
into asynchronized and synchronized learning. Self-regulatory learning
is a basis of asynchronized learning. Asynchronized distance learning,
adopted by most e-learning portals, rely on students who can study
independently. The advantage it offers to students is flexibility.
Students set up their own study goals and time tables. With the assistance
of a semi-automatic administration system, students study the course
materials, take exams, and receive assessments. The administration
system may restrict the time period in which a student can access particular
(portions of) course materials. Following the social constructivism
and the scaffolding theory, this type of system builds a strong scaffold
(i.e., with more hints) to help students in the beginning. As time
passes and goals are achieved, the scaffold may be decreased or removed,
leading to a gradually more independent style of study. A major drawback
of asynchronous learning is the lack of real-time interaction, which
tends to reduce the chance of just-in-time answers and team collaboration.
Intelligent software systems may improve asynchronized learning. For
instance, a student monitoring system may review individual performance
via some norm-referenced evaluation strategies and advise them of their
performance. On the other hand, synchronized distance learning requires
an advanced network infrastructure for video conferencing. In traditional
universities with separate campuses, synchronized distance learning
can help bridge the physical separation of the campuses. Online lectures
can be broadcast, with bi-directional communication channels that allow
real-time multi-point interactions. Collaboration and question-answer
sessions are easily implemented. However, course materials still need
to be online. The combination of synchronized and asynchronized approaches
will force students to follow their study schedule and allow flexible
interactions and discussions.
4 TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES FOR DISTANCE
EDUCATION
To ensure the successful operation of distance education systems,
computer facilities and network infrastructures must be integrated
with appropriate
software systems. The current distance learning platforms allow both
synchronous and asynchronous discussions. An advanced technology (and
methodology) is needed to help the instructors or administers to minimize
cheating in exams. Technologies will be a part of the solution to the
issues of motivating both the students and instructors. Below we highlight
several important research issues from the technology perspective.
These issues require researchers from education and information technology
fields to work together. Some of the issues have been partially solved,
while several issues related to intelligent technology remain open:
- Instance hints and intelligent tutoring: While a student
is navigating an online course, an intelligent agent may analyze
her behavior, and
provide useful suggestions in real-time, for example, by guiding
her through different learning topologies.
- FAQ summarization and automatic reply: It is time-consuming for an
instructor to answer students’ e-mails. An auto-reply system
should be able to use information retrieval techniques to summarize
frequently asked questions, and reply to new questions with answers
to past questions.
- Unbiased examination: It is difficult to ensure proper behavior of
students when administering online examinations without a human monitor.
A surveillance tool can randomly take a snapshot of students’ screens.
- Individualized quizzes: Some distance learning systems
are able to generate different test questions for different students
according
to difficulty levels. This type of system should ensure unbiased
examinations.
- Online supervision of chat room discussions: Chat room discussions
can be assigned points in student’s performance. An intelligent
agent can be implemented to grade chat room participations. Misleading
or irrelevant conversations can be reported to the instructor.
- Universal and mobile accessibility: Students and instructors
should be able to access distance learning websites from any location
with
any of a variety of different devices, such as PDA or cellular
phone. Wireless communication techniques may be incorporated into
distance
learning systems.
- Remote lab and simulation: Domain-specific remote labs
connected to the Internet need to be developed to support online
experiments.
If
remote labs are not available, online simulation tools (i.e., virtual
lab) should be provided.
5 SOCIOLOGICAL CHALLENGES FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION
Some of the sociological
issues are difficult, more difficult than technological issues, to
solve. The motivation of students is one of
the key factors that will determine the success of a distance learning
program. Mostly, adult working individuals take distance education
for professional growth. They all want to get something out of a distance
education program. They want to learn something practical today and
apply them at work tomorrow. Some of them want to receive diplomas
or at least course credits. To such students, acceptance by the employers
(industry and government) of the course credits and diplomas is very
important. The (presumed) quality of education (and diplomas awarded)
depends on assessment of the educational institutes, as well as the
quality of instructions. It takes many years and concerted efforts
before a traditional university is established, and the same will be
the case for cyber universities. It may make sense for different cyber
universities to differentiate themselves from other cyber universities
and traditional universities by carving out their own niches in terms
of fields and course curriculum. Evaluation of cyber universities (and
distance education programs within traditional universities) must include
student performance, instructor performance, course materials and curriculum.
It is important then that there be comprehensive and objective evaluation
criteria for all these measurable aspects of distance education.
Some
studies suggest that college education influences and shapes how students
speak, think, and behave. Social behavior will be different
in a virtual environment; and education received solely in distance
learning may put the students at a disadvantage. It appears that the
best education is the conventional in-class education augmented by
distance learning for a part of the overall curriculum. For example,
students may establish a base of their social networking and a starting
point for studying and learning in college. Most classes they take
in college may be the traditional in-class variety, while others may
be either purely online or a combination of in-class learning and distance
learning. After graduation, they may take from e-learning portals training
courses that either their employers encourage them to take, or from
cyber universities or continuing education programs in traditional
universities courses they consider interesting or necessary for professional
growth.
There are some additional interesting sociological considerations
for distance education. Will there be a threat from “the super
professor” and “the
super university?” Since there is no geographical limitation
in distance learning, will there be a professor who teaches, say calculus,
so well that all freshmen take her course? Is it possible that a particular
institute becomes so popular that all students receive credits from
it? How will professors react to these possibilities? Another consideration
is from the student’s view. If students seldom see each other,
how does the social life in universities change?
6 EPILOG
Distance learning is still in its infancy today. This is
due to the limitations of network infrastructures, experiences, manpower,
effective
policy, and acceptance from the employers. Currently, distance learning
is primarily limited to colleges and corporate training. Secondary
and elementary schools have not adopted it. Sometimes synchronized
distance learning is used between two countries. However, due to time
differences and limitations of network infrastructures, international
collaborations are rare. However, the potential of distance education
cannot be ignored. As pointed out in the study “The No Significant
Difference Phenomenon” (http://teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/),
if student performance has no difference between traditional and virtual
universities, convenience and flexibility of distance learning certainly
become a significant and, sometimes, compelling advantage.
Technical
and sociological challenges may take a long time to be adequately solved.
However, a few practical observations can help make a distance
learning program more successful. Courses on practical subjects and
subjects of recent interest will increase enrollment. A good distance
learning program should also motivate and help the instructors. Generally,
the load on an instructor teaching a distance learning course is higher
than that for a traditional course. Appropriate rewards should be given
to the instructors. Moreover, most instruction designers are not natural-born
art designers. Art designers should be brought in to help instruction
designers to develop attractive course materials.
As new technologies
unfold, some interesting trends in distance learning may evolve as
well. Some of them are summarized below.
- Virtual Reality-based communication and situated learning
use augmented panorama and real-time communication technologies in
a distance learning
CAVE. Students can feel and experience the outdoor facilities inside
the classroom.
- Wireless communication to access encyclopedia and e-books
will be available. Mobile students can participate in a lecture,
use online references,
or read class notes.
- By making use of game technologies in education, it may
be possible to attract students and to increase their attention and
motivation.
REFERENCES
http://www.phoenix.edu
http://www.athabascau.ca
http://home.click2learn.com
http://www.headlight.com
http://www.learn.com
http://www.smartforce.com
http://www.smartplanet.com
http://www.thinq.com
http://teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/
About the authors
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Won Kim is President
and CEO of Cyber Database Solutions (http://www.cyberdb.com)
and MaxScan (www.maxscan.com) in Austin, Texas, USA. He is also
Dean of Ewha Institute of Science and Technology, Ewha Women's
University, Seoul. Korea. He is Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions
on Internet Technology (http://www.acm.org/toit),
and Chair of ACM Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery
and Data Mining (http://www.acm.org/sigkdd).
He is the recipient of the ACM 2001 Distinguished Service Award.
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Timothy K. Shih is a Professor of
the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering
at Tamkang University, Taiwan, R.O.C. He is also a senior member
of IEEE and a member of ACM. Dr. Shih is the founder and co-editor-in-chief
of the International Journal of Distance Education Technologies,
published by Idea Group Publishing, USA. Dr. Shih’s publications
and services can be found at http://www.mine.tku.edu.tw/chinese/teacher/tshih.htm. |
Cite this column as follows: Won Kim, Timothy K. Shih: “Distance
Education: The Status and Challenges”, in Journal of Object
Technology,
vol. 2, no. 6, November-December 2003, pp. 35-43. http://www.jot.fm/issues/issue_2003_11/column3
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