presented by:
	Dr. Janet K. Poley President, ADEC Distance Education Consortium
	Mr. Erik France ADEC Webmaster

View the Issues Paper, presented September 28, 1998, at the NN21 Conference.

1. Philosophy and Purposes of Distance Education

   Dr. Janet K. Poley, ADEC President
   Mr. Erik France, ADEC Staff
   http://www.adec.edu

2. Five Propositions for Discussion
   • Purposes for offering distance education in Nebraska
   • Philosophy/Models Appropriate to Nebraska
   • On-Campus & Off-Campus Learning
   • Credit and Non-Credit Offerings
   • Vision, Collaboration & Implementation
3. Purposes for Offering Distance Education in Nebraska
   • Access
   • More options
   • Place-bound
   • Learn from others

4. Proposition One
   • Nebraska citizens want access to more educational programs
   • Distance education provides increased educational opportunity
   • NU has lead responsibility as a land-grant to take the university to the people
   • Citizens of the state are responsible for supporting lifelong education programs

5. There is No Place Like Nebraska
   • History of Distance Education
   • Distance Education as a political issue
   • Nebraska culture and values
   • "Other people's money"

6. Nebraska Demographics
   • small population
   • not very diverse
   • aging
   • concentrated in Omaha/Lincoln

7. "Winners and Losers" in Distance Education
   • First Mover Advantage
   • Competition
     • nationwide
     • private sector

8. Ethical Responsibilities
   • Public institution
   • Non-profit

9. Making Money as a Purpose
   • Business Considerations
   • Higher Ed Act
   • Case Examples:
     • Apollo Group
     • Western Governors University

10. Fiscal support for distance education
    • In institutions
    • By state
    • Rational and irrational policies and practices

11. Importing and Exporting Distance Education Program
    • The World is Waiting for our Programs
      • how to find a niche
    • Bringing programs in to serve Nebraska

12. Summary: Purposes for Distance Education in Nebraska
    • serve citizens of the state
    • provide diverse educational opportunities
    • learning anywhere, conveniently
    • improve teaching and learning processes
    • strengthen areas of decreasing enrollments
    • example continuing education
    • increase quality, variety, productivity

13. Comments from Nebraskans
    • Similar to presentation
    • John Allen: "Can enhance people's interaction with education and government"

14. Comments from the Audience

15. II. Philosophy/Models Appropriate to Nebraska

16. Proposition Two
    The philosophy/model most appropriate to Nebraska in Distance Education will include orchestrating congruence, creative collaborations/partnerships and identifying the appropriate import/export mix for the growing knowledge marketplace.

17. Toadstool

    There it was
    And nobody grew it,
    Nobody I know
    Even knew it
    Was growing there
    In a dampish spot,
    That little white toadstool;
    And I forgot
    To ask how it got there,
    Sudden and white
    When nothing at all
    Was there last night.

18. Knowledge Society
    Building a Marketplace

19. Change Drivers
    • End of the industrial era and cold war
    • Rapid knowledge development
    • Importance of integration and synthesis - crossing disciplines
    • Elimination of Lock-Step approach to learning
    • Global Economy
    • Greater understanding of how people learn
    • Public impatience with costs of education and lack of accountability
    • Diversity of the population
    • Natural resource and environmental challenges
    • Food security issues
    • Aging population
    • Technological change including digital and Internet
    • Taxation and who pays
    • New questions of ethics and responsibility
    • Flattening of the hierarchy
    • Greater concern with global and local
    • Geographic boundaries disintegrating

20. Poison Toadstools?
    Monster Under the Bed?
    Permanent Whitewater?
    Marketing Hype?
    Or Important Challenges?

21. "Strategy cannot be planned because planning is about analysis and strategy is about synthesis."

    - Mintzberg
    "The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning," 1994

22. Orchestrating Congruence
    • Vision
    • Mission
    • Culture
    • Strategy
    • Structure
    • People
    • Money
    • Technologies

23. Mainstreaming distance education is part and parcel of fulfilling the Land-Grant University mission. Citizens expect affordable, high quality education to be available from their public universities on an as needed basis.

24. "The Land-Grant University system is being built on behalf of the people, who have invested in these public universities their hopes, their support, and their confidence."

    - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
    Sixteenth President of the United States of America

25. Four Cultures of the Academy
    • Academic
    • Managerial
    • Developmental
    • Negotiating

    - William H. Bergquist, 1992

26. Profiles of "The Least Connected" (from 1997 Census)

27. The Digital Divide (US households with a computer by income and region)

28. The Digital Divide (households with a computer by race and region)

29. The Digital Divide (households with a computer by income and race)

30. The Digital Divide (households with computers by race)

31. Orchestrating Congruence
    • Vision
    • Mission
    • Culture
    • Strategy
    • Structure
    • People
    • Money
    • Technologies

32. Collaboration - Purposive Relationship
    "At the heart of collaboration is a desire or need to solve a problem, create, or discover something within a set of constraints which include expertise, time, money, competition and conventional wisdom."

    - Michael Schrage
    "No More Teams! Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration"

33. How well do our structures, processes and technologies serve our mission in distance education?
    • Inside the State
    • Regionally
    • Nationally
    • Internationally

34. "The Web would be entirely different if it had been based on a more dynamic metaphor than the publishing metaphor. How would the WWW be different if we talked about designing things to support conversations rather than designing to support posting?"

    - Michael Schrage

35. Distance Education is not an individual activity - it is not putting lecture notes on the Web - it is not lecturing to passive audiences. New structures, better learning software and attention to cost, scale and productivity are required.

36. "The model to replace Industrial Age education isn’t clear yet. But the idea that a person stands in front of a room stuffing information into students like grain into a duck is changing to the idea that teaching is about being a wise companion and advisor. Information technology can be done right to make that possible - it is a device where mentors can have influence and interaction with large numbers of learners."

    - Paul Saffo

37. "Creating with other people is a sheer joy. The power of consciously and intentionally creating new patterns of relationships and interaction that defy barriers of history, separations of geography, language and culture is tremendous. To realize these possibilities it requires people to take the lead."

    - Richard Hargrove
    "Creative Collaboration," 1998

38. Faculty involved in distance education must develop:
    • shared understood goals
    • seek creative, entrepreneurial results
    • collaborative networks and new patterns of relationships and interactions, learning how to show authenticity and vulnerability
    • attitude of learning that equates success with questions
    • ability to balance advocacy of views with inquiry into one's own and others’ thinking and listening deeply to understand others
    • ways to empower others on the job by acknowledging talents and gifts, providing an enabling environment.

39. Consciously, the hierarchy and self-oriented model must diminish

40. "Success today requires world class competency, interconnectedness and integration of the organization’s culture, competencies and processes with those of other enterprises."

    - Michael Porter, 1997

41. Winners and Losers- The Harvard Business School Model
    • Content Aggregation
    • Communities of Interest
    • One Stop Shop
    • Packaging
    • Transmission
    • Manipulation
    • Terminals

42. ADEC Net Network

43. Developing A Knowledge Marketplace
    • Reciprocity
    • Diversity of Products
    • Sustained Offerings
    • Quality
    • Price
    • Convenience

44. Case Examples
    • California
    • Colorado
    • Florida
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Iowa
    • Kentucky
    • Missouri
    • Nebraska
    • New York
    • North Carolina
    • Pennsylvania
    • South Carolina
    • Texas
    • Utah
    • Virginia
    • Washington
    • Wisconsin

45. First Mover Advantage - Who else will be in the game?

46. Special Challenges
    • Intellectual Property
    • Interinstitutional Agreements
    • Electronic Commerce and Business Systems
    • Faculty and Learner Support
    • Organizational Change and Capacity Building
    • Cost of Technological Infrastructure

47. Orchestrating Congruence
    • Vision
    • Mission
    • Culture
    • Strategy
    • Structure
    • People
    • Money
    • Technologies

48. Comments on Philosophy/Models from Nebraska Interviews
    • Need more collaboration
    • Cooperative Extension philosophy
    • Closer ties between K-12 and higher-ed
49. Comments from the Audience

50. III. On-Campus and Off-Campus Learning

51. Proposition Three
    Educational lines will blur from kindergarten through higher education - also between on and off campus education. More learners will choose mixed modes. On-campus students will take off-campus courses and off-campus students will sometimes go to campus, a learning center or other "face to face" location

52. We Continue to Create More Options
    • history of mass media - nothing disappears
    • multi-use module development
    • unit exchanges and wrap-around
    • specialization and localization
    • importance of content and learning methods

53. Customers don't care where program comes from if the provider is known and accredited.

54. Campuses are overbuilt
    Buildings need re-design

55. Learner maturity and self-directedness important
    Completion of distance education programs an issue

56. Comments on On- and Off-Campus Learning from Nebraska Interviews
    • Technology can overcome geographic barriers
    • Can have high tech and high touch
    • Higher-education institutions take too long to produce products

57. Comments from the Audience

58. IV. Credit and Non-Credit Offerings

59. Proposition Four
    Nebraska's future depends in large measure on the ability of all our institutions, organizations, agencies and educators to grasp the potential inherent in the concept Lifelong Learning. Many of the issues currently being discussed are middle range and not tied to overarching vision and goals. Today we are driven by maintaining and winning. Tomorrow we must forget the old and accept the challenge of making knowledge the currency for the next century.

60. Lines Blur Credit and Non Credit
    • modular content
    • learning outcomes

61. Testing - Evaluation - Assessment
    • Proceed with caution
    • What we do and don’t know
    • Potential impacts
62. "Seat Time"
    • marketing jingo and credit
      • not even related issues

63. Credit System Will Evolve
    • Learning Bank account
    • International Experience
    • Employer interest
    • Benefits approach

64. What do Employers Really Want?
    • Value of just in time learning (knowledge gaps)

65. Nebraska Issues
    • Population concentration in east
    • Low wages
    • Low unemployment
    • Initiative 413
    • Aging population

66. Recommendation:
    Much larger set of researchers looking at this area from many disciplines more John Allens

67. Recommendation:
    Really big deal - one year public participation initiative (modeled on Lincoln/Lancaster County Goals & Policies work)

68. Comments on Credit and Non-credit Programs from Nebraska Interviews
    • People want skills, not credit
    • "Give it to me in a way that’s relevant to me."
    • Universities are not the dominant content provider of the future

69. V. Vision, Collaboration & Implementation

70. Proposition Five:
    Ironically Nebraska has the greatest opportunity to become really competitive in distance education by being more visionary and more collaborative. We need real Nebraska values applied.

71. We need real Nebraska values:
    • Straight talk
    • Deep appreciation for education
    • Full public participation
    • Fiscally responsible and conservative
    • Hard work valued

72. This also includes developing a sophisticated understanding among the many actors of what is really going on in this changing environment, encouraging more sharing and more sunshine on all policies, procedures and money flows; creation of interoperability of technologies and systems without dampening creativity and entrepreneurship; and building on strengths and eliminating some of the well recognized weaknesses in the current fragmented approaches.

73. Nebraska needs to have a one year open process like the Lincoln/Lancaster County Goals and Policies study done years ago to discuss these issues very clearly with the citizens of the state. As the state's land-grant institution the University of Nebraska should cooperate with the next governor to get this process in place. In addition, a well thought through evaluation and research process should be developed as an element of this initiative. The NN21 task force responsible for these white papers should take the lead to assure that this happens.

74. Comments from the Audience