University Accommodation of Distance Education in Canada
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This article examines distance education as an innovation which has yet to be fully adopted in Canada by conventional universities. Four major issues require attention before the adoption of distance education as an academic discipline or field of study. The first is concerned with how distance education, as an academic discipline with its teaching, research and practitioner components, can fit into the bureaucracy of a conventional university. The second acknowledges the significance of collegial decision making and the role of effective faculty development programs. The third issue, excellence in disciplinary research, sets conventional universities apart from open learning institutions in Canada. In a review of the latter, the author examines the relationship of disciplinary research to effective teaching and questions the need for open learning institutions to continue in their gradual convergence with conventional universities. The fourth issue is the need to examine higher education in Canada as a system and to recognize both the need for diversity in higher education and the need for universities to preserve diversity in their response to anticipated calls for a national distance education strategy.
L’auteur de cette étude fait l’analyse de la discipline universitaire de formation à distance en tant qu’innovation qui jusqu’ à maintenant n’a pas encore étè adoptée par les universités traditionnelles au Canada. A son avis quatre conditions devront être remplies avant l’adoption de la formation à distance comme discipline universitaire.
Premiére condition: découvrir comment la discipline universitaire de formation à distance avec ses composantes d’instruction, de recherche et de pratique peut s’intégrer dans la bureaucratie universitaire traditionnelle.
Deuxième condition: reconnaître l’importance d’un consensus collégial dans la prise de décision et l’importance du rôle des professeurs dans le développement des programmes.
Troisième condition: I’auteur identifie un attribut essentiel, la recherche de l’excellence disciplinaire qui distingue les institutions traditionnelles des institutions de formation à distance. Il analyse la relation existant entre la recherche disciplinaire et l’enseignement efficace tout en remettant en question la nécessité Dour les institutions de formation à distance d’imiter lesinstitutions traditionnelles sur cette question.
Quatrième condition: Finalement l’auteur affirme qu’il faut considérer l’enseignement supérieur au Canada comme un systeme où retrouve une diversité d’institutions et où chaque institution doit pouvoir répondre, dans le respect de son caractère propre, au développement d’une stratégie canadienne dans le domaine de la formation à distance.
This article examines some of the implications and impediments associated with efforts to have Canadian universities accommodate distance education as either an academic discipline or a field of study. It is useful to begin with the important differences which exist between the recently chartered open universities and the more conventional universities in Canada.
Canadian educators have long attempted to reduce the barriers imposed by the vastness of Canadian geography and the educational needs of those living in sparsely populated areas. It is well known, for example, that conventional universities have offered correspondence programs almost from the onset of higher education in Canada with the earliest commencing at Queens University in 1889. Not long after the Open University was established in the United Kingdom in 1969, Tele- Universite was created in Quebec, followed by Athabasca University in Alberta, and most recently, the Open Learning Institute in British Columbia. The three Canadian institutions emerged with missions, organizations, and public profiles significantly different than their conventional counterparts. Each has displayed some of the dimensions of openness. Shale described openness, as “a continuum with the traditional universities at one end, the open universities at the other, and the hybrids arranged in between” (Shale 1987, p. 10). In his outline of the dimensions of “openness,” Shale included: the provision of more “places” at the university level; an easing of the usual entrance requirements; the alleviation of constraints related to students being at a particular place at a specified time; the awarding of “substantial” advance university level credit for study undertaken elsewhere; the awarding of credit for informal (experiential) learning; the “banking” and accumulation of credits earned elsewhere, for application toward a degree; and the enabling of independent study at a pace chosen by the student.
The emergence of universities and other institutions which specialize in university distance education and “openness” has stimulated further development of distance education in more conventional universities. This is evident when one observes: a) the recent creation of new instructional designer positions; b) the use of small instructional design teams; c) the inter-provincial marketing of distance education courses and programs; d) inter-university cooperation in course sharing; and, e) the formation of formalized networks to both facilitate inter-university cooperation and to assist universities in keeping abreast of distance education innovations and new developments.
However, in spite of the profound effect open universities are having on their conventional counterparts, the accommodation of distance education in Canada as an academic discipline necessarily implies the rationalization of differences between conventional universities and open learning institutions. Rationalization will require the resolution of a number of issues. The following are four such issues: a) How should the universities organizationally accommodate distance education as a discipline? b) How can university faculty entrenched in traditional research and classroom behavior patterns become motivated to accommodate distance education in their research and classroom activities? c) To what extent should the missions of the open universities and the conventional universities converge in the areas of research, teaching, and dimensions of ‘‘openness”? and, d) How should the Canadian university system evolve over the next few years in response to what are anticipated to become calls for efficiency and calls for a national distance education agency?
How distance education is viewed by university faculty, university administrators, politicians, government bureaucrats, and prospective students is important. If distance education is to evolve into an academic discipline or a field of study recognized in conventional universities, time and well-grounded theory need to diffuse its full meaning to those important to its integration into the university. Holmberg (1986, p.35) reinforces this view in his reference to Desmond Keegan’s well- grounded requirement for a theory:
A theory is something that eventually can be reduced to a phrase, a sentence or a paragraph and which, while subsuming all the practical research, gives the foundation on which the structures of need, purpose and administration can be erected. A firmly based theory of distance education will be one which can provide the touchstone against which decisions—political, financial, educational, social—when they have to be taken, can be taken with confidence. This would replace the ad hoc response to a set of conditions that arises in some ’crisis’ situation of problem solving, which normally characterizes this field of education. (Keegan; 1983, p. 3)
Some would argue that distance education as ‘‘education” is not an academic discipline but rather a field of study. Holmberg ( 1986) examined the rationale for viewing the study of distance education as an emerging academic discipline and concluded:
. . . that this discipline (distance education) is not only . . . now de facto established as both a research area and as an academic teaching subject, but is also a field of study intent on future developments (Holmberg; 1986, p. 25).
Regardless of whether distance education is evolving into an academic discipline or a field of study, proponents of its accommodation by universities must address the matter of how it can best fit into the conventional university organization? There appear to be at least three alternative strategies for organizing distance education. Each strategy has its associated weaknesses and strengths.
One approach to accommodating distance education would be for conventional universities to incorporate it organizationally as either a department or branch of the education faculty. It would then take a form parallel to either Educational Administration, Educational Psychology and Educational Foundations or as a tertiary level of education equivalent to the Primary and Secondary levels. Inclusion with the academic education faculty implies core funding from the university base budget for faculty and support staff salaries. Base budget funding would reflect university commitment to research, teaching and service in distance education. Secondly, inclusion implies a competition with the well-established more traditional disciplines and administrative units for scarce budget. Thirdly, inclusion with the education faculty would, in most instances, mean isolation from the university practitioners of distance education located elsewhere on campus in separate administrative units. As a consequence, the perils of trying to establish and nurture a new discipline within a well-established spectrum of disciplines and faculties, are significant.
A second approach to integrating distance education as a discipline into the conventional university would be to establish a centre or institute for distance education supported in part by the university budget and in part from research grants or fee-for-service contracts. The centre or institute model, by definition, usually exists as either a university cost centre or as an ancillary enterprise (Wagner 1987, p. 13). The centre model promises a liberal environment free of much of the normal bureaucratic rules and regulations associated with universities—an environment which perrnits flexibility appropriate to encourage innovation and the cultivation of new ideas. Difficulties inherent in the centre or institute approach are as follows: a) most conventional universities already have a well-established practitioner function for distance education within their continuing education and extension units, which are likely to compete with a distance education centre for fee-for-service contracts and targeted research funds vital to the survival of the centre; b) typically, in times of retrenchment, ancillary enterprise-like units which are required to be largely self-supporting through external revenues, are targets for budget cuts; and, c) university commitment may be reduced to the mere allocation of space and accounting facilities which would, at best, be questionable treatment for a “new academic” discipline requiring both budget protection and academic nourishment.
A third approach would be for universities to assist their Continuing Education and Extension units to evolve from practitioner units into academic units with academic research, teaching and practitioner components in distance education. Placing the discipline of distance education with the current practitioners of the discipline would appear more feasible than the difficult task of establishing a new organization, a new identity, and perhaps more significantly, a new funding base viewed as having been created at the expense of other collegial units and disciplines. However, transforming a practitioner unit into an academic, degree granting faculty is not necessarily a simple task. Although many Continuing Education and Extension units employ distance education and other personnel as academically qualified faculty, those units are often viewed by other faculty as inter-disciplinary ‘‘administrative” or “non- academic” units.
Because of the considerable diversity in university organizations and organizational cultures, a universal “best method” for the organizational accommodation of distance education is impossible to prescribe. Which alternative is employed in a university will largely depend on the results of a careful assessment of the various strengths and weaknesses of each alternative within the context of both the university’s culture and its present organizational structure.
Since their introduction to Canada, open learning institutions have evolved towards the shape of conventional universities. Similarly, conventional universities have been significantly influenced by the open learning institutions.3 Never-the-less, it is in the best interests of higher education in Canada for conventional universities to evolve still further along the “openness continuum” (Shale, 1987), while maintaining excellence in their disciplinary specialties. To accommodate distance education as a discipline, conventional universities must not only attend to the integration of distance education into the universities organizational structure but must also attend to its assimilation into the faculty collegial structure and faculty decision-making. Simply put, faculty knowledge, skills and attitudes related to distance education need to be redressed.
Consequently, faculty development programs at universities have an important role to play in the accommodation of distance education as an academic discipline. With budgets constraining growth in universities and leading to a down-sizing in most, faculty mobility has been seriously curtailed. Faculty development programs are needed to transform an aging but experienced faculty into a versatile and valuable resource (Nelson, 1983; Baldwin and Blackburn, 1983).
Although most universities in Canada have attempted to engage in some type of faculty development activity, Konrad (1983, p. 24) reported that in 1983 only sixty percent of Canadian universities had faculty development programs. Of those, only forty percent were formalized to the point where there was a coordinator of development practices. Perhaps more importantly, Konrad reports that some of the practices considered most effective by the universities surveyed were also the faculty development practices least used by those institutions. By way of the adoption of new teaching technologies, Carl (1986, p. 225) and Ham (1983) have reported that universities have been slow to adopt new technologies for higher education. Others, though, have provided reason for proceeding cautiously. For example, Roueche and Snow (1978) and McCombs (1985) are concerned that instructional technologies can impede instructional quality unless teachers have the skills to use them well—hence, the prior need for effective faculty development programs.
Therefore, by viewing faculty as both a renewable and versatile resource, universities with effective faculty development programs can promote and ease the transition of faculty from lower priority areas to newer and higher priority areas. One such “higher priority area” must in the future include distance education in the form of research, teaching or practice.
One factor which differentiates open learning institutions from conventional universities is the extent to which their missions emphasize research and the assumed relationship between research and teaching. Whereas open learning institutions generally employ faculty to teach via distance delivery systems, research, when it occurs in any meaningful depth, is likely to be outside of the conventional disciplines in which the faculty member has been trained and closer to the discipline at the heart of the institution—the practice of teaching via distance education delivery systems.
While open learning institutions are generally constrained to specialize in distance delivery systems (including research in distance education) and other dimensions of openness described by Shale (1987, p. 10), conventional universities continue to support a large array of conventional disciplines with associated research and teaching expectations in each discipline. This observation leads one to ask: “How important is disciplinary research in the conventional university to its quality of teaching?” The answer may determine how open learning institutions might best relate to conventional universities. Numerous British authors have strongly advocated that universities should specialize and continue to blend teaching and research. Niblett (1975) maintained that if universities are to retain an influence which is distinctive, they must make their contribution in each of the areas of teaching, research and service without allowing one to dominate over the others. Robbins (1980) described specialization as necessary for institutions of higher education primarily to advance learning. The Robbins Committee (Robbins; 1963) in its review of higher education in the United Kingdom viewed teaching and research as complementary and overlapping activities. Others, including Dainton (1979) and Muller (1980 a), have supported this position. Downey (1978) claimed that to achieve excellence, teachers at universities must have a complete mastery of their subject or discipline.
An alternative position for which there has been significant agreement states that research effort is most efficiently organized in research institutes as is the practice in European countries and the United States (Bawden, 1980). According to Muller (1980 b), much of the research work in East Germany is carried on in the Institutes of Academy of Science which are outside of the higher education system. Also, West Germany, France (Bawden, 1980) and the United States (Kolate, 1979) have research centres separate from institutions of higher education.
Jones (1980), after a review of the literature in the area and a study of the role of teaching and research in universities in the United Kingdom, concluded that teaching and research should be closely tied:
The support for research to be based in universities outweighs the separation of research from universities .... [I]t was abundantly clear that the main reason for the marriage of research and teaching in Universities to continue was one complements the other in the achievement of excellence (Appendix B) (Jones; 1980, p. 45).
Although there appear to be distinct advantages to coupling extensive academic research in disciplines with teaching responsibilities, studies to determine if faculty active in research in their teaching discipline are also effective teachers have not supported the principle: “the better the researcher, the better the teacher.” White (1986), in a study of empirical reports appearing between 1949 and 1984, concluded that it is not possible to predict in any meaningful way teacher effectiveness from knowledge of the teacher’s scholarly activities.
The dimensions of “openness’‘ Shale (1987) attributed to open universities are premised on university missions primarily concerned with the enhancement of access to university teaching and the subsequent certification of learning through degrees, certificates or diplomas. The quality of teaching in open learning institutions, particularly as it relates to accessibility, must therefore remain the primary goal of those institutions. Surely disciplinary research in open learning institutions can only be justified in that it directly or indirectly improves the quality of instruction at the institution. Indeed, some may argue that a satisfied and relatively stable faculty population is important to quality teaching. Others might argue that an organizational climate which permits and encourages disciplinary research helps a university both attract and retain competent career faculty from a larger pool of prospective candidates. However, the literature reviewed here on the subject fails to demonstrate the positive relationship between a faculty member’s research and his or her quality of teaching. Rather, it demonstrates the divergence of opinion which exists among those in a position to influence policy in high education.
It is proposed that open learning institutions should continue to address distance education delivery systems and the dimensions of openness as their primary mission. To attempt to emulate conventional universities through the development of extensive research in a wide spectrum of disciplines would be both costly and ineffectual. Rather more effective would be the construction of strong linkages with conventional universities through networks and consortium-like arrangements. Both open and conventional universities should concentrate on further developing their mutual roles through inter-institutional cooperation within the context of the larger university system.
To this point, universities have been considered at a micro and semi-micro level. The issues have included: the integration into university organizations of distance education as an academic discipline; the need for treating university faculty as a versatile resource through enhanced faculty development programs; and, the research-teaching relationship—how it differentiates conventional universities from open universities and whether or not excellence in research implies excellence in teaching. When the university system is examined at a macro level, new insights are evident in the task of accommodating distance education.
At the macro level, Canadian universities are considerably less diverse than their American counterparts. Birnbaum (1983) maintains that systemic diversity is essential for the viability of organizations and specific measures are required to protect and enhance diversity within the the higher education systems:
Diversity in higher education is critically important not only because it more effectively meets institutional and societal needs but because through differentiation of component units it leads to stability that protects the system itself. The system’s ability both to respond to the pressures of the environment and to maintain its essential character and integrity is related to the existence of a large number of components in the system that are diverse and relatively interdependent. Such “loosely coupled systems” (Weick, 1976) can be both more sensitive to and more responsive to environmental pressures than can systems with fewer components that are alike and closely interconnected. (Birnbaum; 1983,p.21)
Boulding (1981, p.108) proposed that higher education institutions which are loosely coupled can be more stable and can ‘‘survive all kinds of catastrophes . . . simply because of the enormous variety involved in them.”
How then might universities within the Canadian higher education system interact to enhance higher education without seriously affecting what systemic diversity currently exists? Birnbaum (1983) suggests that systems be established in such a way as to both support those institutions recognized as being vital to current needs and to support unorthodox innovations which may either result in institutional adaptation or failure:
The system must support not only institutions recognized as being important to meet contemporary needs but the opportunity for the development of institutions with different structures, purposes, clienteles, or technologies that can have a chance to compete for survival. There is no basis for judging in advance the possible future value of such unorthodox experiments, or “mutations’‘; if they are to be judged at all, only contemporary standards can be applied. Institutional diversity is thus an investment in an uncertain future, an investment that the system as a whole cannot afford not to make. (Birnbaum; 1983, p. 34)
To maintain diversity, some institutions or elements of the system must therefore be allowed to fail. Some studies have suggested that in fact institutional mortality rates may be “too low to make room for the entry of new institutions needed for a truly dynamic industry. ’ ’ (Finn; 1978, p.42)
Although the Canadian higher education system is considerably less diverse than American higher education, it is proposed that the provincial jurisdiction over higher education in Canada has had a positive effect in that it has usefully maintained diversity to address regional needs. Smith, Daniel and Snowden (1984, p. 75) noted that Canada’s federal structure has prevented the emergence of any national university and that universities in Canada have for the most part existed to serve their respective provincial constituencies. However, the recent growth of distance education in Canada could lead to serious alterations in that diversity equation. In theory, and in the view of some practitioners, distance education has the potential for consolidation into a single national body. As an educational technology which can transcend provincial and national borders, it is not difficult to envision distance education organized and delivered for all Canadians through a single, academic, national agency or institution. Considering the need to maintain a certain level of diversity, it is proposed that higher education in Canada would be ill- served by a highly consolidated distance education industry.
To truly accommodate distance education as a discipline in Canadian higher education, not only is inter-university cooperation required, but cooperation should occur through a complex of loosely coupled systems at the inter university or macro level. Indeed, in recent years, universities have banded together on a regional basis through “network’‘ committees which have met to share information, and in some instances, to advocate specific policy. Four examples of networks in western Canada include: the university presidents from all universities in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia; the deans of arts and science from the four western provinces; nursing faculties in western Canada; and, distance education representatives from universities in western Canada. The Western Canadian Committee for University Distance Education, a standing committee of the Committee of Western Canadian University Presidents, had in 1984 as its primary purpose “to facilitate and encourage information sharing, sale and exchange of course materials, collaborative planning and program development, transfer of credits and exchange of staff.” (Smith, et al; 1984,p.78). Recently adopted terms of reference for the inter-provincial distance education committee have reflected maturation of the Committee since 1984 in that under certain conditions the Committee now sees as one of its responsibilities the formulation and advocacy of distance education policy.
One might expect growing pressure to establish a single, national, and corporate identity to assist Canada to respond to national and international programs such as the University of the Commonwealth proposed by a Commonwealth Committee chaired by Lord Briggs to the recent Commonwealth Conference. Daniel (University Affairs; p. 15) points out that what has really been proposed has been a Commonwealth network comprised of universities in Commonwealth nations and not a university and anticipates considerable difficulty in sorting out accreditation questions. It is reasonable to assume that to negotiate accreditation questions and other elements essential for cooperation, Canada will most likely be expected to develop a national policy and will most certainly be expected to speak with one voice—perhaps through a national agency or institution for distance education. For some, a national agency or institution would seem an appropriate vehicle for developing, advising and implementing a national distance education policy. How Canadian universities respond to this call for a national corporate body for distance education will make a difference to the future of distance education in Canada. Building on the existing inter-university system of networks will no doubt require time and patience but will, in the long term, both maintain the diversity essential to the quality of Canadian higher education and enhance the accommodation of distance education in Canadian universities. Establishing a new national agency premised on “external” criteria devised without the direct participation of university interests may serve the cause of expediency but in the long term is unlikely to succeed in achieving the full potential of distance education in Canadian Higher Education.
Distance education is an important innovation within higher education. As a means for delivering university instruction, it is gradually gaining acceptance in the conventional universities in Canada. As an academic discipline or field of study, however, there are major impediments to its adoption by conventional universities. It has been suggested that there are also ways and means of overcoming those barriers.
This article proposes that universities have three alternative ways of organizationally accommodating distance education as a discipline, each with its strengths and weaknesses. In addition, faculty development programs need to deal with faculty as a valuable and versatile resource if the programs are to be effective. Effective faculty development programs are required to re-orientate faculty and to help faculty understand and skillfully address distance education as either a discipline or field of study through research and/or teaching and/or practice. In addition, disciplinary research has been identified as one of the important distinguishing attributes separating conventional universities and open learning institutions. It has been concluded, however, that open learning institutions should not endeavor to emulate the conventional universities with their research in a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, but rather should strive to build linkages with the conventional universities which permit them the benefits of disciplinary research for teaching without the associated incremental cost. It is proposed that by examining inter- university linkages there are opportunities for new insights into the accommodation of distance education as an academic discipline. A concern for maintaining diversity within higher education in Canada coupled with anticipated calls for a national distance education agency to formulate national distance education policy, demand that Canadian universities respond carefully and with some foresight. It is proposed that if a national body is required, it should grow out of the existing inter institutional networks now prevalent in Canadian higher education.
1 Holmberg (1986, p. 29) properly points out the research of Childs, 1963; Holmberg, 1973; Taylor and Tomlinson, 1985; and, Weissbrot, 1969; on the application of distance education techniques to non-adult populations, thus suggesting that associating a distance education discipline with Tertiary education would be inappropriate.
2 For example, Athabasca University was forced to discard its academically rational but impractical inter-disciplinary courses in favor of more practical courses structured within disciplines parallel to those in conventional universities.
3 Open learning institutions have stimulated and legitimized changes in conventional universities, thus enabling appropriate staffing and budget allocation for such activities as the renovation of traditional correspondence courses and the development of new distance education strategies for off-campus students.
4 The “Briggs Report’‘ was the result of a request by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their meeting in Nassau in October, 1985 for the Commonwealth Secretary General to “explore the scope of new Commonwealth initiatives in the field of open learning.’‘
5 Dr. John Daniel is currently the president of Laurentian University and the president-elect of the Canadian Association for Distance Education.
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