Implications for planning e-learning strategy in Higher Education institutions.

Abstract

The strategic direction of Higher Education (HE) institutions is increasingly being influenced by environmental conditions. The advent of e-Learning, together with increasing demand for flexible, off campus instruction, has forced universities to become more proactive in the way they market themselves. Competition for students is now not just locally based but global. The structure of institutions and the higher education sector has come under pressure in response to the changing marketplace and its increasingly competitive nature. Because technology is not the only ingredient of success, other factors such as organisational structures, changes to teaching and learning strategies and approaches to Information Technology (IT) planning for business strategy need to be considered. There is concern that e-Learning will increase polarisation between those who can afford access to new technology based education and those who cannot. This polarisation can occur on a local as well as a global basis. The aim of this paper is to examine some of the key issues relating to e-Learning and its impact upon students and the strategic behaviour of higher education institutions.

Introduction

Universities are under increasing fiscal pressure and, due to `league tables'[1], their performance is open to public scrutiny and comparison with other institutions. On the one hand they have to assess the cost benefit of providing particular courses whilst on the other having to ensure that the output satisfies market expectations. Increased global competition has been a pressure for change in many markets and is now influencing the higher education arena. The combination of improved performance and lowering cost has meant that more and more teaching materials are becoming available globally on the Internet. Technological developments themselves are a pressure for change. Ehrmann (1997) uses the phrase "worldware" to refer to technology developments which were originally designed for applications other than education but have nevertheless changed the face of teaching because universities and students had a degree of familiarity with them. E-mail, the Internet and computer aided design are examples of worldware.

The trend from traditional to e-Learning is driven by economic, demographic, technological and social factors. Teaching staff costs are a high proportion of total costs within a university and as the shortage of funding becomes more acute, staff costs will come increasingly under scrutiny. A further pressure for change is the greater focus on performance indicators of teaching quality. This has increased the consideration given to alternative teaching methods. Expansion in the number of university places available is failing to keep pace with increasing demand. According to Daniel (1996) "a sizeable new university would now be needed every week to sustain current participation rates in higher education". Even if the financial resources were available there would still be the problem of finding sufficient staff. The nature of the education demanded by students has also changed. Increasingly students want an education that will prepare them for life in an electronic world. Without investment in e-Learning Bourner and Flowers (1997) promote a pessimistic scenario with increasing class sizes for lectures and tutorials and individual tuition becoming a thing of the past. Their scenario adds that universities will direct their efforts towards courses that offer a high financial contribution per student, i.e. where class numbers are high. They predict that dedicated universities will run the more specialist programmes.

Review of e-learning strategies

A key issue for practitioners is recognising that not all students perform well in the distance learning environment. Individuals who need social interaction in order to perform academically will find distance learning difficult. Studying a subject in isolation requires a high level of motivation, time management and a focused approach. The traditional campus provides the opportunity for a relationship to develop between students and the tutorial facilitates the exchange of ideas, Ehrmann (1995). The lack of social interaction is a significant shortcoming of e-Learning, Bourner and Flowers (1997) suggest that the introduction of new technology creates a requirement for more of the "human touch", they see this as being a prerequisite for the successful adoption of new technology. Daniel (1996) puts forward a different perspective by suggesting that the idea of an academic community will have to be reconceived with emphasis moving away from the campus as a common focal point. Instead, universities will need to invoke a sense of "institutional belonging" among staff and students.

There is a consensus as to the main benefit of e-Learning; this is its ability to make education accessible to a much wider population because of its flexibility. Students are able to learn wherever they have access to a computer and at whatever time is convenient. In addition, as the potential student base is global, the cultural diversity of students brought together by e-Learning promotes interactions, which would be otherwise unlikely. Whilst some writers (Dertouzos, 1997; Jones-Delcorde, 1999; Morrison, 1999) suggest that students studying using e-Learning experience isolation, others (Barnard, 1997; Cornell, 1999; Knight, 1996) suggest that the opposite is the case. Hawkes and Cambre's (2000) opinion is that, just as sports events bring students together in competition, there is value in bringing together students from different establishments to collaborate in intellectual endeavours through e-Learning. Universities try to overcome the sense of isolation and instil a degree of class cohesion by incorporating residential weekends or weeks into courses. Jana (1999) makes the point that while e-Learning is suited to topics based on fact it is not the most appropriate learning method when the content is subjective or improved by discussion.

Research on the positive aspects of distance learning for students is plentiful, but mostly qualitative, and there is little quantitative data that compares the effectiveness of traditional education and e-Learning. Researchers at the University of Michigan have analysed the effectiveness of e-Learning. Their basic conclusion was that the application of computer based multi-media results in a 20% improvement in learning outcome and speed. In the view of Ehrmann (1995), few other teaching methods have shown such a marked improvement in performance. In addition, when students were tested on the material covered in a particular lecture, the range of test scores was the same whether they had seen the lecture in person or on video. Ehrmann goes on to outline the surprising finding that in a language test the performance of e-Students was superior to those taking the test in the traditional setting. He attributes this to the e-Students being more involved and being able to express themselves. Donoho (1998) reinforces this point by commenting that the relative anonymity of e-Students increases the likelihood of them asking questions and raising issues, which many would feel too inhibited to do in the lecture room. e-Learning offers students benefits with regard to assessment and feedback. White (2000) makes the point that student satisfaction with the quality of feedback from teaching staff is higher for those on e-Learning programmes than on traditional courses.

Planning teaching strategies

The driving force behind e-Learning is not to challenge traditional education establishments but to overcome the latter's inherent problems of scarcity and exclusivity. Ehrmann (1995) argues that universities are under pressure to educate more students, many of whom are mature students in employment, The view of Matthews (1999) is that the inability of traditional universities to grow to meet increasing demand has resulted in the development of e-Learning, which instead of offering seats offers the opportunity to learn. This has ramifications for lecturing staff in the way they perform and, in the long term, for the structure of the profession. It is suggested by Dempster (2000) that many lecturers are sceptical about the effectiveness of e-Learning due to the lack of supporting evidence and case studies. McConnell et al. (1999) state that evaluation often receives inadequate attention as a consequence of insufficient funding, enthusiasm or understanding of effective methodologies.

Bourner and Flowers (1997) highlight several forces of change affecting lecturing staff: falling budget per student; increased focus on teaching quality; and developments in technology. They predict that as resource per student becomes more scarce then universities will increasingly play the role of information disseminators, making their work more vulnerable to replacement by distance learning. It is important that universities foster a culture where e-Learning is perceived as an essential part of the teaching media, without this recognition its introduction will be resisted by teaching staff. The development of e-Learning programmes can require sustained contribution from academic staff. White (2000) emphasises the importance of staff development and highlights twelve key competencies. These include having the ability to cope with a high level of student interaction, a tolerance of change and willingness to be innovative in teaching methods. According to Greenguard (1999) running an e-Learning programme has more similarity with the seminar situation rather than the traditional lecture. This will require teaching staff to adopt a different approach as students will have greater independence and require more detailed `coaching'. In addition, Greenguard comments that what proves successful in the lecture room may not work in the on-line situation so it is important that teaching staff adapt course material to fit the context.

Organisational planning

There is a diverse range of views on how e-Learning will affect university structures. Some writers have suggested that the traditional campus will cease to exist. Others point towards a two tier structure with universities that fail to embrace e-Learning becoming satellites for those which have. McConnell et al. (1999) suggest that currently the internal structure of universities is based on the most convenient way for universities to organise their business, rather than the best ways for students to learn. They suggest that universities will be able to choose parts of courses from a world-wide selection available from traditional universities, privately run universities and other online education providers.

Bourner and Flowers (1997) are supporters of the two tier view and forecast that it will come into existence by 2007. They argue that the future university structure will be based on universities in the lower tier concentrating on first and second year undergraduate level with their students then moving on to the upper tier institutions. Matthews (1999) suggests that the development of the two-tier system is already taking place. She found that the US institutions which have adopted e-Learning focus 35% of their output for use at other institutions. To establish this two tier system universities may form joint ventures and partnerships with community colleges. This partnership building theory is shared by number of writers (Pritchard and Jones, 1996; Stamps, 1998; Weir and Smallman, 1998) who claim such initiatives will lead to substantial cost savings as well as improvements in the quality of the teaching and learning material. Perhaps future universities will act as brokers for courses and specific modules. The traditional degree course will become less relevant as students will demand more flexible systems of delivery and accreditation. This is accreditation of both the courses, delivery methods and the tutors delivering the courses. The quality control issues for remote management are not insignificant. According to Kearsley (2000):

   ... Given the common concern with the quality of online courses,
   it is no surprise that the credentials of those who teach and the
   institutions that offer such courses axe subjected to additional
   scrutiny. Likewise, to the extent that course workloads axe
   related to credits and learning outcomes, there is a connection
   between accreditation and the nature of online courses.

Strategic Planning

The fact that the typical e-Student will be mature and be in employment will lead to more employees learning on-line while at work (Greenguard, 1999). There is a growing realisation by students, employers and universities that, by combining work and study, learning takes place at a deeper level of understanding and students are able to apply their knowledge more effectively. The implications of this upon university structure are likely to be that some organisations will form their own corporate universities or will run e-Learning courses at the workplace. New technology has had an effect on the economics of the education sector in that it has lowered the barriers to entry to new educational suppliers. Traditional universities will in the future face a far higher degree of competition, which will force them to become more proactive in establishing links with employers to gain access to students learning in the workplace.

Ford and Motorola are examples of organisations that have established corporate universities. The Motorola University offers one hundred largely IT based courses with staff able to register through the Intranet. In the UK, six organisations have established corporate universities: these include Body Shop, British Aerospace, Price Waterhouse and Unipart (McConnell et al., 1999). As well as corporate universities the structure will be determined by profit-making privately run "mega universities" (McConnell et al., 1999). An example of such an establishment is the University of Phoenix in the US, which has more than 48,000 students. The university manages an on-line library, has no contracted staff and operates from rented buildings. Daniel (1996) is an advocate of the view that as universities adopt new technology they will need to operate in partnership with other education providers, nationally and internationally. Stifling University, for example, is offering a Masters degree that is delivered on-line in conjunction with the Universities of Barcelona and Southern Queensland.

A number of obstacles to change are outlined by Matthews (1999), these include the high cost of establishing an e-Learning facility, the need for staff training, inadequate infrastructure and maintaining sufficient student contact. The financial cost involved relates not only to tangible costs for hardware and software but also to intangible costs for cultural, infrastructural and support implications. Hawkes and Cambre (2000) maintain that one intangible cost which is often overlooked is the cost of teacher time spent learning to use new technology and to integrate it into course programmes. Moreover, they point out that the length of time taken for an investment in e-Learning to show positive results can be difficult to incorporate into a cost effectiveness analysis. They refer to studies that have found that distance learning projects can take up to a decade to prove viable. Ehrmann (1997) agrees and urges that claims by universities that they can teach a particular module more cheaply by using new technology should be treated with caution.

Conclusion

Higher education institutions are having to function increasingly as commercial enterprises in order to respond to political policies, which require universities to become more self sufficient in their resourcing, and to changes in the environment which have created a competitive sector. The large lecture never was a perfect educational solution to the problem of cost-effective access to high quality instruction. Such teaching can only be used in one place, at one time, by a few learners, e-Learning will help to address these shortcomings and provide universities the opportunity to attract students from anywhere in the world who can study at a time, place and speed convenient to them. e-Learning is better suited to mature or postgraduate students because of the high level of self motivation required, undergraduates are more likely to need the social interaction and peer influence provided by the campus. What is clear is that e-Learning does make education accessible to groups previously excluded due to restrictions posed by location, work or other constraints.

The pace of change within e-Learning technology is rapid and teaching staff will be under pressure to constantly update their own knowledge. Those who lack the requisite expertise, or prefer traditional teaching methods, may find themselves portrayed as inferior. University managers will need to ensure that appropriate staff development and motivation programmes are in place. As the higher education sector becomes more competitive a hierarchical system of universities could develop and merger activity could become commonplace.

The level of demand for higher education is increasing at such a pace that without investment in e-Learning the quality of education provided will deteriorate due to larger class sizes and heightened pressure on staff. From the perspective of universities, e-Learning offers commercial benefits in that a course can be made available to a global audience rather than those seated in a lecture room. It is these commercial considerations which will ensure that universities embrace e-Learning.

Note

[1] League tables are published rankings of Universities. There are a variety of tables from major newspaper and book publishers to government departments. Some measure aspects of university life, research funding, employer orientated snapshots of university performance and associated factors. Some data is drawn from published statistics, which have been collected by government and official agencies.

References

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John O'Donoghue, University of Wolverhampton, UK
Gurmak, Singh, University of Wolverhampton, UK
Jagtar Singh, University of Wolverhampton, UK

John holds a number of fellowships and honorary positions, including a visiting research chair at a University in Australia. Gurmak is a subject leader for Finance and Information Management. Jagtar major research interest includes examining the changing role of IT in Higher Education Institutions specifically focusing on the students expectations.