Investigating the Relationship between Cost, Reach, and Richness in Distance Education

Is the money allocated to institutional distance education getting the results on the back end in terms of student achievement? A literature review of cost analysis studies on distance education is presented with three themes factored out from those studies: Costs (Institutional and student costs), Reach, and Richness (cost to the student). A synopsis of a study that produced evidence regarding the relative effectiveness of three distance educations strategies ( live , video , and web ) for enhancing the science learning of 94 midwestern elementary school teachers who were participating in a five-year professional development project is referred to throughout this piece. The results of this analysis suggest there is a sliding scale when looking at cost, reach, and richness in distance education. Introduction D'Ignazio (1993) compares distance learning in education with that of the corporate world, “Businesses have been building electronic superhighways while education has been creating electronic dirt roads. And sometimes on a dirt road, it's just as easy to get out and walk.” If we are to convert dirt roads to superhighways, we must continue to ask questions and seek answers through study of both dirt roads and superhighways. For the third time in fifty years distance education has been touted as the elixir that will cure all the ills in education and training. However, what is different is that never before has this much attention, money, publicity, and hope been invested in its practice in business and education (Saba, 2001) . "IT Funding challenges have become the number-one IT-related issue in terms of its strategic importance to the institution, its potential to become even more significant, and its capture of IT leaders' time” (Crawford, 2003) . Higher education institutions are feeling increased pressure to integrate distance courses. The justification for this pressure is primarily due to the possibility of higher student enrollment and the resulting increased revenue for the institution and for the departments from which the teaching originates. As the economy in the United States continues to slump, the demand to increase institutional revenue continues to increase exponentially. Many state governments are making up for their budget deficit by extracting the allocated funding for education. Institutions seeking innovative ways to combat costs are moving to more flexible ways of delivering teaching and learning (Archer, 1999) . Combined with the competition from for-profit institutions, the difficulty to produce quality distance courses with minimal funding, and attracting quality students is almost incomprehensible. There have been numerous cost analysis studies (Alaluusua, 1992; Archer, 1999; Branigan, 2003; Crawford, 2003; Cukier, 1997; Foreman, 2003; Hawkes, 2000; Jones, 2003; Katz, 1999; Marrett,

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