UCLA is not part of a growing majority of U.S. colleges that offer distance education courses in which student and professor are not in the same place.
According to a recently released study by the National Center for Education, 65 percent of degree-granting post-secondary institutions in the United States offer college-level credit for their distance education courses.
While many UCLA courses have supplementary online components, they offer nothing in terms of distance education, which includes both courses that are conducted completely online as well as courses that are conducted partially online with reduced in-class time.
Out of the 1,600 institutions surveyed during the 2006-2007 academic year, 90 percent responded. In total, these institutions reported an estimate of 12.2 million student enrolled in distance education courses during the school year, according to the survey.
“The most common factors cited as affecting distance education decisions to a major extent were meeting student demand for flexible schedules, providing access to college for students who would otherwise not have access, making more courses available and seeking to increase student enrollment,” the report said.
However, not all courses translate well to the distance education format. “In general, more personalized interactive pedagogical styles, like one finds in a seminar, don’t work as well in a distance environment,” Howard Besser, emeritus professor of the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies said in an e-mail.
In 1999, Besser co-taught an experimental distance course with half the students at UCLA and the other half at UC Berkeley.
“The course went really well, but it was an incredible amount of work for me, my co-instructor, the research assistants and staff that helped us out,” Besser said.
“Evaluations showed that the students really liked it but were concerned that a number of things didn’t work as well as in a face-to-face class.”
Besser, who has worked extensively on the topic, emphasized that planning and creating a well-designed course is essential to the success of any distance education course.
This is especially true given the existing limitations on what can be done in a distance education course.
“Being able to deliver supporting material to distance students has always been a hot-button issue, primarily because of copyright issues,” Besser said.
The Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act was designed to improve distance education by expanding fair use under copyright law, with issues remaining including the use of certain media, such as video clips and dramatic musical works.
“The TEACH Act envisions distance teaching as being just like lectures and absurdly doesn’t expect students to be able to review all the material at a later time, or go through some of it at their own pacing,” Besser said.
Because well-designed distance courses require far more work and planning than face-to-face courses and because there are greater limits on the use of supporting materials, Besser said he does not see the advantage of offering distance education for the majority of courses offered at UCLA.
The exception would be to reach students who live elsewhere and otherwise could not attend a course. To this end, UCLA Extension, self-described as “a pioneer in distance learning,” offers a wide variety of online courses to enrollees in all 50 states and 80 U.S. territories and foreign countries, according to its Web site.
However, these courses are not geared toward UCLA students, who are unlikely to receive degree-granting credit for these courses.
“We primarily offer courses to people interested in profession development and people who already have degrees,” said Kathleen McGuire, director of distance education at UCLA Extension.
“Although it is possible to receive college credit as an undergraduate student, it is more likely to happen at any institution other than the one right across the street,” McGuire said.
While UCLA does not offer online courses, it is part of the growing trend toward the use of technology in education. UCLA’s Office of Instructional Development gives professors the option of webcasting their course to help students review lectures.
However, this is not meant to act as a replacement for attending the course, according to the OID Web site.
“I prefer courses that are webcast,” said Sarah Gustafson, a fourth-year biochemistry student. “It’s really convenient because there are times when you can’t make it to lecture, but you don’t want to miss out on the material.”
Although the technology is meant to help students, some professors express their frustration over a diminishing student attendance.
“My professors are constantly threatening to drop the webcast if they notice a drop in attendance, which is really too bad for the students who have a legitimate reason for being absent,” Gustafson said.