This paper forms the basis of a multimedia presentation. The presentation argues that the new information technologies are forcing major changes on both traditional campus-based institutions and the large autonomous open universities.

The presentation starts with a discussion of open-ness, distance and distributed learning, and analyses the reasons behind the move to technology-based open and distance learning.

The move to computer based learning raises major issues of access and student support for distance learners, but some strategies for addressing these issues are suggested.

It is argued that the new technologies now allow for a powerful combination of highly interactive stand-alone material with two-way asynchronous communication between real teachers and students. There is seen to be a relationship between the type of technology used and the type of learning outcomes intended, but still little evidence that these outcomes are actually achieved.

Lastly the paper looks at the impact of technology on the organization of both dual-mode and dedicated open learning institutions. It is argued that as well as the need for re-structuring, there is also a need for open and distance educators to re-define and re-think their roles.

Changing technology, changing times

In 1969, with the establishment of the Open University in Britain, the face of distance education was changed for ever, and open learning as most of us understand it finally arrived. Twenty five years later an equally dramatic shift is occurring in the world of open and distance learning, this time caused by rapid developments in technology, and especially the Internet. While the establishment of the Open University initially made little impact on established universities and colleges, most of whom were quite happy to ignore it, this time technological change is striking at the very heart of conventional schools, colleges and universities. Distance education in particular is no longer a dirty word, but something we all do now in public.

As someone who stumbled into this business by accident nearly 30 years ago, I am delighted to see so many new institutions and teachers embracing the idea that teaching at a distance can be as effective as face-to-face teaching. I am glad to see a whole explosion of new ideas, new applications and new people in open and distance learning. I am disappointed when I hear experienced colleagues and friends criticise new entrants to this field for ignoring previous research, or when I hear them criticise the efforts of newcomers as unskilled and unprofessional. This is how we all started in this business.

At the same time, it is important not to get carried away by the hype. The newer technologies certainly offer us the promise of any course delivered at any time, anywhere, the promise of truly international courses, fully inter-cultural, with students and teachers drawn from all over the world. The technology does promise greater learning effectiveness, more learner centred approaches, and better quality of interaction.

But this promise does not necessarily lead to open learning, nor does it guarantee that technology will be used in these ways. Without careful management and design, it can lead to a widening gap in access between rich and poor, it can lead to cultural imperialism, the 'Americanization' of the curriculum, it can even lead to the destruction of public education systems by powerful multinational corporations - if we let it.

My aim then is to ask you to consider the values and objectives that lie behind your (intended?) use of technology in open and distance learning, and to see to whether technology is leading you to work to a different agenda altogether.

Reasons for using technology

In listening to politicians, Vice-Chancellors, keynote speakers at conferences from government and industry, and good old classroom teachers, I hear a range of quite different reasons being used to justify the use of technology. Indeed I hear the same words being used to mean quite different things.

Here are the four reasons for using technology that I most frequently hear (there are probably many more):

• to improve access to education and training
• to improve the quality of learning
• to reduce the costs of education
• to improve the cost-effectiveness of education.
  

Technology can in fact both widen and reduce access to education. Technology can be used to deliver training right into the workplace, by embedding training in computer applications, by enabling just in time or on-demand training, and by bringing specialists from anywhere in the world into conferences and meetings. This certainly widens access to employers and employees. However, a university requiring all students to have access to the Internet can at an administrator's stroke deny access to all those students who cannot afford a computer, who are not skilled or confident in using a computer, or who cannot get Internet access where they live.

The four reasons I listed above can be contradictory and incompatible. Different people in different positions tend to place different emphasis on each of these rationales, and this then has a major influence on the way technology is used. For instance, what has really set fire to many university professors is the possibility of improving the quality of learning through the use of multimedia. The same professor though who is a startling innovator in the use of the technology for teaching can at the same time violently oppose any idea that we could be widening access by allowing more students access by liberalising the admission requirements for off-campus students.

Other professors are fired up by the idea that all the world can access their ideas, their research, their wisdom through the World Wide Web - a passion to widen access to their teaching. This is not always accompanied by a similar passion to improve the quality of their teaching, as can be witnessed very easily by surfing their Web pages.

Some politicians and business people see technology simply as a replacement for labour, and therefore anticipate that technology when applied properly will reduce the costs of education. Unfortunately, this is to misunderstand the nature of the educational process. While labour costs can be reduced by applying technology, this can also lead to a large decline in the quality of learning, which in turn will eventually lead to a less skilled workforce (see Bates, 1995a for a discussion of this issue).

Lastly others look to technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of education. This is not the same as reducing costs, and combines some of the other two reasons. The argument is that for the same dollar expenditure learning effectiveness can be increased, or more students can be taught to the same level or above for the same level of investment.

I actually believe that technology cannot substantially reduce the costs of education without a parallel loss in quality. The interaction between learner and a real teacher can be substituted only to a certain extent by learning materials. Learners are always capable of generating questions and ideas that cannot be adequately anticipated by machine-based learning. If the learning system cannot handle this diversity, then the quality of learning will drop.

I do believe though that the wise use of technology can allow us simultaneously to widen access, improve the quality of teaching, and improve the cost-effectiveness of education. That is not a bad goal to strive for, and the burden of this paper is to support that argument. There are also many things that are valuable in education, as in life, that technology cannot do, and we need to recognise that. But that is another paper.

So let's start with some of the implications of technological change for open and distance learning.

The implications for learners

Harold Wilson once reminisced in his retirement that it took political courage and vision to create the Open University. In his words, 'there were no students barricading the streets demanding an Open University...it was a leap of faith.'

Similarly, in my travels round the world, I have seen no similar demonstrations by students demanding technology-based courses. Those of us who are investing in and developing technology-based distance learning programs are taking a similar leap of faith. What is more remarkable though is that I haven't seen the converse: students demonstrating against the use of technology for teaching.

This is surprising when one considers the impact on learners. Distance learners have far greater technological obstacles to overcome than campus-based students with access to a computer lab. Distance students need access to a computer, and not just any computer if the World Wide Web or CD-ROMs are to be used - we are talking several thousand dollars for this kind of workstation. They need a modem at a sufficent speed to download at least a few pages within an evening over the plain old telephone system, they need a telephone line that can be dedicated for several hours a week to being on line (which rules out almost anyone with teenagers at home), they need an Internet service provider capable of explaining to someone without a Ph.D. in computer science how to set the parameters for their machine to enable them to log on, and often they have to bear the cost of long distance calls. If they are on a party line or in an area where the local telephone company does not provide SLIP or PPP connections they will probably have to travel to a local centre in an area that does have this. Last of all, they have to know how to use their computer in order to get to their study material.

It is all the more remarkable then that there are courses being offered online to students at a distance, and even more remarkable that students are taking these. We currently have one course this semester, CS315, with over 50 students enrolled, which is above our average for print-based courses. This however is a computer science course, and I'm told it is hard to learn computer science without a computer.

My point here is that my institution, with my active encouragement, is investing quite heavily in technology-based distance education courses. Nor am I a lone madman. Other people are doing the same all round the world. But none of us has the slightest idea as to whether students will enrol in sufficent numbers in these courses to make them viable. What's more we are doing this when only a tiny handful of campuses world-wide have yet dared to require all on-campus students to have a computer (Acadia in Nova Scotia, Sonoma State in California, and University of Michigan Northwest campus, are three examples where first year students this year have been required to have a computer).

My point is that we need to put in place policies and support for students that make it a reasonable proposition for most students to go to the expense and inconvenience of using computer technology at a distance. And we have to evaluate carefully the success or otherwise of our efforts. That is why this year we applied successfully, with fellow madmen and women from three universities in British Columbia, the Open Learning Agency, and local community skills centres, for a grant from the Canadian Federal Government to investigate the impact of technology-based courses on adult learners. We will be looking at 20 case-studies of such courses.

There are already lessons to be learned from the campus-based institutions that have required students to have a computer. Sonoma State for instance spent two and a half years preparing for the implementation. They made sure that there were sufficient courses developed in a way that exploited the use of a computer, and therefore made it essential and valuable to use one. This required a major investment in faculty development. They put in place a whole range of strategies to help students who cannot afford a computer. There is a work-on-campus scheme whereby students can get a computer then work to pay it off (not much help for distance learners). Relatively few students qualify for some form of supplementary State or federal grant on an income basis to purchase a computer, as those eligible for a grant are usually already 'maxed-out, i.e. are already receiving maximum allowable benefits. For these students, there is a low-cost rental scheme and for some free loans of computers from a pool donated by IBM and Apple. There is a $40 'technology fee' imposed on all students. This is used to provide help support for students, improving the local area network, providing docking ports for portables, and making available easy access to public computers in public places on campus. Students themselves play a large role in managing this fund and in approving the level of the fee. While some of these strategies are inappropriate for distance learners, it does indicate the extent to which an institution may have to go to provide sufficient support for students.

Sonoma State found that there was very high compliance for its policy of requiring all its freshman students to have a computer, it was well received by parents and by employers, who praised the university for making higher education more relevant, and also most students seemed to be pleased with the policy. Sonoma though, in the heart of the Californian wine-growing area, is not one of the poorest parts of North America.

Lastly, while technology may open up access to some and deny it to others, technology is not in my view the main obstacle to access. In my institution, many more potential students are denied access by restrictive entrance requirements, often quite arbitrary prerequisites, residency or attendance requirements, and barriers to credit transfer from other institutions.

Another development that is impacting on open and distance learners is the concept of distributed learning. I will use the definition of the Institute for Academic Technology, University of North Carolina (March, 1995).

A distributed learning environment is a learner-centred approach to education, which integrates a number of technologies to enable opportunities for activities and interaction in both asynchronous and real-time modes. The model is based on blending a choice of appropriate technologies with aspects of campus-based delivery, open learning systems and distance education. The approach gives instructors the flexibility to customize learning environments to meet the needs of diverse student populations, while providing both high quality and cost-effective learning.

This is blurring the distinction between distance and campus-based learning, leading to what many, including myself (see Bates, 1994) have called the growing convergence of distance and campus-based teaching. For example, we now have courses for fully registered, on-campus students where a substantial part is available on the Web or on CD-ROM. Students can access this material at any time, from either terminals on the campus, or from home. It certainly makes the course more easily accessible and convenient for students than attending lectures at a set place and at a set time. However, these students have to be 'resident', i.e. available for lectures. This is certainly distributed learning, but it is not distance learning. Nor is it open learning, since students have to meet all the stringent entrance requirements to be registered as a UBC student.

Many American state universities have campuses spread throughout the state. They often use technologies such as instructional television or video-conferencing transmitted from one campus to several other campuses, thus enabling students at the 'guest' campuses to access courses that would otherwise be inaccessible. This is often called distance education in North America but students still have to be at a set time and a set place. It is also a very different form of distance education from that delivered to individual learners in their home, accessible at any time over the Internet.

On the other hand, the community skills centres originally established by the Open Learning Agency in British Columbia, which have now multiplied to more than 20 community-run sites in medium to small towns, do provide truly open access. Building contractors such as bricklayers, joiners, plasterers and labourers who need to up-grade their basic adult education such as reading and numeracy can drop in at any time to these learning centres and study their courses through computer-managed learning. Not only does the program develop reading and numeracy skills, it 'remembers' the last lesson studied by the learner and automatically starts up at the next lesson, no matter how long it is since the learner was last logged on. So while this may be open learning it is not really distance learning.

The point here is that we need to serve an increasingly heterogeneous student population, and that means servicing them in a wide variety of ways. Institutions that do not have a requirement to make their courses available to anyone who wants to take them can be more adventurous in their choice of technologies, targeting courses to particular groups of students who are more likely to have or be able to acquire access to the relevant technologies. Institutions with on-campus students can be even more adventurous, and distance educators can benefit from this experience, and migrate those courses that can be supported at a distance, and adapt those that would otherwise not work at a distance. These developments have implications for dedicated open universities, and I will return to this point later, under organizational implications.

Lastly, while distance learners may use similar technology-based materials as on-campus students (which is where the convergence is occurring), we are finding they need a different kind of service from the institution. Distance students need an on-line help service that covers both technical and academic issues. What works beautifully between Sun workstations over fibre optics and/or Ethernet on campus can take several hours to download over standard telephone lines, or may not run at all on a 486 computer. Teachers who are comfortable managing 20 campus-based students on-line find they cannot cope when this is expanded to another 50 distance learners.

Despite this, I am finding people are constantly using the terms 'distributed learning' and 'distance education' interchangeably or assuming they mean the same thing - to the extent that one Dean told me recently that we do not need any special provision for distance education now that the technologies are leading to convergence - distance education is just an extension of an instructor's work. While it is true that there is convergence, it is a mistake to think that because the technologies appear to be the same for both on-campus and distance learners, there is no need for specialist design and support services for distance education. Prima donnas don't need to paint the scenery as well as sing.

Implications for learning

The primary reason that drives madmen like myself to invest in new technologies is their potential for improving the quality of open and distance learning.

First of all, I make a distinction between technologies that extend or replicate the classroom model, and those that fundamentally change the instructional paradigm. Technologies such as one-way television and two-way audio, or video-conferencing, replicate the classroom model. These technologies are valuable where there are multiple sites within the same system, and insufficent numbers at a particular site but sufficient overall to justify mounting a course. They are also valuable for special events, when an outside expert or panel can be brought into one or more distance locations. However, learners are still time and place dependent when using such technology. ITV and videoconferencing then are at an intermediate point on the scale of accessibility. These technologies also have high unit costs compared to some of the other new technologies (see Bates, 1995b for a full analysis of this).

Technologies that students can access at any time, sometimes called asynchronous technologies, provide more flexible access. Asynchronous technologies include computer conferencing, the World Wide Web, and CD-ROM, but it is also worth noting that print, audio-cassettes and video-cassettes are also asynchronous technologies. The difference between the newer and the older asynchronous technologies though is that the newer technologies have a different quality of interaction for the learner. Note that I did not say that they have more interaction. Learners can interact with print, audio- and video-cassettes, but the newer technologies also can provide better quality feedback and in the case of Hypertext and computer conferencing systems, interaction at a distance with real people.

Thus there are two rather different contexts for interaction: the first is an individual, isolated activity, and that is the interaction of a learner with the learning material, be it text, television or computer program; the second is a social activity, and that is the interaction between two or more people about the learning material. Both kinds of interactions are important in learning.

One reason why many distance educators are increasingly interested in some of the newer technologies such as computer-conferencing and the World Wide Web is their potential for asynchronous two-way communication, thereby allowing the student to interact directly and flexibly with a teacher or other students, even if at a distance. When this is combined with high quality asynchronous interaction with learning material, such as a CD-ROM or a World Wide Web site, then we can provide the distance learner with a very powerful learning environment.

What we are seeing with these new learning environments, particularly but not exclusively at a higher education level, is a transition from traditional models of teaching, based on a model of information transmission and comprehension through the lecture mode, through more collaborative learning models, but still with strong referents to face-to-face teaching, such as seminars and discussion groups, to completely new paradigms of learning, such as simulations, games, problem-solving and decision-making.

Furthermore, this transition is technology-related. Thus video-conferencing and the World Wide Web (when used primarily for information transmission) are often strongly associated with the lecture or information transmission mode, computer conferencing and Hypertext (within WWW) with collaborative learning modes, and CD-ROM and other forms of stand-alone multimedia with problem solving and decision-making, through the development of virtual labs, simulations, games and expert systems (these are illustrated in the presentation). This is not to say that these technologies cannot be or are never used in different ways, but that they lend themselves more to one form of teaching than the others.

In addition, the form of some of these newer technologies is both requiring and helping to develop new skills necessary in an information society, such as information navigation and acquisition, and analysis and application of information (at which point it becomes knowledge), and knowledge creation, i.e. when this information is transformed into something new and different (see Harasim, 1995) .

Again, it is clear that imaginative teachers are developing applications software such as WebCT (an authoring system for creating Web-based courses, Goldberg, Salari and Swoboda, 1996), virtual labs and expert systems that have the potential for developing these new or higher order skills. What is lacking at the moment is any convincing or systematic research evidence to suggest that students are actually acquiring and using these skills, or that this is the best way to get to these outcomes - hence the need for more research similar to the that which we and others are carrying out in British Columbia and Canada.

Nevertheless, the potential for developing higher order skills relevant to a knowledge-based society is a key driver in developing computer-based distance education courses.

Implications for distance education units and organizations

Elsewhere I have argued that these new technologies require new kinds of educational organization that can fully exploit the potential of new information technologies (Bates, 1994). Technology should not be bolted on to conventional institutions; instead they need to re-structure their organization in order to exploit new technologies in a cost-effective manner (Bates, 1996).

I now want to go on to argue that the new technologies also threaten distance education units in dual-mode institutions and dedicated open universities. We are like Danton, Marat and Robespierre; we have started a revolution that we cannot control, and may well face the same fate.

John Daniel's new book (Daniel, 1996) is a brave attempt to address the challenges of the new technologies for large, centralized open universities (the mega-universities). However, he starts from the point of saying that these large institutions now exist; how can they adapt to and integrate these new technologies so they can remain competitive with conventional universities developing distributed learning and with new all-electronic institutions now springing up in the United States and elsewhere? My answer is that in the long run they can't, at least not in those countries with advanced telecommunications and computer technologies.

There was a fascinating edition of 'Distance Learning' (Vol. 16, No. 2, 1995) which discussed Fordism and post-Fordism in open and distance learning. I will not rehearse the arguments there, but I come down firmly on the side of those who argued that the mega-universities are classic examples of industrial organizations.

It is my view that the new technologies will be exploited most by those that establish post-modernist forms of organization, with a high degree of decentralization, but overall leadership and direction in terms of broad but clear goals and directions for the organization, customized products and services, alliances with key partners that provide complementary services to the 'core' activities of the organization (some would call that outsourcing), and highly networked and flexible communications systems linking them with their clients, so they can identify and respond quickly to changing market needs. We have not yet seen any advanced and sustainable form of such an organization, but elements are already visible in organizations such as the University of Phoenix's on-line programs, Nova South-Eastern University in Florida, and the National Technological University.

If such an organization would be post-Fordist, then most conventional universities are pre-Wattist or agrarian. Nevertheless, there are certain features of a traditional university that lend themselves to the new post-Fordist environment. First of all, a university is an extremely decentralized organization, in that faculty have a good deal of autonomy and independence. It has a large and highly creative 'core' of staff, who when they apply themselves are capable of creating new applications software, developing expert systems, and adapting or even inventing new forms of teaching and learning. Furthermore they have one valuable commodity or quality that is lacking in many dedicated open universities: they have a research capability that enables them to generate new knowledge in a wide range of subject areas that can be packaged and marketed through distance learning. Lastly, they have the advantage of what the marketing people call a strong brand image.

There are signs that some conventional universities, with good leadership and a shared vision, and sometimes goaded by strong external pressure from government, are re-generating and re-structuring themselves to meet the technological challenge. Whether they can do this fast and deep enough to meet the growing competition from the private sector remains to be seen.

Implications for specialist open learning and distance education units

In those dual mode institutions that are changing, there is often a major challenge to those in specialist open learning or distance education units. For many years these have been seen as being on the periphery of the organization, but considered a useful service to an organization where most faculty have been uninterested in open learning or distance teaching, and where Faculties have been more than welcome to leave the main burden of doing this to the specialist units.

However, it is often not the open learning or distance education units, who have tended to consider themselves more advanced pedagogically than the professors, who have lead the rush to new technology, but the professors themselves. The professors are often driven by the attraction of a particular technology, they often do not recognize or accept the need for instructional design, and the new tools are often seductively transparent in use.

The World Wide Web for instance allows a teacher easily to adapt materials created for lecture or classroom use and present them as attractive colour graphics and text, through what I call the Lone Ranger and Tonto approach: the professor with their trusty computer-skilled graduate student, who does the HTML mark up and scanning. Once the materials are created as Web pages, it is a simple matter to make them available for off-campus as well as on-campus students - a clear case of convergence, my dear Watson.

Distance educators and open learning specialists, trained in instructional design and media selection, may shake their heads in dismay, but the reality is that the faculty, at least in universities, control the curriculum process, and if they want to create courses in this way, there is nothing the specialists can do about it. Also, I have to say that at my university, the most original and exciting technology-based materials have been created by faculty without any direct input with regard to their design from my unit.

Does that mean we are now redundant and should be pensioned off? No, but we do need to operate differently. First of all, why are we needed? The main reason is that in the long run, this material will all become public, and as in any of the other new technologies, the organizations that will survive will be those that provide services that the public values, at a better price and quality than the opposition.

There are several components of quality in technology-based educational materials. The first is the quality of the content, which is where the brand image and the research capability becomes critical. Is this unique or valuable teaching material for which there is a need or demand? The second is in the quality of media production. Are the graphics clear? Are the pages easy to read? Is the sound and video easy to hear and see? Are the unique features of each medium (video, audio, text, computing) fully exploited. Is the material well assembled? The third is the instructional design. Are the objectives clear? Does the material result in the desired learning outcomes? Does it have the right mix of media? What is the quality of the interaction between student and learning materials? What is the role of the tutor? Has the best software been chosen to most easily achieve the learning outcomes? The fourth is the quality of delivery. Are the materials easy for the student to access and use? And the last element is the quality of support given to the student. Can they ask questions? Who gives feedback? What happens if they have technical problems? At what times is help available?

Perhaps the most important role that open learners, distance educators and instructional designers can play is project management. A feature of many of the Lone Ranger projects in my institution is that they have never resulted in a final product that is used on a regular basis in a teaching context. This is because the projects have dragged on, being constantly up-graded or improved, or have had to be re-designed as a result of mistakes in the early stages of development. Often the graphics and the interface have needed improvement to make them acceptable to students. Products when finished have limited applicability because they are not of high enough standard in terms of graphics and interface, or sufficient in volume, to become a commercial product. What we are discussing here is cost-effectiveness.

It is clear then that instructional designers and distance educators can add value to technology-based teaching materials. While there are additional costs up front in using a project manager, an instructional designer, or even better a team approach, this can lead to substantial savings in production, a better quality product, and the opportunity for revenue generation.

How then can an educational institution combine the creativity of the Lone Ranger with the quality control and cost-effectiveness of a team approach? First, instructors do have to be given their head, the ability to experiment and learn with new technologies. Many soon learn that there are things they do not want to do, and some also learn that while a good graduate student is invaluable, there are other skills needed too. Others will recognize at the outset that they need help, and will welcome contributions from partners who do not interfere with the faculty member's 'ownership' of the project. In other words we have to show interest in a project and be around to help, and be patient and wait for the call to come.

Secondly, we need some humility. These technologies are new, and while the generic skills of instructional design and project management are important, no-one yet has discovered all the interesting uses of the new technologies. This moves us as specialists in open and distance learning from the role of experts ('give me the copy and I'll convert it into good quality distance teaching material') to facilitators and hopefully and eventually equal members of a team.

Thirdly, we need to up-grade our skills. Many of us have not mastered all the new technologies. This is a real challenge, because there is such a wide range of technology, and it is changing so rapidly, that it is almost impossible to keep up. However, it is hard to impress a professor of philosophy with your instructional design skills if she knows more about Web software than you do. There are still distance education units in Canadian universities at least that are so heavily understaffed and overworked with print-based design that they have no opportunity to learn about new technologies. We need to re-organize so that between us we do cover the range of technologies in some depth.

Unfortunately, there is a severe shortage of good quality instructional designers with multimedia skills and experience, at least in Canada. I am pleased to see that the University of Southern Queensland is offering a certificate program in instructional design. The Deakin/South Australia Masters program in distance education is a fine introduction to research and theory in distance education, but does little to equip open learners and distance educators with the necessary skills in the technology areas.

But at least you have something in Australia. In Canada we have only one quality program that produces skilled educational technologists, and that is a four-year residential Ph.D. program at Concordia University, which is 2,000 miles from where I am. We also have a Masters in Distance Education from Athabasca University which does cover some aspects of distance educational technology, but it is still not an adequate preparation for the technology challenges we are facing.

On the other hand, there are many good young people coming through with a combination of subject matter and computer expertise. Most faculties have now appointed at least one such person to provide academic computing support to faculty. The trick then is to harness their existing skills and teach them the specialist skills of open learning, distance education, instructional design, project management, by example, on the job. Thus, some strategy has to be found to support academic computing close to the teacher or instructor, while at the same time making full use of the specialist skills that are located elsewhere in the institution.

At the University of British Columbia, we have so far not put all our specialists into one central, integrated service unit. We have a well-established Media Services and Computer and Communications units which can provide network and media production services. We had a smallish but also well established distance education unit with three instructional designers and a part-time manager, as well as a student support unit. We have strengthened that unit with another instructional designer, a new Director, and an Internet specialist. The university also established a tiny Centre for Educational Technology, with a Project Co-ordinator and a specialist in computer graphic design and a specialist in computer interface design. Both on-campus and distance education projects can pull a team together from across any of these units. The model is illustrated in the diagram below.

In this way over the last two and a half years UBC, which has about 35,000 students altogether, has been able to develop over 100 on-campus technology-based projects and put into production 26 new technology-based distance education courses. Many of the on-campus projects have been produced by the Lone Ranger and Tonto approach, but some of the most successful on-campus projects have used a modified team approach, and in most of the distance education projects we have been able to institute a project management and team approach.

Conclusions

Despite beating my chest over UBC's accomplishments, I still believe humility and a degree of caution are essential qualities for open and distance educators, if we are to successfully develop technology-based learning. We do not yet know how students will react to this, instructors often know more than we do, and we are still discovering the best way to fund and organize open learning and distance education in this new distributed learning environment. We could even end up losing our heads or being stabbed in the bath. The only thing we can be sure of is that change in education is both unavoidable and also in many ways desirable, especially at a post-secondary level.

Are we then being driven by the juggernaut of technological determinism? There is certainly an element of that, but there appear to be at least enough good reasons to go with the flow, and try to steer things in what we believe to be the right direction. The technology does throw into question the issue of access and open-ness, but there also also major potential learning benefits that could actually help prepare learners with at least some of the survival skills they need in an increasingly chaotic and market driven world.

References

Bates, A.W. (1994) 'Educational Multimedia in a Networked Society' Open Praxis, Vol. 2

Bates, A.W. (1995a) The Future of Learning: Edmonton, Alberta: Minister's Forum on Adult Learning (WWW reference: http://bates.cstudies.ubc.ca/)

Bates, A.W. (1995b) Technology, Open Learning and Distance Education New York/London: Routledge/Melbourne: Thomas Nelson Australia

Bates, A.W. (1996) 'Reconstructing the University: Organising for Technological Change' Thirteenth International Conference on Technology and Education: Proceedings, Vol. 1 Grand Prairie, TX: International Conferences on Technology and Education

Sir John Daniel (1996) The Mega-Universities and the Knowledge Media London, Kogan Page

Distance Learning (1995), Vol. 16, No.2

Goldberg, M., Salari, S., and Swoboda, P. (1996) World Wide Web -Course Tool: An Environment for Building WWW-Based Courses Paris France: Fifth International WWW Conference (url: http://homebrew.cs.ubc.ca/webct/papers

Harasim, L. (1995) Learning Networks: a Field Guide to Teaching and learning Online Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press