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the next student to a program. Similarly, costs of Internet-based distribution seem to be
relatively low in settings where an adequate technical infrastructure is already installed.
Although the continuous improvement of courses will require some curator costs over time
to make sure materials are relevant and dynamic, these costs may be minor relative to
publishing new bound editions of books, especially when distribution costs are included.
Moreover, by conducting a bulk of learning activities online, costs associated with copying
materials (e.g., paper, ink, teacher time) and paperwork can be greatly reduced. According to
one estimate, for copying materials alone, online learning can potentially achieve a saving of
$2.2 billion per year at the national level, based on an estimate that schools save $40 per
student each year (Greaves et al. 2010).
Scale is important in any study of educational productivity and no less so for online
learning. Compared with conventional instruction, online learning may incur higher start-up
costs associated with developing a new program and perhaps for developing curriculum and
digital resources. Although online course content can be expensive to develop, once created
it has the potential to be distributed to large numbers of students (e.g., Adsit 2003;
Christensen et al. 2008; Watson 2004). However, course development may constitute only a
small portion of total costs depending on the instructional model (Anderson et al. 2006). For
example, an online course that requires teachers to replicate traditional lecture formats and
deliver the bulk of instructional content verbally to passive listeners at the same teacherstudent
ratios—but does so online—will incur ongoing costs per student that may exceed the
cost of instructional materials per se. Additionally, critics of the economics of scale logic
assert that large-scale delivery of courses would reduce student opportunities for social and
affective experiences that are particularly important for developing soft skills (e.g., Bauman
1997).
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