Setting up a distance education program ?

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Q. I have been asked to write a proposal to establish distance learning at my University. I am a faculty member in multimedia and have expressed an interest in developing curricula but do not know anything about the technology and the costs involved. Can anyone help me? Is there a guide I could use so I know what we will need to purchase, have in place for telephone lines, video, etc.

A. There was an organisation mentioned in this NG a few weeks ago - it was (I think called) realeducation.com. It is part of the REal Audio group and has a web site which shows the capabilities of softwre etc which should answer your questions. As a company that specializes in creating distance learning solutions, Savant has a good handle on the issues involved. The first step is really to define some basic targets. How many students (maximum load)? Will you use audio, video or just text, graphics and html? Will you need databases? Will you need and educational ERP package to track, test, remdiate and deliver content (a package such as KoTrain?)?What kinds of educational programs will you develop? Will you restrict it to one (or few) disciplines? Thinking about these issues will give you a starting point on servers, bandwidth, etc. Distance learning is part technology development, technology planning, and then part educational science! I'm not an expert but here's my 2cents about some things which might work. First get a good idea of the maximum number of people who might enroll in a DEd. course. Then get enough hardware. Most likely your school's network administrator can advise you on the power you will need. I recommend using Apache-Linux for the server software because it is free, reliable and requires little maintanence. Second, meet expectations. Do the instructors want to have an online time for classes, or downloadable prerecorded videofeeds for students to watch, or downloadable content programs for CBT (computer based instruction), or perhaps just email and text content, etc. Will students respond with merely words, or with text and pictures or text and different formats? This will require a webmaster with a lot of CGI-PERL experience. Do the instructors want a slower-higher maintenance flashy interface with the school's network system or a fast barebones-textbased program. The flashy takes more time but is more appealing for students and probably meets the school's idea of a Distance Learning program. That means deciding on what programs will be used for classes and then having the school pay for them. Remember that with some programs it takes a long time to create material, that means a lot of frustrated instructors. For content, I would suggest giving students plenty of different formats: voice/video feeds will be important. Naturally you will need to have pentium computers-scanners-videocams-recorders for creation of the class material along with the Video boards for feeds. Instructors will have to have easy access to this stuff, and as we know lot of people don't like leaving home to prepare for their next lesson. Maybe an equipment rental program or studio is necessary. There are programs for having group interaction and communications on projects but the instructors will have to be willing to use them and spend a lot time online. Deciding on standard formats for classes will probably be the hardest part of all this.

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