Dinosaur or Phoenix: What is the Future Role for Distance Education Professionals?

Margaret Landstrom
Director of Extra-Sessionnal Studies
University of British Columbia

Because of their mandate to recruit and serve non-traditional learners, including those for whom class attendance has been either impossible or problematic, continuing and distance education professionals in Canadian post-secondary institutions have been early adopters of educational technology. Knowing the "secrets" of the technology, controlling access to it, and guiding faculty members in its applications to teaching to a large extent have defined their role in the design and delivery of "mediated" courses.

Now, increasingly user-friendly technology is making it possible for individual faculty members themselves to control all aspects of the design and delivery of courses for distributed learning. As the platforms for Web-based courses become more accessible, and with the anticipated renewal of the professoriate leading to the hiring of younger, more computer-savvy faculty, increasing numbers of faculty can be expected to transfer their courses to online delivery. In this context, a course developed for serving local students can serve those at a distance as well, and the distinction between a campus course and a distance course can be eliminated. A faculty member can deliver course material, exchange assignments, administer examinations, and advise students in any location without the intervention of a distance learning office. Likewise, he or she can conceive of and design an entire course without the collaboration of an instructional designer. Also, the need for technically adept staff to design the actual Web sites and pages, or to support course delivery is greatly reduced.

In this scenario, budget-conscious administrators might be tempted to dispense with instructional designers, graphic designers, technical support staff and distance delivery managers. In the absence of such support specialists, how might course design and delivery and services to learners be affected?

Despite the availability of turnkey technology, would faculty be willing to spend a greater percentage of their valuable time on non-teaching aspects of course delivery?

Would adherence to the institution’s established standards of course design based on broad knowledge of instructional design principles be more difficult to achieve?

Would the benefit of the cumulative experience of the distance education professional teams be lost to the faculty and the institution?

Would the efficiencies of time and resources which the distance education professional project teams can ensure for the institution be at risk?

Would sensitivity to the special needs of non-traditional learners be compromised, with the result that these learners might take their business elsewhere?

Consideration of these questions among others points to the ongoing importance of today’s distance education professionals in the new environment where distance and classroom education are merged. We argue that even with a more sophisticated level of technical expertise, faculty members and learners will require the expertise which distance education professionals can contribute. At the same time, the roles of distance education professionals may evolve in several directions to include the following:

managing the technical, administrative, delivery, and legal issues which will continue to arise for distance or on-campus technologically mediated courses, thereby assuring faculty the time to focus on academic priorities,

coordinating course development projects for effective and efficient use of institutional resources,

providing pedagogical leadership and feedback on course materials for faculty, many of whom will continue to have limited pedagogical knowledge or training,

leading negotiations with suppliers of goods and services supporting course development,

developing and administering programs for distance student support, including advising services and technical support,

supporting faculty by advocating for the promotion and tenure system of universities to assess and appropriately reward good course development,

carrying out practical institutional research in areas such as student satisfaction, drop-out rates, market needs, and new technologies,

positioning and marketing programs, and developing proposals for new programs to meet emerging needs,

managing the logical development and introduction of technology in programs to be sure that what is learned in one course or program about development or delivery becomes part of the accumulated knowledge of the institution’s development process,

contributing to professional development for faculty, advising and assisting all current and new instructors in the skills needed to make the best use of technology in all their courses.

The merging of distance education with on-campus classes may mean the end of distance education as a separate entity. But larger classes, more online delivery, the evaluation and adoption of new technologies, and a more varied and geographically dispersed student population open new opportunities for employing the skills of the heretofore distance education professional.

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