The Future of Distributed Education

Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

I was asked to evaluate a distributed education future document for Organization XXXX.  My off-the-wall remarks are shown below. 

I have examined your document entitled "XXXX."    I found it to be useful and commend you for trying to reach out to all parts of the world.

Having said this, it seems to me that the document should not be a report frozen in time.  You should instead make it free or charge for a password to access a knowledge database on this topic.  For one thing, you should encourage comments that are posted along with the main report.  The report itself should be modified as comments come in that are deemed highly relevant.  You should have categories of resources and controversies.  I strongly urge you to model your ongoing knowledge base after the knowledge base at http://www.isworld.org/isworld.html 

I will now address some of your comment questions.

1. What, if any, guidance would you like to have provided with respect to distributed learning?

You need much more on resources in Paragraph XX.  At the moment you provide almost nothing in the way of helpers except for a listing of links at the end of the document.  Examples of websites where you can find more on resources to summarize in the document include the following:

• The links and documents at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm 
  Especially note the resources document at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245soft1.htm 
  
• The shared (international) accounting course pages at http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/teach.htm 
  
• The shared course pages at the World Lecture hall at http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/index.html 
  
• The "Top Resources" at ISWorld Net at http://www.isworld.org/isworld.html 
  
• The new AICPA/AAA Toolkit free CD-ROM that is full of video from seven leading educators who take quite different tacks on applying technologies to learning.  Most accounting departments in U.S. colleges have already received a copy of the Toolkit CD-ROM.  I cannot find a web page ordering form posted to date at the AICPA or the AAA.  Interested colleges may contact Tracey Sutherland [aaatracey@packet.net] 
  
• The faculty development helpers at http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/facdev.htm 
  
• You need links to accounting education innovations around the world coupled with commentaries on those innovations.  For example, Pete Mazaney at the University of Auckland in New Zealand has built accounting into a great interactive strategy game that is networked from a single server.  I am certain that Pete would write up a great section for you on networked game pedagogy.  See http://www.business.auckland.ac.nz/departments/msis/staff/p.mazany/ 

2. Do you believe the existing recommendations should be modified? 

I think that these recommendations should be entirely restructured.  The first thing that is recommended is that all colleges seriously examine the wide spectrum of alternatives for distributed learning.  Your own report is too limited to asynchronous alternatives for putting existing traditional courses online.  Many of the leading distributed education programs are more synchronous than asynchronous, although there are asynchronous elements (e.g., books and papers) in any course.  

My first recommendation would be to look at the exploding number of online programs and provide examples of varying approaches.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245progs.htm.  Some like those at Notre Dame are heavy into videoconferencing.  Others are heavy into chat rooms.  Still others are asynchronous with intensive competency-based testing.

My second recommendation would be to look at the alternative distributed education models, especially those that are carrying prestige logos.  A summary is provided at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245prest.htm.  For example, the UNext Corporation is paying about $1 million per course to be developed by the London School of Economics, Stanford, Columbia, Carnegie-Mellon, and the University of Chicago.  What UNext is paying for more than anything else is the prestige logo and the expertise of professors in those elite universities.  UNext, however, will deliver the courses with its own faculty.  Another alternative is for the university itself to develop and deliver the courses.  Virtually every university has or will soon have some distributed education programs or courses.  You can read the following in @AACSB --- http://www.academyonline.com/aacsb/index.htm 

Management educators may not agree with him, but they will nevertheless want to heed Motorola executive Bill Wiggenhorn, senior vice president of Education and Training and president of Motorola University. Wiggenhorn recently told @cademyonline that distance learning is rapidly becoming the primary influence on corporate and institutional-based management education. Wiggenhorn's message was simple: business schools must embrace Web-based learning or risk extinction. His comments drew mixed responses from business deans, AACSB accreditation staff, and others.

Wiggenhorn: E-commerce has compressed the planning time from years to quarters. One question for schools is how they're going to keep up with being the experts in content because they're not going to have years to design a course.

"So very true," responded Timothy S. Mescon, dean of the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University. "Traditional response time for business schools to market trends can be measured in decades. This is rapidly being compressed to the need to respond in months ... a huge challenge to our profession."

My third recommendation is to build faculty recognition and reputation.  Some analysts argue that the brand name of the professor may become as important or more important than the name of the school.  You can read the following in @AACSB --- http://www.academyonline.com/aacsb/index.htm 

Wiggenhorn: More and more, the brand is going to be an individual faculty member. So the brand is not USC. It will be Professor Lawler at USC.

My fourth recommendation to any program would be to look at highly successful synchronous distributed education programs and courses and learn how they are running the program and what the results have been to date.  For example, obtain some correspondence from administrators and faculty at the highly successful Duke University online Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) program that is mostly synchronous.  Duke's Global Executive MBA program receives Business Week's highest marks.  The GEMBA link is at http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/gemba.html.  Not to be outdone, the University of North Carolina will soon be delivering a somewhat similar prestigious program.  You should also investigate Sharon Lightner's highly successful synchronous distributed learning international accounting course taught simultaneously to students in Switzerland, Spain, the U.S., and Hong Kong.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255light.htm 

My fifth recommendation is to look at the Sloan Foundation experiment outcomes in asynchronous learning.  You will find a partial summary at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm.  What has led to the occasional successes of asynchronous sections of a course to soar above the traditional sections taught by the same instructors?  Why does the asynchronous pedagogy almost always increase communications between students and between students and instructors?  What are the "concerns" of asynchronous learning?  Many issues are taken up by the Asynchronous Learning Networks at http://www.aln.org/index.htm 

My sixth recommendation is to avoid the trap that multimedia learning and network learning should have such goals as making learning easier and fun.  These are metacognitive traps discussed by me at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm 

The bottom line is that your recommendations section needs to be restructured in terms of recommendations to study alternatives rather than recommendations for implementation.

You may also want to note my recommendations for new faculty at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 

I would add some recommendations about how to stem the decline in accounting majors using newer education technologies.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/majors.htm 

I would recommend innovative approaches to evaluation of online learning materials.  You need more on Paragraph 17 dealing with content evaluation rather than just program evaluation.  See http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed430564.html.  Also see http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/srnet/evnet.htm.

I would also recommend innovative approaches to assessment of student learning.  For example, it is possible to give "oral" examinations in which evaluators both see and hear each student.  In programs such as GEMBA, students and faculty around the world see and hear each other during live case discussions.  The CPA examination in the U.S. will soon have an innovative approach to testing writing and communication skills.  Systems like Blackboard offer testing alternatives to multiple choice online tests.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/blackboard.htm 

I would stress that knowledge bases will become much more important in learning cultures of the future.  Both online and offline will become designed around utilization of knowledge bases.  For example, training will be Just-in-Time-Training (JITT) where users memorize less but are skilled at calling up learning materials when needed.  Colleges should be more involved in helping to build such knowledge bases, especially knowledge bases for accounting and tax rules and standards.  The existence of knowledge bases will change our pedagogy toward foundation skills in place of rule memorizations.

I would add recommendations for publishing in the future.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm 

I would add more recommendations for accounting faculty.  For example, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 

Learning will become as ubiquitous as our computers of the future.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 

3. Comment on accreditation issues.

In my opinion accreditation is a dying issue.  The AACSB had a chance to become a world leader by accrediting some of the over 2,000 business education programs administered by corporations rather than colleges.  One such prestigious program was the Arthur D. Little MBA program that tried and has never attained accreditation.  As far as distance education is concerned, in spite of rather than because of accreditation controlled by protectionist (mostly Deans) of traditional universities.    

What will take the place of accreditation will be a prestige logo obtained by various means as described in http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245prest.htm.  UNext will soon deliver courses affixed with a London School of Economics logo or logos from several other premiere universities.  These logos are better than accreditation from the standpoint of promoting enrollments around the world.  Pensare and University Access ,au one day do the same thing with logos from Harvard, Duke, Wharton, etc.    The other alternative is to rely on the prestige of the name of a corporation.  For example, Motorola University or AT&T universities ride on their own prestige logos without having to worry about accreditation.  We may soon see some non-accredited distributed education programs (e.g., from XYZ College) that is more concerned with partnering with a prestigious corporation like General Electric or Siemens AG than with accreditation in the traditional sense.  Some partnerings between corporations and accredited universities will extend the existing accreditations to online programs.

In fact the entire concept of a degree such as a bachelors or masters degree may become obsolete.  The distributed lifelong learning paradigm shift may place greater value on competency certifications that generalist rite-of-passage degrees.  See "Diplomas and Degrees are Obsolete," D.N. Langenberg, The Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 12, 1997, Page A64.

4. Is your university accepting online credit?

At this point in time, little distinction is made between distributed learning courses versus onsite courses that are utilized in recognized colleges and universities.  For example, it makes no difference whether a UCLA course is delivered onsite or online as long as UCLA gives it college credit as opposed to a training certificate.  The University of Northern Arizona delivers over 60 courses on eCollege at http://www.ecollege.com/.  What matters is that each of these courses carries UNA college credits rather than if it was onsite or online.  It is assumed that respected universities like Open University, Penn State University, Notre Dame, etc. will not have lower standards for online courses carrying their logos.  We distinguish between the quality of the institution rather than how the course is delivered.

5. What are some important examples of innovation and appropriate application of Internet and distributed learning in accounting education? 

My favorite examples are listed in http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm 

My favorite single course illustration is a Carnegie-Mellon Philosophy course where the online students outperform the onsite students.  See "Cases, Narratives, and Interactive Multimedia," by Robert Cavalier in Syllabus, May 2000. pp. 20-22.

The purpose of our evaluation of A Right to Die? The Case of Dax Cowart was to see if learning outcomes for case studies could be enhanced with the use of interactive multimedia. My Introduction to Ethics class was divided into three groups: Text, Film, and CD-ROM. Equal distribution was achieved by using student scores on previous exams plus their Verbal SAT scores.

Two graders were trained and achieved more than 90 percent in grader variabilility. The results of the students' performance were put through statistical analysis and the null hypothesis was rejected for the CD/Film and CD/Text groups. Significant statistical difference was demonstrated in favor of interactive multimedia.

The SCALE Program at the University of Illinois should receive special attention.  See http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/ 

6. What additional hyperlinked Web sites related to Internet and distributed accounting education do
you suggest that we add to the Appendix of relevant hyperlinked Web sites? Because of its
hyperlinked nature, this Appendix is included only in the Internet version of the paper, which
appears on the XXXX Web site (it is not included in the paper version).

You may want to scroll down to Syllabus Magazine's choice of the Top 40 websites.  I also have listed the what Yahoo calls the top distance education websites.  Scroll down to the bottom of http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245progs.htm