th 5 Generation Distance Education Professor J C

th 5 Generation Distance Education Professor J C Taylor Vice-President (Global Learning Services) The University of Southern Queensland Australia

1982 ICDE Conference in Vancouver: “Technology’s the answer, but what is the question? ” Today, the technology has changed, but the question hasn’t.

Change is the only constant The Internet is unleashing a whole series of disruptive forces: technological, commercial and social. If not a revolution, it is an e-volution on fast forward

Fast, Flexible and Fluid The transition from the Industrial to the Information Age was encapsulated by Dolence and Norris (1995), who argued that to survive organisations would need to change from rigid, formula driven entities to organisations that were “fast, flexible and fluid”.

Institutional Inertia Trying to change a university is like trying to move a graveyard --- it is extremely difficult and you don’t get much internal support.

Assuming your organisation is not “fast, flexible and fluid? ” n Two approaches to change management. n Conflicting experts. advice from the

Schendler (2000) The Internet has “reached a stage that isn’t so much about vision and proprietary innovation, as about execution and competition”.

Five Generations of Distance Education Technology n The Correspondence Model n The Multimedia Model n The Telelearning Model n The Flexible Learning Model n The Intelligent Flexible Learning Model

Variable costs tend to increase or decrease directly (often linearly) with fluctuations in the volume of activity. In traditional distance education delivery, the distribution of packages of self-instructional materials (printed study guides, audiotapes, videotapes, etc) is a variable cost, which varies in direct proportion to the number of students enrolled.

First Generation CHARACTERISTICS OF DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIESINSTITUTIONAL MODELS OF VARIABLE DISTANCE EDUCATION HIGHLY ADVANCED FLEXIBILITY COSTS AND ASSOCIATED REFINED INTERACTIVE APPROACHING ZERO DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIES Time Place Pace MATERIALS DELIVERY THE CORRESPONDENCE MODEL • Print Yes Yes No No

Second Generation CHARACTERISTICS OF DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIESINSTITUTIONAL MODELS OF VARIABLE DISTANCE EDUCATION HIGHLY ADVANCED FLEXIBILITY COSTS AND ASSOCIATED REFINED INTERACTIVE APPROACHING ZERO DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIES Time Place Pace MATERIALS DELIVERY THE MULTIMEDIA MODEL Yes Yes No No • Audiotape Yes Yes No No • Videotape Yes Yes No • Computer-based learning (eg CML/CAL) Yes Yes Yes No No • Interactive video Yes Yes Yes No • Print

Third Generation CHARACTERISTICS OF DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIESINSTITUTIONAL MODELS OF VARIABLE DISTANCE EDUCATION HIGHLY ADVANCED FLEXIBILITY COSTS AND ASSOCIATED REFINED INTERACTIVE APPROACHING ZERO DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIES Time Place Pace MATERIALS DELIVERY THE TELELEARNING MODEL • Audio-teleconferencing No No Yes No • Videoconferencing No No Yes • Audiographic communication No No No Yes No No • Broadcast TV/Radio and Audio-teleconferencing No No No Yes No

Fourth Generation CHARACTERISTICS OF DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIESINSTITUTIONAL MODELS OF VARIABLE DISTANCE EDUCATION HIGHLY ADVANCED FLEXIBILITY COSTS AND ASSOCIATED REFINED INTERACTIVE APPROACHING ZERO DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIES Time Place Pace MATERIALS DELIVERY THE FLEXIBLE LEARNING MODEL • Interactive multimedia (IMM) Yes Yes Yes • Internet-based access to WWW resources Yes Yes Yes • Computer mediated communication (CMC). Yes Yes Yes No

The current applications of fourth generation Internetbased delivery tend to generate resource allocation models similar to tutorialbased on- campus teaching.

The underlying resource model is not significantly different from conventional on campus teaching, with a staff member being necessary to manage groups of approximately 20 students to maintain a reasonable quality of interaction and academic support.

Fifth Generation CHARACTERISTICS OF DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIESINSTITUTIONAL MODELS OF VARIABLE DISTANCE EDUCATION HIGHLY ADVANCED FLEXIBILITY COSTS AND ASSOCIATED REFINED INTERACTIVE APPROACHING ZERO DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIES Time Place Pace MATERIALS DELIVERY THE INTELLIGENT FLEXIBLE LEARNING MODEL • Interactive multimedia Yes Yes Yes • Internet-based access to WWW resources Yes Yes Yes • CMC, using automated response systems Yes Yes Yes • Campus portal access to institutional processes & resources Yes Yes Yes

XML (e. Xtensible Markup Language) RENDITIONS: Print STYLE SHEET: XSL Web CD DVD XSL XSL XML CONTENT REPOSITORY: INPUT: DTD (Document Type Definition) XML Editor

USQOnline demonstration…….

Garrison (1997) “The reflective and explicit nature of the written word is a disciplined and rigorous form of thinking and communicating …… it allows time for reflection and, thereby, facilitates learners making connections amongst ideas and constructing coherent knowledge structures”.

Automating e. Learning n In the USQ approach, many teaching staff make use of discussion groups, which entail students posting “reflections” via the asynchronous CMC system. n Storing such interactions with appropriate metadata tags in a database is technically straightforward, and provides a rich resource for mining by key word/matching, using an automated response system.

Automated Response Systems n Responses can be directed to the whole cohort of students, or at individuals; n They have the advantage of providing moreor-less immediate advice to students at minimal variable cost; n As the intelligent object databases become more comprehensive, the institutional variable costs for the provision of effective tuition will tend towards zero.

e-Learner Relationship Management Using intelligent databases, the knowledge generated by solving student problems/enquiries is being progressively stored so that students with similar problems can have their enquiries dealt with immediately through the self-help, automated response capacity of the USQAssist system.

USQAssist As the intelligent databases become more comprehensive, the institutional variable costs for the provision of effective student support will tend towards zero.

Organisational Development In many universities the development of web-based initiatives is not systemic, but is often the result of random acts of innovation initiated by risk-taking individual academics.

The USQ Approach USQ’s institution-wide approach reflects one element of the corporate mission statement: “To be a leader in flexible learning and the use of information and communications technologies”.

The USQ Approach The USQ approach is to give people: What they want, Where they want it, When they want it. WWW is purely incidental!

USQ Case Study As a case study, the USQ experience exemplifies the necessary institution– wide corporate approach necessary for an organization to become “fast, flexible and fluid” as it strives to develop the capacity to implement fifth generation distance education.

th 5 Generation The fifth generation model of distance education has the potential to provide students with a valuable, personalized pedagogical experience at much lower cost than traditional approaches to distance education and conventional face-to-face education.

th 5 Generation If this can be achieved on a sufficiently large scale, then tuition costs can be significantly lowered, thereby engendering much greater access to higher education opportunities to many students throughout the world, who presently cannot afford to pay current prices.

th 5 Generation In effect, fifth generation distance education is not only less expensive, it also provides students with better quality tuition and more effective pedagogical and administrative support services at lower cost.

The e-Revolution “Any new technology environment eventually creates a totally new human environment”. Marshall Mc. Luhan

“Clicks and Mortar” are not enough n n n The Internet is set to connect virtually everyone and everything – the Web is turning into humanity’s collective brain. Any organisation hoping to survive must mirror the Internet itself. It must become: open non-hierarchical democratic experimental tightly networked endlessly adaptable

“Clicks and Mortar” are not enough Your organisation needs to mirror the Internet and to develop a collective brain capable of - “habitual and radical innovation”. (Gary Hamel, Inside the Revolution, 2001)