Tuesday, October 26, 1999

Distance-Education Backers Gaze Into the Future, and See Customization By SARAH CARR Flagstaff, Ariz. As distance-education programs around the world continue to grow in size and scope, some education leaders say content and customization -- not the number of students served Advances in technology have led society from a period of mass production into a period of mass customization, said Gov. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah. -- will be central to the future of the industry. "The society that will be successful in the future will not be the nation-state or community that can accommodate a steady stream of students, but that nation that can lift the level of learning among all its students rapidly and repeatedly," Gov. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah said last week at a conference here. "Higher education ought to be focused on content, not hardware." Governor Leavitt was the keynote speaker at an annual conference, "the Role of Universities in the Future Information Society," held Friday and Saturday at Northern Arizona University. Mr. Leavitt said advances in technology had led society from a period of mass production into a period of mass customization. The point was echoed by Richard Hezel, president of Hezel Associates, which provides planning and research to distance-learning programs. "There are those who might recoil at the idea of students as customers, but I think what we need to do is treat them as customers," he said. Mass customization is one of the goals of Western Governors University, a virtual institution that Governor Leavitt helped create. Leaders of Western Governors say its programs are designed to cater to customers, rather than to set up inflexible requirements for students. Instead of awarding degrees according to a strict, traditional system of academic credits, for instance, Western Governors caters to the student -- the customer -- by issuing academic credit when the student achieves "competency" in a particular topic. (See a story from The Chronicle, May 7.) Governor Leavitt said he anticipated that Western Governors would receive accreditation next spring. While Mr. Leavitt focused on the theoretical in his speech, Northern Arizona officials said they had experienced -- on a practical, day-to-day level -- many of the concepts the Governor described. Clara M. Lovett, the university president, said that when the university began offering distance-education courses, administrators devoted a lot of effort to figuring out what forms of technology would enable courses to reach the most students. But now administrators have shifted their focus to content. Ms. Lovett said Northern Arizona was trying to "export the academic strengths" of the university, such as courses in teacher preparation and environmental science. Ms. Lovett said for-profit universities chose academic niches on the basis of market conditions, but public universities like hers could afford to focus on what they were good at -- as long as they earned enough to cover their costs. "The challenge we are facing right now is to decide on our content, on which courses we are especially proud of," she said. "The fact that we can reach millions of people is not all that important." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article