Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Telelearning: A Case Study ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Acknowledgments This is one of a series of reports from the NCE-Telelearning project entitled "Developing and Applying a Cost-Benefit Model for Assessing Telelearning". The project is federally funded by the Telelearning Networks of Centers of Excellence. The project researcher gratefully acknowledges the assistance of: • Dr. Tony Bates for his review comments; • Madeleine Butschler for writing the technology background piece located in Appendix A; • Chris Brougham and Dr. Bruce Landon for their suggestions on elements to include in the technology background piece and insight into the software and its applications from a systems administration point of view; and • all the faculty, staff, and students that participated in this research through interviews and surveys, without which this project would not be possible. ii
Summary and Major Findings This project, "Applying a Cost-Benefit Model for Assessing Telelearning" is funded by the Canadian Federal Government and is part of a $13 million Telelearning Networks of Centers of Excellence project, NCE-Telelearning, headed by Dr. Linda Harasim at Simon Fraser University. The NCE-Telelearning project involves universities, colleges, schools, public organizations and private organizations across Canada and involves projects that study the effects of modern telecommunications on both learning and teaching. The methodology used in this study is based on Bates (1995) ACTIONS model for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of learning technologies. Based on this model, the following cost and benefit factors are examined: Cost measures assessed include: 1) capital and recurrent costs, 2) production and delivery costs, and 3) fixed and variable costs. Benefit measures include: 1) performance driven benefits, 2) value driven benefits, and 3) societal or "value added" benefits. Data was collected through quantitative and qualitative research techniques and include student, faculty/staff, and campus planner/administrator perspectives. The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto (OISE/UT) is one of six case studies assessed in this project. The course described in this report is "CTL 1692: Research Methods in Education". This course is part of OISE/UT's Distance Education Master's degree program in the Department of Curriculum Teaching and Learning, currently the first degree program at OISE/UT available entirely online. Summaries of the main findings are presented below: iii
Page 1: Assessing the Costs and Benefits of
Page 5 and 6: Benefits and Limitations Specific t
Page 7 and 8: Novelty • The course contributed
Page 9 and 10: Organization.......................
Page 11 and 12: Table 22 Student Response to the De
Page 13 and 14: Methodology The methodology develop
Page 15 and 16: esults, and writing research report
Page 17 and 18: Section A: Student Characteristics
Page 19 and 20: Table 4 Student Computer and Techno
Page 21 and 22: Table 6 Student Response to Deliver
Page 23 and 24: Equivalent enrollments (FTE's) with
Page 25 and 26: Delivery of the course was through
Page 27 and 28: As can be seen in Table 10 over the
Page 29 and 30: student society fees. Similarly, th
Page 31 and 32: Table 15 Main Cost Findings Finding
Page 33 and 34: I can do my course work outside my
Page 35 and 36: Table 17 Benefits and Limitations o
Page 37 and 38: particular student raised a questio
Page 39 and 40: The text was practical and realisti
Page 41 and 42: on a course that I go to class. But
Page 43 and 44: something in writing, we would get
Page 45 and 46: Interaction and User Friendliness T
Page 47 and 48: There are times that I would like t
Page 49 and 50: Despite the online and communal for
Page 51 and 52: who can manage on their own and who
Page 53 and 54:
Table 30 Benefits and Limitations o
Page 55 and 56:
Some of the non-credit courses desi
Page 57 and 58:
trying to deal with her problems an
Page 59 and 60:
Drawbacks [to this delivery method]
Page 61 and 62:
again. (However, if I were asking q
Page 63 and 64:
Conclusion Several findings of inte
Page 65 and 66:
References Bates, A.W. (1995). Tech
Page 67 and 68:
Finally, an instrument for assessme
Page 69 and 70:
(Paraphrased from, Design Principle
Page 71 and 72:
environment include providing a str
Page 73:
Table 39 Response Distribution of T
show all

Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Telelearning: A Case Study ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?